Softpanorama

May the source be with you, but remember the KISS principle ;-)
Home Switchboard Unix Administration Red Hat TCP/IP Networks Neoliberalism Toxic Managers
(slightly skeptical) Educational society promoting "Back to basics" movement against IT overcomplexity and  bastardization of classic Unix

Russiagate Color Revolution Bulletin, 2020

Home 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011

For the list of top articles see Recommended Links section


Top Visited
Switchboard
Latest
Past week
Past month

NEWS CONTENTS

Old News ;-)

[Oct 19, 2020] MI6 outgoing chief: the perceived threat posed by Russia and China against the UK is overstated and distract from addressing the UK's domestic problems

And that's by design. False flags like Scripal Novichok saga are just a smoke screen over UK problems, the ciursi of neoliberalism in the country, delegitimization of neoliberal elites and its subservience to the USA global neoliberal empire, which wants to devour Russia like it plundered the USSR in the past.
But why outgoing MI6 chief decided to tell us the truth? This is not in the traditions of the agency.
Oct 19, 2020 | www.rt.com

After years of focusing on combating terrorism, US Special Forces are preparing to turn their attention to the possibility of future conflict with adversaries Russia and China. The outgoing head of MI6, the UK's clandestine intelligence service, says that the perceived threat posed by Russia and China against the UK is overstated and distract from addressing the UK's domestic problems. Meanwhile, his replacement insists that the threat posed by Russia and China is real and is growing in complexity. Rick Sanchez explains. Then former US diplomat Jim Jatras and "Going Underground" host Afshin Rattansi share their insights.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is meeting for a for a final day of deliberations before the confirmation of Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump's controversial pick for the US Supreme Court. RT America's Faran Fronczak reports. RT America's Trinity Chavez reports on the skyrocketing poverty across the US as coronavirus relief funds dry up and the White House stalls on additional stimulus. RT America's John Huddy reports on the backlash against Facebook and Twitter for their suppression of an incendiary new report about Democratic nominee Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden and his foreign entanglements.

[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.

NEVER MISS THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST

ZEROHEDGE DIRECTLY TO YOUR INBOX

Receive a daily recap featuring a curated list of must-read stories.

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.

Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

[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.

NEVER MISS THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST

ZEROHEDGE DIRECTLY TO YOUR INBOX

Receive a daily recap featuring a curated list of must-read stories.

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.

* * *

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-4&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1317486264086560769&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

[Oct 19, 2020] This Coming Leftist Coup Could Backfire -- Like 1991 In Soviet Union by Wayne Allensworth

This is not leftist coup. This is intelligence agencies coup. Big difference. And Obama who is the most probably mastermind and coordinator is as far from leftist as one can get, he is a typical neoliberal with neocon inclinations, servant of the USA empire with probably some delusions of American exeptionalism.
The statement " On August 18, 1991, with Mikhail Gorbachev preparing to sign a treaty that would have decentralized the Soviet Union, his hardline political opponents in the Soviet leadership arrested the father of perestroika at his Crimean dacha, proclaiming that the Soviet State Committee on the State of Emergency was in charge." is naive and is not supported by the facts. Gorbachov probably organized this coup to give himself a chance to get back control of the country that was spinning out of his control. He failed and that was the end of his political career of a sleazy second rate politician.
Oct 19, 2020 | www.unz.com
WAYNE ALLENSWORTH OCTOBER 17, 2020

Our country seems headed for a political crisis, with the enemies of Deplorable America making noises suggesting they are planning a post-election " Color Revolution "-type coup against Trump. As a long-time Russia-watcher, I suggest that the failed Soviet coup of 1991, and the collapse that it spurred on, is instructive.

The Soviet State Committee on the State of Emergency, August, 1991

The key point that year came when Soviet military and security units refused to move against Boris Yeltsin and his defenders. Could something like that happen here, with Trump playing the Yeltsin role?

What yours truly has dubbed the globalist Blob has been signaling for some time that it has no intention of yielding to Trump come election day. Hillary Clinton, in her guise as the post-American Madam Defarge of the present Cultural Revolution, h as even stated publicly that Joe Biden should not concede the election to Trump " under any circumstances." [ Morning Greatness: Hillary Clinton Says Biden Should Not Concede 'Under Any Circumstances' , by Liz Steele, AmGreatness.com, August 26, 2020]

Meanwhile, the Democrats, with help from rabid Never Trumpers like Bill Kristol and David Frum, have been " wargaming " scenarios for preventing Trump from taking office should he win, developing a plan for what Trump has correctly described as "an insurrection." [ The Billionaire Backers of the 'Insurrection' , by Julie Kelly, AmGreatness.com, Sep 14, 2020] The plan is to claim that Trump has stolen, or attempted to steal, the election. "As far as our enemies are concerned," as I wrote here last month, "they are on the right side of history, and neither election law nor the Constitution or any antiquated notions about fair play will stop them." [ Revolution and Resistance: How can elections continue? , American Remnant, September 4, 2020]

The mail-in balloting plan plays into the Blob's wargaming. If the Democrats can't swing the election their way by hook or crook, then the lengthy process of accounting for all the mail-in ballots could be used as a means to sow confusion and chaos, giving them room to maneuver in the aftermath of Election Day.

The Blob's minions have been signaling their intention to drag out the vote count. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer , for example, declared on Face the Nation that her state would not be held to any "artificial deadlines" for reporting election results. [ MI Gov. Whitmer: No 'Artificial Deadlines' for Announcing Election Results , by Jeff Poor, Breitbart, October 11, 2020] In an example of the psychological projection characteristic of Democrats, Whitmer further claimed that those who might want to expedite the vote count had "political agendas."

Meanwhile, the Blob's militant wing has been circulating a plan for post-election disruption. [ READ: Left-wing Radicals Post Online Guide to 'Disrupting' the Country if Election is Close , by Joel Pollak, Breitbart, October 12, 2020] A Leftist group calling itself ShutDownDC [ Tweet them ] plans to prevent a Trump "coup" -- more projection there -- by shutting down the country and forcing Trump out if the vote is too close to call. The plan calls for "sustained disruptive movements all over the country." The militants also state that they intend to demand that "no winner be announced until every vote is counted."

ShutDownDC further proclaims that it has no intention of allowing the country to return to normal. The goal is to "dismantle" what it calls "interlocking systems of oppression."

This isn't just about an election -- it's a blueprint for completing the Left's anti-American Cultural Revolution.

In the chaos that appears increasingly likely after Election Day, we may not even have a clear idea of what happened–-and, indeed, that may be part of the Blob's design.

In a recent segment on "Critical Race Theory" gaining traction at the Pentagon, Tucker Carlson wondered just why the Left was so intent on capturing the military.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/_q4dYLC_rtw?feature=oembed

My answer: the Blob was contemplating the possibility of using the military as part of an attempt to block a second Trump term.

It's quite clear that the top military brass has been subject to "the Great Awokening" and Trump Derangement Syndrome as much as the rest of the federal bureaucracy. The military Establishment has steadfastly resisted Trump's inclination to disengage from foreign interventions. Moreover, the Pentagon has also resisted Trump's order to stop indoctrinating its personnel in "Critical Race Theory." [ Trump's Anti-Critical Race Theory Order is Necessary But Insufficient , By Timon Cline, AmGreatness.com, October 5, 2020]

In his book Rage , Bob Woodward reports that former Defense Secretary and retired Marine General James Mattis once commented to then Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats that "There may come a time when we have to take collective action" against Trump, since Mattis deemed the president "dangerous" and "unfit." [ Mattis told Coats Trump is 'dangerous,' 'unfit': Woodward book , by Tal Axelrod, The Hill, September 9, 2020]

It's likely that General Mattis's view of Trump is widely shared among top level military officers.

So how might the military figure into the Blob's wargaming plans? Peter van Buren has contemplated a post-election scenario in which a "temporary" military government might be pitched as the only way to break an electoral deadlock and end post-election disorder. [ What if Trump Won't Leave The White House? The fearmongers are at it again, this time with their mantle-holder Biden, warning of the coming dictatorship. , American Conservative, June 30, 2020] Van Buren reminded us that Trump's opponents have never accepted his legitimacy, that "RussiaGate" was good practice for them -- good practice for a coup, that is -- and that they are gearing up for an all-out effort to dislodge him from the White House.

Obama, Comey And Eric Holder In The White House

Van Buren further noted that Joe Biden, who has claimed that it is Trump who "is going to try and steal this election," has also stated quite plainly that if Trump refuses to leave the White House, he is "absolutely convinced" that the military would "escort him from the White House with great dispatch." [ Biden: Military Will Remove Trump From the White House if He Refuses to Leave, by Julie Ross, Daily Beast, June 11, 2020]

It's worth mentioning that van Buren is not a Trump supporter, was a career foreign service officer, and is an honest man, an Iraq war whistleblower who wrote an excellent book, We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People , on his experiences in that country. I reviewed it here ). He does not believe that a Pentagon-backed coup is merely "paperback thriller material." It's a plausible scenario.

Nevertheless, an attempt to use the military to block Trump's re-election could result in the coup plotters stepping into a trap of their own making.

This is what happened in the failed 1991 coup attempt in the Soviet Union.

On August 18, 1991, with Mikhail Gorbachev preparing to sign a treaty that would have decentralized the Soviet Union, his hardline political opponents in the Soviet leadership arrested the father of perestroika at his Crimean dacha, proclaiming that the Soviet State Committee on the State of Emergency was in charge.

The conspiracy against Gorbachev had been organized by KGB Chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov, Defense Minister Dmitry Yazov and six other top level political and security officials. They were alarmed by Gorbachev's reforms, which had already loosed centrifugal forces in the USSR that threatened the power of the Communist party and the Soviet apparatus.

But within three days, the coup attempt collapsed.

Boris Yeltsin at the Russian White House, August 19, 1991.

The coup collapsed because of resistance by then-Russian Federation President Boris Yeltsin and his supporters, and the refusal of elite military and security units to move against them.

On August 19, Muscovites gathered at the Russian "White House," the seat of Russia's parliament in central Moscow, and erected barriers around it. Boris Yeltsin climbed atop a tank to address the crowd. Yeltsin condemned the State Emergency Committee as an unlawful gang of coup plotters and called for military and security forces not to support the "Gang Of Eight."

Major Sergey Yevdokimov, a battalion commander in the Tamanskaya Division, had already declared his loyalty to Yeltsin (hence the tank on which Yeltsin made his historic stand). Yevdokimov later said that early on he had decided that he would not fire on any Russian citizens. As his battalion approached the "White House," one of Yeltsin's supporters climbed on Yevdokimov's tank and asked him to come over to their side. The major made his historically-significant choice, setting in motion events that would help thwart the coup.

KGB special forces units never appeared at the scene. When the planned assault on the Russian "White House" ("Operation Thunder") failed to materialize after a brief skirmish, it was clear that the coup was over. This was quickly followed by the collapse of the Communist party and the Soviet administrative apparatus; and the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

That was an enormous surprise to the majority of Western Kremlinologists at the time.

Of course, the situation in the U.S. today is not exactly analogous. For starters, Trump is operating in a hostile environment ("the Swamp") dominated and controlled by his enemies. The generals are not on his side. It seems unlikely that a large group of citizens from the DC area would quickly materialize to support Trump against some sort of military-backed coup.

It's possible, however, that Trump may not even be in Washington when a coup is set in motion. This would leave him an opportunity to do what he does best -- hold mass rallies to fire up his support base in "Deplorable" areas of the country.

Both "red" and "blue" areas across the country are already effectively separating , threatening secession from the United States and practicing nullification. The as yet inchoate Middle American resistance has shown it is capable of fighting back. [ Organizing Middle American Resistance: Who Will Take the Next Step? , American Remnant, July 31, 2020]

If general disorder and a deadlock over the elections acts as a cover to deploy military units, it raises the same question Soviet officers and men were faced with in August 1991: Would the "boots on the ground" obey orders?

Trump may be disliked by top-level officers. But my sense is that he is popular with the rank-and-file. What if a significant number of them refused to obey a clearly illegal order? It may take only one Major Yevdokimov refusing unlawful orders for the whole plot to unravel.

The Deplorables have good reason to think the Blob will rig or otherwise reverse the election results. The past four years have already taught them that. And the Blob's Main Stream Media arm has been hard at it selling the Narrative of Trump stealing the election. The Democrats' base appears to be ready and willing to accept drastic measures against Trump and the Middle Americans they loathe.

The potential for a seismic political crisis is clear.

What we are witnessing is what I've called " the end of politics ." [ Chronicles , May 2019] American elections are becoming more like the zero-sum games they are in the undeveloped world -- and were to some extent in pre-modern Britain . A post-election crisis, especially a force majeure situation precipitated by military intervention, would accelerate the centrifugal forces already at work in the United States.

The failure of a coup attempt could do to the Democrats' "Coalition of the Fringes" what the failure of the August coup did to the Communists in the USSR -- opening up room to maneuver for what I call the American Remnant and VDARE.com calls the Historic American Nation.

Given the circumstances, with the demographic ring closing in, that may be a providential outcome.

Wayne Allensworth is a Corresponding Editor of Chronicles magazine. He is the author of The Russian Question: Nationalism, Modernization, and Post-Communist Russia , and a novel, Field of Blood . He writes at American Remnant .

Alden , says: October 19, 2020 at 3:25 am GMT

I'm not as optimistic as Allensworth. Only one escort of the elites moved against Gorbachev in 1991. Most of the rest held back. That allowed elite sector 2 to help Yeltsin resist. Plus, the Jew Wolves of Wall Street swarmed in. So there's that.

The military the rank and file is heavily black, especially the career sergeants petty officers who really carry out the officers orders. I think the Hispanic and White tank and file will stay loyal. But follow orders from the anti White officer corps and black sergeants

Consider the French Revolution. It didn't start till most of the officer corps were revolutionary masons. The National Guards were revolutionary and so were the judges and lawyers.

Every elite sector from the clergy through academia media professions and occupations education both unions and employers Chamber of Commerce Association of manufacturers nurses teachers Drs. Engineers construction probably big Agricultural which is all that matters any more. Every organized group is against Trump

All Trump has is us individuals maybe half the adult population but just unorganized individuals The Republican Party is organized but just as anti Trump and anti White as the most hysterical liberals and Democrats.

Vindemann Jew immigrant colonel inserted into a position where he could get General Flynn charged wit crime and the elected president impeached. There's Millions of Vindemanns in tactical and strategic positions all over the country in every sector. The anti Trump anti White revolutionaries already own media and communications

I hope I'm wrong. But what's been happening in America for the last 56 years and the acceleration since 2016 fits the pattern of every successful revolution in the last 500 years.

[Oct 19, 2020] Under Trump it especially cheats its friends, because they are the easiest marks

Notable quotes:
"... Of course the quick objection is that Turkey is getting a crap deal on every single aspect mentioned. This is especially true of Erdogan personally, whose true existential need is to win the war against the Kurds he re-started in Turkey. For instance, the US covertly helps Turkey stay in Syria but simultaneously it "supports" Rojava. And so on and so forth. Yes, the US government is a bully and cheats even its friends. Under Trump it especially cheats its friends, because they are the easiest marks. ..."
Oct 19, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

steven t johnson , Oct 17 2020 20:58 utc | 54

james@30 asks "what is the usa offering Turkey here??"

Offering continued intervention in Syria, de facto in alliance with Turkey, which weakens the Kurds in effect; splitting the Kurds internationally by supporting the KRG; supporting the continued partition of Cyprus; supporting the effective dismantling of NATO, a very important point re Greek relations; neutrality in Libya and the disputes over eastern Mediterranean drilling; deeming Erdogan one of the good Muslims instead of pursuing a virulent regime change campaign; no economic warfare like in Venezuela.

Of course the quick objection is that Turkey is getting a crap deal on every single aspect mentioned. This is especially true of Erdogan personally, whose true existential need is to win the war against the Kurds he re-started in Turkey. For instance, the US covertly helps Turkey stay in Syria but simultaneously it "supports" Rojava. And so on and so forth. Yes, the US government is a bully and cheats even its friends. Under Trump it especially cheats its friends, because they are the easiest marks.

The thing is, Russia cannot bring Erdogan either victory over the Kurds or a healthy economy. Nor is it clear to me that Putin has any strategy whatsoever for any endgame.

Josh , Oct 17 2020 21:36 utc | 59
https://southfront.org/betrayed-in-west-kiev-regime-tries-to-find-love-in-turkish-arms/

Wow,

Cute couple, right???

Laguerre , Oct 17 2020 21:56 utc | 62
Re Turkey. Erdogan is a megalomaniac nationalist. He is neither a servant of the US nor of Putin. He does what he thinks is in the interests of Turkey.

[Oct 11, 2020] Does Perlosi wants to help Trump to win re-election by buying Crowdstyke stock?

Looks like we have an incestuous relationship of collusion between democrat politicians, democrat operatives in the executive branch, and MSM
Oct 11, 2020 | www.realclearinvestigations.com
Thinkitthrough larrydoyle 15 hours ago When you buy a companies stock you are effectively making a loan to the company with the expectation of gaining a return on your investment. Stock purchase price $129.25 Stock value now $142.97 gain on investment $13.72 per share $1,000,000 divided by the stock purchase price of $129.25 equals 7,737 shares. 7,737 multiplied by $13.72 equals a profit of $106,151.64 gained in only two months. Smells highly of insider trading. Somehow, you can tell us that this article is " Just sound and fury". Is the article "Just sound and fury" or is your comment "Just sound and fury" Reply merkinmuffy 16 hours ago "The Pig" may not have been aware of her husband's investments, but she and her Party sure benefitted from them. And don't think her husband didn't know it, either! And notice she's still plugging the Russia hoax! CrazyLady 11 hours ago On March 31, 2017 WikiLeaks released the most damaging disclosure up to that point from what it called "Vault 7" – a treasure trove of CIA cybertools leaked from CIA files. This disclosure featured the tool "Marble Framework," which enabled the CIA to hack into computers, disguise who hacked in, and falsely attribute the hack to someone else by leaving so-called telltale signs – like Cyrillic, for example.

The CIA documents also showed that the "Marble" tool had been employed in 2016. This is why the real reason CIA wants Assange. Why didn't Comey ever take the actual servers?

Comey explained "A Higher Loyalty." He wrote, "I was making decisions in an environment where Hillary Clinton was sure to be the next president." TGrade1 14 hours ago Dems wouldn't let the FBI examine the DNC server--only Crowdstrike, a company whose founder and CTO is Russian! Reply 9

cjones1 1 day ago Nancy Pelosi's Democrats had their emails exfiltrated by the Awan brothers and several national security sensitive email accounts of ranking House Democratic Committee members (Homeland Security, Foreign Affairs, & Intelligence) were accessed illegally. Perhaps CrowdStrike helped Nancy cover up the House Democrats with their email scandal when they muddied the truth concerning the DNC email scandal where the Awan brothers also operated. It could be the Pelosis are paying up. Reply 34
el tejano perdido 21 hours ago Decades ago concern was expressed about the revolving door between people in government and lobbyists. The relationship was too cozy and led to improprieties, and both major political parties were complicit. Nowadays we have an incestuous relationship of collusion between democrat politicians, democrat operatives in the executive branch, and democrat media. A case in point is Shawn Henry, CEO at CrowdStrike, at the center of the DNC data breach attempt and at the core of the democrat conspiracy to attack candidate Trump to skew the results of the 2016 election and when that failed, to overthrow a duly-elected president. Pelosi's conflict of interest aside (which she by law is supposed to report), Henry previously worked as assistant director to Rbt. Mueller at the FBI, and also previously worked for MSNBC. This is as cozy as it gets. DC truly is a swamp, exactly the type of corruption our Founding Fathers were trying to prevent.

[Oct 11, 2020] Pelosis Take a Big Stake in CrowdStrike, Democrat-Connected Linchpin of Russia Probe - RealClearInvestigations

Oct 11, 2020 | www.realclearinvestigations.com

The cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike rose to global prominence in mid-June 2016 when it publicly accused Russia of hacking the Democratic National Committee and stealing its data. The previously unknown company's explosive allegation set off a seismic chain of events that engulfs U.S. national politics to this day. The Hillary Clinton campaign seized on CrowdStrike's claim by accusing Russia of meddling in the election to help Donald Trump. U.S. intelligence officials would soon also endorse CrowdStrike's allegation and pursue what amounted to a multi-year, all-consuming investigation of Russian interference and Trump's potential complicity.

With the next presidential election now in its final weeks, the Democrats' national leader, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and her husband, Paul Pelosi, are endorsing the publicly traded firm in a different way. Recent financial disclosure filings show the couple have invested up to $1 million in CrowdStrike Holdings. The Pelosis purchased the stock at a share price of $129.25 on Sept. 3. At the time of this article's publication, the price has risen to $142.97.

Drew Hammill, spokesman for Pelosi, said: "Speaker Pelosi is not involved in her husband's investments and was not aware of the investment until the required filing was made. Mr. Pelosi is a private investor and has investments in a number of publicly traded companies. The Speaker fully complies with House Rules and the relevant statutory requirements."

The Pelosis' sizeable investment in CrowdStrike could revive scrutiny of the company's involvement in the Trump-Russia saga since the Democrats' 2016 election loss.

Dmitri Alperovitch: The CrowdStrike co-founder reportedly was thanked by a senior U.S. official "for pushing the government along" in its DNC hacking probe. CrowdStrike.com

After generating the hacking allegation against Russia in 2016, CrowdStrike played a critical role in the FBI's ensuing investigation of the DNC data theft. CrowdStrike executives shared intelligence with the FBI on a consistent basis, making dozens of contacts in the investigation's early months. According to Esquire, when U.S. intelligence officials first accused Russia of conducting malicious cyber activity in October 2016, a senior U.S. government official personally alerted CrowdStrike co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch and thanked him "for pushing the government along." The final reports of both Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the Senate Intelligence Committee cite CrowdStrike's forensics. The firm's centrality to Russiagate has drawn the ire of President Trump. During the fateful July 2019 phone call that would later trigger impeachment proceedings, Trump asked Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky to scrutinize CrowdStrike's role in the DNC server breach, suggesting that the company may have been involved in hiding the real perpetrators.

Pelosi's recent investment in CrowdStrike also adds a new partisan entanglement for a company with significant connections to Democratic Party and intelligence officials that drove Russiagate.

DNC law firm Perkins Coie hired CrowdStrike to investigate the breach in late April 2016. At the outset, Perkins Coie attorney Michael Sussmann personally informed CrowdStrike officials that Russia was suspected of breaching the server. By the time CrowdStrike went public with the Russian hacking allegation less than two months later, Perkins Coie had recently hired Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that produced discredited Steele dossier alleging a longstanding conspiracy between Trump and Russia.

Shawn Henry: Behind closed doors, the CrowdStrike president admitted under oath in December 2017 that his firm "did not have concrete evidence" that Russian hackers actually stole any emails or other data from the DNC servers. "There's circumstantial evidence, but no evidence that they were actually exfiltrated." CrowdStrike.com

CrowdStrike President Shawn Henry, who led the team that remediated the DNC breach and blamed Russia for the hacking, previously served as assistant director at the FBI under Robert Mueller. Since June 2015, Henry has also worked as an analyst at MSNBC, the cable network that has promoted debunked Trump-Russia innuendo perhaps more than any other outlet. Alperovitch, the co-founder and former chief technology officer, is a former nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, the Washington organization that actively lobbies for a hawkish posture toward Russia.

Campaign disclosures also show that CrowdStrike contributed $100,000 to the Democratic Governors Association in 2016 and 2017.

The firm's multiple conflicts of interest in the Russia investigation coincide with a series of embarrassing disclosures that call into question its technical reliability.

In early 2017, CrowdStrike was forced to retract its allegation that Russia had hacked Ukrainian military equipment with the same malware the firm claimed to have discovered inside the DNC server.

During the FBI's investigation of the DNC breach, CrowdStrike never provided direct access to the pilfered servers, rebuffing multiple requests that came from officials all the way up to then-Director James Comey. The FBI had to rely on CrowdStrike's own images of the servers, as well as reports that Justice Department officials later acknowledged were delivered in incomplete, redacted form. James Trainor, who served as assistant director of the FBI's Cyber Division, complained to the Senate Intelligence Committee that the DNC's cooperation with the FBI's 2016 hack investigation was "slow and laborious in many respects" and that CrowdStrike's information was "scrubbed" before it was handed over. Alperovitch, the former CTO, has claimed that CrowdStrike installed its Falcon software to protect the DNC server on May 5, 2016. Yet the Democratic Party emails were stolen from the server three weeks later, from May 25 to June 1.

Yet the most damaging revelation calling into question CrowdStrike's Russian hacking allegations came with an admission early in the Russia probe that was only made public this year. Unsealed testimony from the House Intelligence Committee shows that Henry admitted under oath behind closed doors in December 2017 that the firm "did not have concrete evidence" that Russian hackers actually stole any emails or other data from the DNC servers. "There's circumstantial evidence, but no evidence that they were actually exfiltrated," Henry said. "There are times when we can see data exfiltrated, and we can say conclusively. But in this case it appears it was set up to be exfiltrated, but we just don't have the evidence that says it actually left."

The Henry testimony was among a trove of damning transcripts released by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff only after pressure from the then-acting Director of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Richard Grenell.

As RealClearInvestigations reported last month, Henry's House testimony also conflicts with his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee two months prior, in October 2017. According to the Senate report, Henry claimed that CrowdStrike was "able to see some exfiltration and the types of files that had been touched," but not the files' content. Yet two months later, Henry told the House that "we didn't see the data leave, but we believe it left, based on what we saw."

Notably, Henry's acknowledgment to the House that CrowdStrike did not have evidence of exfiltration came only after he was interrupted and prodded by his attorneys to correct an initial answer. Right before that intervention from CrowdStrike counsel, Henry had falsely asserted that he knew when Russian hackers had exfiltrated the stolen information:

Adam Schiff: CrowdStrike testimony was released by the House Intelligence Committee chairman only after pressure from the then-acting Director of National Intelligence, Richard Grenell. AP Photo/Alex Brandon

Adam Schiff: Do you know the date in which the Russians exfiltrated the data from the DNC?

Shawn Henry: I do. I have to just think about it. I don't know. I mean, it's in our report that I think the Committee has.

Schiff: And, to the best of your recollection, when would that have been?

Henry: Counsel just reminded me that, as it relates to the DNC, we have indicators that data was exfiltrated. We do not have concrete evidence that data was exfiltrated from the DNC, but we have indicators that it was exfiltrated.

Henry then improbably argued that, in the absence of evidence showing the emails leaving the DNC server, Russian hackers could have taken individual screenshots of each of the 44,053 emails and 17,761 attachments that were ultimately put out by WikiLeaks.

Keeping Henry's admission under wraps for nearly four years was highly consequential. The allegation of Russian hacking was elevated to a dire national security issue, and anyone who dared to question it – including President Trump – was accused of doing the Kremlin's bidding. The hacking allegation also helped plunge U.S.-Russia relations to new lows. Under persistent bipartisan pressure over allegations of Russian meddling, Trump has approved a series of punitive measures and aggressive policies toward Moscow, shunning his own campaign vow to seek cooperation.

Wikipedia/CrowdStrike.com

Meanwhile, during the several years that CrowdStrike's own uncertainty about its hacking allegation was kept from the public, the firm has enjoyed a stratospheric rise on Wall Street. In 2017, one year after lodging its Russia hacking allegations, CrowdStrike had a valuation of $1 billion. Three years later, after going public in 2019, the firm's valuation was set at $6.7 billion, and soon hit $11.4 billion. Just over a year later, its market cap was $31.37 billion. CrowdStrike has more than doubled its revenue on average every year, going from $52.75 million in 2017 to $481.41 million in 2020.

CrowdStrike and Fusion GPS, which spread Trump-Russia collusion allegations via the Steele dossier, are not the only private companies to play a critical and lucrative role in the Trump-Russia saga.

The firm New Knowledge, staffed by several former Democratic Party operatives and intelligence officials, authored a disputed report for the Senate Intelligence Committee that accused a Russian troll farm of a sophisticated social media interference campaign that duped millions of vulnerable Americans. Ironically, the company itself took part in a social media disinformation operation in the 2017 Alabama Senate race to help elect the ultimate victor, Democratic candidate Doug Jones. Just as the Democratic Party's impeachment proceedings were in full swing a year ago, another cybersecurity firm with Democratic Party ties, Area One, accused the Russian spy agency GRU of hacking into the Ukrainian company Burisma with the aim of uncovering dirt on Joe Biden. Graphika, a firm with extensive ties to the Atlantic Council and the Pentagon, has recently put out reports accusing Russians of impersonating left-wing and right-wing websites to fool hyper-partisan American audiences.

Having generated the seminal Russian hacking allegation, CrowdStrike sits at the top of what has become a booming cottage industry of firms and organizations to help shape the multi-year barrage of Russia fear-mongering and innuendo. And with her new investment in CrowdStrike, Nancy Pelosi -- the highest-ranking elected official of a party that has promoted Russiagate above all else -- is already profiting from its success.

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, nor to any photos or images that appear with articles.)

[Oct 11, 2020] The firm s multiple conflicts of interest in the Russia investigation coincide with a series of embarrassing disclosures that call into question its technical reliability.

Notable quotes:
"... WikiLeaks released the most damaging disclosure up to that point from what it called "Vault 7" – a treasure trove of CIA cybertools leaked from CIA files. This disclosure featured the tool "Marble Framework," which enabled the CIA to hack into computers, disguise who hacked in, and falsely attribute the hack to someone else by leaving so-called telltale signs – like Cyrillic, for example. The CIA documents also showed that the "Marble" tool had been employed in 2016. This is why the real reason CIA wants Assange. Why didn't Comey ever take the actual servers? Comey explained "A Higher Loyalty." He wrote, "I was making decisions in an environment where Hillary Clinton was sure to be the next president." ..."
"... BREAKING: Crowdstrike Payments Coincide With Deaths Of Seth Rich, Shawn Lucas – Disobedient Media ..."
"... The Pelosi family, like the Feinstein, Obama, Clinton, and Biden families, has grown filthy rich by trading on their political connections and high offices. ..."
"... All of these democrats, are Corrupt Billionaires, that cheat and steal from the American TaxPayers! ..."
Oct 11, 2020 | www.realclearinvestigations.com

Sargon 1 day ago "The firm's multiple conflicts of interest in the Russia investigation coincide with a series of embarrassing disclosures that call into question its technical reliability." Then you read this: "Meanwhile, during the several years that CrowdStrike's own uncertainty about its hacking allegation was kept from the public, the firm has enjoyed a stratospheric rise on Wall Street." Good work, if you can get it. Be incompetent at your job, and get rich.

[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] 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] 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] CIA Director Haspel And The Anti-Trump Conspirators -

Oct 06, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

CIA Director Haspel And The Anti-Trump Conspirators by Tyler Durden Mon, 10/05/2020 - 23:00 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print

Authored by Chris Farrell via The Gatestone Institute,

Gina Haspel is the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Haspel is the first career clandestine service officer to become director, and the first woman. She was the CIA Chief of Station in London -- twice, and that repeat assignment is very unusual. What is most interesting is the timing of Haspel's last tour as London Station Chief -- from 2014 to early 2017. That is the same timeframe (specifically, the late summer of 2016) when the FBI approached foreign policy academic and "utility government operative" Stefan Halper to begin the operation targeting Carter Page and George Papadopoulos in an FBI-designed foreign counterintelligence operation, against Team Trump, to be launched in Cambridge, England.

Nothing speculative here -- the Justice Department Inspector General pegged the exact date of the FBI/Halper meeting as August 10, 2016. Halper had been on contract (again) with the U.S. government since the Iowa Caucuses began in October 2015. For the sake of brevity, I am not discussing Halper's role in targeting former Defense Intelligence Agency Director, Lieutenant General Mike Flynn. That is another column for another day -- and certainly Haspel knows a great deal about that, as well.

The timeframe (2014-2017) matters, because Haspel, as London Station Chief would have been briefed on the FBI's counterintelligence plan before any actions were approved to go forward. The CIA Station Chief is the top intelligence official in any given country. The FBI must inform the Station Chief of what they planned to do and get Station Chief approval. The FBI hates that, but those are the rules.

Because the various intelligence agencies are sensitive, they do not use the word "approved." Instead, they use the word "coordinated."

Jargon aside, nothing would have happened without Haspel's okay.

Think about this for a while : The current CIA director was an active, knowledgeable party to the efforts to target candidate Trump with a contrived foreign counterintelligence investigation. That carried forward to a more sophisticated and aggressive plan to carry out a soft coup against President Trump. People around President Trump were prosecuted and/or had their lives destroyed based on a scheme of U.S. government lies. Who appears to have been "in on it" from day one? Gina Haspel.

So, when we read in an article by Sean Davis, co-founder of The Federalist , that Haspel is personally resisting the declassification and release of records on "Russiagate," we are not surprised. In fact, we are relieved, because a few of us have been shouting from the mountaintops about Haspel for years, to no avail. The smarmy James Comey is easier to identify and loathe than the elusive Haspel.

For those seeking more information on Haspel , Shane Harris of the Washington Post wrote a nauseating hagiography of Haspel in July 2019. Consistent with WaPo 's standards there are several factual errors and loads of opinion masquerading as "tough reporting." Harris (and one assumes Haspel) makes sure readers know that Haspel and company "boils down" presidential intelligence briefings to "a few key points that they think Trump absolutely needs to know." We are supposed to also believe that "Trump favors pictures and graphics over text." Of course, the CIA director's office did not cooperate with Harris. No, not at all.

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 FBI is not allowed to penetrate and subvert a presidential campaign. Executive Order 12333, Section 2.9 , "Undisclosed Participation in Organizations in the United States," prohibits it in plain language. Historically, the prohibition is a consequence of U.S. Army Counterintelligence penetrating Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) at the behest of the FBI during the 1960s -- among other abuses of power and authority. That legal prohibition is the reason the FBI felt the need to manufacture a "foreign counterintelligence threat" in the UK and then "import" the investigation back into the United States.

The FBI plotters needed to establish a foreign counterintelligence "event" to run their operation. The UK was the easiest and operationally safest/friendliest place to pull it off, especially with Stefan Halper's connections to Cambridge. Haspel was clearly fully informed and had "coordinated" the operation. She also enjoyed cordial relationships with MI6 and GCHQ. Now we (largely, but imperfectly) know what transpired. Halper under oath, in public, would fill in a lot of blanks. Gina Haspel, under the same circumstances and conditions, might just complete the puzzle.

NEVER MISS THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST

ZEROHEDGE DIRECTLY TO YOUR INBOX

Receive a daily recap featuring a curated list of must-read stories.

Should President Trump be reelected, it might just happen. A President Biden guarantees we will never hear another syllable of the rest of the story.

[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 06, 2020] DNI Declassifies Brennan Notes; Briefed Obama On Intelligence That Hillary Clinton Concocted Trump-Russia Allegations -

Oct 06, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

DNI Declassifies Brennan Notes; Briefed Obama On Intelligence That Hillary Clinton Concocted Trump-Russia Allegations by Tyler Durden Tue, 10/06/2020 - 16:19 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print

Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe on Tuesday declassified several documents, including handwritten notes from former CIA John Brennan after he briefed former President Obama on an alleged plot by Hillary Clinton to tie then-candidate Donald Trump to Russia as "a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server" ahead of the 2016 US election, according to Fox News .

Ratcliffe declassified Brennan's handwritten notes – which were taken after he briefed Obama on the intelligence the CIA received – and a CIA memo, which revealed that officials referred the matter to the FBI for potential investigative action.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence transmitted the declassified documents to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees on Tuesday afternoon.

"Today, at the direction of President Trump, I declassified additional documents relevant to ongoing Congressional oversight and investigative activities ," Ratcliffe said in a statement to Fox News Tuesday. - Fox News

" We're getting additional insight into Russian activities from [REDACTED], " read Brennan's notes. "CITE [summarizing] alleged approved by Hillary Clinton a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service."

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1313568388443185157&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fdni-declassifies-brennan-notes-briefed-obama-intelligence-hillary-clinton-concocted-trump&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

As we noted last week after Ratcliffe previewed the allegation:

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."

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-1&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1311015809284820995&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fdni-declassifies-brennan-notes-briefed-obama-intelligence-hillary-clinton-concocted-trump&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

[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."

NEVER MISS THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST

ZEROHEDGE DIRECTLY TO YOUR INBOX

Receive a daily recap featuring a curated list of must-read stories.

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 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] Not A Big Deal-- State Dept Docs Show Amb. Yovanovitch Directly Aware Of Two Burisma Bribe Attempts

Images deleted. See original for full text
Notable quotes:
"... Well, according to new memos belatedly released to Just the News's John Solomon , under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the State Department, Yovanovitch wrote top officials in Washington that she feared Burisma Holdings had made a second bribe to Ukrainian officials around the time a corruption probe against Hunter Biden's natural gas employer was closed before Donald Trump took office. ..."
"... Of course, this is all in addition to previous memos that revealed Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma conducted an aggressive lobbying campaign directed at the US State Department throughout the 2016 US election, with the goal of pressuring the Obama administration to lean on Kiev to drop corruption allegations. ..."
"... You decide : The Vice-President's son on the board of a foreign energy entity that was implicate not once, but twice, in alleged bribery schemes? Big deal? or "not a big deal"? ..."
Oct 01, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Always glowing in her Schiff-protected bubble of virtue-signaling safety, former Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch told Congress that she knew little about Burisma Holdings and the long-running corruption probe against the company now so infamously linked to Joe Biden's son Hunter, specifically testifying under oath, "It just wasn't a big deal."

Well, according to new memos belatedly released to Just the News's John Solomon , under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the State Department, Yovanovitch wrote top officials in Washington that she feared Burisma Holdings had made a second bribe to Ukrainian officials around the time a corruption probe against Hunter Biden's natural gas employer was closed before Donald Trump took office.

As Just The News' John Solomon writes :

Then-Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch's concerns were first raised in a Ukrainian news story about a Russian-backed fugitive lawmaker in Ukraine, who alleged Burisma had dumped low-priced natural gas into the market for officials near Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to buy low and sell high, making a bribe disguised as a profit.

The scheme was confirmed by U.S. officials before Yovanovitch alerted the top State official for Ukraine and Russia policy in Washington at the time, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, the memos show.

"There are accusations that Burisma allegedly had a subsidiary dump natural gas as a way to pay bribes," Yovanovitch wrote Nuland on Dec. 29, 2016, noting the story "mentions that Hunter Biden and former Polish President Kwasniewski are on the Burisma Board."

The alert was the second in two years in which the embassy alleged Burisma had paid a bribe while Vice President Joe Biden's son served on its board.

Back in February 2015, then-embassy official George Kent reported to the U.S. Justice Department evidence that Burisma had made a $7 million cash bribe to Ukrainian prosecutors before those prosecutors killed a separate corruption probe in the United Kingdom by failing to produce required evidence.

Read more here...

This was after Trump's election win and just 22 days before President Obama left office.

Of course, this is all in addition to previous memos that revealed Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma conducted an aggressive lobbying campaign directed at the US State Department throughout the 2016 US election, with the goal of pressuring the Obama administration to lean on Kiev to drop corruption allegations.

You decide : The Vice-President's son on the board of a foreign energy entity that was implicate not once, but twice, in alleged bribery schemes? Big deal? or "not a big deal"?

[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.

... ... ...

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!

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] CIA Director Haspel Personally Blocking Declassification Of Russiagate Documents

CIA is the cornerstone of the deep state.
Notable quotes:
"... The REASON they won't release them: The TRUMP Collusion wasn't with the Russians , but with APARTHEID Isra-h-e-l-l. But NO ONE will investigate that. M.A.G.A. is out. M.I.G.A is in. ..."
"... 'Bloody Gina' is Trump's loyalist appointee, following through on what loyalist Pompeo started to protect Trump Crime Family Corruption, Chabad Mafia, and ZOG. ..."
"... please allow me to still congratulate Gina on reducing the almighty Third Option into the Toiletpaper Option. ..."
"... 2018, BREAKING: Trump appoints Haspel as first female CIA director ..."
"... 2017: Breaking: CIA Director Mike Pompeo appoints Haspel as the first female CIA officer to be named deputy director. ..."
"... Fathead and Esper were best buds at West Point.. ..."
"... Evidence destruction was one the main purposes of the Mueller "investigation". ..."
"... Please. If you can see what Trump has done, basically bending the US and its taxpayers over for Israel, you'd realize he's just another in a long line of AIPAC Presidents. Ain't nobody opposing him. CIA knows what Russia knows about him, and they're just using him as bait. ..."
"... proof is in the pudding, Hillary still walks free, none of the corrupt ones are in jail and won't ever go to jail. Face it, Biff has many fooled. ..."
"... U.S. Navy Reserve Doctor on Gina Haspel Torture Victim: "One of the Most Severely Traumatized Individuals I Have Ever Seen" ..."
"... What bothers me more is how deep the Deep State goes in Washington. They totally control the government and without mass firings it is impossible to even make a dent in it. This country is gone and just doesn't know it yet. Once Kamala is crowned as queen reality will come slamming home pdq. By the time the country realizes what has happened to them it will be way too late, no matter how many guns they have at home. Once they cut off access to your money, very few people will be independent enough to survive on their own. ..."
"... Trump has opened the eyes of more Americans to the simple fact that an unelected bureaucracy is running the country ..."
"... DJT hired this c8nt, sure, but the pool of candidates equipped to take over the CIA is very small, and all are career swamp things. If DJT put in a true outsider, the ranks would close and the "Director" would know nothing, could do nothing, and nothing would change. The ranks would just wait for another President. Trump is powerless over the CIA. After all, they could easily have him 'accidentally' killed; they've done it before. ..."
"... The CIA just needs to be dissolved in acid. The political, psychological and historical deep-rooted corruption isn't fixable by anyone. ..."
"... McConnell would never confirm a "true outsider". Mitch is the real problem here, he tells Trump who he will and will not confirm, so Trump has to accept one of Mitch's choices. ..."
"... He could put in Mike Flynn. And any vested employee who "closed ranks" would go on immediate and permanent furlough. ..."
"... Here's something we Americans can learn from the Russians. In August 1991 after Gorbachev left to the Black Sea for a short vacation, the heads of the USSR "power ministries" (KGB chairman, armed forces chief of staff, Minister of Interior, etc. etc.) formed the "State Committee for Extrordinary Situation" ( G.K.Ch .P.) and tried to overthrow the government. ..."
"... That's what happened in Washington in 2016-2018 - "GKChP Lite." ..."
"... After the putsch attempt failed, the leaders were arrested and the power ministries reorganized - the KGB was split into several departments including the FSB and SVR for internal and external intelligence. ..."
"... Trump can declassify these personally if he wants, at any time. He could even go live on air and read portions of it to the public. He has the power, but he refuses to use it. ..."
"... Trumps entire cabinet is full of Goldman Sachs, Skull and Bones, CFR, Pentagon, CIA, Career politicians... at what point do you realize he was never going to drain the swamp? Both candidates are a joke and so is this website for becoming a Big R Republican website. ..."
"... This is all kabuki theater because Trump could have signed an Executive Order releasing everything back to JFK 3 years ago instead of flapping his yap. Comey has a Hollywood movie coming out this fall, As Biden said, "Shut up, man". ..."
"... No one is going to prison that deserves to over this. They'll crucify some desk monkey or intern, pat each other on the back and brag about a job well done. We've seen it the last four years, some low level schmuck changes the footer on some emails and the DOJ is all over it like white on rice. Totally ignoring the fact there is a seditionist movement, maybe even treasonous, happening at a systemic level throughout government. Four years is enough time to build a case, lord knows any one with half a mind can find all the evidence needed in four damned days. ..."
"... The a-holes running the DOJ won't prosecute Comey, or Clinton, or Brennan or any other name we know. Because they're doing dirty deeds themselves and don't want to set the precedent in fear those who come after them might in turn prosecute them ..."
Oct 01, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Ian Schwartz via RealClearPolitics,

"Federalist" co-founder Sean Davis reports that CIA Director Gina Haspel is personally blocking the release of documents that will show "what actually happened" with Russiagate.

" This isn't just a scandal about Democrat projection, this is a scandal about what was a coup planned against the incoming administration at the highest levels and I can report here tonight that these declassifications that have come out," Davis told FOX News host Tucker Carlson on Wednesday. "Those weren't easy to get out and there are far more waiting to get out."

"Unfortunately those releases and declassifications according to multiple sources I've talked to are being blocked by CIA director Gina Haspel who herself was the main link between Washington and London ," Davis said.

"As the London station chief from John Brennan's CIA during the 2016 election. Recall, it was London where Christopher Steele was doing all this work. And I'm told that it was Gina Haspel personally who is blocking a continued declassification of these documents that will show the American people the truth of what actually happened."

Watch:


pier , 1 hour ago

The REASON they won't release them: The TRUMP Collusion wasn't with the Russians , but with APARTHEID Isra-h-e-l-l. But NO ONE will investigate that. M.A.G.A. is out. M.I.G.A is in.

Joseph Sullivan , 1 hour ago

No. This is all the UK. And Brit east India/pharma complex I'm serious. Israel is a UK proxy.

tion , 1 hour ago

True. 'Bloody Gina' is Trump's loyalist appointee, following through on what loyalist Pompeo started to protect Trump Crime Family Corruption, Chabad Mafia, and ZOG.

My last comment including my sentiments towards Gina got eaten by censorship for reasons obvious to me, but please allow me to still congratulate Gina on reducing the almighty Third Option into the Toiletpaper Option.

acetrumchura , 1 hour ago

2018, BREAKING: Trump appoints Haspel as first female CIA director

acetrumchura , 1 hour ago

2017: Breaking: CIA Director Mike Pompeo appoints Haspel as the first female CIA officer to be named deputy director.

BGen. Jack Ripper , 49 minutes ago

Fathead and Esper were best buds at West Point..

NoWorries77 , 1 hour ago

Evidence destruction was one the main purposes of the Mueller "investigation".

realitybiter , 2 hours ago

Trump Has played like Tom Brady. Without either guard or tackle. Take the CIA and the FBI. They are both still ran by rats. Tree of liberty is VERY thirsty.

eatapeach , 1 hour ago

Please. If you can see what Trump has done, basically bending the US and its taxpayers over for Israel, you'd realize he's just another in a long line of AIPAC Presidents. Ain't nobody opposing him. CIA knows what Russia knows about him, and they're just using him as bait.

GreatUncle , 57 minutes ago

Either they are accountable or they are treasonous. CIA is the globalist intelligence agency now.

MAGAMAN , 2 hours ago

It will happen, the fuse just keeps getting shorter. Nobody even refutes that Obama is a traitor that spied on Trump's campaign and tried to overthrow the President. The evidence is overwhelming and continues to snow ball.

ChiangMaiXPat , 1 hour ago

It will never happen as Trump appointed these Clowns. Imagine appointing people working DIRECTLY against your self interest. Does this sound logical or even remotely plausible? I don't recall it EVER happening in any other administration.

spqrusa , 2 minutes ago

He cannot do anything without Consent from the Privy Council and the circle of demons.

ThaBigPerm , 2 hours ago

Aaaand Trump can just order declassification over "her" head. Do it.

Lather Rinse Repeat , 1 hour ago

Surfaces the cabal's foot soldiers. CIA Director Haspel was a great leader when appointed. But when process drives Haspel to block an action, the message is that Haspel is rot and so is Haspel's network. These networks run deep and wide and prosecuting 1 or 10 does nothing - you need them all, or the problem comes back in 5 years.

Lokiban , 2 hours ago

He won't

proof is in the pudding, Hillary still walks free, none of the corrupt ones are in jail and won't ever go to jail. Face it, Biff has many fooled.

spam filter , 2 hours ago

The way he's constantly saying, "someone should do something about this" ...Tells my spidey sense that he has little power in the swamp.

Propaganda Phil , 2 hours ago

Isn't she the same chick who destroyed all the torture tapes? Good luck.

Mr. Bones , 1 hour ago

All power of classification is derived from the office of the executive.

He could do exactly this, unilaterally.

Farmer Tink , 1 hour ago

First, normal people who consume news from the networks, particularly those that get their news from MSNBC and social media, would never hear this. Second, if they did find out about this, they'd never believe it. It would cause too much cognitive dissonance for them to believe.

They wouldn't believe it unless the four legacy broadcast media told them so. They just live in a land of Orange Man Bad as far as news go. A plot to overthrow the US government by Obama and the Brits would be unfathomable to them.

Someone Else , 2 hours ago

Trump had an abrasive demeanor during the debate and in general.

How could he not, when truly everybody for four years HAS fought him tooth and nail? Few would have had the ability to stand up to what he has stood up to.

Quia Possum , 1 hour ago

He had that demeanor before he was president too, so I don't accept that excuse.

desertboy , 27 minutes ago

U.S. Navy Reserve Doctor on Gina Haspel Torture Victim: "One of the Most Severely Traumatized Individuals I Have Ever Seen"

justyouwait , 2 hours ago

All this crap needs to come out. Any date for the release before the election will have the Dems and their media lap dogs crying foul. It just doesn't matter. They will NEVER support the release of any documents that are damming to them. He should release it all right up to the day of the election. This country needs to know all the criminality that went down. That goes for the so called Durham report too, of which there have been so many rumors. That one is likely to be a huge zero though by the time Barr gets done with it and then tells us there were "improprieties" but nothing really bad. What a joke.

What bothers me more is how deep the Deep State goes in Washington. They totally control the government and without mass firings it is impossible to even make a dent in it. This country is gone and just doesn't know it yet. Once Kamala is crowned as queen reality will come slamming home pdq. By the time the country realizes what has happened to them it will be way too late, no matter how many guns they have at home. Once they cut off access to your money, very few people will be independent enough to survive on their own.

John Couger , 2 hours ago

Trump has opened the eyes of more Americans to the simple fact that an unelected bureaucracy is running the country

Sigh. , 2 hours ago

DJT hired this c8nt, sure, but the pool of candidates equipped to take over the CIA is very small, and all are career swamp things. If DJT put in a true outsider, the ranks would close and the "Director" would know nothing, could do nothing, and nothing would change. The ranks would just wait for another President. Trump is powerless over the CIA. After all, they could easily have him 'accidentally' killed; they've done it before.

The CIA just needs to be dissolved in acid. The political, psychological and historical deep-rooted corruption isn't fixable by anyone.

Mclovin , 1 hour ago

McConnell would never confirm a "true outsider". Mitch is the real problem here, he tells Trump who he will and will not confirm, so Trump has to accept one of Mitch's choices.

gcjohns1971 , 1 hour ago

He could put in Mike Flynn. And any vested employee who "closed ranks" would go on immediate and permanent furlough.

There are only a couple or three thousand CIA agents and analysts. The rest are contractors.

To bypass the swamp things you sideline them and put your own people in charge of the contracts.

otschelnik , 1 hour ago

Here's something we Americans can learn from the Russians. In August 1991 after Gorbachev left to the Black Sea for a short vacation, the heads of the USSR "power ministries" (KGB chairman, armed forces chief of staff, Minister of Interior, etc. etc.) formed the "State Committee for Extrordinary Situation" ( G.K.Ch .P.) and tried to overthrow the government.

That's what happened in Washington in 2016-2018 - "GKChP Lite."

After the putsch attempt failed, the leaders were arrested and the power ministries reorganized - the KGB was split into several departments including the FSB and SVR for internal and external intelligence.

Trump has to do the same thing - break them up.

Occams_Razor_Trader , 1 hour ago

Kennedy wasn't a big fan................. look where it got him......................

Back and to the left.................................

LostinRMH , 2 hours ago

Trump can declassify these personally if he wants, at any time. He could even go live on air and read portions of it to the public. He has the power, but he refuses to use it.

LostinRMH , 2 hours ago

The only timing Trump is interested in is running out the clock. If he get's a second term, a lot of these current issues will magically vanish, and new ones will appear. This is just a scripted political show for the sheeple. It's all fake.

Oldwood , 2 hours ago

The swamp owns the government's employment agency. All hires come from within the swamp.

LooseLee , 1 hour ago

Sorry Old Man. Trump could have handled this sooooo much better and differently. I call BS.

knightowl77 , 50 minutes ago

Here is the "B.S."

80 to 90% of the Federal Government are swamp creatures or friendly to the swamp...90 out of 100 U.S. Senators are either swamp members or at least friendly to the swamp....Trump can only get people confirmed to certain agencies who are Not hostile to the swamp...McConnell and company are blocking the draining....The Dems would be even worse or just impeach Trump....

No One else has even tried...I doubt anyone else could've survived the swamp as long as Trump has....So you tell us HOW he could have done it better and differently?????????

AlexTheCat3741 , 1 hour ago

Not one person who has had a prior association with John Brennan should be doing anything in the Trump Administration. And if that person cannot be fired, then reassign them to cleaning toilets or picking up trash.

WHERE IS PRESIDENT TRUMP GETTING HIS PERSONNEL CHOICES FROM? We know Chris Cristie was one who recommended director of the "Fibbers Bureau of Insurrection", Chris Wray and he is an absolute disaster AND NEARLY AS BAD AS JAMES COMEY WHO MUST BE SUFFERING FROM DEMENTIA TOO AS HE CANNOT SEEM TO REMEMBER ANYTHING WHILE UNDER OATH BEFORE A SENATE COMMITTEE.

And now we have this Gina Haspel running the CIA? ARE YOU F CKING KIDDING??

The first person to next get the ax in the Trump Administration is whoever it is that is giving him these personnel choices, e.g., Rex Tillerson, James Matis, John Kelly, Kirsten Nielson, Mark Esper, Mark Miley..........WHO IS PICKING THIS TRASH WHEN THE PRESIDENT NEEDS REAL HELP PERFORMING A COLON FLUSH ON THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO GET THE GARBAGE OUT AND TO UNDO THE DAMAGE DONE BY 8 YEARS OF BARACK O'DINGLEBARRY AND SLOW JOE BIDEN??

Citi The Real , 1 hour ago

Trumps entire cabinet is full of Goldman Sachs, Skull and Bones, CFR, Pentagon, CIA, Career politicians... at what point do you realize he was never going to drain the swamp? Both candidates are a joke and so is this website for becoming a Big R Republican website.

DeeDeeTwo , 1 hour ago

This is all kabuki theater because Trump could have signed an Executive Order releasing everything back to JFK 3 years ago instead of flapping his yap. Comey has a Hollywood movie coming out this fall, As Biden said, "Shut up, man".

Alfred , 2 hours ago

The Director of the CIA is a cabinet position. If she doesn't want to take direction from POTUS, she should be fired.

Wild Bill Steamcock , 53 minutes ago

Yeah, there's a reason she's blocking it. If those papers are released, it'll lead to someone high up the food chain facing a courtroom out of necessity because people will lose their goddamed ****.

Once that happens, you'll by necessity have to go after six more. Then six more. Then everyone in D.C., their families, friends, and pet dogs are gonna be locked up.

They protect themselves. "Obeyance of the law is for thee, not for me."

Wild Bill Steamcock , 41 minutes ago

No one is going to prison that deserves to over this. They'll crucify some desk monkey or intern, pat each other on the back and brag about a job well done. We've seen it the last four years, some low level schmuck changes the footer on some emails and the DOJ is all over it like white on rice. Totally ignoring the fact there is a seditionist movement, maybe even treasonous, happening at a systemic level throughout government. Four years is enough time to build a case, lord knows any one with half a mind can find all the evidence needed in four damned days.

The a-holes running the DOJ won't prosecute Comey, or Clinton, or Brennan or any other name we know. Because they're doing dirty deeds themselves and don't want to set the precedent in fear those who come after them might in turn prosecute them

radical-extremist , 1 hour ago

Be aware CIA people stick together like glue. They're more loyal to each other than they are the US or any president. Once you're in the CLUB, you're in the CLUB for life. Trump was absolutely right about not trusting "our intelligence agencies".

12Doberman , 1 hour ago

I hate the CIA...and it's been a power unto itself for a very long time. The idea that it is under civilian oversight is a joke.

Max21c , 1 hour ago

the CIA...and it's been a power unto itself for a very long time. The idea that it is under civilian oversight is a joke.

Quite true there is no oversight and the secret police community and intelligence community are presently and have been for a long time above the law, above the Constitution, above the very framework of government per above Congress & above the President and above the Courts... and everybody just goes along with the pack of criminals in the security state and accepts that they have the right to commit crimes, run criminal activities, and abuse secret police powers... and nobody ever stands up to the Nazis and NeoNazis and these radicals in the military secret police, military intelligence, Pentagon Gestapo, National Security Council, FBI & CIA and the rest of the criminal underworld network inside and around the organized criminal enterprises and organized criminal networks of the security state...

12Doberman , 1 hour ago

That's right and the civilian government is largely just a facade.

ken , 1 hour ago

CIA wasn't W-A-S for preventing 9/11...or were they involved in it? Did the missing trillions go to Israel, and that other country, as payment for services???

_arrow
protrumpusa , 2 hours ago

Someone asked in previous post - why do democrats hate Trump? Good question.
It can't be his policies - who except illegals don't want secure borders, who doesn't want a strong private buisiness economy, who doesn't want manufacturing jobs to be brought back from China.
Our democrat leaders, plus Romney all have a connection to Ukraine's stolen treasury money and Soros's money too, and Trump doesn't . This I believe is the reason democrats hate President Trump

protrumpusa , 2 hours ago

The Obama administration and the FBI knew that it was they who were meddling in a presidential campaign - using executive intelligence powers to monitor the president's political opposition. This, they also knew, would rightly be regarded as a scandalous abuse of power if it ever became public. There was no rational or good-faith evidentiary basis to believe that Trump was in a criminal conspiracy with the Kremlin or that he'd had any role in Russian intelligence's suspected hacking of Democratic Party email accounts.

[snip]

In the stretch run of the 2016 campaign, President Obama authorized his administration's investigative agencies to monitor his party's opponent in the presidential election, on the pretext that Donald Trump was a clandestine agent of Russia. Realizing this was a gravely serious allegation for which there was laughably insufficient predication, administration officials kept Trump's name off the investigative files. That way, they could deny that they were doing what they did. Then they did it . . . and denied it.

LEEPERMAX , 30 minutes ago

Gina Haspel worked directly for the instigator of the Crossfire Hurricane operation – John Brennan. It would have been impossible for Haspel not to have known about the British spying from London since it was reported in UK newspaper on a weekly basis.

She certainly was controlling Stefan Halper , Josef Mifsud , Stephan Roh , Alexander Downer, Andrew Wood, John McCain, Mark Warner, Adam Schiff and the other conspirators.

Kan , 2 hours ago

The FBI and CIA are the enemy of the people. There is little doubt at this point that they serve nobody but the bankers that formed the organization and themselves.

Gunston_Nutbush_Hall , 2 hours ago

How convenient.

CIA operative Trump nominates Haspel to be the CIA director, after CIA Operative Trump picked CIA chief Mike Pompeo to replace Rex Tillerson as secretary of state, thereafter Epstein is Trumpincided on CIA Operatives Barr Pompeo Trump's watch, while running smoke cover for the CIA's Obama's False Flag National Government.

Shortly after taking office in 1999, Jesse Ventura writes he was asked to attend a meeting at the state Capitol. He says 23 CIA agents were waiting for him in a basement conference room.

The greatest False Flag ever? Brainwashing Americans to think Constitutional Federal Government exists.

Kefeer , 17 minutes ago

The people who want to know and care to know the truth already know the truth. It is suspect that Trump appoints people like Christopher Wray and Gina Haspel and I really do not know what to make of it - is he part of the swamp or making bad decisions? I honestly do not know, but my biblical lens filter tells me we are in trouble regardless of the outcomes because so many of the institutions in government and industry are so corrupt.

Maltheus , 29 minutes ago

Trump is absolutely incompetent, when it comes to selecting people. He always has been. Flynn was one of the few, who was halfway decent, and he got thrown to the wolves. Pretty much everyone else, he's ever chosen, has knifed him in the back, and most of us saw it coming a mile away.

Tuffmug , 13 minutes ago

The Swamp is deep and has had twenty + years to grow . Trump had to chose the ones who stunk least from a slimy pool of corrupted officials and fight against every agency, each filled with deep state snakes. I'm just surprised he is still breathing.

Kinskian , 29 seconds ago

So his incompetence begins and ends with "selecting people" and that gets no downvotes from the 'tards. I understand why. You're still blaming other people for Trump's failures in office instead of placing the blame squarely with HIM. He is incompetent in his role as President, and that is his responsibility.

LEEPERMAX , 36 minutes ago

Gina Haspel would have known about the coup. If she has not reported all of this to the President Trump, she is complicit in the overthrow attempt and is guilty of HIGH TREASON.

Wild Bill Steamcock , 49 minutes ago

Spooks run this world. And they certainly like power, and money. But do you want to know what they like most of all?

Information.

Control of information drives everything else. And anyone who has even sniffed that world knows to get quality information you can't buy it. Instead you have to trade information of equal value.

We're not important enough to have the opportunity to know what they know. I don't know about you, but I'm a little angry about that.

StealthBomber , 30 minutes ago

That is because they are un-accountable.

Wild Bill Steamcock , 30 minutes ago

and untouchable.

Take one out and the whole thing collapses.

insanelysane , 51 minutes ago

Don't think we need declassifications to know what happened. We know what happened.

as I've stated many times, governments would be completely unstable if the government legally proved that organizations within the government were involved is sedition. With the IRS scandal the deflection was that a few rogue employees did some things even though the entire IRS was involved in harassing far right and far left organizations.

The problem with Russiagate is that none of the rogue employees are willing to to go down without taking everyone involved down. The IRS rogues got nice payouts and no prison time.

radical-extremist , 1 hour ago

She doesn't want them released because obviously it implicates her in Strzok's Crossfire Hurricane scheme. It also puts mud on the face of MI6, which is why Trump might be hesitant.

October is young.

12Doberman , 1 hour ago

Haspel is also likely a figurehead in many respects. From what I've read about CIA over the years those at the top have competing agendas and don't trust and share information with each other. The idea that a president is sworn in ever 4-8 years and is brought up to speed on everything they are doing is laughable...and likely impossible. No president fully controls the CIA and it has it's own agenda that runs across and through administrations...may as well call it the head of the deep state snake.

Felix da Kat , 2 hours ago

Haspel is a Brennan redux.

The deep state is much deeper than anyone dare thought.

If Trump cannot do unwind the DS,then all is lost.

If Biden gets in, he will only serve to further entrench DS operatives.

Looking bleak out there, folks.

1nd1v1s1ble1 , 3 hours ago

*sigh* As if anything is going to come of this...when has any high ranking politician EVER been taken to task or incarcerated for their crimes? It's the same political theater brought to you by the MSM/Jesuit/Jooish/Freemason cult who ritually perform their televised 'skits' to the masses to make it appear as if justice exists or better yet, we have a Republic- newsflash: it died a long, long time ago. The frightened mask-wearing, compliant sheeple lap it up every f'n time-when do you awake and realize there is no bi-partisan political machine, there is no blue versus red, just like their cronies in Hollyweird, these politicians are simply actors who were too ugly to make it there, orange man aint gonna save ya, bumbling joe aint gonna save ya, understand Stockholm Syndrome-survivors of 'merica....they DO NOT GIVE A F#*K ABOUT YOU OR YOUR FAMILY and would prefer you were dead.

'It's a BIG club and you ain't in it...'

-George Carlin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nyvxt1svxso

MrBoompi , 1 hour ago

Even the POTUS cannot do anything in DC alone, no matter what he wants to do. He needs people to cooperate or follow orders. It seems many or most of the people around him are deep state spies. I think they are scared ****less of what Trump might try to declassify. I think the CIA would destroy evidence before providing proof of a seditious coup. If you've committed murder or treason, destroying evidence seems like jaywalking.

Now we know Haspel is personally involved and we probably know exactly why she is blocking the release of this information.

Jack_Ewing , 17 minutes ago

Trump was supposed to drain the swamp but surrounded himself with the scariest of swamp creatures, this Medusa-like entity being one of the most terrifying. Pompeo, Mnuchin, Wray, Miller, Haspel, Kushner, and the chief of the all, the official cover-upper for the Deep State for the last 40 years, William Barr.

donkey_shot , 45 minutes ago

surprise, surprise: one-time iraqi detainee torturer and current CIA chief gina haspel is a nasty piece of work: geez, whodathunk?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gina_Haspel

lwilland1012 , 50 minutes ago

The only reason I can think of for holding these documents is that the conspiracy is so vast and intricate, it might destroy 80 plus percent of the government! If that's what it comes down to, so be it! Blow the whole PHUCKING thing to kingdom come!

Philthy_Stacker , 45 minutes ago

An accurite assumption.

LOL123 , 1 hour ago

Gina Haspel doesn't have a legal leg to stand on.

"The most explosive revelation was that the dossier was bought and paid for by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee , a fact that the Clinton campaign took pains to hide, that Clinton officials lied about, and that Fusion GPS refused to reveal on its own. It wasn't an intelligence report at all. It was a political hit job paid for by Trump's opponent."

https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/trump-russia-dossier-scandal/

Political issues " incorporated" into public stock holding corporations.

"Individual shareholders cannot generally sue over the deprivation of a corporation's rights; only the board of directors has the standing to assert a corporation's constitutional rights in court. [7] -USA

Ever since Citizens United, the Supreme Court's 2010 decision allowing unlimited corporate and union spending on political issues, Americans have been debating whether, as Mitt Romney said, "Corporations are people, my friend."

The question came to the Supreme Court in a challenge to regulations implementing President Obama's landmark health care law. Those regulations require employers with 50 or more employees to provide those employees with comprehensive health insurance, which must include certain forms of contraception. The contraception requirement was designed to protect the rights of women. Studies show that access to contraception has positive benefits for women's education, income, mental health, and family stability.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood

*****

since a political entity ( DNC and Hillary Campaign funded a public corporation which is a " corporate personhood" and can be sued it is open to discovery in a court of law.

the chickens have come home to roost....as Mitt Romney says....corporations are the citizens "best friend".

R.G. , 1 hour ago

Citizens ARE corporaions.

4Y_LURKER , 1 hour ago

Finkel is Einhorn!

Einhorn is Finkel!

Totally_Disillusioned , 1 hour ago

If Sean Davis was able to unearth this, President Trump, Pompeo have known this for some time and Ratcliffe certainly knows this. the question is "why is she allowed to block disclosure?". None of the players are currently in service and would not be at risk if their involvement was disclosed. What possibly is the excuse? Are they using the old excuse of not revealing sources and methods?

All these people need a stern reminder the govt is owned by the people...they work for us. So far we are the only people kept in the dark. Breakup the intel 17 agencies and re-engineer down to two - one domestic and one international.

SirBarksAlot , 1 hour ago

It's always a national security issue when it's your responsibility to release the documents that would incriminate you.

Gunston_Nutbush_Hall , 3 hours ago

Exactly why CIA Trump hand selected her. Exactly for the same reason CIA Trump hand selected BARR.

TO PROVIDE CLEAN SMOKE N COVER FOR THEIR CIA NATIONAL GOVERNMENT.

Barr: CIA operative

It is a sobering fact that American presidents (many of whom have been corrupt) have gone out of their way to hire fixers to be their attorney generals.

Consider recent history: Loretta Lynch (2015-2017), Eric Holder (2009-2015), Michael Mukasey (2007-2009), Alberto Gonzales (2005-2007), John Ashcroft (2001-2005),Janet Reno (1993-2001), **** Thornburgh (1988-1991), Ed Meese (1985-1988), etc.

Barr, however, is a particularly spectacular and sordid case. As George H.W. Bush's most notorious insider, and as the AG from 1991 to 1993, Barr wreaked havoc, flaunted the rule of law, and proved himself to be one of the CIA/Deep State's greatest and most ruthless champions and protectors :

A strong case can be made that William Barr was as powerful and important a figure in the Bush apparatus as any other, besides Poppy Bush himself.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/ciabushiran-contra-covert-operative-fixer-william-barr-nominated-attorney-general/5662609

Gunston_Nutbush_Hall , 3 hours ago

...Shortly after taking office in 1999, Jesse Ventura writes he was asked to attend a meeting at the state Capitol. He says 23 CIA agents were waiting for him in a basement conference room.

Bobby Farrell Can Dance , 3 hours ago

The Navalny "incident" is the latest pathetic CIA and British MI6 operation and the Belarus incitement. Sloppy, unoriginal and going to backfire in their stupid faces.

Everybody knows the evil empire wants Nordstream II dead, Navalny is the latest lever and that woman they recognized as leader of Belarus is as laughable as that Guaido goon they recognized in Venezuela, but he's actually outside of Venezuela - yeah that's how popular he is. Western intelligence agenices are hacks, they are past their peak.

John Hansen , 3 hours ago

The real stupid thing is the West will succeed.

Spinifex , 20 minutes ago

Christopher Steele is THE GUY who 'doctored all this up'. Why has he not been bought before congress and asked questions?

Sergi Scripal worked for Christopher Steele. Sergi Scripal earned tens of thousands of pounds 'providing information' to Christopher Steele. Why is he 'not being asked questions? He's not 'dead'. Sergi Scripal is 'alive and well' and 'being hidden' by the U.K. Government 'for his own safty.' The U.K. can provide 'access to Sergi Scripal.

Pablo Miller worked for Christopher Steele. Pablo Miller was Sergi Scripals 'handler' with MI6. Pablo Miller was also the 'last person to talk to Sergi Scripal' before Sergi Scripal 'surccumed to Novichok poison.' Why is Pablo Miller (aka: Antonio Alvarez de Hidalgo - https://gosint.wordpress.com/2019/02/02/who-is-mi6-officer-pablo-miller/

All three worked for Orbis Business Intelligence the company that wrote the 'Steele Dossier' that Gina Haspel had access to and 'approved' sending onto the FBI and CIA. All three, Christopher Steele, Sergi Scripal and Pablo Miller are 'alive and well' and all three are able to provide information about the Steele Dossier, what was in the Steele Dossier, and WHERE the information in the Steele Dossier came from. Ask the questions dammit, and you'll get the answers.

headless blogger , 58 minutes ago

Not a fan of Trump, although I voted for him the first time, but he will be in serious trouble if Biden gets into office as there are too many vengeful people on that side of the isle. They attempted a coup d'etat which is the worse treason, where most of these people would be executed in "normal" times.

So, they HAVE TO win at all costs, in their thinking. They will then turn the tables on Trump as well as the entire Conservative camp. It looks like an ugly future if they win. If Trump wins, it will be ugly too.

Sure signs to get the hell out now if you can.

The Technocracy crowd is behind all of this, btw. They are waiting for the full collapse at which time we will be inundated with Tech Billionaires coming forward to "save us". BEWARE!!


4 play_arrow 1
1nd1v1s1ble1 , 1 hour ago

*sigh* As if anything is going to come of this...when has any high ranking politician EVER been taken to task or incarcerated for their crimes? It's the same political theater brought to you by the MSM/Jesuit/Jooish/Freemason Satanic cult who ritually perform their televised 'skits' to the masses to make it appear as if justice exists or better yet, we have a Republic- newsflash: it died a long, long time ago. The frightened mask-wearing, compliant sheeple lap it up every f'n time-when do you awake and realize there is no bi-partisan political machine? There is no blue versus red, just like their cronies in Hollyweird, these colluding politicians are simply actors who were too ugly to make it there, orange man aint gonna save ya, bumbling joe aint gonna save ya, understand Stockholm Syndrome-survivors of 'merica....they DO NOT GIVE A F#*K ABOUT YOU OR YOUR FAMILY and would actually prefer you were dead.

'It's a BIG club and you and I ain't in it...'

-George Carlin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nyvxt1svxso

flight77 , 1 hour ago

The capital of the USA is Jerusalem.

hoytmonger , 1 hour ago

Trump is giving Israel another $11 billion to "secure another Arab-Israeli peace treaty."

He's buying the deals with US taxpayer money...

https://www.mintpressnews.com/trump-admin-poised-to-gift-israel-11-billion-in-bid-to-secure-another-arab-israeli-peace-treaty/271603/

gfmucci1 , 1 hour ago

Better/cheaper than sending US military to fight in another useless war.

headless blogger , 1 hour ago

Gina Haspel was selected by Trump!! When you take into consideration Trump's selections of Haspel, Bolton, and many others, it becomes obvious there is someone in his admin that is directing him to bring these people on. He brings them on and then they betray him.

5onIt , 1 hour ago

Pence is the dude you are looking for.

Haspel was the CIA Station Chief in London, when this was all going down.

Be sure, she has chit to hide.

LEEPERMAX , 1 hour ago

John Brennan led the coup this side of the Atlantic, while Gina Haspel , who was in the CIA London office at the time, worked the coup from London as the CIA chief in cooperation with GCHQ and Robert Hannigan. Both are creepy, corrupt traitors of America.

LEEPERMAX , 1 hour ago

👉 CIA Director Gina Haspel is Complicit with the Attempted Overthrow of Trump

samsara , 1 hour ago

Abu Ghraib = Gina Haspel

Graphic drawings allege CIA's 'borderline torture' of Abu ...

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/guantanamo-bay-abu-zubaydah-drawings-cia-torture-pictures-a9335001.html

The current head of the Central Intelligence Agency, Gina Haspel, oversaw one such site where torture was carried out. ... Abu Zubaydah, Courtesy Professor Mark P. Denbeaux, Seton Hall University ...

y_arrow
Mister Delicious , 2 hours ago

She was Brennan's London pet.

She should be fired and escorted from the building, and then DOJ NSD should open an investigation into her contacts with Brennan.

Think there might be a Demstate coup attempt?

Well, don't you imagine any friend of John Brennan's is not a friend of Trump.

I don't care how much you love Orange Jesus - he has picked absolutely terrible people over and over and over.

Good DNI now but he needs to take charge.

richsob , 3 hours ago

Orange Fat Boy is getting played like a violin. You and I both know it. Does he? Probably because you can see it on his face but he's just not willing to do what it would take to get everything out into the open. And if he tries to expose everything after he's lost the election nobody will listen to him......even you and I. It will be too late then.

jamesmmu , 3 hours ago

NEW YORK TIMES PROVES IT IS FAKE NEWS: Shreds Years of Its Own Reporting on Trump Tax Fraud and Russiagate

AlexTheCat3741 , 2 hours ago

We would think that the New York Slimes would know something about losses. After all, they paid $1.1 Billion in 1993 for The Boston Globe and in 2013, sold it for $70 Million to businessman John Henry, the principal owner of the Boston Red Sox, and a massive 93% loss.

But it's worse than that because included in that sale is BostonGlobe.com ; Boston.com ; the direct-mail marketing company Globe Direct; the company's 49 percent interest in Metro Boston, a free daily paper; Telegram.com and The Worcester Telegram & Gazette. The Times bought the Telegram & Gazette for $295 million in 1999.

We should be convinced to pay any attention to Fake News Tabloid, The New York Slimes, given that kind of Business Acumen? I don't think so.

rwe2late , 3 hours ago

Hope & Change, Drain the swamp, End the wars

Angelic Obama allegedly prevented from saving us by "deep state" Republicans.

Angelic Trump allegedly prevented from saving us by "deep state" Democrats.

Poor us, our chosen leaders and parties are always so blameless in failing us.

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] 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...

[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] I Told You Long Ago, Hillary's Team Helped Fabricate the Trump Russia Collusion Lie by Larry C Johnson - Sic Semper Tyrannis

Notable quotes:
"... Best approach is to slaughter Donald for his bromance with Putin , but not go too far betting on Putin re Syria ..."
"... one of the more secretive firms within the corporate investigations world ..."
Sep 29, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

I hope you are sitting down and prepared to go into shock. Breaking news--""In late July 2016, US intelligence agencies obtained insight into Russian intelligence analysis alleging that US Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had approved a campaign plan to stir up a scandal against US Presidential candidate Donald Trump by tying him to Putin and the Russians' hacking of the DNC." If you are not a regular reader of SST, yes, you will be shocked. But for you old timers, you already knew this.

Yes. I am taking another well earned victory lap. I was the first to write about this. You can find my piece here ( published on 6 May 2019 ). Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe gave Senator Lindsey Graham a letter today detailing recently declassified intelligence outlining the Clinton Campaign's effort to manufacture a collusion narrative featuring Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Here's the letter:

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 ."

This was more then opposition research by Hillary's campaign. It entailed an extensive weaponization of U.S. and foreign law enforcement and intelligence assets that set out to identify and target members of Trump's campaign who could be used to feed the Russian collusion meme. Hillary, for example, had a powerful and dangerous ally in a London firm comprised of former MI6 assets– Hakluyt:

there was a second, even more powerful and mysterious opposition research and intelligence firm lurking about with significant political and financial links to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her 2016 campaign for president against Donald Trump.

Meet London-based Hakluyt & Co. , founded by three former British intelligence operatives in 1995 to provide the kind of otherwise inaccessible research for which select governments and Fortune 500 corporations pay huge sums. . . .

Hakluyt is described by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism's Henry Williams as " one of the more secretive firms within the corporate investigations world " and as "a retirement home for ex-MI6 [British foreign intelligence] officers, but it now also recruits from the worlds of management consultancy and banking "

It is no mere coincidence that Australian diplomat, Alexander Downer, who was credited by the FBI as serving up the predicate to launch the investigation into George Papadopolous, also was closely tied to the Clinton Foundation and funneling Austailian money to the Clinton's. Back in 2006, Downer was Australia's Foreign Minister when he and Bill Clinton signed a $25 million Memorandum of Understanding, marking the first round of Australian taxpayer donations to the Clinton Foundation.

The timing of Alexander Downer's "sudden concern" about Papadopolous is very suspect. Downer waited two months before informing US authorities about Papadopoulus's alleged drunken bragging about the Trump team working with the Russians to get Hillary. But why wait two months? Should we take it as nothing more than this being a coincidence with the fact that Hillary at the same time approved an effort by her campaign to tie Trump to Russia in order to divert attention from her email scandal. The alleged Russian hacking of DNC emails was front-page news around the world by June 15. Why did it take Downer four more weeks to comprehend the dire implications of Papadopoulus's intoxicated ramblings? Papadopoulos disputes Downer's account. Yet, per Mueller, this was one more event justifying the Russian interference meme.

It was Downer who told the FBI of Papodopoulos' comments, which became one of the "driving factors that led the FBI to open an investigation in July 2016 into Russia's attempts to disrupt the election and whether any of President Trump's associates conspired," The Times reported.

Downer, a long-time Aussie chum of Bill and Hillary Clinton, had been on Hakluyt's advisory board since 2008. Officially, he had to resign his Hakluyt role in 2014, but his informal connections continued uninterrupted, the News Corp. Australian Network reported in a January 2016 exclusive:

But it can be revealed Mr. Downer has still been attending client conferences and gatherings of the group, including a client cocktail soirée at the Orangery at Kensington Palace a few months ago.

His attendance at that event is understood to have come days after he also attended a two-day country retreat at the invitation of the group, which has been involved in a number of corporate spy scandals in recent times.

The Clinton Plot, aided and abetted by the CIA and the FBI, to destroy Donald Trump continues to chug along. But it is no longer avoiding scrutiny. The truth is coming out, albeit slowly. But this latest revelation should be considered in the context of news that John Durham also is taking a fresh look at the criminal conduct of the Clinton Foundation. I do not think these matters are unrelated.


blue peacock , 29 September 2020 at 08:41 PM

"..Russian intelligence analysis alleging that US Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had approved a campaign plan to stir up a scandal against US Presidential candidate Donald Trump by tying him to Putin and the Russians' hacking of the DNC."

Larry,

So what analysis did the US IC have not just in the Obama administration but also in the Trump administration? Why didn't they get the intel on Hillary's plan?

All Trump appointees were in place by early 2017 - AG, DAG, FBI & CIA Director, DNI. Is the story now that the Russian IC knew about Hillary's plan but the Trump IC did not?

fakebot , 29 September 2020 at 09:15 PM

A well earned victory lap. It looks like Trump finally got some people who were willing to go there.

In saying that, in the past, or at least immediately after he assumed office, he was reluctant to go after Hillary. And I think she has too much dirt on other people, too much leverage to be put down.

I like this direction and I hope to see something happen.

BTW, Trump is killing the debate. Killing it.

Larry C Johnson , 29 September 2020 at 10:48 PM

Blue Peacock
The fact that this was hidden is further evidence that the Deep State was hiding this info and trying to suppress it. The Russian meme is bullshit. What I mean by that is the narrative that Trump was colluding with the Russians. He wasn't. It was a fabricated narrative and the evidence was being withheld. If Trump interfered in trying to release that info they were going to use it as evidence of "obstruction of justice."

James Lung , 29 September 2020 at 11:37 PM

Good News, Mr. Johnson. Politico reports that Ratcliffe duped by Russian Disinformation. Source: SSCI. Warner and his succubus Richard Burr investigated the matter. Nothing to see. Russian disinformation. Nothing to see here.

Larry C Johnson , 29 September 2020 at 11:41 PM

James,
Appreciate your humor. Politico is a disgrace. Ignore reality and whistle past the graveyard. We'll see if the Little Old Lady from South Carolina finds his testicles tomorrow and presses the issue with Jimmy Comey. But facts are facts. There is zero evidence that the Russians hacked the DNC.

Deap , 30 September 2020 at 01:00 AM

I recall Comey reporting he took a disturbing "letter" he had received to Loretta Lynch, when he was agonizing over either (1) disclosing the Carlos Danger Weiner emails or (2) the fake "exoneration" over the original Clinton email debacle.

Can't remember which event. . I believe Comey explained to Lunch, see what i am up against?

Lynch apparently only gave Comey a very jaundiced eye, and made no comment. So Comey went ahead and did what he did on his own -either (1) re-open the Weiner emails; or (2) go forward with the pre-judged "exoneration". (Memory fritz here)

Does this ring a bell? Was this Clinton instigated Trump Russia hoax claim in the "letter" to Comey? Did this have anything to do with Bill Clinton's "random" tarmac meeting with Lynch in this same time frame?

The tarmac Lynch meeting would have coincided with the "exoneration" move by Comey.

PS, thanks for keeping us on top of this still very evolving and breaking story - 3.5 years later. Way too many loose ends that have not yet come together, but odd events when put into relationship with other later disclosures help clear the fog.

Deap , 30 September 2020 at 01:23 AM

......."
" 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," he (Radcliffe) wrote.........

From the net.

Fred , 30 September 2020 at 07:38 AM

James,

It gets better, Facebook labels the DNI's letter as false information, and it only took them an hour to do so. Of course they turned it over to CNN's former reporter Alan Duke, Editor-in-Chief & co-founder of "Lead Stories".

turcopolier , 30 September 2020 at 09:41 AM

Larry

Congratulations on your early discernment of the centrality of the Clinton Group in this conspiracy. What was the date of your first piece on this? I would like to re-publish it.

J , 30 September 2020 at 10:08 AM

Larry, Colonel,

It's seems that every time that investigation/prosecution of those involved in the Seth Rich murder is brought up, D.C. looks and runs the other way as fast as possible. What do you think is going on? Was Rich one more of the Clinton Group's body count?

james , 30 September 2020 at 11:52 AM

larry - ditto pats comment to you... you have been consistent and informative in all of this reporting... thanks..

Diana Croissant , 30 September 2020 at 12:04 PM

Larry,

Yes, you DO deserve a victory lap. It's too bad that your right to a victory lap is now confirmed so much later than it should have been. We could have had saved lots and lots of time and newsprint if others had listened earlier. D.C. really is full of swamp gas that the truth is often clouded over and ignored for a long time.

So much time wasted and so much in the way of tax payors' money spent over the years only to have this finally confirmed years later. My greatest wish would be that we never have to hear a word from HRC ever again.

Thanks for taking "no quarter" on the perpetrators of this attempt to subvert our government.

j. casey , 30 September 2020 at 12:21 PM

"[A]betted by the CIA and the FBI" and legions of MSM types tripping over each other to get their daggers bloody. If indictments go out (a big "if") the people coordinating the MSM should be served, too.

Mike46 , 30 September 2020 at 03:31 PM

Fred wrote:

"It gets better, Facebook labels the DNI's letter as false information, and it only took them an hour to do so. Of course they turned it over to CNN's former reporter Alan Duke, Editor-in-Chief & co-founder of "Lead Stories". "

The burden of proof is on your side. A letter is not proof. Anyone can write one.

Show the evidence. Time to put up or shut up.

[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.

Like this story? Share it with a friend!

[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

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1311027674270359558&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fus-intelligence-investigated-hillary-clinton-over-alleged-plan-smear-trump-russia&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-1&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1311019881039618049&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fus-intelligence-investigated-hillary-clinton-over-alleged-plan-smear-trump-russia&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-2&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1311027649322520576&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fus-intelligence-investigated-hillary-clinton-over-alleged-plan-smear-trump-russia&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px

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.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-3&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1311059984982175745&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fus-intelligence-investigated-hillary-clinton-over-alleged-plan-smear-trump-russia&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px

me title=

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-4&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1311056956023595009&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fus-intelligence-investigated-hillary-clinton-over-alleged-plan-smear-trump-russia&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px
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

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-5&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1311015809284820995&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fus-intelligence-investigated-hillary-clinton-over-alleged-plan-smear-trump-russia&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-6&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1311015814414430213&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fus-intelligence-investigated-hillary-clinton-over-alleged-plan-smear-trump-russia&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-7&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1311015827567775747&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fus-intelligence-investigated-hillary-clinton-over-alleged-plan-smear-trump-russia&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px

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

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-8&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1311021129981734912&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fus-intelligence-investigated-hillary-clinton-over-alleged-plan-smear-trump-russia&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px NEVER MISS THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST

ZEROHEDGE DIRECTLY TO YOUR INBOX

Receive a daily recap featuring a curated list of must-read stories.

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.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-9&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=862801658132254720&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fus-intelligence-investigated-hillary-clinton-over-alleged-plan-smear-trump-russia&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px

me name=

[Sep 29, 2020] US intel referred Clinton campaign to FBI, alleging it concocted Russia collusion story

Sep 29, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

ET AL September 29, 2020 at 12:17 pm

JustTheNews.com : US intel referred Clinton campaign to FBI, alleging it concocted Russia collusion story
https://justthenews.com/accountability/russia-and-ukraine-scandals/us-intel-referred-clinton-campaign-fbi-alleging-it

US intelligence believed Clinton plot to 'stir up a scandal' was a 'means of distracting the public from her use of a private mail server.'

"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," Ratcliffe wrote Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Lindsey Graham. "The IC does not know the accuracy of this allegation or the extent to which the Russian intelligence analysis may reflect exaggeration or fabrication
####

The chronology of events supports something like this. It seems to me t that when it was evident that t-Rump might win the election, the Dems prepared the ground for a 'poison pill' to leave behind. Ultimately this is what O-Bomber signed off when t-Rump won. What this does tell us is that the Dems have become as well verse in the black arts of political sabotage at least as well as what the Reps have done since the 1990s and onwards.

This is the basis of the current undeclared civil war in America. It was driven from the top down by corrupt elites who never imagined that it would gain traction below ground as globalization would cement the West's Fukuyamiyan superioritiy in to the foreseeable future. Then there was 9/11, 2008 and a further self-made quagmire in more sensless Do Something interventions around the world.

ET AL September 29, 2020 at 12:25 pm

The funny thing here is now the Repubs are trying to spin it that Putin was actually trying to hurt t-Rump! What's thre phrase, a day late and a dollar short ?

[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] Steele Dossier sub-source was subject of FBI counterintelligence probe

And why Brennan still walks free ?
Sep 29, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

ET AL September 25, 2020 at 3:41 am

TheHill.com : Steele Dossier sub-source was subject of FBI counterintelligence probe
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/518138-steele-dossier-sub-source-was-subject-of-fbi-counterintelligence-probe

The detail was previously redacted from a footnote in Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz's 2019 report on four Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court warrant applications

the investigation was opened "based on information by the FBI indicating that the Primary Sub-source may be a threat to national security." The investigation was closed in 2011 and not reopened.
####

I had assumed that anyone of Russian origin who is in contact with certain American officials/agencies is automatically probed. Not much of a surprise.

[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 26, 2020] Steele Dossier Sub-Source Was Subject of FBI Counter-Intel Probe

That the Steele dossier was potentially based on the words of a Russian spy should have been a red flag against its use. It seems that the FBI had not informed the FISA court about the dubious sourcing of the dossier allegations.
Igor Danchenko, the premier sub-source for the Steele dossier, had earlier worked for the Democrat affiliate Brookings Institute:
Notable quotes:
"... The American Conservative ..."
"... National Review ..."
Sep 26, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

New information strikes the strongest blow yet at the foundations of the Russian collusion narrative. April 4, 2019: A protestor outside the White House demanding the release of the full Mueller Report. (By bakdc/Shutterstock)

SEPTEMBER 25, 2020

|

1:34 PM

DECLAN LEARY

In a September 24th letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Attorney General Bill Barr revealed that the "primary sub-source" for the Steele dossier was the subject of an FBI counterintelligence investigation in 2009. The source's Russian ties had been called into question, and the individual was considered a possible national security threat, according to Attorney General Barr's letter. This sub-source has elsewhere been identified as Russian national Igor Danchenko.

This latest revelation in the Russiagate saga lands just over a month before the election, chipping away further at one of the main lines of criticism that many on the left have leveled against President Trump -- and bolstering suggestions from the president's own camp that the FBI and other executive agencies engaged in substantial misconduct during the transition period in 2016. Allegations contained in the Steele dossier justified FISA warrants against Trump campaign advisor Carter Page and inspired many of the collusion claims that have been floated in the four years since Trump's election victory.

https://lockerdome.com/lad/13045197114175078?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13045197114175078-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theamericanconservative.com&rid=www.theamericanconservative.com&width=838

The attorney general's letter attributes the finding to a now-declassified footnote in the inspector general's report on the dubious FISA warrants. The footnote reports that the individual later identified as Christopher Steele's primary source was under FBI investigation from 2009 to 2011; the investigation was terminated because the subject "had apparently left the United States."

The FBI found that Danchenko had been in contact with two known Russian intelligence officers in 2005 and 2006. In his exchanges with one of these contacts, the Steele sub-source openly expressed his desire to join the Russian diplomatic service. All of this was known to the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane team as early as December 2016 -- five months before Robert Mueller was even appointed to investigate collusion charges originating from Danchenko.

A few other interesting details:

Specifically, the FBI received reporting indicating a research fellow for an influential foreign policy advisor in the Obama Administration was at a work-related event in late 2008 when they were approached by another employee of the think tank ("the employee"). The employee reportedly indicated that if the two individuals at the table "did get a job in the government and had access to classified information" and wanted "to make a little extra money," the employee knew some people to whom they could speak. According to the research fellow, there was no pretext to the conversation; the employee had not been invited to the table

And if that weren't enough, "one interviewee did note that the Primary Sub-source persistently asked about the interviewee's knowledge of a particular military vessel." Real subtle there, Igor.

me title=

https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.411.1_en.html#goog_956560325 Ad ends in 52s Next Video × Next Video J.d. Vance Remarks On A New Direction For Pro-worker, Pro-family Conservatism, Tac Gala, 5-2019 Cancel Autoplay is paused

It now seems likely that the panic about foreign influence which swept over our politics for four years rested on the word of not just a Russian spy, but the worst Russian spy of all time. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Declan Leary is the Collegiate Network Fellow at The American Conservative and a graduate of John Carroll University. His work has been published at National Review , Crisis, and elsewhere.

[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] New Documents Further Unveil Obama's Anti-Trump Campaign

Notable quotes:
"... In pretending to be the statesman to bring China to heel, this gangster of a statesman manifested the loss of diplomatic skill almost for good. ..."
"... The scheme smells of rotten fish and there's an attempt to deflect attention from the real problem which centers on a corrupt 'secret society' of jurists. The right waves its hands in our faces while the left plunges the knives in our backs. Who are Donald Trump's handlers? ..."
Sep 25, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

A number of recent document releases shine new lights on 'Russiagate'. That conspiracy theory, peddled by the Obama administration, the Democratic Party aligned media and 'deep state' actors opposed to President Trump, alleged that Trump was in cahoots with Russia. The disinformation campaign had the purpose of sabotaging his presidency.

To some extend it has worked as intended. But due to the legal investigation of the whole affair much more is now known about those who conspired against Trump. Some of them are likely to end up in legal jeopardy.

Some of those are the agents under FBI director Comey who used the easily debunked Steele dossier, paid for by the Democratic party, to gain a FISA court warrants that allowed them to spy on the Trump campaign. It now turns out that the main source for the dossier they used was a shady actor who the FBI had earlier investigated for an alleged connection to Russian intelligence:

The primary sub-source for the Steele dossier was the subject of an earlier counterintelligence investigation by the FBI, and those facts were known to the Crossfire Hurricane team as early as December 2016, according to newly released records from the Justice Department that were first reported by CBS News.

The timing matters because the dossier was first used two months earlier, in October 2016, to help secure a surveillance warrant for former Trump campaign aide Carter Page, and then used in three subsequent surveillance renewals.

"Between May 2009 and March 2011, the FBI maintained an investigation into the individual who later would be identified as Christopher Steele's Primary Sub-source," the two page FBI memo states. "The FBI commenced this investigation based on information by the FBI indicating that the Primary Sub-source may be a threat to national security."

That the Steele dossier was potentially based on the words of a Russian spy should have been a red flag against its use. It seems that the FBI had not informed the FISA court about the dubious sourcing of the dossier allegations.

Igor Danchenko, the premier sub-source for the Steele dossier, had earlier worked for the Democrat affiliate Brookings Institute:

Danchenko worked at the time as a Russia analyst for the Brookings Institution, a prominent liberal foreign policy think tank.

An employee of the think tank said that another employee, seemingly Danchenko, told others that if they got jobs in the government and obtained classified security clearances, they might be put them in touch with people so they could "make a little extra money."

"The coworker did express suspicion of the employee and had questioned the possibility that the employee might actually be a Russian spy," the FBI memo says.

Danchenko may or may not have been a Russian spy. But the fact the FBI had once opened a full counter-intelligence investigation of him which was never concluded shines a very bad light on the dossier peddlers.

Shortly before Trump was inaugurated the Obama administration released an 'Intelligence Community Assessment', concocted by hand-selected agents under CIA director John Brennan, that claimed that Russia hade preferred Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton. That had never made sense. Clinton was a well known factor to the Kremlin while Trump was a wild card that potentially would cause chaos - which is what he ended up doing. It only now turns out that several CIA analysts had come to that conclusion but that there thinking was excluded from the published analysis :

Former CIA Director John Brennan personally edited a crucial section of the intelligence report on Russian interference in the 2016 election and assigned a political ally to take a lead role in writing it after career analysts disputed Brennan's take that Russian leader Vladimir Putin intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump clinch the White House , according to two senior U.S. intelligence officials who have seen classified materials detailing Brennan's role in drafting the document.

The explosive conclusion Brennan inserted into the report was used to help justify continuing the Trump-Russia "collusion" investigation, which had been launched by the FBI in 2016. It was picked up after the election by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who in the end found no proof that Trump or his campaign conspired with Moscow.

The Obama administration publicly released a declassified version of the report -- known as the "Intelligence Community Assessment on Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent Elections (ICA)" -- just two weeks before Trump took office, casting a cloud of suspicion over his presidency. Democrats and national media have cited the report to suggest Russia influenced the 2016 outcome and warn that Putin is likely meddling again to reelect Trump.

The ICA is a key focus of U.S. Attorney John Durham's ongoing investigation into the origins of the "collusion" probe. He wants to know if the intelligence findings were juiced for political purposes.

Around the same time the ICA was written FBI agents involved in the anti-Trump investigation were messaging each other about Russiagate issues. A new release of parts of their conversations is quite damaging :

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents tasked by fired former Director James Comey to take down Donald Trump during and after the 2016 election were so concerned about the agency's potentially illegal behavior that they purchased liability insurance to protect themselves less than two weeks before Trump was inaugurated president, previously hidden FBI text messages show. The explosive new communications and internal FBI notes were disclosed in federal court filings today from Sidney Powell, the attorney who heads Michael Flynn's legal defense team.
...
The new disclosures made by DOJ also show that the FBI used so-called national security letters (NSLs) to spy on Flynn's finances. Unlike traditional subpoenas, which require judicial review and approval before authorities can seize an innocent person's property and information, NSLs are never independently reviewed by courts. One of the agents noted in a text message that the NSLs were just being used as a pretext by FBI leadership to buy time to find dirt on Flynn after the first investigation of him yielded no derogatory information.
...
In one series of texts sent the same day as the infamous Jan. 5 Oval Office meeting between Obama, Biden, Comey, Sally Yates, and Susan Rice , one agent admits that "Trump was right" when he tweeted that the FBI was delaying his briefings as incoming president so they could cook up evidence against him. As The Federalist first reported last May, that Jan. 5 meeting was the key to understanding the entire anti-Trump operation run out of Obama's FBI.

"The 'Intelligence' briefing on so-called 'Russian hacking' was delayed until Friday, perhaps more time needed to build a case," Trump tweeted on January 3. "Very strange!"

Brennan's 'Intelligence Community Assessment' was published on January 5. The White House round also led to a renewal of the investigation of Trump's incoming National Security Advisor General Michael Flynn. That investigation, codenamed 'razor', had had no results and was supposed to be closed. The FBI agents did not like the White House plans at all:

"So razor is going to stay open???" an agent wrote on Jan. 5.

"[Y]ep," another FBI agent responded. "[C]rimes report being drafted."

"F," the first agent wrote back.

"[W]hat's the word on how [Obama's] briefing went?" one agent asked, referring to the Jan. 5 meeting.

"Dont know but people here are scrambling for info to support certain things and its a mad house," an FBI agent responded.

"[J]esus," an agent wrote back. "[T]rump was right. [S]till not put together . why do we do this to ourselves. [W]hat is wrong with these people[?]

Last but not least the Durham investigation into the FBI's operation against Trump released a protocol of an interview with an FBI agent who was involved in the investigation against General Flynn and in the later Mueller investigation against Trump:

A 13-page summary of an interview with Flynn case agent William Barnett, made public in a court filing by prosecutors just before midnight Thursday, [..] revealed that the veteran agent harbored deep doubts and skepticism about the merits of the investigation into Flynn's potential ties with Russia -- at least in its early stages -- and questioned the Mueller team's tactics in the broader probe of the Trump campaign's contacts with Russians, known as Crossfire Hurricane.

Though Barnett said he repeatedly expressed those doubts to colleagues and superiors -- and says he feared groupthink and a "get Trump" attitude was driving the investigation forward -- he continued to be included in the work of Mueller's attorneys during sensitive interviews.

All together those releases by the Justice Department and the new reports again demonstrate that there was no legit Russiagate and no reason to investigate the Trump campaign. It was all a conspiracy theory concocted to make it more difficult for Trump to pursue the policies he had advocated during his election campaign.

It was even more than that. Mike Whitney is right in calling it an illicit coup attempt. Obama, his éminence grise John Brennan, and all those willing minions who were part of it should be in jail.

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.

Posted by b on September 25, 2020 at 16:52 UTC | Permalink


steven t johnson , Sep 25 2020 17:25 utc | 1

The significance of the FBI opening a counterintelligence file on Danchenko based on one item of gossip depends entirely upon how many such files it opens on such evidence. The significance of the file staying open depends on how quickly the FBI closes such files. My knowledge, such as it is, is that the FBI is quick to open "investigations" on any evidence, including simple gossip and habitually leaves them open to provide an opening for later pursuit (i.e., a serious investigation) if it wishes. That is, the claim the source is tainted is very weak. The added conclusion that a tainted source cannot provide correct information means essentially no informant subject to a possible criminal charge should serve as motive for an investigation. This is an absurdity, indulged as special pleading for Trump. The argument reduces to, "Danchenko" is a Russian, thus may be a Russian spy. This kind of nonsense is what many Democrats rely on, ironically.

The claim that of course it would make no sense for Putin et al. to favor Trump because Clinton was a "known quantity" is shameless nonsense. If the quantity known is a relentless hostility, even the unknown Trump would promise the chance of a more favorable US foreign policy. There are two further points here. First, the tacit admission that Putin didn't get a favorable outcome from Trump concedes all claims about Trump's less warlike, more pacific foreign policy are more shameless nonsense. Second, the phony logic offered to defend Trump proves Trump has always had significant support in the so-called Deep State. Brennan may have had other motives in editing this BS out, but no one will ever prove it wasn't dropped because it was blatantly stupid pro-Trump twaddle.

Similarly, the breathless report of January 5 meeting ignores how James Comey, a man notorious for intervening in the election by announcing yet another nothingburger investigation into email servers, was part of the meeting. It simply was not a meeting of Obama conspirators. The indignant comments by disloyal FBI agents merely concedes again that the supposed Deep State conspiracy was also in favor of Trump. I have no idea why Deep State conspirators favoring Trump would buy liability insurance against being charged with conspiring *against* Trump. Pretending their actions were justified by the pro-Democratic Party faction of the Deep State could easily impel them to make things look better. I would really like to see the actual terms of the policy, though. I suspect it was meant to cover their asses if they were called out by their boss Comey for violating confidentiality, playing partisan politics on the job, all manner of illegal and immoral acts.

The inclusion of a vocal Trump defender in the Mueller investigation of Flynn ("at least in the early stages...") is not, *not,* *NOT,* an indication of hanky panky. It is evidence of an honest investigation. Though hardly conclusive evidence, trying to pretend it is proof of the opposite is a shameless perversion of reason.

Trumpery, Trumpery, Trumpery.

Even the seemingly high-minded conclusion about pushing real political alternatives to Trump's programs fails to merit respect. There is only a limited amount of disagreement on policy issues between Trump (and his Republic Party---not a democracy!---tail) and the Democratic Party. Trumpery about how there is a real difference of principle driving the Deep State conspiracy is unbelievable even when spouting more Trumpery.

steven t johnson , Sep 25 2020 17:33 utc | 2
PS Real evidence for Obama's anti-Trump campaign would be about how he encouraged Clinton to contest Trump's loss of the vote. She had vastly more ground for refusing to concede than Trump does. And unlike this BS, this anti-Trump campaign doesn't violate any laws or even regulations. It would even be a principled stand for majority rule. Every single person who upheld the legitimacy of minority rule because, Electoral College, is dedicated to Trump's legitimacy. Rube Goldberg conspiracy theories purporting to show Trump is a victim of the Deep State determined to fight his salvation of humanity are refuted by this alone.
David G , Sep 25 2020 17:36 utc | 3
The link at "excluded from the published analysis" does not work.
Josh , Sep 25 2020 17:36 utc | 4
True enough. Luckily for us, that was just the beginning of their increasingly bizzare behavior. It's been quite a show so far, and they haven't even finished figuring out how to hang this election yet...
More to come, surely.
Good article B.
Thanks again.
Jackrabbit , Sep 25 2020 17:37 utc | 5
b: "Obama's Anti-Trump Campaign"

LMFAO.

So we are to believe that Russia can't kill their targets and that the US Deep State can't prevent an unwanted "populist" from being President despite the ease of manipulating the USA money-driven selection of a President?

Really?

Well, it was NOT an "anti-Trump campaign". It was an anti-Russia campaign flavored with "Trump is a populist!" sweetener.

Because the US Deep State WANTED to initiate a new McCarthyism AND to elect MAGA Nationalist Trump.

Obama himself was a Deep-State approved faux populist Presidential stooge that conducted secret wars and betrayed his 'base' to advance the interests of the establishment. Trump is merely the Republican Obama.

<> <> <> <> <> <>

The US Presidency is the lynchpin of the Empire. No true "populist outsider" will EVER be allowed to occupy that office.

It's difficult to fathom why smart people can't see this.

!!

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.

NemesisCalling , Sep 25 2020 18:31 utc | 11
I have been reading and nodding in agreement with Mike Whitney since his work started showing up on counterpunch. Does counterpunch still feature his work? My guess is not. Mike Whitney is a full-blown unapologetic Trump-defender and has consistently and very clearly shown that the recent BLM and urban riots are entirely funded and sewn by Democratic-party alligned elite.

I'm glad b can agree with some things the above writer has put-forth. I wonder if b knows about the den of vipers brooding here at the bar, spouting off about white-supremacists and other fictions designed to obfuscate the clear and present danger to our duly-elected POTUS and to render his supporters as racist fascists.

I wish b would just come out and say it. There is a real difference btw the two options on Nov. 3. Yes, both parties are elites and not in any way to be given cart blanche with our trust, but only one party has proven that it has attempted to usurp our democracy, infiltrate and hijack and make partisan the checks and balances of our government and FBI, and call 50% of the population "deplorables."

My only question to the idiots still holding onto their noble quest of dethroning POTUS because he is immoral: what do you think will happen after? At some point it becomes imperative for you to think about that and wonder if DJT really is the only one standing btw the people and utter tyranny.

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"...

uncle tungsten , Sep 25 2020 20:37 utc | 20
Thank you H Schmatz and Ma Laoshi - clarifying material.

Meanwhile India Punchline has swallowed the entire stock of BLUE PILLS!

Oriental Voice , Sep 25 2020 20:40 utc | 21
Ma Laoshi @16:

Right on money, man! I can't help but chuckle and recall a quote from Agatha Christie's A Mirror Crack'd : "Yes, you can see her. You seem to-understand her very well." Here, change 'her' to 'him' and you pretty much summed up how Trump stumbling into that house on Penn Ave. and his antics in office since. In pretending to be the statesman to bring China to heel, this gangster of a statesman manifested the loss of diplomatic skill almost for good.

Chances are he stands a good chance of stumbling into the same office again in Nov. Heaven help the US of A in diplomacy for the next four years.

William Gruff , Sep 25 2020 20:46 utc | 22
Old and Grumpy @14: "What if the goal of 2016 election was to set up the 2020 American color revolution?"

But to what end? If you can control the outcome of the election sufficiently to pick the winner, then what point does a color revolution serve? You put a candidate in office just so that you can then remove him with a coup? This just injects tremendous expense and uncertainty into the management of the empire.

I realize that there are some who are deeply invested in the notion that the establishment wanted a Trump win, despite all of the opposition from them that Trump ended up facing, but it makes no sense. PNAC , the former roadmap for the empire, is now all but dead and the establishment is grudgingly falling in line behind the hail-mary play of a "Great Reset" . Most of the empire's proxies in Syria have been wiped out, the US influence in Libya is likewise mostly gone, and Myanmar is slipping away. Venezuela is still holding their own against the empire. The "Pivot to Asia" is spinning in place and going nowhere fast, and Russia and China are diplomatically outmaneuvering the US before the eyes of the rest of the world. This is definitely not where the elites wanted things to end up four years after 2016.

The efforts to foster a color revolution in the US are just signs of panicked desperation. It is not what they were aiming for in 2016.

Profk , Sep 25 2020 20:53 utc | 25
Yes, karlof1, ukraine and Syria are connected. Good point.
Curmudgeon , Sep 25 2020 21:29 utc | 26
In reply to vk | Sep 25 2020 19:59 utc | 18

Assuming your question is rhetorical, no it isn't. My question is whether or not the FISA court is culpable in this event. While we repeat the mantra that the FBI didn't inform the court about the dubious source, it is apparent to me the court failed in proper diligence. The scheme smells of rotten fish and there's an attempt to deflect attention from the real problem which centers on a corrupt 'secret society' of jurists. The right waves its hands in our faces while the left plunges the knives in our backs. Who are Donald Trump's handlers?

anonymous , Sep 25 2020 21:51 utc | 27
@NemesisCalling 11

"recent BLM and urban riots are entirely funded and sewn by Democratic-party alligned elite."

Prove it. Perhaps you're confusing the DNC BLM national organization withe the autonomous BLM actions in the streets. Two very different animals.

Your problem is that you still think the two parties are separate entities. There is only one party in this country, the Property Party, and it has two right wings, the Democrats and the Republicans.

"At some point it becomes imperative for you to think about that and wonder if DJT really is the only one standing btw the people and utter tyranny."

Only morons wonder about such things. No one here wants to read your delusional Qanon/MAGA bullshit.

[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. "

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1309465118795849730&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fget-trump-fbi-agents-mueller-team-says-flynn-case-was-politically-motivated-dead-end&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px

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."

about:blank

about:blank

me title=

"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.

NEVER MISS THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST

ZEROHEDGE DIRECTLY TO YOUR INBOX

Receive a daily recap featuring a curated list of must-read stories.

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.


ay_arrow

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.

play_arrow
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

play_arrow
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.

lay_arrow
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.

ay_arrow
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] Secret Report Exposes CIA's Brennan Overruled Dissenting Analysts Who Concluded Russia Favored Hillary by Paul Sperry

When intelligence honchos became politicians the shadow of Lavrentiy Beria emerge behind them. while politization of FBI create political police like Gestapo, politization of CIA is much more serious and dangerous. It creates really tight control over the country by shadow intelligence agency. In a sense CIA and the cornerstone of the "deep state"
Sep 25, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Paul Sperry via RealClearInvestigations.com,

Former CIA Director John Brennan personally edited a crucial section of the intelligence report on Russian interference in the 2016 election and assigned a political ally to take a lead role in writing it after career analysts disputed Brennan's take that Russian leader Vladimir Putin intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump clinch the White House, according to two senior U.S. intelligence officials who have seen classified materials detailing Brennan's role in drafting the document.

John Brennan, left, with Robert Mueller in 2013: The CIA director's explosive conclusion in the ICA helped justify continuing Trump-Russia "collusion" investigations, notably Mueller's probe as special counsel. AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews

The explosive conclusion Brennan inserted into the report was used to help justify continuing the Trump-Russia "collusion" investigation, which had been launched by the FBI in 2016. It was picked up after the election by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who in the end found no proof that Trump or his campaign conspired with Moscow.

The Obama administration publicly released a declassified version of the report -- known as the "Intelligence Community Assessment on Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent Elections (ICA)" -- just two weeks before Trump took office, casting a cloud of suspicion over his presidency. Democrats and national media have cited the report to suggest Russia influenced the 2016 outcome and warn that Putin is likely meddling again to reelect Trump.

The ICA is a key focus of U.S. Attorney John Durham's ongoing investigation into the origins of the "collusion" probe. He wants to know if the intelligence findings were juiced for political purposes.

RealClearInvestigations has learned that one of the CIA operatives who helped Brennan draft the ICA, Andrea Kendall-Taylor, financially supported Hillary Clinton during the campaign and is a close colleague of Eric Ciaramella, identified last year by RCI as the Democratic national security "whistleblower" whose complaint led to Trump's impeachment, ending in Senate acquittal in January.

John Durham: He is said to be using the long-hidden report on the drafting of the ICA as a road map in his investigation of whether the Obama administration politicized intelligence. Department of Justice via AP

me title=

The two officials said Brennan, who openly supported Clinton during the campaign, excluded conflicting evidence about Putin's motives from the report , despite objections from some intelligence analysts who argued Putin counted on Clinton winning the election and viewed Trump as a "wild card."

The dissenting analysts found that Moscow preferred Clinton because it judged she would work with its leaders, whereas it worried Trump would be too unpredictable. As secretary of state, Clinton tried to "reset" relations with Moscow to move them to a more positive and cooperative stage, while Trump campaigned on expanding the U.S. military, which Moscow perceived as a threat.

These same analysts argued the Kremlin was generally trying to sow discord and disrupt the American democratic process during the 2016 election cycle. They also noted that Russia tried to interfere in the 2008 and 2012 races, many years before Trump threw his hat in the ring.

"They complained Brennan took a thesis [that Putin supported Trump] and decided he was going to ignore dissenting data and exaggerate the importance of that conclusion, even though they said it didn't have any real substance behind it," said a senior U.S intelligence official who participated in a 2018 review of the spycraft behind the assessment, which President Obama ordered after the 2016 election.

He elaborated that the analysts said they also came under political pressure to back Brennan's judgment that Putin personally ordered "active measures" against the Clinton campaign to throw the election to Trump, even though the underlying intelligence was "weak."

Adam Schiff: Soon after the Democrat took control of the House Intelligence Committee, its review of the drafting of the intelligence community assessment was classified and locked in a Capitol basement safe. AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

The review, conducted by the House Intelligence Committee, culminated in a lengthy report that was classified and locked in a Capitol basement safe soon after Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff took control of the committee in January 2019.

The official said the committee spent more than 1,200 hours reviewing the ICA and interviewing analysts involved in crafting it, including the chief of Brennan's so-called "fusion cell," which was the interagency analytical group Obama's top spook stood up to look into Russian influence operations during the 2016 election.

Durham is said to be using the long-hidden report, which runs 50-plus pages, as a road map in his investigation of whether the Obama administration politicized intelligence while targeting the Trump campaign and presidential transition in an unprecedented investigation involving wiretapping and other secret surveillance.

The special prosecutor recently interviewed Brennan for several hours at CIA headquarters after obtaining his emails, call logs and other documents from the agency. Durham has also quizzed analysts and supervisors who worked on the ICA.

A spokesman for Brennan said that, according to Durham, he is not the target of a criminal investigation and "only a witness to events that are under review." Durham's office did not respond to requests for comment.

The senior intelligence official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, said former senior CIA political analyst Kendall-Taylor was a key member of the team that worked on the ICA. A Brennan protégé, she donated hundreds of dollars to Clinton's 2016 campaign, federal records show. In June, she gave $250 to the Biden Victory Fund.

Andrea Kendall-Taylor: A Brennan protégé, she donated hundreds of dollars to Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, and recently defended the ICA in a "60 Minutes" interview . "60 Minutes"/YouTube

Kendall-Taylor and Ciaramella entered the CIA as junior analysts around the same time and worked the Russia beat together at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. From 2015 to 2018, Kendall-Taylor was detailed to the National Intelligence Council, where she was deputy national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia. Ciaramella succeeded her in that position at NIC, a unit of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that oversees the CIA and the other intelligence agencies.

It's not clear if Ciaramella also played a role in the drafting of the January 2017 assessment. He was working in the White House as a CIA detailee at the time. The CIA declined comment.

Kendall-Taylor did not respond to requests for comment, but she recently defended the ICA as a national security expert in a CBS "60 Minutes" interview on Russia's election activities, arguing it was a slam-dunk case "based on a large body of evidence that demonstrated not only what Russia was doing, but also its intent. And it's based on a number of different sources, collected human intelligence, technical intelligence."

But the secret congressional review details how the ICA, which was hastily put together over 30 days at the direction of Obama intelligence czar James Clapper, did not follow longstanding rules for crafting such assessments. It was not farmed out to other key intelligence agencies for their input, and did not include an annex for dissent, among other extraordinary departures from past tradecraft.

Eric Ciaramella: The Democratic national security "whistleblower," whose complaint led to President Trump's impeachment, was a close colleague of Kendall-Taylor. It's not clear if Ciaramella also played a role in the drafting of the January 2017 assessment. whitehouse.gov

It did, however, include a two-page annex summarizing allegations from a dossier compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele. His claim that Putin had personally ordered cyberattacks on the Clinton campaign to help Trump win happened to echo the key finding of the ICA that Brennan supported. Brennan had briefed Democratic senators about allegations from the dossier on Capitol Hill.

"Some of the FBI source's [Steele's] reporting is consistent with the judgment in the assessment," stated the appended summary, which the two intelligence sources say was written by Brennan loyalists.

"The FBI source claimed, for example, that Putin ordered the influence effort with the aim of defeating Secretary Clinton, whom Putin 'feared and hated.' "

Steele's reporting has since been discredited by the Justice Department's inspector general as rumor-based opposition research on Trump paid for by the Clinton campaign. Several allegations have been debunked, even by Steele's own primary source, who confessed to the FBI that he ginned the rumors up with some of his Russian drinking buddies to earn money from Steele.

Former FBI Director James Comey told the Justice Department's watchdog that the Steele material, which he referred to as the "Crown material," was incorporated with the ICA because it was "corroborative of the central thesis of the assessment "The IC analysts found it credible on its face," Comey said.

Christopher Steele: His dossier allegations were summarized in a two-page annex to the ICA, but dissenting views about the Kremlin's favoring Hillary Clinton over Trump were excluded. Victoria Jones/PA via AP

The officials who have read the secret congressional report on the ICA dispute that. They say a number of analysts objected to including the dossier, arguing it was political innuendo and not sound intelligence.

"The staff report makes it fairly clear the assessment was politicized and skewed to discredit Trump's election," said the second U.S. intelligence source, who also requested anonymity.

Kendall-Taylor denied any political bias factored into the intelligence.

"To suggest that there was political interference in that process is ridiculous," she recently told NBC News.

Her boss during the ICA's drafting was CIA officer Julia Gurganus. Clapper tasked Gurganus, then detailed to NIC as its national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia, with coordinating the production of the ICA with Kendall-Taylor.

They, in turn, worked closely with NIC's cybersecurity expert Vinh Nguyen, who had been consulting with Democratic National Committee cybersecurity contractor CrowdStrike to gather intelligence on the alleged Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee computer system. (CrowdStrike's president has testified he couldn't say for sure Russian intelligence stole DNC emails, according to recently declassified transcripts.)

Durham's investigators have focused on people who worked at NIC during the drafting of the ICA, according to recent published reports.

No Input From CIA's 'Russia House'

The senior official who identified Kendall-Taylor said Brennan did not seek input from experts from CIA's so-called Russia House, a department within Langley officially called the Center for Europe and Eurasia, before arriving at the conclusion that Putin meddled in the election to benefit Trump.

"It was not an intelligence assessment. It was not coordinated in the [intelligence] community or even with experts in Russia House," the official said. "It was just a small group of people selected and driven by Brennan himself and Brennan did the editing."

The official noted that National Security Agency analysts also dissented from the conclusion that Putin personally sought to tilt the scale for Trump. One of only three agencies from the 17-agency intelligence community invited to participate in the ICA, the NSA had a lower level of confidence than the CIA and FBI, specifically on that bombshell conclusion.

The official said the NSA's departure was significant because the agency monitors the communications of Russian officials overseas. Yet it could not corroborate Brennan's preferred conclusion through its signals intelligence. Former NSA Director Michael Rogers, who has testified that the conclusion about Putin and Trump "didn't have the same level of sourcing and the same level of multiple sources," reportedly has been cooperating with Durham's probe.

The second senior intelligence official, who has read a draft of the still-classified House Intelligence Committee review, confirmed that career intelligence analysts complained that the ICA was tightly controlled and manipulated by Brennan, who previously worked in the Obama White House.

N

Brennan's tight control over the process of drafting the ICA belies public claims the assessment reflected the "consensus of the entire intelligence community." His unilateral role also raises doubts about the objectivity of the intelligence.

In his defense, Brennan has pointed to a recent Senate Intelligence Committee report that found "no reason to dispute the Intelligence Community's conclusions."

"The ICA correctly found the Russians interfered in our 2016 election to hurt Secretary Clinton and help the candidacy of Donald Trump," argued committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va.

"Our review of the highly classified ICA and underlying intelligence found that this and other conclusions were well-supported," Warner added.

"There is certainly no reason to doubt that the Russians' success in 2016 is leading them to try again in 2020, and we must not be caught unprepared."

Brennan, ex-Obama homeland security adviser Lisa Monaco and ex-national intelligence director James Clapper, interviewed by Nicolle Wallace of MSNBC, right, at a 2018 Aspen Instutute event. Aspen Institute

However, the report completely blacks out a review of the underlying evidence to support the Brennan-inserted conclusion, including an entire section labeled "Putin Ordered Campaign to Influence U.S. Election." Still, it suggests elsewhere that conclusions are supported by intelligence with "varying substantiation" and with "differing confidence levels." It also notes "concerns about the use of specific sources."

Adding to doubts, the committee relied heavily on the closed-door testimony of former Obama homeland security adviser Lisa Monaco, a close Brennan ally who met with Brennan and his "fusion team" at the White House before and after the election. The extent of Monaco's role in the ICA is unclear.

Brennan last week pledged he would cooperate with two other Senate committees investigating the origins of the Russia "collusion" investigation. The Senate judiciary and governmental affairs panels recently gained authority to subpoena Brennan and other witnesses to testify.

Several Republican lawmakers and former Trump officials are clamoring for the declassification and release of the secret House staff report on the ICA.

"It's dynamite," said former CIA analyst Fred Fleitz, who reviewed the staff report while serving as chief of staff to then-National Security Adviser John Bolton.

"There are things in there that people don't know," he told RCI.

"It will change the dynamic of our understanding of Russian meddling in the election."

However, according to the intelligence official who worked on the ICA review, Brennan ensured that it would be next to impossible to declassify his sourcing for the key judgment on Putin. He said Brennan hid all sources and references to the underlying intelligence behind a highly sensitive and compartmented wall of classification.

He explained that he and Clapper created two classified versions of the ICA – a highly restricted Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information version that reveals the sourcing, and a more accessible Top Secret version that omits details about the sourcing.

Unless the classification of compartmented findings can be downgraded, access to Brennan's questionable sourcing will remain highly restricted, leaving the underlying evidence conveniently opaque, the official said.

[Sep 25, 2020] 'They were trying to do a coup!'- Trump says after FBI docs reveal agents bought liability insurance during Flynn probe -- RT USA News

Sep 25, 2020 | www.rt.com

US President Donald Trump said the FBI targeted him for a "coup" after newly released documents showed that federal agents bought liability insurance over fears their handling of the Trump-Russia probe could lead to legal trouble.

The new documents were disclosed in a federal court filing on Thursday by Sidney Powell, defense attorney for former Trump adviser Michael Flynn. Seizing on the new release, the president ran a victory lap at a campaign rally in Florida, telling the crowd the FBI had been "caught" attempting a "coup."

"Today a trove of text messages was released from FBI agents involved in the Russian witch hunt. You gotta see this," Trump said, reading out a headline from the Federalist .

These people are scum. They were trying to do a coup. And we've caught them before that, we caught them spying on our nation Never forget: they are coming after me because I'm fighting for you.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1309235056934875136&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fusa%2F501633-trump-fbi-documents-insurance%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px

The documents, which largely consist of text messages between unnamed federal agents, reveal that both FBI and CIA personnel purchased professional liability insurance days before Trump took office, fearing that illicit media leaks at the Department of Justice could result in lawsuits against many involved in the first leg of the Trump-Russia investigation – then known by its FBI codename, "Crossfire Hurricane."

"We all went and purchased professional liability insurance," one agent said in a text on January 10, 2017, some 10 days before Trump's inauguration.

"Holy crap. All the analysts too?" another agent said, prompting the first to reply "Yep. All the folks at the Agency as well" – an apparent reference to the CIA.

ALSO ON RT.COM New evidence shows FBI knew General Flynn was not 'agent of Russia' but prosecuted him anyway

When the first agent was asked who might be filing lawsuits, he responded: "Haha, who knows I think [the] concern when we got it was that there was a big leak at DOJ and the [New York Times] among others was going to do a piece."

The thought was if that piece comes out, and Jan 20th comes around the new [attorney general] might have some questions then yada yada yada we all get screwed.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-1&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=true&id=1309229683184152580&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fusa%2F501633-trump-fbi-documents-insurance%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px

The messages also indicate that the FBI's separate investigation into Michael Flynn, then Trump's national security advisor, was kept alive long after senior figures in the bureau ordered the probe closed, finding no "derogatory information" on Flynn. While one agent expressed relief in early November 2016 that the Flynn probe – named "Crossfire Razor" – was ordered shut, that order had been overturned by January 2017, bureau personnel said in the messages.

Other texts show agents discussing the use of National Security Letters (NSLs) as a pretext to 'buy time' and drag out the investigation, allowing the FBI to continue digging into Flynn's finances with little judicial oversight, despite prior "traces" turning up "nothing."

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-2&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=true&id=1309231764821471234&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fusa%2F501633-trump-fbi-documents-insurance%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px

Flynn was forced to resign as national security advisor in 2017 and later charged for misleading the FBI about his contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, with whom he was accused of discussing US sanctions on Russia prior to Trump's swearing-in as president. The DOJ has since ordered Flynn's case closed after prior document dumps revealed misconduct at the bureau, Flynn's judge has refused to comply with the order.

ALSO ON RT.COM EXPLOSIVE transcripts show Flynn wanted to work with Russia against ISIS, Kislyak warned Trump 'Russiagate' was targeting HIM

Among other revelations, the new messages also show that some agents believed FBI officials running the Trump-Russia investigation were biased in favor of then-Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, even hoping she would win the 2016 race.

"Doing all this election research – I think some of these guys want a Clinton presidency," the agent said, prompting another to respond that "they seem to respect that they know what they are gonna get."

"Haha, really. Instead of a wild card like Trump," the first agent said.

The FBI documents were not the only blockbuster publication on Thursday. A new DOJ memo made public by Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) suggests the FBI was aware that a primary source for Christopher Steele – a former British intelligence operative hired by the Clinton team to compile dirt on Trump in an infamous "dossier" – was the subject of a counter-intelligence investigation in 2009. Despite deeming the source a potential Russian spy, the bureau relied on Steele's dossier to obtain warrants to spy on the Trump campaign, disregarding the questionable origins of his so-called intelligence.

ALSO ON RT.COM FBI used Steele Dossier to spy on Trump, KNOWING its primary sub-source was a suspected 'Russian agent,' DOJ reveals

Like this story? Share it with a friend!

[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.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1309272483204419586&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fusa%2F501631-steele-dossier-subsource-investigation-fbi%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px

"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.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-1&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1309289221161590785&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fusa%2F501631-steele-dossier-subsource-investigation-fbi%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=false&id=1309290446640775170&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fusa%2F501631-steele-dossier-subsource-investigation-fbi%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px

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.

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!

[Sep 24, 2020] Why Crowdstrike's Russian Hacking Story Fell Apart- Say Hello to Fancy Bear Washington's Blog

Sep 24, 2020 | washingtonsblog.com

[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
Share | Print This

undefined Twitter Facebook Email Pinterest Reddit
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 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] 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 21, 2020] Stephen F. Cohen- The Ukrainian Crisis - It s not All Putin s Fault

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... There is no chance of mending relations and even less of achieving some security partnership between US and Russia. The rift will only keep on widening as US political and financial elites are growing increasingly desperate (and thus even more aggressive) while Russia abandons its attempts to please the haters and moves its focus on to its future prospective partners who have genuine interest in cooperating with Russia and achieving common goals.... including opposing the common enemy if you like! Well at least I hope so: the only reason why US wish to get closer to Russia would be to stab it in the back... one more time! ..."
Sep 21, 2020 | www.youtube.com

Gerry Cooney , 3 years ago (edited)

Speaking as an Independent, I say that our country, the USA, has engineered past confilcts and wars in order to feed the military industrial complex. Not so much that it results in a nuke-shooting war, but in a regular non-nuke shooting war. The solution? Send the sons and daughters of the politicians into direct combat, every time they approve another war. That should keep things a bit more peaceful.

Playthell Benjamin , 3 years ago

Professor Cohen is this nation's most objective and therefore most valuable thinker on Russia! The charge that his views are "not patriotic" is a compliment rather than the insult they intended. A scholar's views are only valuable to the public and, more importantly, policy makers, if they are OBJECTIVE!!! Which is to say that he follows the FACTS wherever they lead!

Stratus Blue , 4 years ago

Any "discussion" with no mention of the supranational central bank cartel is intentional deceptive omission. The "brass ring" is forced use of petro-dollars. The central bank stock holders and bankers loaning all dollars into existence as national debt, do not care who owns land. They care who pays off national debts and interest on debt. Civil war is their racket. There are no sovereign nations. No genuine nations that create their medium of exchange publicly. No national people. Just participants in an extortion or its victims. The "Elite" collect on money they created as loans in their central banking accounts. All others are only human numbers assigned billing addresses.

Maria Schick , 4 years ago

Welcome to the New World Order ....where Multinational corporations rule & their profits are what are most important..... NOT nation states it's the 99.9% against the .01% and they use MSM propaganda & fear to control the DUMB masses thinking

Madaleine , 9 months ago

Global mafia in the background! Shut down funding cia ET Al

keepinitreal , 2 years ago

So infuriating that videos that carry the truth have 57k views, while nasty lying propaganda has millions!

SJ R , 4 years ago

I just discovered John Batchelor Show on which Cohen has a guest spot- I just was drawn to this man's thinking, probably because I had made up my mind about Russia during the Ukraine crises. Seeing the US has ruin every country we have gone into- I'm on Russia's side, especially where Russia and Ukraine has a history, on that side of the world.

Santos D , 4 years ago (edited)

38:49 - Apologies for the somewhat Utopian question here. I agree with everything Cohen has said, but regarding cause of jihadist terrorism ( ie implosion of the economies in the region), does it make sense to discuss primarily this game of terrorist whack a mole (bombing, invading and crushing Jihadist insurgencies)? Is there any point in talking about a pro active policy of recreating sustainable, stable economies in the region? What would that even look like?

Cezanne Monet , 11 hours ago

Brilliant scholar. RIP Prof Cohen. Watch if you want to understand today's geopolitical situation. The whole situation.

No Names , 4 years ago (edited)

Not very many average Americans would be able to easily access and watch this. Average Americans still consume mainly mainstream media. Too bad, because this lecture would have opened their eyes and have blown up their brain-contaminated minds by the CNN, the New York Times and alike.

Chris Bowers , 4 years ago

I agree wholeheartedly Loane. Have always been extremely impressed with and appreciative of Cohen's carefully & thoughtfully considered contribution. We in the US have gone a bit off the deep end when it comes to this deeply embedded belief in exceptionalism and superiority, and have been extremely rude to much of the rest of the world in the process. It amazes me how patient Russia has been with us, waiting for us to come around to a more sober understanding of the world we live in today. I have to conclude that what we are experiencing here in the US is a perennial phenomenon that comes with the end of all empires throughout history, the mission creep of over-extending resources and the big one, seemingly blind hubris.

M Ch , 4 years ago

There is no chance of mending relations and even less of achieving some security partnership between US and Russia. The rift will only keep on widening as US political and financial elites are growing increasingly desperate (and thus even more aggressive) while Russia abandons its attempts to please the haters and moves its focus on to its future prospective partners who have genuine interest in cooperating with Russia and achieving common goals.... including opposing the common enemy if you like! Well at least I hope so: the only reason why US wish to get closer to Russia would be to stab it in the back... one more time!

Raf Zam , 3 years ago (edited)

NATO'S reason to exist ended when the Warsaw Pact was demolished. It was created to confront the socialist Warsaw Pact but today ALL of the members of the pact are part of NATO, except Russia. So why is it still operating? Who are they confronting? They are a bunch of bureaucrats looking for a reason to stay employed in an organization that lost its excuse to be. However, their behavior has gone from increasing security to actually becoming a menace to trigger a nuclear war to destroy life on earth.

Donald Watts , 4 years ago

It will take a Republican President to turn our relationships with hostile nations around. For some irrational reasoning, the current administration refuses negotiation with it's enemies. Somehow this is going to create understanding. and a less dangerous world. I don't see a continuation of this Administrations policy anything but reckless . I am assuming this policy has been one determined through Clinton, and will remain so. Clinton has said on a number of occasions, it is the Obama Administration's policies that will be hers as well. As an ex cold warrior, who has spent a lot of time chasing Soviet boomers in the North Atlantic, I am not willing to gamble my children and grand children's lives . It is a dangerous and ego driven pissing match. Let us start talking , This administration and families can climb into their luxury nuclear bomb proof bunkers...... My family and most Americans don't have that luxury.

William Carr , 3 years ago

Dr. Cohen, so Putin gave the Northern Alliance to the USA after 911 to bludgeon Afghanistan for hiding Bin Laden? Paul Craig Robert, David Ray Griffin and a growing list of Americans believe 911 was a total bamboozle. If that is true which it looks increasingly like it was, does that mean Putin was playing along with the our Reichstag fire? What does that make Putin? NATO should have been totally remade after 1986, but it wasn't and we simply missed a huge opportunity not for worldwide U.S. hegemony, but for a new umbrella of security by super powers in alliance. Obviously, the proliferation of ethno-religious groups was in Putin's mind when he welcomed us into Afghanistan, but damn it man, tell people EXACTLY why we and the Russians want to be in the Golden Crescent besides the extraction of minerals.

[Sep 21, 2020] Stephen Cohen at the AJC 2017 Forum, about Russia and Terrorism

Highly recommended!
This was a really bright mind
Julia Ioffe is a joke -- she is essentially a typical "national security parasite" and of the level that surprisingly, is lower that Max Boor, although previously I thought this is impossible. Julia Ioffe is very typical of the anti-Russian thinking in the West.
Jun 23, 2017 | www.youtube.com

Stephen Cohen at the American Jewish Committee Forum 2017, about Russia and Terrorism. Full debate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0rtr...


alo1, 3 years ago

And again, Cohen smashed these government employers singlehandedly.

Drew Hunkins, 3 years ago

This incessant Russophobia constantly being trumpeted by the Washington militarist imperialists must stop. It's putting the world on the brink of nuclear war.

Stephen Cohen's a godsend along with a handful of the other intellectuals out there speaking and writing the truth that penetrates the miasma of disinformation, half-truths and exaggerations emanating from the state-corporate nexus in the American mass media.

Cohen, along with John Pilger, James Petras, Robert Parry, Michael Parenti, John Pilger, Eva Bartlett, Diana Johnstone and Paul Craig Roberts must be read widely in order for folks to get a grasp of where the Washington imperialist ruling class is driving the world.

mitrovdan, 3 years ago

at 25:40 he just destroys her totally. what a point he made, amazing!! "thank you professor" the guy on the left wants to end Cohen's carnage of the so called experts. Cohen made minced meat out of em. Fact after fact...stonewalled em both. Listen to her, ISIS doesn't have nuke's, she obviously doesn't have a clue.

MrWebster, 3 years ago

Cohen is always cogent and convincing. One area I wish some historian would look into is how "Russia-gate" is not echoing Cold War themes, but echoing themes from the German Nazis in particular their belief about a great Jewish conspiracy against Europe.

Even Putin recently remarked on all these accusations: "It reminds me of anti-Semitism, A dumb man who can't do anything would blame the Jews for everything." Look at how Putin is drawn and pictured on major outlets. The NYTimes blamed resistance to TPP on Putin.

The Russians like the Jews are behind every social problem. Popular culture shows and speaks of Russia in the same way Nazi propagandists wrote about Russia.

Undermining Western liberal democracies, Jews were compared to spiders catching people in the webs. Same with Putin. Pick up Hitler's speech after the invasion of the Soviet Union justifying it., Echos? Accidental rhetoric of conspiracies ?

DSCdaP, 3 years ago

"to look past a long list of transgressions and abuses..." this is what I absolutely hate about America, they are all so stupid and ignorant to their own countries misdeeds it is unbelievable, infuriating beyond belief. The US is currently fighting 7 wars simultaneously, which it all started itself under false pretences and hid the real reason beneath a thick layer of BS propaganda and misinformation.

The secession of Crimea is the least egregious event of the entire conflicts history. The EU and US have pumped billions of dollars into the coup which took place weeks before the Crimean referendum, on the 20th of February 2014, 2 weeks prior to that, an intercepted phone conversation between Victoria Nuland (Assistant Secretary of State of the United States to Europe) and Geoffrey Pyatt (US Ambassador to the Ukraine) was leaked on February 4th, 2014. In this phone conversation, they describe key positions within the Ukrainian government being filled by Klitshko and Yatz... fast forward a few weeks, who do we see? Klitsh and Yatz! It was the most obvious sponsored coup in history.

Putin snatched the Crimean peninsula from NATO, who wanted to seize Russias military harbour in Sevastopol (which the Russians have used to supply Syria, this was one and a half years before they entered the conflict directly, apart from being a very important strategic harbour in general), by suggesting a referendum to the local government and they accepted.

Why? Because they were ethnic Russians and knew who gained power in Kiev, the neo-Nazi, Bandera-worshipping OUN, which the US has nourished, supported and developed for the last 100 years within the Ukrainian territory. These Nazis hate Russians, they have a deep seeded hatred of all things Russian which has been indoctrinated and drilled into them by the CIA for decades, the first thing they did after seizing power was to demote the Russian language from the official list of languages of the Ukraine.

They have since honoured Ukrainian Nazi-collaborators from WWII by erecting statues, renaming streets, creating new holidays etc. This is just one example of US misinformation and propaganda, nothing they say accurately describes the truth, nothing, not one thing has it's bases in reality. Be it about Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and what have you, it's all lies and propaganda to mask their intentions.

North Korea is another example. North Korea is a hornets nest they kick once in a while to scare the Japanese and South Koreans into tolerating US occupation longer. Everything North Korea does is a direct response to threats and intimidations by the US. They staged a drill off the coast of North Korea which they called "Decapitation" for F's sake.

They have ratcheted up the tension again these past few months to sneak in their THAAD weapons stations, before the new President was chosen. And these THAAD systems have absolutely nothing to do with North Korea, it's against China and Russia, North Korea is a pretext.

The still active war, which has merely been under a seize fire for decades, against North Korea, could have been ended before there was colour television, but the US needs North Korea to exist in order to justify their occupation of S.Korea and Japan.

MrRondonmon , 1 day ago

And by the way, the CrowdStrike guy testified in 2017 that there was ZERO PROOF that the Russians hacked the DNC, but Schiff hid that for 2 years until John Ratcliff threatened to declassify it, then Schiff's sorry ass released the interviews. So, this man was 100 percent right, there is ZERO PROOF the Russians or anyone hacked the DNC. Its a damned lie, and it was always a lie.

Patty Rogers , 3 years ago

As usual, the journalists and leftist have nothing to offer- no facts, no forensic evidence, no truth. Only speculation hyperbole and hysteria. I don't believe Russia are the good guys but give me a break in all this crap!

beija flor , 2 years ago (edited)

why did cohen tell everyone even potential 'terrorists' that there is too much of exactly what 'terrorists' wish to get their hands on in the former soviet states?!!? if he is 'so afraid' of 'terrorism...' WHY did he say THAT?!!? not very bright... or perhaps he is FOS. idk?! wth?! SMH. maybe e is trying to inform people who r not 'terrorists,' so that people know n can figure out how to address the issues...?

Yet, for any terrorists who wanted to know how to get materials he spoke of, now they may know a region where they could potentially go to attain the materials... maybe in 'terrorists' circles they all know this already? it just seems concerning, is all...

Beth Lemmon, 2 years ago (edited)

Love Stephen Cohen, he is spot on and right about most if not all points, he's fair, wicked smart and sober minded. However he isn't right about POTUS Trump. If anyone has been watching this type of discourse about world geopolitics it looks like the NWO wants wars to depopulate the earth, set up a OWG and a utopia. It's so blatantly obvious to those who are honest and not ideologically possessed.

They recruit their stupid Antifa army and zombie possessed minions to do their dirty work in the streets. They want send our amazing military to do the fighting wars that are just to feed the MIC, and does nothing for America's good.

[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] 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] 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."

me title=

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 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] 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] 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] Obama as the leader of Russiagate

Libya was a precursor and training ground of Russiagate...
Sep 14, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

NAV , 3 hours ago

Obama was saved by the MSM from the reputation of traitor, a man professing peace and harmony among all races for which good people elected him, to that of a rabid sycophant of the oligarchs, to that of a pliant instrument of despotism, intent upon the ruin of America in general - an enemy to the cause of liberty, sowing violence and division.. Obama was a wolf presented in sheep's clothing, a betrayer of the American Dream, the perpetrator of criminal acts for which the nation is now suffering. For this he and that woman he married were paid to gallop about in fancy dress and mansions flagrantly blowing the $40,000,000 handed them by the Globalists. The force from which he and his have been saved is condemnation and ostracism.

From his past as a communist Alinsky community "organizer," we should have known his aim was overthrow of the country.

jeff montanye , 2 hours ago

agree with everything but "that woman he married."

close enough for an upvote.

NAV , 1 hour ago

Sorry, Jeff, I understand, but it is hard for me to forgive the selfishness of a woman who has had opportunity and wealth all her life in America and then had the gall to say that she was not proud of America until she was 44 years old, when she said of her husband's 2008 Democrat presidential nomination, "For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country, because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback."

She had/has no concept of what is/was the American Dream, ie, opportunity and property rights. Does she not know that a billion people in this world subsist on a dollar or less a day and have NO hope of anything better? How proud and how thankful THEY would be for the opportunities of a better life in America, which she and her husband have helped to erase in support of communism, IMHO.

createnewaccount , 11 hours ago

Obama was President because they could.

Same with any outrage.

P Dunne , 13 hours ago

No doubt Clinton was a war monger she got loads of cash from special interests seeking destabilization in the region.

fxrxexexdxoxmx2 , 13 hours ago

This so untrue.

The Clinton's have only ever thought about children. Wanting to save them, shelter them, keep them close.

Every effort taken by the Clinton's was about safe secure and frequent access to children.

Trying to make that a bad thing is like saying the Netflix movie ' Cuties' was not an artistic expression worthy of an Oscar.

Vivekwhu , 6 hours ago

Trump is in office not in power. Now he leaves a few hundred US troops in Syria to openly steal the oil. Obiden would have farted nice flowery democratic language to hide the robbery at gunpoint, but Trump is so honest and brazen.

Let it Go , 4 hours ago

How quickly people forget! Our memory has a way of removing rough edges from events we should not try to whitewash the past and rewrite history to present a different picture of what really happened. Because of the stark contrast in the demeanor and style of Trump and Obama, the media has "photoshopped" reality.

For years former President Obama remained more or less off the grid. Now that he has reemerged we should take a moment to review the Obama era. The article below reminds us of many of the scandals that took place during this time in history.

https://Obama Suffered Scandal Upon Scandal Upon Scandal.html

Max21c , 4 hours ago

The Plot Against Libya: An Obama-Biden-Clinton Criminal Conspiracy

This is clearly another Washingtonian Triumph and Success story. Other people's lives are destroyed but Washingtonians and elites get the tsetse fly headlines for a spell. Libya is just another great achievement by the Washington Regime and its state security apparatus and puppet journalists. It's the claimed thoughtful good intentions of Ivy Leaguers & JudeoWASP elites that counts and the headlines that matter not the bodies, bloodshed, butchery, and slaughter.

Keep in mind it's for the people! The reason the Washingtonians destroy countries abroad is because "it's for the people." The reason Washingtonians sick the secret police on people and persecute people at home is because "it's for the people."

Let it Go , 4 hours ago

One thing we have come to expect on any issue confronting our nation is grandstanding from those in both parties. The government in Washington like those in other countries specialize in putting lipstick "On A Pig." It is very possible Washington is a swamp that cannot be drained.

Strangely, as time has passed it seems the polarizing divide that grips the nation might be planned or contrived merely to create a pathway to greater power by the forces that hold us hostage. The article below explores how those in power with the aid of the media have created an environment of gridlock where they can run free and continue exploiting those they pretend to serve.
http://Washington Specializes On Putting Lipstick On A Pig.html

Obamaroid Ointment , 4 hours ago

The Obama Regime tried to pull a coup here too, in fact they still haven't given up on it.

Manthong , 10 hours ago

At least Goldman is not involved.

Mentaliusanything , 7 hours ago

Hahahahahahaha! They are always "involved" Just not directly only covertly

[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] John Brennan's CIA Trump Task Force by Larry C Johnson

Sep 11, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

I was mildly amused by Paul Sperry's recent tweet announcing as "breaking news" that Obama's CIA Director, John Brennan, set up a Task Force to target Donald Trump. This should not be considered something "new." I reported on this almost one year ago (October 2019 to be precise). You can check out the original pieces here and here . The following provides an updated, consolidated piece.

While chatting in late October 2019 with a retired CIA colleague, he dropped a bombshell–he had learned that John Brennan set up a Trump Task Force at CIA in early 2016. One of my retired buddy's friends, who was still on duty with the CIA in 2016, recounted how he was approached discreetly and invited to work on a Task Force focused on then Presidential candidate Donald Trump. The Task Force members were handpicked instead of following the normal procedure of posting the job. Instead of opening the job to all eligible CIA personnel, only a select group of people were invited specifically to join up. Not everyone accepted the invitation, and that could be a problem for John Brennan

A "Task Force" normally is a short term creation comprised of operations officers (i.e., guys and gals who carry out espionage activities overseas) and intelligence analysts. The purpose of such a group is to ensure all relevant intelligence capabilities are brought to bear on the problem at hand. I am not talking about an informal group of disgruntled Democrats working at the CIA who got together like a book club to grouse and complain about the brash real estate guy from New York. It was a specially designed covert action to try to destroy Donald Trump.

A "Task Force" is a special bureaucratic creation that provides a vehicle for bring case officers and analysts together, along with admin support, for a limited term project. But it also can be expanded to include personnel from other agencies, such as the FBI, DIA and NSA. Task Forces have been used since the inception of the CIA in 1947. Here's a recently declassified memo outlining the considerations in the creation of a task force in 1958. The author, L.K. White, talks about the need for a coordinating Headquarters element and an Operational unit "in the field", i.e. deployed around the world.

While a "Task Force" can be a useful tool for tackling issues of terrorism or drug trafficking, it is not appropriate or lawful for collecting on a U.S. candidate for the Presidency. But Brennan did it with the blessing of the Director of National Intelligence, Jim Clapper.

A Task Force operates independent of the CIA " Mission Centers " (that's the jargon for the current CIA organization chart).

So what did John Brennan do? My friends said that a Trump Task Force was running in early 2016 and may have started as early as the summer of 2015. Recruitment to Task Force included case officers (i.e., men and women who recruit and handle spies overseas), analysts and admin personnel were recruited. Not everyone invited accepted the offer. But many did.

But this was not a CIA only operation. Personnel from the FBI also were assigned to the Task Force. We have some clues that Christopher Steele's FBi handler, Michael Gaeta, may have been detailed to the Trump Task Force ( see here ).

So what kind of things would this Task Force do? The case officers would work with foreign intelligence services such as MI-6, the Italians, the Ukrainians and the Australians on identifying intelligence collection priorities. Task Force members could task NSA to do targeted collection. They also would have the ability to engage in covert action, such as targeting George Papadopoulos. Joseph Mifsud may be able to shed light on the CIA officers who met with him, briefed on operational objectives regarding Papadopoulos and helped arrange monitored meetings. Was the honey pot (i.e., the attractive woman) named Azra Turk, who met with George Papadopoulos, part of the CIA Trump Task Force?

The Task Force also could carry out other covert actions, such as information operations. A nice sounding euphemism for propaganda, and computer network operations. There has been some informed speculation that Guccifer 2.0 was a creation of this Task Force.

In light of what we have learned about the alleged CIA whistleblower, Eric Ciaramella, there should be a serious investigation to determine if he was a part of this Task Force or, at minimum, reporting to them.

When I described this development last November to one friend, a retired CIA Chief of Station, his first response was, "My God, that's illegal." We then reminisced about another illegal operation carried out under the auspices of the CIA Central American Task Force back in the 1980s. That became known to Americans as the Iran Contra scandal.

We know one thing for certain about he work of this Task Force–it failed to produce any intelligence to corroborate the specious claim that Donald Trump was colluding with the Russians. Even though the despicable Brennan has continued to insist that Trump was/is under the thumb of Putin, he failed to provide any substantive information in the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment that supported the claim.


Deap , 08 September 2020 at 11:38 PM

The curious "leaks" of Michael Cohen tapes on both Cuomo and Zucker, broadcast by Tucker Carlson, makes me think Cohen also has some Trump tapes.

Cohen of course would be be more than willing to drop any Trump tapes into Tucker Carlson's lap too - or at least work a tease dropping these bit player tapes on others first to weasel a Trump pardon for Cohen at the 11th hour, in return for not dumping his Trump tapes pre-election on Carlson's lap too.

Do you think these "leaked" Cohen tapes are just coincidentally coming out now - or was Micheal Cohen a fifth column all along, and even in direct cahoots with Brennan too? Other Trump business partners were IC assets, why not Cohen who would do anything for a buck and publicity.

Deap , 08 September 2020 at 11:49 PM

The night before the Mueller report came out pundit Brennan on prime time TV (whomever he was working for CNN, MSNBC?) claimed Trump would be facing multiple indictments.

The next day when his distinguished punditry proved 100% false, Brennan then claimed on prime time TV his source (sources?) were obviously wrong. And they moved quickly on to the next topic.

Brennan was obviously operating off of some form of inside intelligence (or just making things up for effect and a paycheck?) .

Just a few lines were uttered on both nights, but now in retrospect, Brennan did admit some sort of intelligence gathering group was passing on this critical information to him - bogus or not. He claimed was in some sort of insider loop.

It would be good to review both those pre-and post Mueller report statements now. Who was he hoodwinking and should he have been paid for his "insights"?

Deap , 08 September 2020 at 11:52 PM

Was Brennan's "source" Michael Cohen?

walrus , 09 September 2020 at 06:33 AM

Cohen is a know nothing "would be if they could be". I have described this type before. He had no access to Trump, the person, as opposed to a tenuous business relationship with Trump the company.

Fred , 09 September 2020 at 08:06 AM

"But Brennan did it with the blessing of the Director of National Intelligence, Jim Clapper. " Obama isn't mentioned at all? I wonder who was actually running the show.

turcopolier , 09 September 2020 at 08:48 AM

Fred
IMO Obama was VERY careful about this.

Fred , 09 September 2020 at 09:10 AM

Col.,

I'm sure he was. He's being very careful about all the current actions on the left too. He'll be running what's left of the democratic party, if they don't succeed in bringing down the constitutional republic this election.

TV , 09 September 2020 at 10:25 AM

So, where's Durham?
Hiding under his desk or.....making a deal for a partnership in a big time DC law firm (the swamp)?

Jack , 09 September 2020 at 10:58 AM

Sir,

For a community organizer Obama is pretty crafty. He found favor with the Chicago big money who backed him for the Illinois legislature and then the Senate. And then directly to the presidency. Now he's best friends with David Geffen and Richard Branson and hangs out with the billionaire class.

He is the "puppeteer" of the Democratic Party, IMO. I'm convinced that if Biden fails, Michelle will run and likely beat an establishment Republican in 2024.

plantman , 09 September 2020 at 11:56 AM

Larry,

Who do you think was the ringleader in this operation: Brennan, Comey or Clapper?
To me, it seems most likely that it was Brennan (with Obama's reluctant approval). Comey and Clapper don't strike me as the kind of guys who would risk everything on an operation that could backfire.

What I'd really like to know is whether Director Brennan communicated with elites outside the agency who might have encouraged the spying to begin with. Can you clarify this point? Does the CIA take orders or instructions from powerful-connected elites outside of the agency??

scott s. , 09 September 2020 at 12:01 PM

It seems we know that NSA identified unreasonable queries of their comms database in 2016, leading Adm Rodgers to shut off access. Immediately after, we see FBI getting involved and setting up Crossfire Hurricane. After the election, we see FBI working with DoJ NSD to move the op into a special counsel organization which then runs the op. It appears the Senate Select Committee (Burr/Warner) was complicit in the op, not to mention Schiff.

FakeBot , 09 September 2020 at 12:37 PM

I'm not sure Obama wants to run the Democratic party. It's likelier he wants to secure his legacy and play a supportive role within the party rather than lead it.

Deap , 09 September 2020 at 01:58 PM

Obama's community organizing skills are null. It was only a title; never an actual product. He will remain the token figure head of the party; but hot heads under the radar are now its life and blood of the Democrat party today. With no small dose of our tax dollars.

Democrats produce nothing; they only consume. There is a brewing turf war within the Democrat party between their historic connection to the government unions and the new socialists - two very different forces with two very different goals. Ironically, the Democrat government unions created the new wave of Democrat socialists.

Watch how this play out - Biden is clueless about what is now seething under his titular party head. Didn't Biden promise he would put Alexandra Cortez in a key administrative position?

akaPatience , 09 September 2020 at 02:09 PM

I remember the eye-opening essay about the CIA Trump task force, especially in light of Brennan's self-assured posture that only briefly slumped (along with all of his brethren on the Left) when the Mueller report finally came out and dashed such great expectations. We can only hope that the Durham probe will expose and at the very least somehow strongly condemn and spell out WITH EVIDENCE in no uncertain terms any seditious activity. After hearing that Trey Gowdy doubts any more prosecutions will come of the probe, I'm not going to hold my breath for perp walks.

Laughably, the Left's still beating that same old Russian Dead Horse though. Just as with the DNC's lackluster national convention, I'm surprised, almost shocked actually, that in spite of the overwhelming support of the "creative class", Democrats can't come up with a better hoax. On the other hand I can't remember the last time I was dying to see a new film, buy a new book or recording, or tune into a new TV drama, so while it could just be me, I suspect the "creative class" ain't quite what it used to be...

Re: Michael Cohen comments: I have to agree with walrus and take exception to the MSM characterization of Cohen as "Trump's personal attorney". My husband and I have a small real estate company but even so, we've simultaneously employed several attorneys for various personal and business needs and our holdings are minuscule compared to Trump's. SO I seriously doubt that the MSM's inference about Cohen's role and insight into Trump's private and business dealings - that he knows all - is greatly exaggerated.

Deap , 09 September 2020 at 04:16 PM

Cohen does not need to "know all", if he was recording Trump. He just has to dole out a few juicy sound bites prior to Nov, with our without context when they did contact each other pre-2016.

Cohen's chance to make Trump squirm since Cohen just demonstrated he was willing to do this to Cuomo and Zucker - so will he or won't he IF he has Trump tapes too - just crude talk at this point would not be welcome as Trump tries to take the edge off his usual "gruff" personality.

No magic carpet to the White House for anyone. I also think people don't like giving any race like this away too early in the game - all the prior elections have swung back and forth almost daily, until they finally broke on election day.

Even John McCain and Romney were still nip and tuck until the final hours if one watched certain indicators. Ironically, the only race called conclusively before election day was Clinton-Trump 2016, and we know how that finally worked out. So more cat (Trump) and mouse (Biden) on a seesaw for a few more months.

All of which begs to say, where the heck is the Durham Report and when will we start seeing accountability for Democrat/Obama high crimes and misdemeanors?

There is a deep cynicism even in California that "no one gets punished" for anything any more, unless you are unlucky enough to be a law abiding, responsible person. Everyone else gets a free ride and a double standard of justice - and it is causing a lot of anger out here. "Law and order" is a building hunger our west.

Christie , 09 September 2020 at 05:00 PM

I hope Larry or someone on this forum can discuss this new Mondoweiss piece, pertaining mostly to the G2, Flynn, and Steele material:

https://mondoweiss.net/2020/09/israel-is-cited-often-in-senate-report-as-link-to-russian-interference-but-our-media-ignore-the-connection/

Various independent media journalists covered the 'favor' Flynn did for Israel, but not the MSM.

This Lee Smith piece may have been discussed here before, but if not, comments would be welcome on that as well.

"How Russiagate Began with Obama's Iran Deal Domestic Spying Campaign",

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/russiagate-obama-iran

nbsp; Bill H , 09 September 2020 at 05:48 PM

Where is the Durham Report? Hahaha. We've had the Durham Report. One small fish indicted. That's it. Were you really expecting more?

I said when the "investigation" was first made public that it was a red herring, a tool to keep us from making noise because we would be pinning our hopes on this "report" that would make everything wonderful. I said then that it would never be anything but a pacifier dangling in front of our noses, like a carrot keeping a donkey dragging the cart along.

nbsp; akaPatience , 09 September 2020 at 06:08 PM

Correction: I meant to say I DON'T doubt the MSM's characterization of Cohen's insight is exaggerated.

Back to the main topic: I wonder if, as in the FBI anti-Trump efforts, there's any damning CIA electronic evidence like texts or emails?

Deap , 10 September 2020 at 12:22 AM

This article came out in May 2020 - essentially why did Obama want to frame Flynn?

It was Iran-gate; not Russia-Gate that drove the Obama spying and the Russia-gate cover-up, according to this author.. Was this the motivation for the Trump Task Force in your post- to spy on Team Trump to learn if they were going to undo Obama's Iran "legacy", particularly since Flynn was advising them? https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/russiagate-obama-iran

The Flynn Spygate unraveling is far more credible as Iran-gate, and ties up many of the very loose ends, much better than the Russia-gate nonsense. If this is the more credible explanation of Obama's Spygate, what happened after this article was published several months ago in May, during the height of the "pandemic". Has this theory been debunked?

And is its current article re-circulation right now tying Obama to Iran-gate spying the reason Adam Schiff, out of no where, is back to screaming Russia-gate yet again?

And everyone else on the left is back to screaming high crimes, misdemeanors and impeachment ......yet again. Gheesh - long and complicates article but it did gel for me. Including explaining the always mysterious role played by Samatha Powers, the Queen of US Unmaskers.

Still waiting to hear more about Obama's Ambassador to that tiny Italian enclave San Marino, that got in his licks unmasking Flynn too. Who was he fronting at the time. And why San Marino?

Deap , 10 September 2020 at 12:52 AM

Connecting the dots - Obama's San Marino Ambassador unmasks Micheal Flynn

The Atlantic Media Company, parent company of the Atlantic Magazine the wife of Obama's former US Ambassador to Italy - Linda Douglass -, who himself had been curiously caught up among the many 11th hour unmaskings of Gen Flynn. For as yet undisclosed reasons.

Atlantic Magazine, part of the Atlantic Media Group, now partly owned by Steve Job's very wealthy widow Laurane Jobs and rabid anti-Trumper, is taking great delight dropping bogus bombs against Trump, that can't even last for a 24 hour credibility cycle. With the promise of many more to come.

Will Linda Douglass be delving into her husband and San Marino Ambassador's great treasure trove of Obama era unmaskings to provide these daily TDS hit pieces? A classified no-no. Or just continue to make stuff up.

Or does this recent leftist media hit piece frenzy mean Russia-gate, Iran-gate and/or Obama Spy-gate is finally going to be broken open?

Such a small, small world. Why was Obama's Ambassador to San Marino unmasking Micheal Flynn? And his wife just happens to now work for the Atlantic Magazine.

j. casey , 10 September 2020 at 10:51 AM

Mr. Johnson:

May I suggest an article updating the recent moves in the Flynn case? Looks like the prosecution is playing to time?

Thanks.

nbsp; Jimmy_W , 10 September 2020 at 12:25 PM

Deap,
Iran-Gate might be the motivating, proximate cause for Obama to approve the overall "counterintelligence" mission. With Russia-Gate the legal cover / excuse. For Brennan / Comey / et al, however, it does not seem like the personal reason for their involvement. The Trump anti-Borg inclinations is probably what motivated the Borg to go after him.

Artemesia , 10 September 2020 at 02:28 PM

Deap, my initial reaction to your mention of an Italian connection was to point to Michael Ledeen, Flynn's co-author and, apparently, consultant - colleague.

Ledeen is known for his Italian connections -- he is thought to have been responsible for the yellow-cake fabrication that pushed along Iraq war.

But the SanMarino connection appears to be on the other side of the ledger that Ledeen inhabits -- tho one should put nothing past that crafty warmonger.

https://militarist-monitor.org/profile/michael-ledeen/

"Iran has long been Ledeen's bête noir, arguing that .the country has been heavily involved in supporting attacks against U.S. forces in hotspots across the globe.[9] "No matter how well we do, no matter how many high-level targets we eliminate, no matter how many cities, towns, and villages we secure, unless we defeat Iran we will always be designing yet another counterinsurgency strategy in yet another place. We are in a big war, and Iran is at the heart of the enemy army." '

If Flynn's anti-Iran sentiments are as unhinged as Ledeen's, then I have little sympathy for his troubles, even though it appears that Ledeen's view prevailed in the Trump administration. Flynn: twice back-stabbed.

I followed John Kerry's and Wendy Sherman's negotiations carefully; I listened to hours and hours of the Congressional debates over the deal -- not a treaty, the debates seemed a sop to Congress; I listened as Iranian representatives (Mousavian, iirc) explained that the Deal was not good for Iran and most Iranians understood that, but that Iranians would go along to show good faith; because they were backed into a corner; and because of the belief that an Iran that was engaged in robust trade with Europeans & others would "come in from the terror cold." I was at American University when Obama announced that the JCPOA was affirmed.

From an "America First" perspective I endorse(d) Obama's vision, as the Forward article explained it:

"[JCPOA} was his instrument to secure an even more ambitious objective -- to reorder the strategic architecture of the Middle East.

Obama did not hide his larger goal. He told a biographer, New Yorker editor David Remnick, that he was establishing a geopolitical equilibrium "between Sunni, or predominantly Sunni, Gulf states and Iran." According to The Washington Post's David Ignatius, another writer Obama used as a public messaging instrument, realignment was a "great strategic opportunity" for a "a new regional framework that accommodates the security needs of Iranians, Saudis, Israelis, Russians and Americans."

The catch to Obama's newly inclusive "balancing" framework was that upgrading relations with Iran would necessarily come at the expense of traditional partners targeted by Iran -- like Saudi Arabia and, most importantly, Israel. Obama never said that part out loud, but the logic isn't hard to follow: Elevating your enemy to the same level as your ally means that your enemy is no longer your enemy, and your ally is no longer your ally."

From my America First pov, "rebalancing" USA relations such that Israel -- not a formal ally and never a trustworthy informal ally (ask survivors of USS Liberty), and other states in MidEast all held positions on a more level playing field in the eyes of American foreign policy, is appealing.

The Forward article failed to mention Ledeen, but it was, unsurprisingly, unapologetically pro-Israel and from a decidedly Jewish perspective.


The Forward's tone and underlying assumptions were and are offensive to me.


Keith Harbaugh , 10 September 2020 at 05:28 PM

Regarding the statement
"The Task Force members were handpicked instead of following the normal procedure of posting the job.
Instead of opening the job to all eligible CIA personnel, only a select group of people were invited specifically to join up."
Two questions naturally arise:
Who was doing the selection, and
was the politics of the candidates a factor, perhaps a very big factor, in the selection process?

For another case where "the right people" were requested by a political officer, consider this:
Flynn Docket #231 (dated 2020-06-24), Strzok's Notes, quotes "P" saying:
"Make sure you look at this [matters dealing with Flynn] - have the right people on it".
This was also mentioned in a Senate floor speech by Chuck Grassley:
https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/grassley-flynn-investigation-what-did-obama-and-biden-know-and-when-did-they-know

"Right" to whom, and by what criteria?
Did the FBI director not know this was an important matter, which required the best investigators?
In any case, we can see who was put on it, such Trump-haters as Strzok, Page, and Clinesmith.
Just Trump's bad luck, or something more deliberate?

Deap , 10 September 2020 at 06:20 PM

Artemesia, thanks for your insights.

There was not really an "Italian" connection in the Iran-gate piece bur rather the curiosity why Obama's Italian ambassdor had interests in unmasking Michael Flynn, since his name showed up on the odd list of Obama persons who did unmask Flynn.

His name being there - Ambassador Phillips - may have been there due to his other Obama connections, or his wife Linda Douglass' Obama connections. Or his wife's current connection to the tabloid Atlantic Magazine.

Not really anything Italian per se, or even wee San Marino. Other than perhaps a mutual veneration for things Machiavellian-as this unfolding story twists and turns..

[Sep 11, 2020] How To Steal An Election

Sep 11, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

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" (their term) four election crisis scenarios:

1. A decisive Trump win;

2. A decisive Biden win;

3. A narrow Biden win; and,

4. A period of extended uncertainty after the election.

The outcome of each TIP scenario results in street violence and political impasse.

TIP organizers and leaders include Georgetown law professor Rosa Brooks, Nils Gilman of the "independent" Berggruen Institute in California, and John Podesta, the longtime fixer and handler of the Clinton political dynasty. The nominally Republican members of group include former Republican National Chair Michael Steele, journalist David Frum, and former magazine editor Bill Kristol.

Publication of the TIP report is an information warfare strategy employed for revolutionary political purposes. The strategy is sophisticated and multifaceted. The TIP document:

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.

In the opening paragraph of their "bipartisan" report, TIP states: " We assess with a high degree of likelihood that November's elections will be marked by a chaotic legal and political landscape." Especially if they have their way.

An alternative to one of the war-gamed scenarios resulted in the TIPsters advocating for the secession of Washington, Oregon and California. Is there no sense of historical irony in the Democrat party? Secession over an election? Again?

The single greatest irony of the TIP report is the overwhelming use of "projection" in framing and characterizing various claims against President Trump (and his supporters) as a means to justify the Left's "irregular" plans to disrupt the election process.

Projection, as a political technique, is not a secret. The American Left has never bothered to hide or disguise it, nor have they even found it desirable to do so.

The covert portion of the projection technique is the funding and organizational involvement behind the projection itself. Who is paying the bills for TIP and its affiliates? This is a highly organized, sophisticated operation with career political operatives calling the shots. No one does this for free, and someone (or some entity) is paying the bill. Who?

The TIP report is itself an exercise of power. Political intelligence information and public policy strategies are being fused through the actions of TIP. That synthesis is a demonstration of real political power, and it is being implemented in a written plan that contemplates street violence to affect the outcome of the US presidential election. The political power resourced and generated from a document like the TIP report can be used for persuasion (through news and social media), indoctrination (of activists and other "true believers"), and introduces the threat of terror and street violence (to the general population) as a "normal" or "expected" outcome.

Here is how the news and social media narrative is coming together and what you will see, hear and read in the next few weeks :

"Yes, expect violence in the aftermath of the election, because now that is the new 'normal.' Trump made us do it. He made us take the election, because the old, regular system just cannot be relied upon. That's why we had to publish our report, so we could organize 'around' all of the regular processes. Obama promised 'fundamental transformation,' and now, years later – we're finally going to deliver."

What evidence is there of awareness and preparedness on the political Right to confront and counter the TIP (and other Leftists) and their plans to disrupt the election? Not much. Time is short. The Left's threat of violence and subversion of the election is real. How we respond is critical.

[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.

NEVER MISS THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST

ZEROHEDGE DIRECTLY TO YOUR INBOX

Receive a daily recap featuring a curated list of must-read stories.

me title=

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-2&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1304158659300044800&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


[Sep 10, 2020] Steele -Acted Crazy- - FBI Handler Says -People's Ears Were Bleeding- -

Sep 10, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Steele "Acted Crazy" - FBI Handler Says "People's Ears Were Bleeding"


by Tyler Durden Thu, 09/10/2020 - 16:40 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print

Authored by Eric Felten via RealClearInvestigations.com,

"Crazy" was the term the FBI agent used to describe the behavior of Christopher Steele, author of the now-debunked Trump-Russia dossier. "I've seen crazy source-related stuff in 20 years in New York and this was one of the craziest," the veteran agent testified to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Christopher Steele: "I'm very upset about – we're very upset – about the actions of your agency," Steele said, according to Gaeta. Using the first person plural, Steele likely meant himself and his client, Fusion GPS head Glenn Simpson. Victoria Jones/PA via AP

Nevertheless, the FBI continued to rely on Steele's allegations – that Donald Trump and his team were conspiring with Russians who possessed compromising information – to justify its surveillance of the Trump campaign. Without evidence to verify Steele's claims, the FBI fell back on its assertion that the former British intelligence agent was reliable.

The previously unreported testimony of FBI agent Michael Gaeta is found on page 900 of the fifth and final volume of the Senate committee's probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election. It raises new questions about the basis of the FBI's investigation of the Trump campaign, Crossfire Hurricane, and the declarations it made to the FISA court in four separate applications submitted to spy on American citizens.

Gaeta had a long history with the London-based Steele, who had started his own firm, Orbis Business Intelligence, after leaving the British spy service MI6 in 2009. Between 2013 and 2016, the bureau had paid Steele $95,000 to pass along tidbits on Eurasian organized crime; Gaeta was his contact at the bureau . It was Gaeta whom Steele approached in July 2016 with wild and depraved stories of collusion and kompromat. Gaeta became the "handling agent" for Steele's participation in Crossfire Hurricane. Among his tasks was to get Steele paid (a process that came along slowly) and to see to it that Steele didn't violate the FBI's rules on confidentiality.

This requirement for discretion created a conflict of interest for Steele, who was also being paid for the same information by the Washington-based firm Fusion GPS. Fusion, in turn was being paid by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign for opposition research on Trump. The Democrats wanted Steele's information spread far and wide. They also wanted to be able to claim that the FBI was investigating the allegations. Paid FBI informants, however, are not allowed to tell anyone of their work for the FBI or of the bureau's investigations.

Gaeta was astonished, then, when shortly before the 2016 election an article appeared in Mother Jones titled "A Veteran Spy Has Given the FBI Information Alleging a Russian Operation to Cultivate Donald Trump." The sub-headline asked, "Has the bureau investigated this material?" Gaeta was convinced Steele was the source for the article and confronted him about it. Steele readily admitted he was behind the Mother Jones story.

The conversation that followed and its aftermath have been described before, but in bloodless ways that fail to capture the importance of that confrontation in determining Steele's reliability and credibility. For example, a Justice Department inspector general report says "Handling Agent 1 advised Steele that he must cease collecting information for the FBI, and it was unlikely that the FBI would continue a relationship with him."

https://lockerdome.com/lad/13084989113709670?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13084989113709670-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com&rid=www.zerohedge.com&width=890 "Listen, Is It About the Money?"

Here's how Gaeta recounted that conversation to the Senate: "Listen, is it about the money?" Gaeta asked Steele. "Because we have the money now. Is it about the money?" The FBI had promised, but had yet to deliver to Steele, $15,000 for one meeting with Crossfire Hurricane agents. The bureau had further promised Steele he would be paid "significantly" for his Trump-Russia research.

Gaeta assumed at first a delay in payment had made Steele go rogue.

"Yes, I'm owed the money, but that's secondary," Steele told Gaeta. "I'm very upset about – we're very upset – about the actions of your agency." By the "we" in "we're very upset" one can reasonably infer that Steele was speaking about himself and his client, Fusion GPS head Glenn Simpson (whose client, not counting cutouts, was Hillary Clinton's campaign).

The handling agent was shocked: "I had no idea what he was talking about." Before Gaeta could inquire further, Steele started railing about ''your Director" and his "reopening of the investigation." This was an apparent reference to former FBI Director James Comey's decision to reopen the probe into Hillary Clinton's private email server after 340,000 copies of State Department emails between Clinton and her close personal aide, Huma Abedin, were discovered on a laptop used by Abedin and her husband, Anthony Weiner. He was a disgraced congressman under investigation by the bureau's New York office for sending sexually explicit messages and photos to an underage girl.

At which point it all became clear to the handling agent:

"I'm now understanding that he did this because he was upset that the Director's reopening of the investigation was going to negatively affect the election for Hillary Clinton."

The handling agent described his reaction to Steele's behavior as "surprise and disbelief." Gaeta told the Senate that Steele's actions and attitude weren't just "crazy source-related stuff," but "one of the craziest" the veteran agent had seen in two decades of handling sources. The words are significant: Steele's behavior with the FBI has been characterized as a sort of professional disagreement, uncomfortable perhaps but not unreasonable. Gaeta's blunt assessment casts things in a much harsher light and undercuts subsequent efforts by the FBI's top officials to rehabilitate Steele in order to justify using his "reporting."

Although it has been downplayed until now, Steele's acting out – and his overtly declared partisan motivations -- constituted a crisis for the bureau, so much so that the handling agent describes it in violent terms:

"After that point – after everybody digests what happened," Gaeta told the Senate committee, "[p]hones were ringing at that point; people's ears were bleeding."

Bill Priestap, left, with Michael Horowitz, DoJ inspector general. Priestap vouched for Steele's reliability, and that misrepresentation is important because it was Priestap who was responsible for the official launch of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation in the first place. AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

Whose ears would those have been? Gaeta's first call likely would have gone to Bill Priestap, assistant director of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division.

He had just been made Gaeta's point of contact at FBI headquarters.

"Management said we were going to close him," Gaeta told the Senate.

"At that point it's just obvious. That's all you could do." The "management" was Priestap, according to Inspector General Michael Horowitz. "Priestap decided that Steele had to be closed immediately." Gaeta drew up the paperwork and Steele was removed from the list of official bureau sources on Nov. 17, 2016.

In the wake of Donald Trump's election, President Obama ordered a multi-agency "Intelligence Community Assessment" of Russian interference in the presidential campaign. James Comey, the director whose actions had prompted Steele to go outside the bureau in the first place, now pushed for Steele's "reporting" to be included in the document, even though none of it had been corroborated. Comey called Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.

"I informed the DNI that we would be contributing the [Steele] reporting (although I didn't use that name) to the IC [Intelligence Community] effort," Comey reported in an email to his top deputies the next day.

"I told him the source of the material, which included salacious material about the President-Elect, was a former [REDACTED] who appears to be a credible person."

First in the list of recipients of Comey's email was Priestap.

NEVER MISS THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST

ZEROHEDGE DIRECTLY TO YOUR INBOX

Receive a daily recap featuring a curated list of must-read stories.

Priestap would have known from Gaeta that Steele's behavior was among the "craziest" the handling agent had run into in two decades of source work. He would have known also that, by his own admission, Steele's motivations were to promote Hillary Clinton's campaign apparently by sabotaging Trump's. Yet Priestap went along with Comey's presentation of Steele as a credible source. More than that, Priestap promoted the idea of including Steele's allegations in the intelligence assessment, himself writing to the CIA and describing the former British spy as "reliable."

Finally, Priestap vouched for Steele's reliability even though he later admitted to the Justice Department inspector general that he "understood that the information [from Steele] could have been provided by the Russians as part of a disinformation campaign."

Steele Cast as 'Person of Integrity'

But that's not how Steele's materials were presented to the secret FISA court. Shortly after the election, Priestap went with FBI agent Peter Strzok to London to see if they could rehabilitate Steele's credibility by gathering the opinions of "persons who previously had professional contacts with Steele." They found some who described Steele as "smart" and a "person of integrity" But several lamented Steele's "poor judgment" or "lack of judgment" and his habit of "pursuing people [with] political risk but no intel value." But because Priestap and Strzok did not find any former colleagues to say Steele made things up out of whole cloth, the Crossfire Hurricane team declared him to be credible for the purpose of justifying surveillance warrants.

The willingness of the assistant director for counterintelligence to misrepresent essential information is important because it was Priestap who was responsible for the official launch of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation in the first place.

Gaeta explained to senators just how serious and irrevocable a break it was to "close" a source: ''Once he's closed, nobody is allowed – we can't talk to him."

In this case, that practice was not followed. Priestap's apparent rationale was that the decision to close Steele as a source was not made because he offered unfounded claims but because he had violated confidentiality agreements by sharing them with the press. And so, the FBI continued to gather new "reporting" by Steele. One of channels was David Corn, the Mother Jones reporter who had written the article about Steele's accusations. Corn was a longtime friend of then-FBI General Counsel James Baker. Their children had gone to the same school years before and carpooled. Corn gave Steele memos to Baker and then Baker passed them on to Priestap. Thus the strange situation in which an assistant director of the FBI forbade agents from talking to Steele because of the source's indiscretion with Mother Jones and then proceeded to gather Steele materials through a back-channel relationship with Mother Jones.

Strange, yes, perhaps even crazy.

fxrxexexdxoxmx2 , 1 hour ago

They will never give up reshaping this story.

Here is the truth

Barack Hussein Obama used the DOJ,FBI, CIA, State Department to spy on his campaign rival.

Those loyal to him then used the same agencies in an COUP attempt to remove a duly elected President.

End of story, no spin.

JimmyJones , 1 hour ago

Oh I love President Trump for completely exposing the Deep State and their partners in Crime at the MSM...

BaNNeD oN THe RuN , 58 minutes ago

"completely exposing the Deep State"??

This is but a small corner of a huge termite infestation.

Blondefire , 1 hour ago

The only thing crazier than the Steele dossier are the deaths of Seth Rich and Epstein, or HRC maintaining a private email server which was literally a superhighway for highly classified information to be funneled directly to China for which no one ever suffered even trivial consequences, or HRC and WJC supporting the Uranium One deal along with Sleepy Joe and selling materials vital to our national defense to our sworn enemies, or Obummer being elected to any office higher than dog catcher, or the entire set of circumstances surrounding the death of Justice Scalia and the complete lack of curiosity on the part of the "impartial press", or the deaths of innocent patriots in Benghazi during an arms deal gone wrong, or the complete lack of curiosity on the part of the "impartial press" on the Las Vegas massacre and resultant civilian deaths during an arms deal gone wrong, or the current situation across the nation with civilian police forces being slandered and defunded, with officers being arrested or encouraged to resign en masse, presumably to create a vacuum which can only be filled by a national police force of some sort and probably overseen by the DHS, or almost any of the other headlines from the past 10 years.

MitchRyderAndTheDetroitWheels , 59 minutes ago

I am only 70 and I wouldn't piss on any of the members of the FBI/CIA/Congress if they were on fire. They are all useless to the common good of this country. The entire government workforce in DC needs to be fired starting this afternoon. The most useless MFers on the planet work in city/count/state/federal government. It takes 7 of them to do the job of one good associate.

Bay of Pigs , 1 hour ago

Huma Abedin. Oh yeah, I remember her.

Anyone know what happened to her husband's laptop?

MitchRyderAndTheDetroitWheels , 1 hour ago

Lindsey Graham isn't going to do **** about anything going forward because he like his useless butt boy John McCain are knee deep in this coup.

MrBoompi , 1 hour ago

Steele is a criminal along with a long list of others, starting off with Obama and Brennan.

MitchRyderAndTheDetroitWheels , 56 minutes ago

Barr has 2 more weeks before The Donald has to stand and use the Pulpit....it's ugly now with the dems coming everyday with a new scheme for Trump to have to counter. The good news is the MSM is Chicken Little at this point. Only a F fool believe anything they say since 95% of everything they say about Trump is already negative.

play_arrow
I love your wife , 1 hour ago

How come the fact that Steele is a foreigner never comes in to play?

mikka , 1 hour ago

He is an "allied" foreigner.

BetterOffDead , 27 minutes ago

Are we sure he is retired from MI-6? Sounds like foreign interference in our election, sponsored by a candidate for president. Good thing she didn't win, she would have been impeached for this! /sarc


7 play_arrow
Ditch , 1 hour ago

There are no good actors in any of these stories. And don't tell me to just wait for Sessions, Horrorwitz,Dumbham ...

play_arrow
Joebloinvestor , 51 minutes ago

The FBI acts with impunity and no integrity.

Slammofandango , 15 minutes ago

Just to be clear, Steele was paid by the FBI, with our tax dollars, to meet with the FBI so as to lend legitimacy to fiction created by a company paid to smear Hillary Clinton's political opposition, with itself being paid with other funds that came by way of a law firm hired by Hillary Clinton.

play_arrow
Freespeaker , 26 minutes ago

Rod Rosenstein is complicit. He should lose his pension and other gov benefits. He should be seriously considered for prosecution.


4 play_arrow
RickyLaFleur , 14 minutes ago

Shadowgate explains why these outsourced contractors are the root of the problem. We have been advised.

Freespeaker , 9 minutes ago

They are part of the problem. But really it is just another way to cover things up.

sborovay07 , 21 minutes ago

The treasonists behind the coup, other than 1, still remain free. Strzok, instead of making license plates, has his 2nd book coming out. Meanwhile, the individual who could have exposed the hoax, Julian Assange, is withering away in prison. It has been so obvious for a number of years that the Deep State operatives on both sides of the political spectrum still control the system. Most Americans are not aware of this as the MSM/Socialist/Marxist/Globalist/DeepState cabal will never admit their crimes. Assange, as in my book, Dad, Why Are You Still Talking About Saul Alinsky, He's Been Dead Since 1972? Socialism and the Deep States War on Our Constitution, tells a tale to Congress that the Deep State and Obama treasonists never want you to hear. They need to pay!!!

play_arrow
LOL123 , 22 minutes ago

Priestap may have been the first on list from comey but that's not the first source of dossier.

"

Rahm Emmanuel, who became President Obama's chief of staff, wouldn't allow him (sidney blumenthal) near the Obama White House. Hillary kept him, however, at a $10,000 a month sinecure at the Clinton Foundation where he went on to be instrumental in creating the bengaziscandal from his "Libyan sources."

Trey Gowdy said that the FBI used information from Hillary Clinton hatchet man Sidney Blumenthal to corroborate the Steele dossier.

"I have seen each factual assertion listed in that dossier, and then I've seen the FBI's justification. And when you're citing newspaper articles as corroboration for a factual assertion that you have made, you don't need an FBI agent to go do a Google search," said Gowdy, a former South Carolina congressman and member of the House Intelligence Committee, in a Fox News interview.

"And when the name Sidney Blumenthal is included as part of your corroboration, and you're the world's leading law enforcement agency, you have a problem," Gowdy said.In 2018, Gowdy hinted that Blumenthal was responsible for the creation of the dossier.

"When you hear who the source or one of the sources of that information is, you're going to think, 'Oh my gosh, I've heard that name somewhere before. Where could it possibly have been?'" Gowdy said in February 2018

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/trey-gowdy-claims-hillary-clinton-hatchet-man-sidney-blumenthal-was-used-to-corroborate-steele-dossier

Blumenthal, you recall , was an assistant senior advisor to President Clinton from 1997 to 2001, the prime Clinton scandal years, following a career as a writer for the New Yorker. He was a prime witness in the grand jury testimonies over the Monica Lewinsky scandal and famous for leaking creepy stories about the Ken Starr special prosecutor investigation to the press, and came to be known as a man who would do anything for the Clintons. He got a reputation so slimey that even Rahm Emmanuel, who became President Obama's chief of staff, wouldn't allow him near the Obama White House. Hillary kept him, however, at a $10,000 a month sinecure at the Clinton Foundation where he went on to be instrumental in creating the Benghazi scandal from his "Libyan sources." These days, he's affiliated with David Brock's Media Matters, the slime machine featured by Sharyl Attkisson in her bestseller, The Smear: How Shady Politcal Operatives Control What You See, What You Think and How You Vote .

Since then, he's got Clinton in this Steele dossier mess. You'd think Hillary would not want to have anything to do with him after Benghazi, but they're birds of a feather. Blumenthal is to Clinton as Ben Rhodes is to Obama.

Blumenthal was on Hillarys retainer and he is really good at making **** up and getting FBI/CIA involved so much so that he was NOT ALLOWED IN OBAMAS WHITE HOUSE.

To try and pin this on Priestap is a joke.

ay_arrow
Freespeaker , 1 hour ago

Halper, Steele and Mifsud should testify publicly.


play_arrow
Shifter_X , 23 minutes ago

No one talks about the true origins of the "pee" story anymore

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-11/how-4chan-mcfooled-john-mccain-buzzfeed-and-cia-believing-trumps-golden-showers

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-10/4chan-claims-have-fabricated-anti-trump-report-hoax

y_arrow
I Write Code , 49 minutes ago

Spooks is all crazy.

Makes Hillary seem almost norbal.

[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] 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.

[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.

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!

[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] Ukrainian flagged as intel danger to Trump had extensive contact with Obama officials, memos show

Aug 27, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

ET AL August 25, 2020 at 7:08 am

Just the News: Ukrainian flagged as intel danger to Trump had extensive contact with Obama officials, memos show
https://justthenews.com/accountability/russia-and-ukraine-scandals/ukrainian-flagged-spy-danger-trump-had-extensive-contact

Obama State Department considered Konstantin Kilimnik a 'sensitive source,' Senate report now identifies him as Russian intel officer.

"Thank you very much for looking into this and very sorry to ask," U.S. embassy official Alexander "Sasha" Kasanof wrote businessman Konstantin Kilimnik in a Dec. 6, 2015 email obtained by Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigators and reviewed by Just the News. "Ambassador very unhappy about the article, though agree it stinks to me to (sic) of people we know very well."

A few lines later, Kasanof's email offered Kilimnik some valuable inside skinny about the Obama administration's assessment of a sensitive meeting between indicted fugitive Ukrainian oligarch Dmitri Firtash's associate Yuriy Boyko and Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland.
####

Plenty more at the link including original (cable) source material.

Kilimnik was good enough for Nuland

This story is worth repeating again and again. The recent Senate Intelligence Committee report fingering Kilimnik is FoS media fodder and of course the media refuses to look at the actual material, rather 'trust' what the pols say. i-Racki WMDs anyone? Yet more proof that those who profess their journalistic creed is 'to hold the powerful to account' have long since stopped doing so and are more than willing to switch their interpretations 180 degrees depending on which politics they support.

[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] Lee Smith on 'The Permanent Coup'; Clinesmith Likely Just 1st Indictment - American Thought Leaders -

YouTube video with interesting thoughts about Russiagate from a conservative. America Thought Leaders is interviewed by Lee Smith.
Aug 24, 2020 | www.youtube.com


MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN
, 23 hours ago (edited)

You get as much justice as you can afford..,.. poor people in America know this. Justice is Swift for the poor man. Good example jussie Smollett...... America has no justice yet to this day. The great Awakening started for me by, Nancy pelosi. She said we are above you. Referring to the elite.... Two-tier justice system, that's why so many people are watching. Trump 20 🇺🇸 20 Landslide Victory 🤔


tmc che
, 23 hours ago (edited)

The federal government bureaucrats and politicians are running the government like the Five Mafia Families of NY ran NYC and beyond. ...selective prosecutions is all that can be seen from coast to coast. Everyone knows what's really going on. If you're associated with President Trump, however distant, or are a Republican instant prosecution. If you're a Democrat member of a coup d'etat, fo'get about it. Shakespeare was right about the lawyers. At least about the lawyers in the Southern District of NY. Attorney General Barr should have gutted that cabal of seditious traitors, top to bottom, left to right. Probably most of the DC contingent of the DOJ as well.


Stef Peters
, 23 hours ago

Funny how fast Bannon was indicted - and Durham's been at it how long?


Linda T
, 22 hours ago (edited)

Fantastic interview. I hope many who do not understand the significance of this will take a step back and really understand that these people are after ALL of us...

Christina Richardson , 23 hours ago

Love Nunes he is a very brave man super fighter for good. American hero

froukje matthews , 20 hours ago

I hope that the American citizens will continue to inform themselves about the shenanigans that the Democrats have been up to and prevent the mob with this 'world view" (which means total control by a view) will not be allowed to take root. The alternative is this; if the US can be turned into a CCP of America then what chance does the rest of us have? Please Americans, clean up you education system and make sure it is free and fair and available to everyone without indoctrination from anyone. And dare to stand up against regimes that violate human rights. At present you are the only government who publicly states the genocide that is going on in China and dares to take steps to stop the money hungry corporations to find loopholes....


Frank Davis
, 21 hours ago

Very good interview. It's just so disturbing that the press is so corrupted. The Constitution grants them freedoms to help the public not to lie and tear our system down. No one trusts the media at this point, nor should they. It's both sad and dangerous. Who would have ever thought that the media would turn into public enemy #1.


Lorraine Holmes
, 18 hours ago

Indict Soros, Obama, Clintons for high treason crimes!


,

Rudy B
, 22 hours ago (edited)

RINOs are a large part of the permanent coup. The heap of human waste includes not just Obama but also Romney, both Bush's, McCain, Graham, Murkowski and a very long list of bureaucrats.

CJK CJK , 22 hours ago

The head of this corruption is obama.


BoumtjeBoumtje
, 21 hours ago

The Turkish businessman mentioned in Chapter 8: The Scope is named Ekim Alptekin. Get his full story ekimdefensefund.org

FretNot TrustinGod , 17 hours ago

Diane Feinstein & Slick Willie acted like they cared about China but they (and many others) would sell anyone down the river, any time day or night, and stick a fork in, if it benefits them.


Fran Rushie
, 19 hours ago

I have Lee Smith's first book on the corruption... I'm getting tired of reading these books without seeing any indictments... I will buy the new book after John Durham and AG Barr start making some real indictments of James Brennan, Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Lisa Page, Hilary for funding the Dossier, ... all these people need to be behind bars...we can't live in a country of no consequences for Democrats...


Terence Winters
, 7 hours ago

The rolling coup based on a confirmation bias based on the false steele dossier.


rareword
, 9 hours ago


rareword
, 9 hours ago

The speech that got Trump elected says it all:

"Our movement is about replacing a failed and corrupt political establishment with a new government controlled by you, the American People. There is nothing the political establishment will not do, and no lie they will not tell, to hold on to their prestige and power at your expense.

The Washington establishment, and the financial and media corporations that fund it, exists for only one reason: to protect and enrich itself.

The establishment has trillions of dollars at stake in this election. As an example, just one single trade deal they'd like to pass, involves trillions of dollars controlled by many countries, corporations and lobbyists. For those who control the levers of power in Washington, and for the global special interests they partner with, our campaign represents an existential threat.

It's a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth, and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities.

The corporate media in our country is no longer involved in journalism. They are a political special interest, no different than any lobbyist or other financial entity with an agenda.

The establishment and their media enablers wield control over this nation through means that are well known. Anyone who challenges their control is deemed a sexist, a racist, a xenophobe and morally deformed. They will attack you, they will slander you, they will seek to destroy your career and reputation. And they will lie, lie and lie even more.

I didn't need to do this. I built a great company, and I had wonderful life. I could have enjoyed the benefits of years of successful business for myself and my family, instead of going through this absolute horror show of lies, deceptions and malicious attacks. I'm doing it because this country has given me so much, and I feel strongly it was my turn to give back. We will vote to put this corrupt government cartel out of business.

We will remove from our politics the special interests who have betrayed our workers, our borders, our freedoms, and our sovereign rights as a nation. We will end the politics of profit, we will end the rule of special interests, we will put a stop to the raiding of our country – and the disenfranchisement of our people."


leon landowski
, 9 hours ago

Trump, Flynn, Stone, Page, Papa D; all have suffered because of this attempted coup. The main victims though are the American electorate who have had their Democratic mandate stymied for the last 4 years.


Tim Wilster
, 20 hours ago

Trumps only DOG in the fight is America. The Swamp has anti American interest. Look who backs the Dem party! Soros, BLM, Netfilx, Amazon, and a ton of others that have $$$ instead of Americans in mind. Look who owns the Media and tell me why they are so far left. Does it make sense? They know it isn't Russia but even Ivy league Schools funding from China. WHY? Hmmmm. Who is pumping money into Silicon Valley? Hmmm

Joseph Olson , 7 hours ago

DOJ.gov/biography ~ Wm Pelham BARR was CIA from 1973 to 1977 > once a spook, thereafter always just a sheepdipped spook > Sessions, Whitaker, BARR & WRAY are deep state coverup team


Robert Booker
, 21 hours ago

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/how-society-unravels


Andrew
, 4 hours ago (edited)

Biggest threat to US democracy is NOT from the OUTSIDE world - it is the Deep State and MSM.Trump isn't divisive; he's simply reacted to all of abuses that have been going on. Thank God we have a Leader like him. He is a HERO - not a villain


Inisfad
, 33 minutes ago

This is very interesting, but my initial reaction is trust Trump. He understood, even before any of this occurred, that this would be the result of his presidency. The Obama/Hillary plan was not something concocted by Obama - he was a 'puppet' to a much larger, 16 year plan to finally weaken the US on the world stage, in order to usher in a different kind of global condition. But Trump knew all of this - he has been preparing for this presidency for decades. He will win in 2020, and the darkness that Smith talks about regarding a 'permanent coup' will not happen. It's all going to be brought down. This is not another 4 year election, but a crossroads to the future.

D D , 10 hours ago

Obama has much to answer for


Fleur D'Rose
, 16 hours ago (edited)

If the Dems win there will be a Witch Hunt like one could not dream possible. The Dems will throw the Justice System as we know it out the window. They will arrest President Trump and every person that stood up for him on charges of treason. They will resurrect the Russia Hoax and the Ukraine Hoax and the China-Virus Hoax will be blamed on President Trump decisively. Trump supporters will be outraged and the Democrats will send in the troops to confiscate all their guns. Americans if you love your life get out in person and vote for President Trump in November.

[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.

  • Having more wealth than anyone is temporary.
  • Having more power than anyone is temporary.
  • Life is temporary.
  • And we outnumber them by several billion.

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 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] Why Brennan, Strzok, DOJ Needed Julian Assange Arrested; And Why UK Officials Obliged... -

Notable quotes:
"... To understand the risk that Julian Assange represented to CIA interests, it is important to understand just how extensive the operations of the CIA were in 2016. It is within this network of foreign and domestic operations where FBI Agent Peter Strzok is clearly working as a bridge between the CIA and FBI operations. ..."
"... By now people are familiar with the construct of CIA operations involving Joseph Mifsud, the Maltese professor now generally admitted/identified as a western intelligence operative who was tasked by the CIA (John Brennan) to run an operation against Trump campaign official George Papadopoulos in both Italy (Rome) and London. { Go Deep } ..."
"... In a similar fashion the CIA tasked U.S. intelligence asset Stefan Halper to target another Trump campaign official, Carter Page. Under the auspices of being a Cambridge Professor Stefan Halper also targeted General Michael Flynn. Additionally, using assistance from a female FBI agent under the false name Azra Turk, Halper also targeted Papadopoulos . ..."
"... The initial operations to target Flynn, Papadopoulos and Page were all based overseas. This seemingly makes the CIA exploitation of the assets and the targets much easier. ..."
"... In short, Peter Strzok appears to be the very eager, profoundly overzealous James Bond wannabe, who acted as a bridge between the CIA and the FBI. The perfect type of FBI career agent for CIA Director John Brennan to utilize. ..."
"... It was also Fusion-GPS founder Glenn Simpson who was domestically tasked with a Russian lobbyist named Natalia Veselnitskya. A little reported Russian Deputy Attorney General named Saak Albertovich Karapetyan was working double-agents for the CIA and Kremlin. Karapetyan was directing the foreign operations of Natalia Veselnitskaya, and Glenn Simpson was organizing her inside the U.S. ..."
"... All of this context outlines the extent to which the CIA was openly involved in constructing a political operation that settled upon anyone in candidate Donald Trump's orbit. ..."
"... Additionally, Christopher Steele was a British intelligence officer, hired by Fusion-GPS to assemble and launder fraudulent intelligence information within his dossier. And we cannot forget Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch, who was recruited by Asst. FBI Director Andrew McCabe to participate in running an operation against the Trump campaign and create the impression of Russian involvement. Deripaska refused to participate . ..."
"... The key point of all that background is to see how committed the CIA and FBI were to the constructed narrative of Russia interfering with the 2016 election. The CIA, FBI, and by extension the DOJ, put a hell of a lot of work into it. Intelligence community work that Durham is now unraveling. ..."
"... Rohrabacher recounted his conversation with Assange to The Hill. "Our three-hour meeting covered a wide array of issues, including the WikiLeaks exposure of the DNC [Democratic National Committee] emails during last year's presidential election," Rohrabacher said, "Julian emphatically stated that the Russians were not involved in the hacking or disclosure of those emails." ..."
"... Knowing how much effort the CIA and FBI put into the Russia collusion-conspiracy narrative, it would make sense for the FBI to take keen interest after this August 2017 meeting between Rohrabacher and Assange; and why the FBI would quickly gather specific evidence (related to Wikileaks and Bradley Manning) for a grand jury by December 2017. ..."
"... The Weissmann/Mueller report contains claims that Russia hacked the DNC servers as the central element to the Russia interference narrative in the U.S. election. This claim is directly disputed by WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, as outlined during the Dana Rohrabacher interview, and by Julian Assange on-the-record statements. ..."
"... The predicate for Robert Mueller's investigation was specifically due to Russian interference in the 2016 election. The fulcrum for this Russia interference claim is the intelligence community assessment; and the only factual evidence claimed within the ICA is that Russia hacked the DNC servers; a claim only made possible by relying on forensic computer analysis from Crowdstrike, a DNC contractor. ..."
"... The CIA holds a massive conflict of self-interest in upholding the Russian hacking claim. The FBI holds a massive interest in maintaining that claim. All of those foreign countries whose intelligence apparatus participated with Brennan and Strzok also have a vested self-interest in maintaining that Russia hacking and interference narrative. ..."
"... This Russian "hacking" claim is ultimately so important to the CIA, FBI, DOJ, ODNI and U.K intelligence apparatus ..."
Aug 21, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by 'sundance' via TheConservativeTreehouse.com,

According to reports in November of 2019, U.S Attorney John Durham and U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr were spending time on a narrowed focus looking carefully at CIA activity in the 2016 presidential election. One recent quote from a media-voice increasingly sympathetic to a political deep-state notes:

"One British official with knowledge of Barr's wish list presented to London commented that "it is like nothing we have come across before, they are basically asking, in quite robust terms, for help in doing a hatchet job on their own intelligence services"". ( Link )

It is interesting that quote came from a British intelligence official, as there appears to be evidence of an extensive CIA operation that likely involved U.K. intelligence services. In addition, and as a direct outcome, there is an aspect to the CIA operation that overlaps with both a U.S. and U.K. need to keep Wikileaks founder Julian Assange under tight control. In this outline we will explain where corrupt U.S. and U.K. interests merge.

To understand the risk that Julian Assange represented to CIA interests, it is important to understand just how extensive the operations of the CIA were in 2016. It is within this network of foreign and domestic operations where FBI Agent Peter Strzok is clearly working as a bridge between the CIA and FBI operations.

By now people are familiar with the construct of CIA operations involving Joseph Mifsud, the Maltese professor now generally admitted/identified as a western intelligence operative who was tasked by the CIA (John Brennan) to run an operation against Trump campaign official George Papadopoulos in both Italy (Rome) and London. { Go Deep }

In a similar fashion the CIA tasked U.S. intelligence asset Stefan Halper to target another Trump campaign official, Carter Page. Under the auspices of being a Cambridge Professor Stefan Halper also targeted General Michael Flynn. Additionally, using assistance from a female FBI agent under the false name Azra Turk, Halper also targeted Papadopoulos .

The initial operations to target Flynn, Papadopoulos and Page were all based overseas. This seemingly makes the CIA exploitation of the assets and the targets much easier.

One of the more interesting aspects to the Durham probe is a possibility of a paper-trail created as a result of the tasking operations. We should watch closely for more evidence of a paper trail as some congressional reps have hinted toward documented evidence (transcripts, recordings, reports) that are exculpatory to the targets (Page & Papadop). HPSCI Ranking Member Devin Nunes has strongly hinted that very specific exculpatory evidence was known to the FBI and yet withheld from the FISA application used against Carter Page that also mentions George Papadopoulos. I digress

However, there is an aspect to the domestic U.S. operation that also bears the fingerprints of the CIA; only this time due to the restrictive laws on targets inside the U.S. the CIA aspect is less prominent. This is where FBI Agent Peter Strzok working for both agencies starts to become important.

Remember, it's clear in the text messages Strzok has a working relationship with what he called their "sister agency", the CIA. Additionally, Brennan has admitted Strzok helped write the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) which outlines the Russia narrative; and it is almost guaranteed the July 31st, 2016, "Electronic Communication" from the CIA to the FBI that originated FBI operation "Crossfire Hurricane" was co-authored from the CIA by Strzok . and Strzok immediately used that EC to travel to London to debrief intelligence officials around Australian Ambassador to the U.K. Alexander Downer.

In short, Peter Strzok appears to be the very eager, profoundly overzealous James Bond wannabe, who acted as a bridge between the CIA and the FBI. The perfect type of FBI career agent for CIA Director John Brennan to utilize.

Fusion-GPS founder Glenn Simpson hired CIA Open Source analyst Nellie Ohr toward the end of 2015 ; at appropriately the same time as " FBI Contractors " were identified exploiting the NSA database and extracting information on a specific set of U.S. persons.

It was also Fusion-GPS founder Glenn Simpson who was domestically tasked with a Russian lobbyist named Natalia Veselnitskya. A little reported Russian Deputy Attorney General named Saak Albertovich Karapetyan was working double-agents for the CIA and Kremlin. Karapetyan was directing the foreign operations of Natalia Veselnitskaya, and Glenn Simpson was organizing her inside the U.S.

Glenn Simpson managed Veselnitskaya through the 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump Jr. However, once the CIA/Fusion-GPS operation using Veselnitskaya started to unravel with public reporting back in Russia Deputy AG Karapetyan fell out of a helicopter to his death (just before it crashed).

Simultaneously timed in late 2015 through mid 2016, there was a domestic FBI operation using a young Russian named Maria Butina tasked to run up against republican presidential candidates . According to Patrick Byrne, Butina's handler, it was FBI agent Peter Strzok who was giving Byrne the instructions on where to send her. { Go Deep }

All of this context outlines the extent to which the CIA was openly involved in constructing a political operation that settled upon anyone in candidate Donald Trump's orbit.

International operations directed by the CIA, and domestic operations seemingly directed by Peter Strzok operating with a foot in both agencies. [ Strzok gets CIA service coin ]

Recap :

  • Mifsud tasked against Papadopoulos (CIA).
  • Halper tasked against Flynn (CIA), Page (CIA), and Papadopoulos (CIA).
  • Azra Turk , pretending to be Halper asst, tasked against Papadopoulos (FBI).
  • Veselnitskaya tasked against Donald Trump Jr (CIA, Fusion-GPS).
  • Butina tasked against Trump, and Donald Trump Jr (FBI).

Additionally, Christopher Steele was a British intelligence officer, hired by Fusion-GPS to assemble and launder fraudulent intelligence information within his dossier. And we cannot forget Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch, who was recruited by Asst. FBI Director Andrew McCabe to participate in running an operation against the Trump campaign and create the impression of Russian involvement. Deripaska refused to participate .

All of this engagement directly controlled by U.S. intelligence; and all of this intended to give a specific Russia impression. This predicate is presumably what John Durham is currently reviewing.

The key point of all that background is to see how committed the CIA and FBI were to the constructed narrative of Russia interfering with the 2016 election. The CIA, FBI, and by extension the DOJ, put a hell of a lot of work into it. Intelligence community work that Durham is now unraveling.

We also know specifically that John Durham is looking at the construct of the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA); and talking to CIA analysts who participated in the construct of the January 2017 report that bolstered the false appearance of Russian interference in the 2016 election. This is important because it ties in to the next part that involves Julian Assange and Wikileaks.

On April 11th, 2019, the Julian Assange indictment was unsealed in the EDVA. From the indictment we discover it was under seal since March 6th, 2018 : (Link to pdf)

On Tuesday April 15th more investigative material was released . Again, note the dates: Grand Jury, * December of 2017 * This means FBI investigation prior to .

The FBI investigation took place prior to December 2017, it was coordinated through the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA) where Dana Boente was U.S. Attorney at the time. The grand jury indictment was sealed from March of 2018 until after Mueller completed his investigation, April 2019 .

Why the delay?

What was the DOJ waiting for?

Here's where it gets interesting .

The FBI submission to the Grand Jury in December of 2017 was four months after congressman Dana Rohrabacher talked to Julian Assange in August of 2017: "Assange told a U.S. congressman he can prove the leaked Democratic Party documents did not come from Russia."

( August 2017, The Hill Via John Solomon ) Julian Assange told a U.S. congressman on Tuesday he can prove the leaked Democratic Party documents he published during last year's election did not come from Russia and promised additional helpful information about the leaks in the near future.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican who is friendly to Russia and chairs an important House subcommittee on Eurasia policy, became the first American congressman to meet with Assange during a three-hour private gathering at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where the WikiLeaks founder has been holed up for years.

Rohrabacher recounted his conversation with Assange to The Hill. "Our three-hour meeting covered a wide array of issues, including the WikiLeaks exposure of the DNC [Democratic National Committee] emails during last year's presidential election," Rohrabacher said, "Julian emphatically stated that the Russians were not involved in the hacking or disclosure of those emails."

Pressed for more detail on the source of the documents, Rohrabacher said he had information to share privately with President Trump. ( read more )

Knowing how much effort the CIA and FBI put into the Russia collusion-conspiracy narrative, it would make sense for the FBI to take keen interest after this August 2017 meeting between Rohrabacher and Assange; and why the FBI would quickly gather specific evidence (related to Wikileaks and Bradley Manning) for a grand jury by December 2017.

Within three months of the grand jury the DOJ generated an indictment and sealed it in March 2018. The EDVA sat on the indictment while the Mueller probe was ongoing.

As soon as the Mueller probe ended, on April 11th, 2019, a planned and coordinated effort between the U.K. and U.S. was executed; Julian Assange was forcibly arrested and removed from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and the EDVA indictment was unsealed ( link ).

As a person who has researched this three year fiasco; including the ridiculously false 2016 Russian hacking/interference narrative: "17 intelligence agencies", Joint Analysis Report (JAR) needed for Obama's anti-Russia narrative in December '16; and then a month later the ridiculously political Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) in January '17; this timing against Assange is too coincidental.

It doesn't take a deep researcher to see the aligned Deep State motive to control Julian Assange because the Mueller report was dependent on Russia cybercrimes, and that narrative is contingent on the Russia DNC hack story which Julian Assange disputes.

This is critical. The Weissmann/Mueller report contains claims that Russia hacked the DNC servers as the central element to the Russia interference narrative in the U.S. election. This claim is directly disputed by WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, as outlined during the Dana Rohrabacher interview, and by Julian Assange on-the-record statements.

The predicate for Robert Mueller's investigation was specifically due to Russian interference in the 2016 election. The fulcrum for this Russia interference claim is the intelligence community assessment; and the only factual evidence claimed within the ICA is that Russia hacked the DNC servers; a claim only made possible by relying on forensic computer analysis from Crowdstrike, a DNC contractor.

The CIA holds a massive conflict of self-interest in upholding the Russian hacking claim. The FBI holds a massive interest in maintaining that claim. All of those foreign countries whose intelligence apparatus participated with Brennan and Strzok also have a vested self-interest in maintaining that Russia hacking and interference narrative.

Julian Assange is the only person with direct knowledge of how Wikileaks gained custody of the DNC emails; and Assange has claimed he has evidence it was not from a hack.

This Russian "hacking" claim is ultimately so important to the CIA, FBI, DOJ, ODNI and U.K intelligence apparatus . Well, right there is the obvious motive to shut Assange down as soon intelligence officials knew the Mueller report was going to be public.

Now, if we know this, and you know this; and everything is cited and factual well, then certainly AG Bill Barr knows this.

The $64,000 dollar question is: will they say so publicly?


Non-Corporate Entity , 7 minutes ago

Former NSA chief Bill Binney has forensic evidence that it was a download not a hack!!! Hello?!?!

exige42 , 22 seconds ago

I believe this all holds true. My only hesitation is why Assange hasn't retaliated. He was holed up in an Embassy for how many years because of these bastards? He had to have known they were going to make a move on him sooner or later. Where is his dead plan? I hate how these corrupt evil bastards have gotten their way forever. There has got to be a turn on these SOBs. Where is the fight from these people who they are destroying ffs???!!!

play_arrow
Dolar in a vortex , 1 minute ago

Jabba Barr and Bulldog Durham are a complete joke until they prove otherwise with significant indictments. And no, Steve Bannon doesn't count.

[Aug 20, 2020] Obama State Department Official Destroyed Records At Christopher Steele's Request - Zero Hedge

Aug 20, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Obama State Department Official Destroyed Records At Christopher Steele's Request by Tyler Durden Thu, 08/20/2020 - 15:05 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print

In January 2017, former State Department official Jonathan Winer destroyed several years worth of reports from former UK spy Christopher Steele , at Steele's request, according to the Daily Caller , citing a report released Tuesday.

Winer, a former legislative assistant to former Sen. John Kerry who became the State Department's Special Envoy for Libya when Kerry was Secretary of State - was Steele's contact at the State Department, and received the now-debunked reports claiming that President Trump had been compromised by the Russians.

According to the Senate report , Winer disclosed that he destroyed reports that Steele had sent him over the years. The Senate report also says that Winer failed to reveal when asked in his first interview with the committee that he had arranged the meeting for Steele at the State Department months earlier. - Daily Caller

me title=

"After Steele's memos were published in the press in January 2017, Steele asked Winer to make note of having them, then either destroy all the earlier reports Steele had sent the Department of State or return them to Steele , out of concern that someone would be able to reconstruct his source network," reads the Senate report, which quote sWiner as saying " So I destroyed them, and I basically destroyed all the correspondence I had with him. "

In total, Winer had received over 100 intelligence reports from Steel between 2014 and 2016.

Emails that The Daily Caller News Foundation obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit show that Winer shared Steele's reports with a small group of State Department officials. The Senate report says that the State Department was able to provide the committee with Steele's reports from 2015 and 2016, though most from 2014 are missing. - Daily Caller

In March, Steele told a UK court that he had "wiped" all of his dossier-linked correspondence in December, 2016 and January, 2017, and had no records of communications with his primary dossier source, Igor Danchenko.

In addition to receiving reports from Steele, Winer gave Steele various anti-Trump memos from Clinton operative Sidney Blumenthal , which originated with Clinton "hatchet man" Cody Shearer. Winer claims he didn't think Steele would share the Clinton-sourced information with anyone else in the government.

about:blank

about:blank

me title=

"But I learned later that Steele did share them -- with the FBI, after the FBI asked him to provide everything he had on allegations relating to Trump, his campaign and Russian interference in U.S. elections," Winer wrote in a 2018 Op-Ed .

NEVER MISS THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST

ZEROHEDGE DIRECTLY TO YOUR INBOX

Receive a daily recap featuring a curated list of must-read stories.

Steele was paid $168,000 by opposition research firm Fusion GPS to produce his anti-Trump dossier, which was funded in part by Hillary Clinton and the DNC, who used law firm Perkins Coie as an intermediary.

Read the rest of the Daily Caller report here .

[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 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.

about:blank

about:blank

me title=

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.


me name=


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] 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 12, 2020] Brookings Institution links to Steele dossier

Aug 12, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

librul , Aug 10 2020 20:50 utc | 35

Spawn of the Dossier

Were you aware that the Steele dossier had a significant other?

"Rep Devin Nunes:

"You may remember that the State Department was involved and there were additional
dossiers that weren't the Steele dossier- except that they mirrored the Steele dossier.
And we think there is a connection between the [former] president of Brookings
and those dossiers that were given to the State Department."
"
...
Also from article:

"
The "additional dossiers that weren't the Steele dossier" addressed by Nunes
is a reference to a lesser known dodgy dossier produced by Brookings-affiliated
journalist Cody Shearer (brother-in-law of Strobe Talbott) which was crafted
explicitly to validate the wildly unsupported claims found in Steele's dossier.
"

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/08/10/the-brookings-hand-behind-russiagate-points-back-to-rhodes-trust-coup-on-america/


Arch Bungle , Aug 11 2020 17:36 utc | 95

Posted by: William Gruff | Aug 11 2020 16:57 utc | 92

Almost certainly, at least at one time, the scholarship was meant to come first.


The Rhodes Scholars provide a talent pool for the single organisation that oversees the CIA, Mossad and British Intelligence:

A clumsy grab from James Corbett's excellent documentary `The WW1 Conspiracy` https://www.corbettreport.com/wwi/ provides the entrance to a rabbit hole ...


Gerry Docherty, WWI scholar and co-author of Hidden History: The Secret Origins of the First World War.

DOCHERTY: Rhodes had the money and he had the contacts. He was a great Rothschild man and his mining wealth was literally uncountable. He wanted to associate himself with Oxford because Oxford gave him the kudos of the university of knowledge, of that kind of power.

And in fact that was centered in a very secretive place called "All Souls College." Still you'll find many references to All Souls College and "people behind the curtain" and such phrases [as] "power behind thrones." Rhodes was centrally important in actually putting money up in order to begin to gather together like-minded people of great influence.

Rhodes was not shy about his ambitions, and his intentions to form such a group were known to many. Throughout his short life, Rhodes discussed his intentions openly with many of his associates, who, unsurprisingly, happened to be among the most influential figures in British society at that time.

More remarkably, this secret society -- which was to wield its power behind the throne -- was not a secret at all. The New York Times even published an article discussing the founding of the group in the April 9, 1902, edition of the paper, shortly after Rhodes' death.

The article, headlined "Mr. Rhodes's Ideal of Anglo-Saxon Greatness" and carrying the remarkable sub-head "He Believed a Wealthy Secret Society Should Work to Secure the World's Peace and a British-American Federation," summarized this sensational plan by noting that Rhodes' "idea for the development of the English-speaking race was the foundation of 'a society copied, as to organization, from the Jesuits.'" Noting that his vision involved uniting "the United States Assembly and our House of Commons to achieve 'the peace of the world,'" the article quotes Rhodes as saying: "The only thing feasible to carry out this idea is a secret society gradually absorbing the wealth of the world."

uncle tungsten , Aug 10 2020 21:51 utc | 46

librul #35

Thank you for that excellent link regarding Brookings Institution etc and its source report at Real Clear Investigations.

Here is some deeper information on the Round Table Movement and its global undermining.

The Rhodes Scholars are worth identifying and knowing of their appointments.

karlof1 , Aug 11 2020 18:24 utc | 99

Seems the Brookings Institute is deeply involved in lots of dodgy doings if the info in this article is credible as it links to the discussion of Rhodes Scholars, such as it is:

"It would here be the height of folly to presume, as some commentators have done, that Talbott's role in this operation indicates an American guiding hand between the plot to undo the 2016 elections. The fact is that Talbott's entire life and world outlook have been shaped not by wholly anti-American ideas but rather by British Imperial principles that are programed into the minds of all Rhodes Scholars during his time in Oxford from 1966-1968."

When was Bill Clinton there? 1968-1970, it seems, and Talbott was in Clinton's cabinet. Am just midway through article, but thought I'd post the link so others might read.

[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 12, 2020] MoA thinks that then CIA director John Brennan was the central person behind Russiagate

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".
Aug 12, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
librul , Aug 10 2020 17:21 utc | 1

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.

"My hunch is that then CIA director John Brennan was the central person behind it."

For sure.

Am going to hunt for my bookmark that references an early meeting between John Brennan and the head of MI6.


librul , Aug 10 2020 17:28 utc | 2

@1 found this

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2019/11/15/the_brennan_dossier_all_about_a_prime_mover_of_russiagate_121098.html

"While Russiagate's exact starting point is murky, it is clear that Brennan placed himself at the center of the action. After the investigation officially got underway in the summer of 2016, as Brennan later told MSNBC, "[w]e put together a fusion center at CIA that brought NSA and FBI officers together with CIA to make sure that those proverbial dots would be connected." (It is not clear whether this was a Freudian slip suggesting the center included Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm hired by the Clinton campaign that produced the Steele dossier of fictitious Trump-Russia dirt – but regardless, it is likely that at least some of Brennan's "dots" came from the firm.) According to the New Yorker, also that summer Brennan received a personal briefing from Robert Hannigan, then the head of Britain's intelligence service the GCHQ, about an alleged "stream of illicit communications between Trump's team and Moscow that had been intercepted." A U.S. court would later confirm that Steele shared his reports with at least one "senior British security official.""

Thomas Minnehan , Aug 10 2020 17:46 utc | 5

Excellent comment, librul!
Thanks!

I noted a report few days ago that Brennan was advised that he is not a target of Durham investigation! This further cements in my mind that the durham/barr kabuki is simply that=a nothing burger. Maybe, maybe, a minor name or two will be indicted but nothing more.
As your link illustrates, brennan was a ring master in this treasonous coup attempt.

You may be familiar with this site, but this fellow has been following this crime from day one and has a major effort underway (long article but worth a read as it does give "some" hope; he does get a tad dramatic but he has put a ton of work in uncovering these criminals-recommend go back tolook at previous articles):

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/08/10/status-update-meet-at-the-old-mill-we-ride-at-midnight/


james , Aug 10 2020 17:47 utc | 6

thanks b.... i do believe that article you again linked to on usa turning into a 3rd world country is very legit.. the dynamics in chicago are more testimony to it...

as for your link on the russiagate unravelling, it was mentioned a long time ago that stefan halper who mysteriously disappeared was indeed an fbi-cia informant... https://disobedientmedia.com/ used to have articles up on this from way back and was where i first remember reading about the question mark around halper, but i see they have gone offline for the most part! i look forward to reading the rest of the article.. thanks..

Skeletor , Aug 10 2020 18:02 utc | 9

lol

So basically Trump was right about how the chaos (they) encouraged when George Floyd died would come home to roost in Democrat cities and a lot of the genuine grievences around policing and Black folk would be exploited by people who only care about so called "Black Lives" every 4 years. Tut tut.

And it seems Trump was also right about Britain and Obama being balls deep in spying on his campaign and there is going to be a lot more coming out over the next 90 days. Funny how characters from Britain are at the centre of both Obamagate and also the emerging peadophile (and possible child torture) evil involving Epstein.

And then to round it all off, two Democrat politicians come out and lattribute Hydroxychloroquine to saving their lives and their loved ones will always be grateful for thus miraculous recovery.

It's going to be a hot summer isn't it ?

Grab the popcorn ☺️☺️☺️


uncle tungsten , Aug 10 2020 18:26 utc | 13

Brennan is a low life. Both he and Dearlove should be eliminated. They are the enemies of people and democracy. Stefan Halper and his disappeared Maltese accomplice are the sort of people that give credit to the term of life imprisonment.

Thomas Minnehan , Aug 10 2020 19:12 utc | 22

BraveNewWorld | Aug 10 2020 18:07 utc | 10

"I'm no fan of Brennan, but he has been cleared of what you are claiming several times including most recently by the Trump run Justice dept and FBI."

Surely, you are not serious! DOJ/FBI have labored mightily to come up with nothing to date: Brennen was a ring master in this treasonous coup attempt and he will continue to run off on CNN. He is vile! per reports, Brennan is not a target of durham investigation-think about that!!!

pokums , Aug 10 2020 20:06 utc | 29

Re: The Spies Who Hijacked America , like I'm gonna believe anything from a spook who deadpans,

"After witnessing the plane that hit the Pentagon on 9/11,..."

Hoarsewhisperer , Aug 10 2020 20:13 utc | 30

Since b cast aspersions on Western 'intelligence' agencies in a recent post, it dawned on me that they're probably ALL fake, Top Secret & unaccountable. It's reasonable to assume that they don't need to exist. Since we don't know who they are, and they're NEVER allowed to speak on their own behalf, it would be cheaper, easier and more fun if the Top Security wonks just got drunk, sat around a conference table dreaming up implausible crap in a brain-storming session, and then voted on the winning piece(s) of tosh?

Paracletus , Aug 11 2020 3:24 utc | 61

"The long read [...] 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."

You're starting from the assumption that our British "cousins" are junior partners in the American hegemon's globalist designs, but in fact American imperialism is a departure from its founding principles, in which willing Anglophiles (Aaron Burr, J.P. Morgan, the Dulles Bros., to name a few -- you get the picture) have always subverted efforts by US leaders to break from British geopolitics as formulated by Halford Mackinder, etc., for whom the survival of Atlanticist world power still depends on preventing US-Russia collaboration to bring about a world anti-colonialist order. This oligarchy, whose species memory far surpasses that of the clueless masses for whom they rewrite history, can still feel the burn of Catherine the Great's support for the American Revolution when she refused George III Russia's help suppressing rebellion in the American colonies, or when Alexander II deployed two whole fleets of the Russian Navy to prevent the British from bailing out the failing Confederacy. More recently, Franklin Roosevelt sent Churchill into apoplectic rage when he categorically rejected that racist pig's demand to return her colonies back to Britain at the end of the war.

Since at least the assassination of Lincoln (or earlier, when British soldiers came down from Canada to burn down Washington in 1814) the British Empire and its surviving heirs have always been at the core of efforts to denature America, replacing win-win Hamiltonian economics with a phony "free-trade" ideology increasingly adopted as gospel by "western" economic authorities, and sabotaging every effort by Americans to play a productive, cooperative role with other nations in world affairs. Just like Hillary Clinton and her crazed minions refuse to acknowledge the election of Donald Trump, the Brits never accepted the loss of their former colonies, and have never missed an opportunity to subvert the uniquely American System by which we became a world power -- no thanks to any kind of "special relationship" with Britain, which quickly sank its hooks into our finances by establishing Wall Street as an outpost of the City of London, and infiltrating all of our political and economic as well as cultural and academic institutions (Harvard, e.g.) with devotees of that financial empire. True American interests have always been betrayed by Anglophile fifth-columnists aligned with the Brits -- more broadly defined as a true oligarchy that goes back to Venice and its alliance with the Ottoman Empire to bring down Constantinople, the gateway to a Eurasian powerhouse which then and now threatens to weaken these globalists' hold over world affairs.

So "Rule Britannia" is still the battle cry of the Five Eyes "intelligence community" as it spins out wild, implausible narratives to demonize every alternative to the necrotic vulture capitalism behind globalist hegemony, which most mistakenly see as an American enterprise but in reality is the essence of the "Deep State" that so-called patriots believe they oppose. Such is these psy-warriors' control of collective awareness, through mainstream media and well-placed mouthpieces, as well as, increasingly, "independent" social media and education itself, that red-blooded Americans who instinctively deplore this usurpation of their sovereignty blame Russia, or China, or whomever, and mindlessly parrot absurd "intelligence community" slanders against any country standing up to the status quo Perfidious Albion has been craftily building since... well, since the day after Yorktown. Any initial skepticism at this historical perspective, protestations that such claims are preposterous and the British Empire died long ago, will quickly fall away as the origin of every fake news item used against the Trump administration is examined, whether paid for by the Democratic Party, the FBI, etc. Consider this a mere primer in a much-needed re-framing of strategic analyses at this time. As Leviathan lashes out in increasing pain at an encroaching multi-polar paradigm of development and growth, its DNA will become increasingly apparent.

My hunch is that the "long read," by omitting this piece of the puzzle, is a bit of a cover-up... or, as they say, "limited hangout."

Jackrabbit , Aug 11 2020 3:44 utc | 62

Paracletus @Aug11 3:24 #61

a bit of a cover-up... or, as they say, "limited hangout."

I concur with that.

I believe that the operation was approved by bigwigs in both the US and UK establishment.

Gina Haspel's presence in London is not likely to be an accident. If the operation was supposed to elect Hillary instead of Trump, I suspect she wouldn't be CIA Director today.

We should not underestimate the angst in 2013 and 2014 at Russia's interventions in Syria and Ukraine. Russian assertiveness showed that their alliance with China was serious.

See my comment @Aug10 21:03 #38 for more.

!!

Australian lady , Aug 11 2020 8:26 utc | 71

The Spies who Hijacked America.
Oh... Really? So eminent elements of the imperial deep state are possibly Russian assets (the "Cambridge four") and are possibly "the most effective tools for Russia's disinformation campaign to divide America that Putin could ever have dreamed of". Ha! So all those words of this lengthy part one are deliberate obfuscation and the continuation of a conspiracy that blames Putin's Russia for what has befallen the USA. Richard Dearlove as a double agent? Good grief! This is impossible Jakrabbit territory!!
Let me cut to the chase :
Clinton hired Steele (the Steele dossier) who contacted his mate Pablo Miller who collared his double agent colleague Sergei Skripal-all to acquire tidbits for said dossier. Now just suppose that Skripal is a triple agent, and those two GRU chaps were sent to the UK to exfiltrate Skripal with some interesting information on these Atlanticist /deepstate/DNC shenanigans. Can't happen! Enter novichok.
The poms have a way of getting away with this kind of stuff - have been doing it for their entire history. Lots of conspiring, lots of coverupping. But when the Americans are actively involved I guess things can get complicated.
.

William Gruff , Aug 11 2020 10:07 utc | 74

Australian lady @71

I too read that article ( "The Spies who Hijacked America" ) with extreme skepticism. I see in it an effort to rehabilitate America's image and get the popular global narrative about the USA back on a positive track. It is as if the author is trying to argue that the deeper problem with America is not systemic but just something caused by four stupid and crazy guys.

The spies really have hijacked America, but they blew their cover in 2016 and with the following "Russiagate" fiasco. Now a huge portion of the population strongly suspect that the so-called "Deep State" and the mass media is dominated by spooks, which happens to actually be the truth. In order to distract the public and re-establish their cover they need to throw the public a little fish so the public will lose track of the big fish. The spook community needs to sacrifice some of their spook buddies who happen to be the most compromised in order to get the spookiness back for the rest of them.

The good thing about this effort is that they have to sweeten their lies with a little bit of truth to get the public to swallow those lies. In their rush to scurry back under cover, the cockroaches reveal themselves more.

[Aug 12, 2020] Have to wonder at the re-emergence of Russiagate. Seems a major reason for its emergence is to shame voters into voting for Biden

Aug 12, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Erelis , Aug 10 2020 19:51 utc | 28

Have to wonder at the re-emergence of Russiagate. Seems a major reason for its emergence is to shame voters into voting for Biden. If you do not vote for Biden, you are Putin's useful idiot. In particular aimed at African Americans. Recently a NYT reporter claimed that it was Russian mean tweets, etc that caused a very dramatic drop in African American turn out in 2016. See screen shot by Aron Mate as the NYT reporter deleted the tweets.

https://twitter.com/aaronjmate/status/1292637512813481984/photo/1

Looks like the DNC may be very nervous about Black turnout after Biden's many racial gaffes. Imagine Black turnout if he chooses Susan Rice as his VP. The DNC may have to go to Putin to ask for his help.



librul , Aug 10 2020 20:50 utc | 35

Spawn of the Dossier

Were you aware that the Steele dossier had a significant other?

"Rep Devin Nunes:

"You may remember that the State Department was involved and there were additional
dossiers that weren't the Steele dossier- except that they mirrored the Steele dossier.
And we think there is a connection between the [former] president of Brookings
and those dossiers that were given to the State Department."
"
...
Also from article:

"
The "additional dossiers that weren't the Steele dossier" addressed by Nunes
is a reference to a lesser known dodgy dossier produced by Brookings-affiliated
journalist Cody Shearer (brother-in-law of Strobe Talbott) which was crafted
explicitly to validate the wildly unsupported claims found in Steele's dossier.
"

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/08/10/the-brookings-hand-behind-russiagate-points-back-to-rhodes-trust-coup-on-america/

Jackrabbit , Aug 10 2020 21:03 utc | 38

I know it sounds wacky to those of you who still put some store in MSM nonsense, but I still believe that what we know as "Russiagate" was a carefully planned operation to:

  1. initiate a new anti-Russia McCarthyism -
    after Trump's election, MSM repeated Russigate accusations about Russian meddling every night for months;
  2. elect MAGA Nationalist (Trump, not Hillary!) -

    as Kissinger had called for in his Aug 2014 WSJ Op-Ed;

  3. discredit Wikileaks/Assange;
  4. lead to a vindictive settling of scores with Assange, Flynn, Manafort.

Also: It's likely that Skripal was the true "primary sub-source" and that he was drugged because he planned to flee back to Russia because he realised that he knew too much. He knew that the "dirty dossier" was meant to be untrue and easily debunked. It would never actually tarnish Trump - only Russia. Not surprisingly, Trump's MAGA Nationalism has been strengthened by Russiagate allegations while the anti-Russia sentiment remains.

!!

[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] 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.

NEVER MISS THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST

ZEROHEDGE DIRECTLY TO YOUR INBOX

Receive a daily recap featuring a curated list of must-read stories.

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.

  • 192
    Revolution_starts_now , 4 hours ago

    Oh Please, JFK, MLK,RFK and MX were all just a few.

    50 Years after JFK, still cannot release info?

    Just who the hell are we kidding?

    lay_arrow
    Westcoaster , 4 hours ago

    You're absolutely right. And don't get me started on 9/11. The country needs an old fashion PURGE.


    play_arrow
    ebworthen , 4 hours ago

    This is how empires collapse.

    Cognitive Dissonance , 4 hours ago

    There are two things a sociopath acquires on the way up the socioeconomic ladder.

    1) Power

    2) Knowledge of where all the dead bodies are.....especially the ones he or she personally buried.

    lay_arrow 1
    NeitherStirredNorShaken , 4 hours ago

    Sara must have missed my detailed facts and evidence over the last five years or so proving the entire government guilty of sedition, treason, complete failure of fiduciary duty and seemingly endless more crimes. Waiting for the hierarchy to prosecute itself is a waste of time.

    Instead of a book start putting together something like Citizens Arrest teams.

    Gold Banit , 4 hours ago

    Nobody has been charged and nobody has gone to jail and nobody will be charged or go to jail cause DemoRats and Republicans are best of friends....Fact

    I have a question for all of the American posters here!

    How did you all get so dumb naive brainwashed and FN Stupid?

    Is Hillary in jail ?V


    play_arrow
    LEEPERMAX , 3 hours ago

    It's called " Running out the Clock " by almost every criminal on the planet.

    WE'VE ALL BEEN PLAYED FROM THE GET GO .

    play_arrow
    yerfej , 3 hours ago

    Its interesting that there are people out there who actually think this progressive push can be stopped, it is now impossible. Sixty or seventy years ago there might have been enough people with morals to fight but not anymore, the majority of people in the media, courts, academia, and bureaucracy are immoral thieves who are only interested in lining their pockets. They are HAPPY to see as many people as necessary sacrificed so they can get theirs, everyone else be damned. Not sure what the exact turning point was but its long ago.

    ay_arrow
    sborovay07 , 3 hours ago

    Love Sarah and John. She's 100% right as unless the top treasonists pay for their crimes it was nothing more of a shame investigation by Durnham. The victory laps taken by Hannity and others is nothing more than hot air. Easy to bring down the little guys, but the Comey's, Brennan's and Clapper's have to pay. Trump's trust in Barr is waning as we get closer to the election. Most who have followed all of this the past 4 years know the criminals are still within the bureaucracies that attempted to overthrow a sitting President. Only if Assange would have been granted immunity to testify. Now we are dependent on career government officials to bring justice. #RIPSeth.

    Farmer Tink , 2 hours ago

    Weissmann's oped in the NYT strikes me as a threat against any DOJ attorney who dares work on any of Durham's cases. The Obama people would not have any compunctions against trying to ruin the lives of any attorney there who doesn't defy Barr. I wouldn't expect to be hired by any private firm ever again, I'd look for an attorney to represent me before the disciplinary committee off my bar association and I would assume that I'd be harassed and forced out by the next Dem AG if I did stay at DOJ.

    Rather than see this as a symptom of strength, I see this as panic. If Durham has nothing or will do nothing, then why threaten junior lawyers? Weissmann's an unethical snake, but I think that he's rather nervous.


    play_arrow
    geo_w , 17 minutes ago

    My respect for the FBI is gone.

    Soloamber , 20 minutes ago

    I would like to see what Weissmann's $haul was from the "Mueller " investigation .

    Sessions was a joke and the Mueller financed fraud should never have taken place .

    Trump has been blind sided over and over by intel at the FBI and DOJ .

    They take care of themselves .

    play_arrow
    InTheLandOfTheBlind , 4 hours ago

    Justice dept doesnt hold people accountable. They have to prove the opposite and let a jury or judicial, not administrative, employee impose judgements.

    Sara,

    Dont overplay your hand.

    4Y_LURKER , 3 hours ago

    What if it's a High Royal Flush?

[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.

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.

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] Steele's Source Met With Russian Official Days Before Dossier Fabrication Began -

Aug 08, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

The 1958 "Psychological Warfare" Plan Playing Out Before Us

by Tyler Durden Fri, 08/07/2020 - 22:25 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print

Authored by Annie Holmquist via IntellectualTakeout.org,

I recently wrote about an old 1984 interview with former communist Yuri Bezmenov, who described the "ideological subversion" that could eventually take down America.

It sounds like the stuff of conspiracy theories - until one realizes that his predictions of "demoralization," "destabilization," and "crisis" are all unfolding before our eyes .

Pondering his prophetic words, I hunted up an old book a friend mentioned to me years ago: " The Naked Communist ." The title, I admit, is chuckle-worthy, but the words inside are no laughing matter, particularly when one reads the section titled, "Importance of the Psychological War."

Written in 1958, some of the "current strategy goals which the Communists and their fellow travelers are seeking to achieve" seem dated and read like a history book from the past. But then one comes to item number 17:

"Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks." (Emphasis added.)

That part in bold especially caught my attention. Haven't Americans been suspicious for years that public school curriculum has been dumbed down? Prominent public figures have certainly made this claim , while a comparison of middle school reading lists from today's schools and those of 100 years ago provides further evidence.

Things take a step closer to home by encouraging the use of "student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack." We've had not a little experience with riots and protests lately, many of which have been heavily attended by young people. Are they mere tools in the hands of an ideology we don't realize is pulling the strings?

Even more terrifying, the list progresses from student riots to the cancel culture and statue bashing we are also currently experiencing.

about:blank

about:blank

me title=

"Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression," item number 22 commands, while number 31 calls for Communists to "[b]elittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history ."

The document also suggests discrediting both the Constitution and the Founding Fathers.

Of the latter, it says,

"[p]resent them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the 'common man.'"

Sounds similar to the "slave-holding racists" that the Founders are now portrayed as, does it not?

The list is extensive and many of the items listed as eventual goals are now accepted parts of our culture. There is one more, though, that deserves a closer look:

"Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use 'united force' to solve economic, political or social problems."

Since the death of George Floyd, protests and violence have become commonplace. The large gatherings banned by our governments during the COVID-19 pandemic suddenly became necessary for fighting racism .

Indeed, systemic racism is increasingly labeled as a " public health crisis " that Black Lives Matter must wage war against. Furthermore, complete unity is demanded from the public. Those who refuse to go along -- or fail to say anything at all -- are immediately ostracized.

Where does this leave us?

NEVER MISS THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST

ZEROHEDGE DIRECTLY TO YOUR INBOX

Receive a daily recap featuring a curated list of must-read stories.

Should we start running around screaming, "The Communists are coming! The Communists are coming!"?

No. Now isn't the time to lose our heads. Rather, we should look at this historical list, recognize the parallels it has with our current culture, and ask ourselves whether there's an ideology working to undermine the values, history, and ideas upon which America was founded.

If we conclude that there is, we have a decision to make.

Do we accept that ideology and allow it to take over America?

If so, it's time to join the throngs of corporations, politicians, and average citizens in agitating for change.

But if we decide that ideology isn't in line with what we believe , nor with the direction we want to see America go, then we must be ready to choose the road less traveled.

This road is one of standing up for truth and justice. It also involves warning others of the consequences that come from giving way to an ideology completely opposed to what America has sought to protect and advance over the years.

As "The Naked Communist" implies, the alarm bell has been sounding for many years. Now, we just need the ears to hear and respond to it.

Read the rest of the report here .

Flynt2142ahh , 7 hours ago

You mean to tell me that a presidential candidate for the USA was through a proxy working with the Russians to create a crazy report that would influence the outcome of the elections in the USA..... Hillary who you say ? Blame who ?

... hmmm, at this point if Durham and Barr send no one to jail I don't know what to say. And for pete's sake can someone with balls help General Flynn finally pleaaazee. (Looking at you Sen. Cruz, Graham, Paul)

[Aug 08, 2020] -No Difference Between John Bolton, Brian Hook Or Elliott Abrams-- Iran FM -

Aug 08, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

play_arrow 1

Question_Mark , 9 hours ago

letter reposted as community service:

Exclusive from Gen. Flynn: This Is My Letter to America

By Michael Flynn

Published August 5, 2020 at 11:17am

We are witnessing a vicious assault by enemies of all that is good, and our president is having to act in ways unprecedented in decades, maybe centuries.

The biblical nature of good versus evil cannot be discounted as we examine what is happening on the streets of America.

It's Marxism in the form of antifa and the Black Lives Matter movement versus our very capable and very underappreciated law enforcement professionals, the vast majority of whom are fighting to provide us safe and secure homes, streets and communities.

When the destiny of the United States is at stake, and it is, the very future of the entire world is threatened.

As Christians, shouldn't we act? We recognize that divine Providence is the ultimate judge of our destiny. Achieving our destiny as a freedom-loving nation, Providence compels us to do our part in our communities.

It encourages us in this battle against the forces of evil to face our fears head-on. No enemy on earth is stronger than the united forces of God-fearing, freedom-loving people.

We can no longer pretend that these dark forces are going to go away by mere prayer alone. Prayers matter, but action is required.

This action is needed at the local, state and federal levels. Action is also required in the economic, media, clerical and ecclesiastical realms.

Decide how you can act within your abilities. Stand up and state your beliefs. Be proud of who you are and what you stand for. And face, head-on, those community "leaders" who are willing to allow dark forces to go beyond peaceful protests and destroy and violate your safety and security.

Churches and houses of worship must return to normal. We invite everyone of goodwill to not shirk their responsibilities and instead act in a fraternal fashion. If for no other reason or with no other ability, act in a spirit of charity.

We cannot disrespect or disregard natural law along with our own religious liberties and freedoms.

I am witnessing elderly people lose their connection to all that is good in their lives: connections to their faith, their families and their individual freedoms, especially the simple act of attending church, something they've been doing for decades.

Let us not be intimidated or fear those who cry out that we are in the minority; we are not.

Good is always more powerful and will prevail over evil.

However, evil will succeed for a time when good people are divided from each other and their personal lives -- children away from their teachers, preachers from their congregations, customers from their local businesses.

America will never give in to evil. Americans work together to solve problems.

We do not and should not ever allow anarchy and the evil forces behind it to operate on any street in our nation.

No one should have to fear for their very life because some dark, disturbed force is challenged by the very essence of what America stands for.

We are "one nation under God" and it is our individual liberties that make us strong, not liberties given to our government. Our government has no liberty unless and until "we the people" say so.

God bless America and let's stand by everything that was and is good in our lives, in our communities and in our country.

Otherwise, America as the true North Star for humanity will cease to exist as we know it.

https: // mundabor.wordpress.com/2020/08/07/gen-flynn-this-is-my-letter-to-america/

BigJim , 6 hours ago

If Flynn were really worried about God's opinion of the US he'd be calling out the administration's endless warmongering.

The idea that Jesus would be more worried about regular churchgoing than blowing children apart is an obscene joke,and if there is a hell, I don't fancy Flynn's chances of not going there.

[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.

me marginwidth=

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.

Sign Up For the Morning Briefing Newsletter

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 03, 2020] Trump DID commit obstruction of justice... he refused to force HIS Dept of Justice to indict Hillary, Comey, Brennan and Clapper

Highly recommended!
Apr 19, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

loveyajimbo , 3 hours ago link

Trump DID commit obstruction of justice... he refused to force HIS Dept of Justice to indict Hillary, Comey, Brennan and Clapper for their obvious major felonies.

And YES... he could have.

[Aug 02, 2020] Russiagate, Nazis, and the CIA by ROB URIE

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The U.S. has spent a century or more trying to install a U.S.-friendly government in Moscow. Following the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, the U.S. sent neoliberal economists to loot the country as the Clinton administration, and later the Obama administration, placed NATO troops and armaments on the Russian border after a negotiated agreement not to do so . Subsequent claims of realpolitik are cover for a reckless disregard for geopolitical consequences. ..."
"... The paradox of American liberalism, articulated when feminist icon and CIA asset Gloria Steinem described the CIA as ' liberal, nonviolent and honorable ,' is that educated, well-dressed, bourgeois functionaries have used the (largely manufactured) threat of foreign subversion to install right-wing nationalists subservient to American business interests at every opportunity. ..."
"... To the point made by Christopher Simpson , the CIA could have achieved better results had it not employed former Nazi officers, begging the question of why it chose to do so? ..."
"... Russiagate is the nationalist party line in the American fight against communism, without the communism. Charges of treason have been lodged every time that military budgets have come under attack since 1945. In 1958 the senior leadership of the Air Force was charging the other branches of the military with treason for doubting its utterly fantastical (and later disproven) estimate of Soviet ICBMs. Treason is good for business. ..."
"... Shortly after WWII ended, the CIA employed hundreds of former Nazi military officers, including former Gestapo and SS officers responsible for murdering tens and hundreds of thousands of human beings , to run a spy operation known as the Gehlen Organization from Berlin, Germany. Given its central role in assessing the military intentions and capabilities of the Soviet Union, the Gehlen Organization was more likely than not responsible for the CIA's overstatement of Soviet nuclear capabilities in the 1950s used to support the U.S. nuclear weapons program. Former Nazis were also integrated into CIA efforts to install right wing governments around the world. ..."
"... Under the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act passed by Congress in 1998, the CIA was made to partially disclose its affiliation with, and employment of, former Nazis. In contrast to the ' Operation Paperclip ' thesis that it was Nazi scientists who were brought to the U.S. to labor as scientists, the Gehlen Organization and CIC employed known war criminals in political roles. Klaus Barbie, the 'Butcher of Lyon,' was employed by the CIC, and claims to have played a role in the murder of Che Guevara . Wernher von Braun, one of the Operation Paperclip 'scientists,' worked in a Nazi concentration camp as tens of thousands of human beings were murdered. ..."
"... To understand the political space that military production came to occupy, from 1948 onward the U.S. military became a well-funded bureaucracy where charges of treason were regularly traded between the branches. Internecine battles for funding and strategic dominance were (and are) regularly fought. The tactic that this bureaucracy -- the 'military industrial complex,' adopted was to exaggerate foreign threats in a contest for bureaucratic dominance. The nuclear arms race was made a self-fulfilling prophecy. As the U.S. produced world-ending weapons non-stop for decades on end, the Soviets responded in kind. ..."
"... Long story short, the CIA employed hundreds of former Nazi officers who had the ideological predisposition and economic incentive to mis-perceive Soviet intentions and misstate Soviet capabilities to fuel the Cold War. ..."
"... the U.S. had indicated its intention to use nuclear weapons in a first strike -- and had demonstrated the intention by placing Jupiter missiles in Italy, nothing that the U.S. offered during the Missile Crisis could be taken in good faith. ..."
"... Following the election of Bill Clinton in 1992, the Cold War entered a new phase. Cold War logic was repurposed to support the oxymoronic 'humanitarian wars' -- liberating people by bombing them. In 1995 'Russian meddling' meant the Clinton administration rigging the election of Boris Yeltsin in the Russian presidential election. Mr. Clinton then unilaterally reneged on the American agreement to keep NATO from Russia's border when former Baltic states were brought under NATO's control . ..."
"... The Obama administration's 2014 incitement in Ukraine , by way of fostering and supporting the Maidan uprising and the ousting of Ukraine's democratically elected President, Viktor Yanukovych, ties to the U.S. strategy of containing and overthrowing the Soviet (Russian) government that was first codified by the National Security Council (NSC) in 1945. The NSC's directives can be found here and here . The economic and military annexation of Ukraine by the U.S. (NATO didn't exist in 1945) comes under NSC10/2 . The alliance between the CIA and Ukrainian fascists ties to directive NSC20 , the plan to sponsor Ukrainian-affiliated former Nazis in order to install them in the Kremlin to replace the Soviet government. This was part of the CIA's rationale for putting Ukrainian-affiliated former Nazis on its payroll in 1948. ..."
"... That Russiagate is the continuation of a scheme launched in 1945 by the National Security Council, to be engineered by the CIA with help from former Nazi officers in its employ, speaks volumes about the Cold War frame from which it emerges ..."
"... Its near instantaneous adoption by bourgeois liberals demonstrates the class basis of the right-wing nationalism it supports. That liberals appear to perceive themselves as defenders 'democracy' within a trajectory laid out by unelected military leaders more than seven decades earlier is testament to the power of historical ignorance tied to nationalist fervor. Were the former Gestapo and SS officers employed by the CIA 'our Nazis?' ..."
"... Furthermore, are liberals really comfortable bringing fascists with direct historical ties to the Third Reich to power in Ukraine? And while there are no good choices in the upcoming U.S. election, the guy who liberals want to bring to power is lead architect of this move. ..."
Jul 31, 2020 | www.counterpunch.org
Facebook Twitter Reddit Email

The political success of Russiagate lies in the vanishing of American history in favor of a façade of liberal virtue. Posed as a response to the election of Donald Trump, a straight line can be drawn from efforts to undermine the decommissioning of the American war economy in 1946 to the CIA's alliance with Ukrainian fascists in 2014. In 1945 the NSC (National Security Council) issued a series of directives that gave logic and direction to the CIA's actions during the Cold War. That these persist despite the 'fall of communism' suggests that it was always just a placeholder in the pursuit of other objectives.

The first Cold War was an imperial business enterprise to keep the Generals, bureaucrats, and war materiel suppliers in power and their bank accounts flush after WWII. Likewise, the American side of the nuclear arms race left former Gestapo and SS officers employed by the CIA to put their paranoid fantasies forward as assessments of Russian military capabilities. Why, of all people, would former Nazi officers be put in charge military intelligence if accurate assessments were the goal? The Nazis hated the Soviets more than the Americans did.

The ideological binaries of Russiagate -- for or against Donald Trump, for or against neoliberal, petrostate Russia, define the boundaries of acceptable discourse to the benefit of deeply nefarious interests. The U.S. has spent a century or more trying to install a U.S.-friendly government in Moscow. Following the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, the U.S. sent neoliberal economists to loot the country as the Clinton administration, and later the Obama administration, placed NATO troops and armaments on the Russian border after a negotiated agreement not to do so . Subsequent claims of realpolitik are cover for a reckless disregard for geopolitical consequences.

The paradox of American liberalism, articulated when feminist icon and CIA asset Gloria Steinem described the CIA as ' liberal, nonviolent and honorable ,' is that educated, well-dressed, bourgeois functionaries have used the (largely manufactured) threat of foreign subversion to install right-wing nationalists subservient to American business interests at every opportunity. Furthermore, Steinem's aggressive ignorance of the actual history of the CIA illustrates the liberal propensity to conflate bourgeois dress and attitude with an imagined gentility . To the point made by Christopher Simpson , the CIA could have achieved better results had it not employed former Nazi officers, begging the question of why it chose to do so?

On the American left, Russiagate is treated as a case of bad reporting, of official outlets for government propaganda serially reporting facts and events that were subsequently disproved. However, some fair portion of the American bourgeois, the PMC that acts in supporting roles for capital, believes every word of it. Russiagate is the nationalist party line in the American fight against communism, without the communism. Charges of treason have been lodged every time that military budgets have come under attack since 1945. In 1958 the senior leadership of the Air Force was charging the other branches of the military with treason for doubting its utterly fantastical (and later disproven) estimate of Soviet ICBMs. Treason is good for business.

Shortly after WWII ended, the CIA employed hundreds of former Nazi military officers, including former Gestapo and SS officers responsible for murdering tens and hundreds of thousands of human beings , to run a spy operation known as the Gehlen Organization from Berlin, Germany. Given its central role in assessing the military intentions and capabilities of the Soviet Union, the Gehlen Organization was more likely than not responsible for the CIA's overstatement of Soviet nuclear capabilities in the 1950s used to support the U.S. nuclear weapons program. Former Nazis were also integrated into CIA efforts to install right wing governments around the world.

By the time that (Senator) John F. Kennedy claimed a U.S. 'missile gap' with the Soviets in 1958, the CIA was providing estimates of Soviet ICBMs (Inter-continental Ballistic Missiles), that were wildly inflated -- most likely provided to it by the Gehlen Organization. Once satellite and U2 reconnaissance estimates became available, the CIA lowered its own to 120 Soviet ICBMs when the actual number was four . On the one hand, the Soviets really did have a nuclear weapons program. On the other, it was a tiny fraction of what was being claimed. Bad reporting, unerringly on the side of larger military budgets, appears to be the constant.

Under the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act passed by Congress in 1998, the CIA was made to partially disclose its affiliation with, and employment of, former Nazis. In contrast to the ' Operation Paperclip ' thesis that it was Nazi scientists who were brought to the U.S. to labor as scientists, the Gehlen Organization and CIC employed known war criminals in political roles. Klaus Barbie, the 'Butcher of Lyon,' was employed by the CIC, and claims to have played a role in the murder of Che Guevara . Wernher von Braun, one of the Operation Paperclip 'scientists,' worked in a Nazi concentration camp as tens of thousands of human beings were murdered.

The historical sequence in the U.S. was WWI, the Great Depression, WWII, to an economy that was heavily dependent on war production. The threatened decommissioning of the war economy in 1946 was first met with an honest assessment of Soviet intentions -- the Soviets were moving infrastructure back into Soviet territory as quickly as was practicable, then to the military budget-friendly claim that they were putting resources in place to invade Europe. The result of the shift was that the American Generals kept their power and the war industry kept producing materiel and weapons. By 1948 these weapons had come to include atomic bombs.

To understand the political space that military production came to occupy, from 1948 onward the U.S. military became a well-funded bureaucracy where charges of treason were regularly traded between the branches. Internecine battles for funding and strategic dominance were (and are) regularly fought. The tactic that this bureaucracy -- the 'military industrial complex,' adopted was to exaggerate foreign threats in a contest for bureaucratic dominance. The nuclear arms race was made a self-fulfilling prophecy. As the U.S. produced world-ending weapons non-stop for decades on end, the Soviets responded in kind.

What ties the Gehlen Organization to CIA estimates of Soviet nuclear weapons from 1948 – 1958 is 1) the Gehlen Organization was central to the CIA's intelligence operations vis-à-vis the Soviets, 2) the CIA had limited alternatives to gather information on the Soviets outside of the Gehlen Organization and 3) the senior leadership of the U.S. military had long demonstrated that it approved of exaggerating foreign threats when doing so enhanced their power and added to their budgets. Long story short, the CIA employed hundreds of former Nazi officers who had the ideological predisposition and economic incentive to mis-perceive Soviet intentions and misstate Soviet capabilities to fuel the Cold War.

Where this gets interesting is that American whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg was working for the Rand Corporation in the late 1950s and early 1960s when estimates of Soviet ICBMs were being put forward. JFK had run (in 1960) on a platform that included closing the Soviet – U.S. ' missile gap .' The USAF (U.S. Air Force), charged with delivering nuclear missiles to their targets, was estimating that the Soviets had 1,000 ICBMs. Mr. Ellsberg, who had limited security clearance through his employment at Rand, was leaked the known number of Soviet ICBMs. The Air Force was saying 1,000 Soviet ICBMs when the number confirmed by reconnaissance satellites was four.

By 1962, the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the CIA had shifted nominal control of the Gehlen Organization to the BND, for whom Gehlen continued to work. Based on ongoing satellite reconnaissance data, the CIA was busy lowering its estimates of Soviet nuclear capabilities. Benjamin Schwarz, writing for The Atlantic in 2013, provided an account, apparently informed by the CIA's lowered estimates, where he placed the whole of the Soviet nuclear weapons program (in 1962) at roughly one-ninth the size of the U.S. effort. However, given Ellsberg's known count of four Soviet ICBMs at the time of the missile crisis, even Schwarz's ratio of 1:9 seems to overstate Soviet capabilities.

Further per Schwarz's reporting, the Jupiter nuclear missiles that the U.S. had placed in Italy prior to the Cuban Missile Crisis only made sense as first-strike weapons. This interpretation is corroborated by Daniel Ellsberg , who argues that the American plan was always to initiate the use of nuclear weapons (first strike). This made JFK's posture of equally matched contestants in a geopolitical game of nuclear chicken utterly unhinged. Should this be less than clear, because the U.S. had indicated its intention to use nuclear weapons in a first strike -- and had demonstrated the intention by placing Jupiter missiles in Italy, nothing that the U.S. offered during the Missile Crisis could be taken in good faith.

The dissolution of the USSR in 1991 was met with a promised reduction in U.S. military spending and an end to the Cold War, neither of which ultimately materialized. Following the election of Bill Clinton in 1992, the Cold War entered a new phase. Cold War logic was repurposed to support the oxymoronic 'humanitarian wars' -- liberating people by bombing them. In 1995 'Russian meddling' meant the Clinton administration rigging the election of Boris Yeltsin in the Russian presidential election. Mr. Clinton then unilaterally reneged on the American agreement to keep NATO from Russia's border when former Baltic states were brought under NATO's control .

The Obama administration's 2014 incitement in Ukraine , by way of fostering and supporting the Maidan uprising and the ousting of Ukraine's democratically elected President, Viktor Yanukovych, ties to the U.S. strategy of containing and overthrowing the Soviet (Russian) government that was first codified by the National Security Council (NSC) in 1945. The NSC's directives can be found here and here . The economic and military annexation of Ukraine by the U.S. (NATO didn't exist in 1945) comes under NSC10/2 . The alliance between the CIA and Ukrainian fascists ties to directive NSC20 , the plan to sponsor Ukrainian-affiliated former Nazis in order to install them in the Kremlin to replace the Soviet government. This was part of the CIA's rationale for putting Ukrainian-affiliated former Nazis on its payroll in 1948.

That Russiagate is the continuation of a scheme launched in 1945 by the National Security Council, to be engineered by the CIA with help from former Nazi officers in its employ, speaks volumes about the Cold War frame from which it emerges.

Its near instantaneous adoption by bourgeois liberals demonstrates the class basis of the right-wing nationalism it supports. That liberals appear to perceive themselves as defenders 'democracy' within a trajectory laid out by unelected military leaders more than seven decades earlier is testament to the power of historical ignorance tied to nationalist fervor. Were the former Gestapo and SS officers employed by the CIA 'our Nazis?'

The Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act came about in part because Nazi hunters kept coming across Nazi war criminals living in the U.S. who told them they had been brought here and given employment by the CIA, CIC, or some other division of the Federal government. If the people in these agencies thought that doing so was justified, why the secrecy? And if it wasn't justified, why was it done? Furthermore, are liberals really comfortable bringing fascists with direct historical ties to the Third Reich to power in Ukraine? And while there are no good choices in the upcoming U.S. election, the guy who liberals want to bring to power is lead architect of this move. Cue the Sex Pistols .

[Aug 02, 2020] Dems will keep their knee on the throat of small businesses for as long as they possibly can for the sole purpose of crippling the economy to defeat Trump in November

Aug 02, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com


3 play_arrow


Old White Guy , 3 hours ago

Democrat politicians will keep their knee on the throat of small businesses for as long as they possibly can for the sole purpose of crippling the economy to defeat Trump in November. They don't care about the damage this causes. Keeping schools closed in the fall will result in single parents staying home from work to care for their kids. At very least it stifles the economy.

Send kids back to school, the majority wants this.

Vote in person November 3rd, make your vote count.

kaiserhoffredux , 3 hours ago

Exactly. There is no logic, reason, or precedent for quarantining healthy people.

To stop a virus, of all things? Ridiculous.

Ignatius , 2 hours ago

They've perverted the language as regards "cases."

A person could test positive and it might well be the most healthy situation: his body encountered the virus, fought it off, and now though asymptomatic, retains antibodies from a successful body response. The irony is that what I've described is the very response the vaxx pushers expect from their vaccines.

Shameless political posturing.

coletrickle45 , 2 hours ago

So if you have 99 - 99.8% chance of surviving this faux virus

But a 100% chance of destroying lives through poverty, bankruptcy, small business collapse, job losses, domestic abuse, depression, anxiety, fear.

What would you choose? Cost benefit analysis seems pretty obvious.

Gold Banit , 2 hours ago

Most people just regurgitate things they hear, they have lost the ability of creative and free thought.They have been deliberately dumbed down. The entire system has created a mutant society which is easy to control and manipulate.

"The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses." ― Malcolm X ay_arrow

sensibility , 2 hours ago

The COVID-19 Hoax has "Nothing" to do with "Real" Science, It's 100% about "Political" Science.

Therefore, No Matter What, Politicians will Bend and Manipulate this for "Political" Gain.

Who Stirred and Exposed the Swamp?

The Swamp Inhabitants Desperately Want & Intend to do Whatever it Takes to Return to the Old Pre Trump Days of Operating Above the Law Without Exposure and Impunity.

Consequently, Those who Support the COVID-19 Hoax are Swamp Members & Supporters.

Know your Adversary!

monty42 , 2 hours ago

Trump didn't drain, stir, or expose the swamp, sorry that dog don't hunt. He has appointed recycled establishment swamp creatures his entire term. He appointed Fauci to the Covidian Taskforce. He says wearing masks is patriotic.

The promises he made his followers did not manifest. Another 4 years after being lied to is just the same old routine, nothing new.

Until you people are honest about the reality of the situation, you'll never stop the cycle of D/R destruction.

[Aug 01, 2020] Did MI6 created White Helmets?

Notable quotes:
"... Perhaps he was even the initiator of the White Helmets? My take away from those reports is that Cummings and Johnson have commenced a transition strategy within the UK and that the future of Integrity Initiative and its bogan crew may be limited. ..."
"... They have also restrained the MI6 manipulators that would conspire and contrive the overt 'Hate Russia' policy. Not that Bojo and Cummings will necessarily change anything other than a superficial rearrangement in their favour (for a month or two anyway). ..."
"... Caitlin Johnston has recently posted an astute analysis of the current distraction politics and why we should not be distracted by Covid19 rants from seeing the immediate rendition of the great game. ..."
"... I guess the UK will be less overt re Russia but expect the Libyan war to escalate as UKUSAI use Turkey in Libya to push back against Russia and even Sisi in Egypt. ..."
"... The UK could stage yet another 'Suez incident' with this mendacious confluence of opportunities. ..."
"... The USA has become the patsy for these thugs, when will they rise? ..."
Aug 01, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

uncle tungsten , Aug 1 2020 0:39 utc | 39

Jackrabbut #3

Thank you for those John Helmer reports. I note that the new head of MI6 is a lover of all fine Turkish things including Erdoghan. "Richard Moore, currently a third-ranking official of the Foreign Office, an ex-Ambassador to Turkey; an ex-MI6 agent; and a Harvard graduate".

Perhaps he was even the initiator of the White Helmets? My take away from those reports is that Cummings and Johnson have commenced a transition strategy within the UK and that the future of Integrity Initiative and its bogan crew may be limited.

They have also restrained the MI6 manipulators that would conspire and contrive the overt 'Hate Russia' policy. Not that Bojo and Cummings will necessarily change anything other than a superficial rearrangement in their favour (for a month or two anyway).

AtaBrit #9 includes an excellent link to a National Interest report on Turkey and is worth the read in this context of the rise and rise of Richard Moore. Thank you AtaBrit.

Caitlin Johnston has recently posted an astute analysis of the current distraction politics and why we should not be distracted by Covid19 rants from seeing the immediate rendition of the great game.

I guess the UK will be less overt re Russia but expect the Libyan war to escalate as UKUSAI use Turkey in Libya to push back against Russia and even Sisi in Egypt. They have a willing US president now and likely continuing in the next few years (be it Trump or Biden). The UK could stage yet another 'Suez incident' with this mendacious confluence of opportunities.

The USA has become the patsy for these thugs, when will they rise?

[Jul 31, 2020] Tucker Carlson calls Obama 'one of the sleaziest and most dishonest figures' in US political history

Highly recommended!
So Obama managed to beat Clinton? Incredible achievement !
BTW Gen. Flynn case goes 'all the way to the top' to Obama: Rep. Jordan
Jul 31, 2020 | www.msn.com

Tucker Carlson described former President Obama as "one of the sleaziest and most dishonest figures in the history of American politics" after his eulogy at the funeral of civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) on Thursday.

© The Hill tucker Carlson

Carlson, who also described the former president as "a greasy politician" for calling on Congress to pass a new Voting Rights Act and to eliminate the filibuster, which Obama described as a relic of the Jim Crow era that disenfranchised Black Americans, in order to do so.

me marginwidth=

"Barack Obama, one of the sleaziest and most dishonest figures in the history of American politics, used George Floyd's death at a funeral to attack the police," Carlson said before showing a segment of Obama's remarks.

Watch the latest video at foxnews.com

[Jul 30, 2020] Even the CIA Thought the Steele Dossier Was Crap by Larry C Johnson - Sic Semper Tyrannis

Jul 30, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

30 JULY 2020 Even the CIA Thought the Steele Dossier Was Crap by Larry C Johnson

Well what do you know? John Brennan, the congenital liar and Obama's CIA Chief, actually made the right call when it came to the Steele Dossier. More importantly, we discover that Brennan inadvertently admitted that there was no substance to the Steele Dossier. If he had one shred of supporting evidence, you can be assured he would have been fully on board with the FBI request. But that is not what happened. According to a Senate Intelligence Committee report declassified this week, Brennan pushed back against the FBI's Jimmy Comey and Andy McCabe on the matter of whether to include the allegations reported in the Steele Dossier in the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment on Russian Interference in the U.S. Presidential Election. Chuck Ross reports that :

Documents declassified on Tuesday detail an intense debate between the CIA and FBI in late 2016 over the handling of information from Christopher Steele, with one CIA official telling the Senate Intelligence Committee that the former British spy's allegations about Trump-Russia collusion were "very unvetted."

Despite the CIA's concerns about Steele's allegations, the FBI successfully lobbied to include his information in an Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) regarding Russian interference in the 2016 election. The bureau also continued using information from Steele to conduct surveillance against former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

Investigators have since debunked several of Steele's allegations.

The newly declassified information is from a Senate Intelligence Committee report released on April 21 that detailed the creation of an ICA released on Jan. 6, 2017. I disputed the validity of Steele's work way back in January 2017, after BuzzFeed published the dossier. The errors and outlandish claims were so flagrant that even renowned Helen Keller, were she still alive, could see the problems. But I was wrong in believing that the media were capable of honest analysis or following simple logic. As a result, Steele's claims went virtually unchallenged by meme makers for more than two years and the American public was bombarded with the gargantuan lie that Russia's meddling in the 2016 Presidential Election paved the road for Donald Trump's victory. Democrats and media cretins insisted that Trump is nothing more than Putin's prison bitch.

But cold, hard facts began to emerge that exposed the falsehoods of the Steele document. The biggest blow came courtesy of DOJ Inspector General Horowitz's revelation that the FBI had identified and interviewed Steele's Russian sub-source and learned that he could not corroborate any of the wild, scurrilous claims made by Steele.

Now we have learned the identify to that source--Igor Danchenko. He is a Russian-born analyst living in the United States and was the primary source for Christopher Steele. More importantly, he is directly linked to prominent Democrats closely tied to Hillary Clinton. In particular, Strobe Talbott :

According to information he put online, Danchenko attended high schools in the United States in the 1990s as part of a student exchange program. He graduated from Perm State University in Russia and received a master's degree from the University of Louisville in 2005.

He worked for five years at the Brookings Institution as a Russia analyst. While there, he wrote a paper with Fiona Hill, who joined the Trump White House in 2017 as its top Russia expert.

Brookings has played a large role in the dossier saga. In 2016, it's then-president, Strobe Talbott, contacted Steele seeking a copy of the dossier. Hill told Congress last year that Talbott shared a copy of the dossier with her on Jan. 9, 2017, a day before BuzzFeed published the document online.

Christopher Steele's veracity and judgment took another hit in early July when a British Judge ruled he was guilty of libel in his claim that Russia's Alfa bank was part of an elaborate money laundering scheme that enriched Donald Trump.

The latest revelation from the Senate Intelligence Committee makes it clear that l'affaire Steele was an FBI creation. I assumed previously that the CIA also was involved in helping feed and prop up the Steele Dossier. But the Senate Report makes it very clear that the CIA put no stock whatsoever in Steele's claims. Shocking as it may be, the congenital miscreant, John Brennan, actually did the right thing and resisted repeated efforts by the FBI leaders--Jim Comey and Andy McCabe--to insert Steele's findings into the Intelligence Community Assessment on Russia's meddling.

This really puts Jim Comey and Andy McCabe in the trick box. If the CIA had facilitated the Steele Dossier and corroborated its claims, then Comey and McCabe could argue that they were relying on intelligence community findings in their acceptance of the Steele Dossier. That cannot go that route. They are fully exposed.

Comey and McCabe committed a fraud on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court by repeatedly submitting an application to spy on Carter Page that affirmed the allegations in the Steele Dossier as truthful. They knew by the end of January 2017 that Steele's claims were unfounded and not corroborated. But instead of fessing up to the FISC Judge, they opted to lie.

This is not to suggest that John Brennan and Jimmy Clapper, the former DNI Chief, are exonerated of illegal conduct. Au contraire. They oversaw a massive intelligence collection operation, which included covert actions designed to ensnare George Papadopoulos, Michael Flynn, Roger Stone and others and to promote the meme that Trump was a creature of Moscow.

One of the most important takeaways from this week's revelations is the tacit admission that the intelligence community did not have a damn piece of compromising information on Donald Trump. Consider this--we know that John Brennan had access to parts of the Steele dossier in August 2016 and he briefed Democrat Senator Harry Reid on its contents. And there is no doubt that the members of Brennan's Trump Task Force at the CIA was tasked to scour all intelligence for proof that would transform Steele's trash into pure gold. But that did not happen. Instead, come December 2016, even John Brennan had to concede that Christopher Steele's wild claims could nor be corroborated nor verified.

[Jul 30, 2020] Meet the Steele Dossier's 'Primary Subsource'- Fabulist Russian From Democrat Think Tank Whose Boozy Past the FBI Ignored - RealClearInvestigations

Jul 30, 2020 | www.realclearinvestigations.com

By Paul Sperry, RealClearInvestigations
July 24, 2020

The mysterious "Primary Subsource" that Christopher Steele has long hidden behind to defend his discredited Trump-Russia dossier is a former Brookings Institution analyst -- Igor "Iggy" Danchenko, a Russian national whose past includes criminal convictions and other personal baggage ignored by the FBI in vetting him and the information he fed to Steele, according to congressional sources and records obtained by RealClearInvestigations. Agents continued to use the dossier as grounds to investigate President Trump and put his advisers under counter-espionage surveillance.

The 42-year-old Danchenko, who was hired by Steele in 2016 to deploy a network of sources to dig up dirt on Trump and Russia for the Hillary Clinton campaign, was arrested, jailed and convicted years earlier on multiple public drunkenness and disorderly conduct charges in the Washington area and ordered to undergo substance-abuse and mental-health counseling, according to criminal records.

Fiona Hill: She worked at the Brookings Institution with dossier "Primary Subsource" Igor "Iggy" Danchenko (top photo), and testified against President Trump last year during impeachment hearings. AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta

In an odd twist, a 2013 federal case against Danchenko was prosecuted by then-U.S Attorney Rod Rosenstein, who ended up signing one of the FBI's dossier-based wiretap warrants as deputy attorney general in 2017.

Danchenko first ran into trouble with the law as he began working for Brookings -- the preeminent Democratic think tank in Washington -- where he struck up a friendship with Fiona Hill, the White House adviser who testified against Trump during last year's impeachment hearings. Danchenko has described Hill as a mentor, while Hill has sung his praises as a "creative" researcher.

Hill is also close to his boss Steele, who she'd known since 2006. She met with the former British intelligence officer during the 2016 campaign and later received a raw, unpublished copy of the now-debunked dossier.

It does not appear the FBI asked Danchenko about his criminal past or state of sobriety when agents interviewed him in January 2017 in a failed attempt to verify the accuracy of the dossier, which the bureau did only after agents used it to obtain a warrant to surveil Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. The opposition research was farmed out by Steele, working for Clinton's campaign, to Danchenko, who was paid for the information he provided.

A newly declassified FBI summary of the FBI-Danchenko meeting reveals agents learned that key allegations in the dossier, which claimed Trump engaged in a "well-developed conspiracy of cooperation" with the Kremlin against Clinton, were largely inspired by gossip and bar talk among Danchenko and his drinking buddies, most of whom were childhood friends from Russia.

The FBI memo is heavily redacted and blacks out the name of Steele's Primary Subsource. But public records and congressional sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirm the identity of the source as Danchenko.

In the memo, the FBI notes that Danchenko said that he and one of his dossier sources "drink heavily together." But there is no apparent indication the FBI followed up by asking Danchenko if he had an alcohol problem, which would cast further doubt on his reliability as a source for one of the most important and sensitive investigations in FBI history.

The FBI declined comment. Attempts to reach Danchenko by both email and phone were unsuccessful.

The Justice Department's watchdog recently debunked the dossier's most outrageous accusations against Trump, and faulted the FBI for relying on it to obtain secret wiretaps. The bureau's actions, which originated under the Obama administration, are now the subject of a sprawling criminal investigation led by special prosecutor John Durham.

Rod Rosenstein: In an odd twist, a 2013 drunkenness case against Danchenko was prosecuted by then-U.S Attorney Rod Rosenstein, who ended up signing one of the FBI's dossier-based wiretap warrants as deputy attorney general in 2017. (Greg Nash/Pool via AP)

One of the wiretap warrants was signed in 2017 by Rosenstein, who also that year appointed Special Counsel Robert Mueller and signed a "scope" memo giving him wide latitude to investigate Trump and his surrogates. Mueller relied on the dossier too. As it happens, Rosenstein also signed motions filed in one of Danchenko's public intoxication cases, according to the documents obtained by RCI.

In March 2013 -- three years before Danchenko began working on the dossier -- federal authorities in Greenbelt, Md., arrested and charged him with several misdemeanors, including "drunk in public, disorderly conduct, and failure to have his [2-year-old] child in a safety seat," according to a court filing . The U.S. prosecutor for Maryland at the time was Rosenstein, whose name appears in the docket filings .

The Russian-born Danchenko, who was living in the U.S. on a work visa, was released from jail on the condition he undergo drug testing and "participate in a program of substance abuse therapy and counseling," as well as "mental health counseling," the records show. His lawyer asked the court to postpone his trial and let him travel to Moscow "as a condition of his employment." The Russian trips were granted without objection from Rosenstein. Danchenko ended up several months later entering into a plea agreement and paying fines.

In 2006, Danchenko was arrested in Fairfax, Va., on similar offenses, including "public swearing and intoxication," criminal records show. The case was disposed after he paid a fine.

At the time, Danchenko worked as a research analyst for the Brookings Institution, where he became a protégé of Hill. He collaborated with her on at least two Russian policy papers during his five-year stint at the think tank and worked with another Brookings scholar on a project to uncover alleged plagiarism in Russian President Vladimir Putin's doctoral dissertation -- something Danchenko and his lawyer boasted about during their meeting with FBI agents. (Like Hill, the other scholar, Clifford Gaddy, was a Russia hawk. He and Hill in 2015 authored "Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin," a book strongly endorsed by Vice President Joe Biden at the time.)

"Igor is a highly accomplished analyst and researcher," Hill noted on his LinkedIn page in 2011. "He is very creative in pursuing the most relevant of information and detail to support his research."

Strobe Talbott of Brookings with Hillary Clinton: He connected with Christopher Steele and passed along a copy of his anti-Trump dossier to Fiona Hill. AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster Hill also vouched for Steele, an old friend and British intelligence counterpart. The two reunited in 2016, sitting down for at least one meeting. Her boss at the time, Brookings President Strobe Talbott, also connected with Steele and passed along a copy of his anti-Trump dossier to Hill. A tough Trump critic, Talbott previously worked in the Clinton administration and rallied the think tank behind Hillary.

Talbott's brother-in-law is Cody Shearer, another old Clinton hand who disseminated his own dossier in 2016 that echoed many of the same lurid and unsubstantiated claims against Trump. Through a mutual friend at the State Department, Steele obtained a copy of Shearer's dossier and reportedly submitted it to the FBI to help corroborate his own.

In August 2016, Talbott personally called Steele, based in London, to offer his own input on the dossier he was compiling from Danchenko's feeds. Steele phoned Talbott just before the November election, during which Talbott asked for the latest dossier memos to distribute to top officials at the State Department. After Trump's surprise win, the mood at Brookings turned funereal and Talbott and Steele strategized about how they "should handle" the dossier going forward.

During the Trump transition, Talbott encouraged Hill to leave Brookings and take a job in the White House so she could be "one of the adults in the room" when Russia and Putin came up. She served as deputy assistant to the president and senior director for European and Russian affairs on the National Security Council from 2017 to 2019.

She left the White House just before a National Security Council detailee who'd worked with her, Eric Ciaramella, secretly huddled with Democrats in Congress and alleged Trump pressured the president of Ukraine to launch an investigation of Biden and his son in exchange for military aid. Democrats soon held hearings to impeach Trump, calling Hill as one of their star witnesses.

Congressional investigators are taking a closer look at tax-exempt Brookings, which has emerged as a nexus in the dossier scandal. As a 501(c)(3) non-profit, the liberal think tank is prohibited from lobbying or engaging in political campaigns. Gryffindor/Wikimedia

Under questioning by Republican staff, Hill disclosed that Steele reached out to her for information about a mysterious individual, but she claimed she could not recall his name. She also said she couldn't remember the month she and Steele met.

"He had contacted me because he wanted to see if I could give him a contact to some other individual, who actually I don't even recall now, who he could approach about some business issues," Hill told the House last year in an Oct. 14 deposition taken behind closed doors.

Congressional investigators are reviewing her testimony, while taking a closer look at tax-exempt Brookings, which has emerged as a nexus in the dossier scandal.

Registered with the IRS as a 501(c)(3) non-profit, the liberal think tank is prohibited from lobbying or engaging in political campaigns. Specifically, investigators want to know if Brookings played any role in the development of the dossier.

"Their 501(c)(3) status should be audited, because they are a major player in the dossier deal," said a congressional staffer who has worked on the investigation into alleged Russian influence.

Hill, who returned to Brookings as a senior fellow in January, could not be reached for comment. Brookings did not respond to inquiries.

Ghost Employee

As a former member of Britain's secret intelligence service, Steele hadn't traveled to Russia in decades and apparently had no useful sources there. So he relied entirely on Danchenko and his supposed "network of subsources," which to its chagrin, the FBI discovered was nothing more than a "social circle."

It soon became clear over their three days of debriefing him at the FBI's Washington field office -- held just days after Trump was sworn into office -- that any Russian insights he may have had were strictly academic.

Danchenko confessed he had no inside line to the Kremlin and was "clueless" when Steele hired him in March 2016 to investigate ties between Russia and Trump and his campaign manager.

Christopher Steele, former British spy, leaving a London court this week in a libel case brought against him by a Russian businessman. Dossier source Danchenko's drinking pals fed him a tissue of false "rumor and speculation" for pay -- which Steele, in turn, further embellished with spy-crafty details and sold to his client as "intelligence." (Victoria Jones/PA via AP)

Desperate for leads, he turned to a ragtag group of Russian and American journalists, drinking buddies (including one who'd been arrested on pornography charges) and even an old girlfriend to scare up information for his London paymaster, according to the FBI's January 2017 interview memo, which runs 57 pages. Like him, his friends made a living hustling gossip for cash, and they fed him a tissue of false "rumor and speculation" -- which Steele, in turn, further embellished with spy-crafty details and sold to his client as "intelligence."

Instead of closing its case against Trump, however, the FBI continued to rely on the information Danchenko dictated to Steele for the dossier, even swearing to a secret court that it was credible enough to renew wiretaps for another nine months.

One of Danchenko's sources was nothing more than an anonymous voice on the other end of a phone call that lasted 10-15 minutes.

Danchenko told the FBI he figured out later that the call-in tipster, who he said did not identify himself, was Sergei Millian, a Belarusian-born realtor in New York. In the dossier, Steele labeled this source "an ethnic Russian close associate of Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump," and attributed Trump-Russia conspiracy revelations to him that the FBI relied on to support probable cause in all four FISA applications for warrants to spy on Trump adviser Carter Page -- including the Mueller-debunked myth that he and the campaign were involved in "the DNC email hacking operation."

Danchenko explained to agents the call came after he solicited Millian by email in late July 2016 for information for his assignment from Steele. Millian told RCI that though he did receive an email from Danchenko on July 21, he ignored the message and never called him.

"There was not any verbal communications with him," he insisted. "I'm positive, 100%, nothing what is claimed in whatever call they invented I could have said."

Millian provided RCI part of the email, which was written mostly in Russian. Contact information at the bottom of the email reads:

Igor Danchenko
Business Analyst
Target Labs Inc.
8320 Old Courthouse Rd, Suite 200
Vienna, VA 22182
+1-202-679-5323

At the time, Danchenko listed Target Labs, an IT recruiter run by ethnic-Russians, as an employer on his resumé. But technically, he was not a paid employee there. Thanks to a highly unusual deal Steele arranged with the company, Danchenko was able to use Target Labs as an employment front.

It turns out that in 2014, when Danchenko first started freelancing regularly for Steele after losing his job at a Washington strategic advisory firm, he set out to get a security clearance to start his own company. But drawing income from a foreign entity like Steele's London-based company, Orbis Business Intelligence, would hurt his chances. He was desperate to find a salaried position with a U.S.-based firm, he told the FBI.

So Steele agreed to help him broker a special "arrangement" with Target Labs, where a Russian friend of Danchenko's worked as an executive, in which the company would bring Danchenko on board as an employee but not put him officially on the payroll. Danchenko would continue working for Steele and getting paid by Orbis with payments funneled through Target Labs. In effect, Target Labs served as the "contract vehicle" through which Danchenko was paid a monthly salary for his work for Orbis, the FBI memo reveals.

Though Danchenko had a desk available to use at Target Labs, he did most of his work for Orbis from home and did not take direction from the firm. Steele continued to give him assignments and direct his travel. Danchenko essentially worked as a ghost employee at Target Labs.

Asked about it, a Target Labs spokesman would only say that Danchenko "does not work with us anymore."

Brian Auten: He wrote the memo on the FBI's interview with the Primary Subsource, which is silent about Danchenko's criminal record. Patrick Henry College

Some veteran FBI officials worry Moscow's foreign intelligence service may have planted disinformation with Danchenko and his network of sources in Russia. At least one of them, identified only as "Source 5" in the FBI memo, was described as having a Russian "kurator," or handler.

"There are legions of 'connected' Russians purveying second- and third-hand -- and often made-up -- due diligence reports and private intelligence," said former FBI assistant director Chris Swecker. "Putin's intelligence minions use these people well to plant information."

Danchenko has scrubbed his social media account. He told the FBI he deleted all his dossier-related electronic communications, including texts and emails, and threw out his handwritten notes from conversations with his subsources.

In the end, Steele walked away from the dossier debacle with at least $168,000, and Danchenko earned a large undisclosed sum.

The FBI interview memo, which is silent about Danchenko's criminal record, was written by FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten, who was called out in the Justice inspector general report for ignoring inconsistencies, contradictions, errors and outright falsehoods in the dossier he was supposed to verify.

It was also Auten's duty to vet Steele and his sources. Auten sat in on the meetings with Danchenko and also separate ones with Steele. He witnessed firsthand the countless red flags that popped up from their testimony. Yet Auten continued to tout their reliability as sources, and give his blessing to agents to use their dossier as probable cause to renew FISA surveillance warrants to spy on Page.

As RCI first reported, Auten teaches a national security course at a Washington-area college on the ethics of such spying .

[Jul 29, 2020] Opinion - More willful blindness by the media on spying by Obama administration

Jul 29, 2020 | www.informationclearinghouse.info

More willful blindness by the media on spying by Obama administration

By Jonathan Turley

July 27, 2020 " Information Clearing House " - The Washington press corps seems engaged in a collective demonstration of the legal concept of willful blindness, or deliberately ignoring the facts, following the release of yet another declassified document which directly refutes prior statements about the investigation into Russia collusion. The document shows that FBI officials used a national security briefing of then candidate Donald Trump and his top aides to gather possible evidence for Crossfire Hurricane, its code name for the Russia investigation.

It is astonishing that the media refuses to see what is one of the biggest stories in decades. The Obama administration targeted the campaign of the opposing party based on false evidence. The media covered Obama administration officials ridiculing the suggestions of spying on the Trump campaign and of improper conduct with the Russia investigation. When Attorney General William Barr told the Senate last year that he believed spying did occur, he was lambasted in the media, including by James Comey and others involved in that investigation. The mocking "wow" response of the fired FBI director received extensive coverage.

The new document shows that, in summer 2016, FBI agent Joe Pientka briefed Trump campaign advisers Michael Flynn and Chris Christie over national security issues, standard practice ahead of the election. It had a discussion of Russian interference. But this was different. The document detailing the questions asked by Trump and his aides and their reactions was filed several days after that meeting under Crossfire Hurricane and Crossfire Razor, the FBI investigation of Flynn. The two FBI officials listed who approved the report are Kevin Clinesmith and Peter Strzok.

No Advertising - No Government Grants - This Is Independent Media

Get Our Free Newsletter You can't buy your way onto these pages

Clinesmith is the former FBI lawyer responsible for the FISA surveillance conducted on members of the Trump campaign. He opposed Trump and sent an email after the election declaring "viva the resistance." He is now under review for possible criminal charges for altering a FISA court filing. The FBI used Trump adviser Carter Page as the basis for the original FISA application, due to his contacts with Russians. After that surveillance was approved, however, federal officials discredited the collusion allegations and noted that Page was a CIA asset. Clinesmith had allegedly changed the information to state that Page was not working for the CIA.

Strzok is the FBI agent whose violation of FBI rules led Justice Department officials to refer him for possible criminal charges. Strzok did not hide his intense loathing of Trump and famously referenced an "insurance policy" if Trump were to win the election. After FBI officials concluded there was no evidence of any crime by Flynn at the end of 2016, Strzok prevented the closing of the investigation as FBI officials searched for any crime that might be used to charge the incoming national security adviser.

Documents show Comey briefed President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden on the investigation shortly before the inauguration of Trump. When Comey admitted the communications between Flynn and Russian officials appeared legitimate, Biden reportedly suggested using the Logan Act, a law widely seen as unconstitutional and never been used to successfully convict a single person, as an alternative charge against Flynn. The memo contradicts eventual claims by Biden that he did not know about the Flynn investigation. Let us detail some proven but mostly unseen facts.

First, the Russia collusion allegations were based in large part on the dossier funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. The Clinton campaign repeatedly denied paying for the dossier until after the election, when it was confronted with irrefutable evidence that the money had been buried among legal expenditures. As New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman wrote, "Folks involved in funding this lied about it and with sanctimony for a year."

Second, FBI agents had warned that dossier author Christopher Steele may have been used by Russian intelligence to plant false information to disrupt the election. His source for the most serious allegations claims that Steele misrepresented what he had said and that it was little more than rumors that were recast by Steele as reliable intelligence.

Third, the Obama administration had been told that the basis for the FISA application was dubious and likely false. Yet it continued the investigation, and then someone leaked its existence to the media. Another declassified document shows that, after the New York Times ran a leaked story on the investigation, even Strzok had balked at the account as misleading and inaccurate. His early 2017 memo affirmed that there was no evidence of any individuals in contact with Russians. This information came as the collusion stories were turning into a frenzy that would last years.

Fourth, the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller and inspectors general found no evidence of collusion or knowing contact between the Trump campaign and Russian officials. What inspectors general did find were false statements or possible criminal conduct by Comey and others. While unable to say it was the reason for their decisions, they also found statements of animus against Trump and his campaign by the FBI officials who were leading the investigation. Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein testified he never would have approved renewal of the FISA surveillance and encouraged further investigation into such bias.

Finally, Obama and Biden were aware of the investigation, as were the administration officials who publicly ridiculed Trump when he said there was spying on his campaign. Others, like House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, declared they had evidence of collusion but never produced it. Countless reporters, columnists, and analysts still continue to deride, as writer Max Boot said it, the spinning of "absurd conspiracy theories" about how the FBI "supposedly spied on the Trump campaign."

Willful blindness has its advantages. The media covered the original leak and the collusion narrative, despite mounting evidence that it was false. They filled hours of cable news shows and pages of print with a collusion story discredited by the FBI. Virtually none of these journalists or experts have acknowledged that the collusion leaks were proven false, let alone pursue the troubling implications of national security powers being used to target the political opponents of an administration. But in Washington, success often depends not on what you see but what you can unsee.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. You can find his updates online @JonathanTurley . - " Source " -

[Jul 29, 2020] Deep state coup 1.0 - Conservapedia

Jul 29, 2020 | www.conservapedia.com

The Deep state coup attempt (sometimes called the soft coup or the "insurance policy" ) was an effort by high-level Obama administration intelligence community officials and holdovers to sabotage the agenda of President Donald Trump , remove him from power, and hide the illegal actions of the Obama administration.

Major players in the coup attempt were Barack Hussein Obama , Hillary Rodham Clinton , John Brennan , James Clapper , James Comey , Andrew McCabe , Rod Rosenstein , Sally Yates , Bruce Ohr , Andrew Weissmann and a host of other lower level DNC operatives in the US intelligence community and partisan aligned mainstream media organizations. Republican Sen. John McCain is also known to have shared information and worked with the plotters during the coup effort. [1]

[Jul 29, 2020] Keep hearing these things about Tashina "Tash" Gauhar, head of DoJ National Security Division seems to always be involved with all these things -- Clinton Emails, DNC/Weiner, Sessions recusal, Mueller liaison at DoJ, FISA warrants.

Tashina "Tash" Gauhar, also goes by Tanisha Guahar, is the Deputy Assistant Attorney General (DAAG) in the Department of Justice National Security Division (NSD). Gauhar is a FISA lawyer. Tash was at the DOJ since 2001, and she formerly served as assistant counsel and chief of operations in what was then called the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review. She worked for DAG Rosenstein as she did for DAG Sally Yates. Tash Gauhar was the DAG's executor and enforcer for national security. Tashina Gauhar was/is best friends with Lisa Page . Tashina is reported to have attempted to get access to highly compartmentalized NSA information, and lied about being an appropriately cleared recipient.
Guahar is said to have been removed from her position in charge of FISA applications immediately after IG Michael Horowitz submitted his first draft report to Attorney General Bill Barr for classification review. Gauhar now reportedly works for Boeing . [1]
She is the DOJ/FBI lawyer at the heart of the Clinton-email investigation; the DOJ/FBI lawyer hired by Eric Holder at his firm and later at the DOJ; the DOJ/FBI lawyer who was transferred to the Clinton probe; the DOJ/FBI lawyer at the epicenter of the Weiner laptop issues, the only one from MYE who spoke to New York; the DOJ/FBI lawyer who constructs the FISA applications on behalf of Main Justice; . just happens to be the same DOJ/FBI lawyer recommending to AG Jeff Sessions that he recuse himself. Tashina Gauhar - Conservapedia
Jul 29, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Keep hearing these things about Tashina "Tash" Gauhar, head of DoJ National Security Division seems to always be involved with all these things -- Clinton Emails, DNC/Weiner, Sessions recusal, Mueller liaison at DoJ, FISA warrants.

Posted by: scott s. | 27 July 2020 at 08:50 PM

[Jul 29, 2020] The Curious Silence of the Traitors by Larry C Johnson - Sic Semper Tyrannis

Jul 29, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

27 JULY 2020 The Curious Silence of the Traitors by Larry C Johnson

Remember when John O. Brennan--Obama's CIA Director--and disgraced FBI agent, Peter Strzok, were regularly spewing anti-Trump diatribes on Twitter? Well, Strzok went silent on 11 July 2020 and Brennan did the same a week later (18 July 2020). I do not think that is a coincidence.

I have now heard from three separate sources that John Durham will have plea deals and/or indictments before 1 September 2020. Two of the first heads to roll likely will be lying lawyer Kevin Clinesmith , who deliberately withheld exculpatory from a FISA application to spy on Carter Page, and lover boy, Peter Strzok.

And then there is the retarded fool, John Brennan, who fancies himself as the Mozart of the Intelligence Community. Sorry John, you do not even qualify to clean Salieri's toliet. Until 9 days ago, John was a regular tweeter hurling foul invectives at Donald Trump.

Here are two examples of their July 11 screeds:

Trump's commutation of Stone apparently pushed them over the edge. Boo hoo. But since then it has been crickets from these two chowderheads. Has the past caught up with them? At least in Strzok's case he has retained legal representation. No indicator yet about Brennan. A competent lawyer would understand that tweets, especially those attacking the Trump Administration, is a potentially dangerous, self-incriminating activity.

More than two weeks of silence from Strzok and one week from Brennan does not appear to be a mere instance of having nothing to say. Lack of substance has not prevented these two buffoons from shooting their mouths off in the past. Is the day of reckoning nigh?


TV , 27 July 2020 at 06:08 PM

I sure hope so, but I'm not optimistic.
The swamp will not go willingly and Barr, for all his comments about "justice", is still a member in good standing.
Look at how the FBI is still out of control, hiding and shredding documents and the "career" lawyers are still operating the DOJ as an arm of the Democrat party.

Deap , 27 July 2020 at 07:24 PM

How long did Martha Stewart end up in the slammer? How much time did the Varsity Blues parents get in the Big House? People still do go to jail in this country for messing around with the facts.

Are Brennan and Strozk immune after trying to take down a sitting President, but trying to get your stupid kid into USC by cheating gets a prolonged close encounter with Bubba?

Surely, we don't have two systems of justice. One for government employees and one for the rest of us. I gather one does not "plea bargain" unless there is a case. Though Gen Flynn can still beg to differ with that presumption. Surely we are not intro framing suspects, even though their possible charge was framing the President.

Does the DOJ have clean hands at last, on Russiagate. And will a possible plea bargain finally lead to loss of their security clearances? And pensions. Did Clapper flip.

Deap , 27 July 2020 at 07:28 PM

Why was the "essential question" to only investigate the Trump campaign.

Facts in evidence clearly show Clinton was the one getting the Russians to interfere in the 2016 campaign. How is her Twitter account doing right now. Did she too drop into this sudden cone of silence?

scott s. , 27 July 2020 at 08:50 PM

Keep hearing these things about Tashina "Tash" Gauhar, head of DoJ National Security Division seems to always be involved with all these things -- Clinton Emails, DNC/Weiner, Sessions recusal, Mueller liaison at DoJ, FISA warrants.

Deap , 28 July 2020 at 01:03 AM

10AM EST - Tues - House Judiciary Hearings - Oversight of DOJ - AG Barr testifying.

nbsp; Fred , 28 July 2020 at 11:37 AM

Thanks for the write up Larry. The sounds of silence are deafening. The silence of riots apparently being news, until this instant, when Congressman Nadler was forced to see five minutes of it via video in the hearing room on Congress, to which he chastised the ranking member for not giving him 48 hours warning that truth would be shown. I wonder what antifa's masters have in store for us for the rest of the week, given their narrative is losing them voter support.

BillWade , 28 July 2020 at 01:33 PM

Strzok has a book coming out, "Compromised: Counterintelligence and the Threat of Donald J. Trump". I'd rather see him sweating bullets before the Sep 8 release. Thanks Larry!

Deap , 28 July 2020 at 06:00 PM

Once behind bars, Strzok can't profit from his crime so this must be a frantic ghost-written doozie. And all Russia, Russia, Russia again. Talk about an issue that generates zero traction.

I think we can all write the plot upfront (OrangemanBad), upon with he will hang the most gauzy of facts Too bad he could not get Team Mueller to agree with him when it counted.

I mourn the trees sacrificed to his tawdry cause. Maintaining a wife and mistress at the same time however, does add up.

[Jul 28, 2020] Barr is so much better and smarter than neoliberal Dems

Barr opening statement
Jul 28, 2020 | townhall.com

Go back and watch the sad spectacle for yourself on C-SPAN's website, if you'd like. I wouldn't recommend it. As a preview of coming attractions, Chairman Nadler -- who recently dismissed the serious, documented violence in Portland as a "myth" -- concluded his harried Q&A with this: "Shame on you, Mr. Barr."

... Like many of his colleagues, Nadler repeatedly interrupted Barr's attempts to even begin to respond to the accusations being hurled at him, then concluded his scripted performance with a dramatic "shame on you!" And so it has gone. Alternating parcels of Five Minutes' Hate, interspersed with Republicans playing defense and scoring their own points. Occasional actual questions have slipped through the theater, but the overall episode has been largely useless.

From Berr opning statement:

Ever since I made it clear that I was going to do everything I could to get to the bottom of the grave abuses involved in the bogus "Russiagate" scandal , many of the Democrats on this Committee have attempted to discredit me by conjuring up a narrative that I am simply the President's factotum who disposes of criminal cases according to his instructions. Judging from the letter inviting me to this hearing, that appears to be your agenda today.

So let me turn to that first. As I said in my confirmation hearing, the Attorney General has a unique obligation. He holds in trust the fair and impartial administration of justice. He must ensure that there is one standard of justice that applies to everyone equally and that criminal cases are handled even-handedly, based on the law and the facts, and without regard to political or personal considerations...

Indeed, it is precisely because I feel complete freedom to do what I think is right that induced me serve once again as Attorney General. As you know, I served as Attorney General under President George H. W. Bush.

After that, I spent many years in the corporate world. I was almost 70 years old, slipping happily into retirement as I enjoyed my grandchildren. I had nothing to prove and had no desire to return to government. I had no prior relationship with President Trump.

Watch the whole thing here , or read the full transcript here . I'll leave you with this.

[Jul 26, 2020] Steele's Primary Subsource Was Alcoholic Russian National Who Worked With Fiona Hill At Brookings

Jul 26, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

The Russian-born Danchenko, who was living in the U.S. on a work visa, was released from jail on the condition he undergo drug testing and "participate in a program of substance abuse therapy and counseling," as well as "mental health counseling," the records show. His lawyer asked the court to postpone his trial and let him travel to Moscow "as a condition of his employment." The Russian trips were granted without objection from Rosenstein. Danchenko ended up several months later entering into a plea agreement and paying fines.

In 2006, Danchenko was arrested in Fairfax, Va., on similar offenses, including "public swearing and intoxication," criminal records show. The case was disposed after he paid a fine.

At the time, Danchenko worked as a research analyst for the Brookings Institution, where he became a protégé of Hill. He collaborated with her on at least two Russian policy papers during his five-year stint at the think tank and worked with another Brookings scholar on a project to uncover alleged plagiarism in Russian President Vladimir Putin's doctoral dissertation -- something Danchenko and his lawyer boasted about during their meeting with FBI agents. (Like Hill, the other scholar, Clifford Gaddy, was a Russia hawk. He and Hill in 2015 authored "Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin," a book strongly endorsed by Vice President Joe Biden at the time.)

"Igor is a highly accomplished analyst and researcher," Hill noted on his LinkedIn page in 2011.

"He is very creative in pursuing the most relevant of information and detail to support his research."

Strobe Talbott of Brookings with Hillary Clinton: He connected with Christopher Steele and passed along a copy of his anti-Trump dossier to Fiona Hill. AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster

Hill also vouched for Steele, an old friend and British intelligence counterpart. The two reunited in 2016, sitting down for at least one meeting. Her boss at the time, Brookings President Strobe Talbott, also connected with Steele and passed along a copy of his anti-Trump dossier to Hill. A tough Trump critic, Talbott previously worked in the Clinton administration and rallied the think tank behind Hillary.

[Jul 26, 2020] Steele's -Primary Subsource- Was Alcoholic Russian National Who Worked With Trump Impeachment Witness At Brookings

Jul 26, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Steele's "Primary Subsource" Was Alcoholic Russian National Who Worked With Trump Impeachment Witness At Brookings by Tyler Durden Sat, 07/25/2020 - 16:50 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print

Authored by Paul Sperry via RealClearInvestigations.com,

The mysterious "Primary Subsource" that Christopher Steele has long hidden behind to defend his discredited Trump-Russia dossier is a former Brookings Institution analyst -- Igor "Iggy" Danchenko, a Russian national whose past includes criminal convictions and other personal baggage ignored by the FBI in vetting him and the information he fed to Steele , according to congressional sources and records obtained by RealClearInvestigations. Agents continued to use the dossier as grounds to investigate President Trump and put his advisers under counter-espionage surveillance.

The 42-year-old Danchenko, who was hired by Steele in 2016 to deploy a network of sources to dig up dirt on Trump and Russia for the Hillary Clinton campaign, was arrested, jailed and convicted years earlier on multiple public drunkenness and disorderly conduct charges in the Washington area and ordered to undergo substance-abuse and mental-health counseling, according to criminal records.

me title=

Fiona Hill: She worked at the Brookings Institution with dossier "Primary Subsource" Igor "Iggy" Danchenko (top photo), and testified against President Trump last year during impeachment hearings. AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta

In an odd twist, a 2013 federal case against Danchenko was prosecuted by then-U.S Attorney Rod Rosenstein, who ended up signing one of the FBI's dossier-based wiretap warrants as deputy attorney general in 2017.

Danchenko first ran into trouble with the law as he began working for Brookings - the preeminent Democratic think tank in Washington - where he struck up a friendship with Fiona Hill, the White House adviser who testified against Trump during last year's impeachment hearings. Danchenko has described Hill as a mentor, while Hill has sung his praises as a "creative" researcher.

Hill is also close to his boss Steele, who she'd known since 2006 . She met with the former British intelligence officer during the 2016 campaign and later received a raw, unpublished copy of the now-debunked dossier.

It does not appear the FBI asked Danchenko about his criminal past or state of sobriety when agents interviewed him in January 2017 in a failed attempt to verify the accuracy of the dossier, which the bureau did only after agents used it to obtain a warrant to surveil Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. The opposition research was farmed out by Steele, working for Clinton's campaign, to Danchenko, who was paid for the information he provided.

https://lockerdome.com/lad/13084989113709670?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13084989113709670-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com&rid=www.zerohedge.com&width=890

A newly declassified FBI summary of the FBI-Danchenko meeting reveals agents learned that key allegations in the dossier, which claimed Trump engaged in a "well-developed conspiracy of cooperation" with the Kremlin against Clinton, were largely inspired by gossip and bar talk among Danchenko and his drinking buddies, most of whom were childhood friends from Russia.

The FBI memo is heavily redacted and blacks out the name of Steele's Primary Subsource. But public records and congressional sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirm the identity of the source as Danchenko.

In the memo, the FBI notes that Danchenko said that he and one of his dossier sources "drink heavily together." But there is no apparent indication the FBI followed up by asking Danchenko if he had an alcohol problem, which would cast further doubt on his reliability as a source for one of the most important and sensitive investigations in FBI history.

The FBI declined comment. Attempts to reach Danchenko by both email and phone were unsuccessful.

The Justice Department's watchdog recently debunked the dossier's most outrageous accusations against Trump, and faulted the FBI for relying on it to obtain secret wiretaps. The bureau's actions, which originated under the Obama administration, are now the subject of a sprawling criminal investigation led by special prosecutor John Durham.

Rod Rosenstein: In an odd twist, a 2013 drunkenness case against Danchenko was prosecuted by then-U.S Attorney Rod Rosenstein, who ended up signing one of the FBI's dossier-based wiretap warrants as deputy attorney general in 2017. (Greg Nash/Pool via AP)

One of the wiretap warrants was signed in 2017 by Rosenstein, who also that year appointed Special Counsel Robert Mueller and signed a "scope" memo giving him wide latitude to investigate Trump and his surrogates. Mueller relied on the dossier too. As it happens, Rosenstein also signed motions filed in one of Danchenko's public intoxication cases, according to the documents obtained by RCI.

In March 2013 -- three years before Danchenko began working on the dossier -- federal authorities in Greenbelt, Md., arrested and charged him with several misdemeanors, including "drunk in public, disorderly conduct, and failure to have his [2-year-old] child in a safety seat," according to a court filing . The U.S. prosecutor for Maryland at the time was Rosenstein, whose name appears in the docket filings .

The Russian-born Danchenko, who was living in the U.S. on a work visa, was released from jail on the condition he undergo drug testing and "participate in a program of substance abuse therapy and counseling," as well as "mental health counseling," the records show. His lawyer asked the court to postpone his trial and let him travel to Moscow "as a condition of his employment." The Russian trips were granted without objection from Rosenstein. Danchenko ended up several months later entering into a plea agreement and paying fines.

In 2006, Danchenko was arrested in Fairfax, Va., on similar offenses, including "public swearing and intoxication," criminal records show. The case was disposed after he paid a fine.

At the time, Danchenko worked as a research analyst for the Brookings Institution, where he became a protégé of Hill. He collaborated with her on at least two Russian policy papers during his five-year stint at the think tank and worked with another Brookings scholar on a project to uncover alleged plagiarism in Russian President Vladimir Putin's doctoral dissertation -- something Danchenko and his lawyer boasted about during their meeting with FBI agents. (Like Hill, the other scholar, Clifford Gaddy, was a Russia hawk. He and Hill in 2015 authored "Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin," a book strongly endorsed by Vice President Joe Biden at the time.)

"Igor is a highly accomplished analyst and researcher," Hill noted on his LinkedIn page in 2011.

"He is very creative in pursuing the most relevant of information and detail to support his research."

Strobe Talbott of Brookings with Hillary Clinton: He connected with Christopher Steele and passed along a copy of his anti-Trump dossier to Fiona Hill. AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster

Hill also vouched for Steele, an old friend and British intelligence counterpart. The two reunited in 2016, sitting down for at least one meeting. Her boss at the time, Brookings President Strobe Talbott, also connected with Steele and passed along a copy of his anti-Trump dossier to Hill. A tough Trump critic, Talbott previously worked in the Clinton administration and rallied the think tank behind Hillary.

Talbott's brother-in-law is Cody Shearer, another old Clinton hand who disseminated his own dossier in 2016 that echoed many of the same lurid and unsubstantiated claims against Trump. Through a mutual friend at the State Department, Steele obtained a copy of Shearer's dossier and reportedly submitted it to the FBI to help corroborate his own.

In August 2016, Talbott personally called Steele, based in London, to offer his own input on the dossier he was compiling from Danchenko's feeds. Steele phoned Talbott just before the November election, during which Talbott asked for the latest dossier memos to distribute to top officials at the State Department. After Trump's surprise win, the mood at Brookings turned funereal and Talbott and Steele strategized about how they "should handle" the dossier going forward.

During the Trump transition, Talbott encouraged Hill to leave Brookings and take a job in the White House so she could be "one of the adults in the room" when Russia and Putin came up. She served as deputy assistant to the president and senior director for European and Russian affairs on the National Security Council from 2017 to 2019.

She left the White House just before a National Security Council detailee who'd worked with her, Eric Ciaramella, secretly huddled with Democrats in Congress and alleged Trump pressured the president of Ukraine to launch an investigation of Biden and his son in exchange for military aid. Democrats soon held hearings to impeach Trump, calling Hill as one of their star witnesses.

Congressional investigators are taking a closer look at tax-exempt Brookings, which has emerged as a nexus in the dossier scandal. As a 501(c)(3) non-profit, the liberal think tank is prohibited from lobbying or engaging in political campaigns. Gryffindor/Wikimedia

Under questioning by Republican staff, Hill disclosed that Steele reached out to her for information about a mysterious individual, but she claimed she could not recall his name. She also said she couldn't remember the month she and Steele met.

"He had contacted me because he wanted to see if I could give him a contact to some other individual, who actually I don't even recall now, who he could approach about some business issues," Hill told the House last year in an Oct. 14 deposition taken behind closed doors.

Congressional investigators are reviewing her testimony, while taking a closer look at tax-exempt Brookings, which has emerged as a nexus in the dossier scandal.

Registered with the IRS as a 501(c)(3) non-profit, the liberal think tank is prohibited from lobbying or engaging in political campaigns. Specifically, investigators want to know if Brookings played any role in the development of the dossier.

"Their 501(c)(3) status should be audited, because they are a major player in the dossier deal," said a congressional staffer who has worked on the investigation into alleged Russian influence.

Hill, who returned to Brookings as a senior fellow in January, could not be reached for comment. Brookings did not respond to inquiries.

Ghost Employee

As a former member of Britain's secret intelligence service, Steele hadn't traveled to Russia in decades and apparently had no useful sources there . So he relied entirely on Danchenko and his supposed "network of subsources," which to its chagrin, the FBI discovered was nothing more than a "social circle."

It soon became clear over their three days of debriefing him at the FBI's Washington field office - held just days after Trump was sworn into office - that any Russian insights he may have had were strictly academic.

Danchenko confessed he had no inside line to the Kremlin and was "clueless" when Steele hired him in March 2016 to investigate ties between Russia and Trump and his campaign manager.

Christopher Steele, former British spy, leaving a London court this week in a libel case brought against him by a Russian businessman. Dossier source Danchenko's drinking pals fed him a tissue of false "rumor and speculation" for pay -- which Steele, in turn, further embellished with spy-crafty details and sold to his client as "intelligence." (Victoria Jones/PA via AP)

Desperate for leads, he turned to a ragtag group of Russian and American journalists, drinking buddies (including one who'd been arrested on pornography charges) and even an old girlfriend to scare up information for his London paymaster, according to the FBI's January 2017 interview memo, which runs 57 pages. Like him, his friends made a living hustling gossip for cash, and they fed him a tissue of false "rumor and speculation" -- which Steele, in turn, further embellished with spy-crafty details and sold to his client as "intelligence."

Instead of closing its case against Trump, however, the FBI continued to rely on the information Danchenko dictated to Steele for the dossier, even swearing to a secret court that it was credible enough to renew wiretaps for another nine months.

One of Danchenko's sources was nothing more than an anonymous voice on the other end of a phone call that lasted 10-15 minutes.

Danchenko told the FBI he figured out later that the call-in tipster, who he said did not identify himself, was Sergei Millian, a Belarusian-born realtor in New York. In the dossier, Steele labeled this source "an ethnic Russian close associate of Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump," and attributed Trump-Russia conspiracy revelations to him that the FBI relied on to support probable cause in all four FISA applications for warrants to spy on Trump adviser Carter Page -- including the Mueller-debunked myth that he and the campaign were involved in "the DNC email hacking operation."

Danchenko explained to agents the call came after he solicited Millian by email in late July 2016 for information for his assignment from Steele. Millian told RCI that though he did receive an email from Danchenko on July 21, he ignored the message and never called him.

"There was not any verbal communications with him," he insisted. "I'm positive, 100%, nothing what is claimed in whatever call they invented I could have said."

NEVER MISS THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST

ZEROHEDGE DIRECTLY TO YOUR INBOX

Receive a daily recap featuring a curated list of must-read stories.

Millian provided RCI part of the email, which was written mostly in Russian. Contact information at the bottom of the email reads:

Igor Danchenko
Business Analyst
Target Labs Inc.
8320 Old Courthouse Rd, Suite 200
Vienna, VA 22182
+1-202-679-5323

At the time, Danchenko listed Target Labs, an IT recruiter run by ethnic-Russians, as an employer on his resumé. But technically, he was not a paid employee there. Thanks to a highly unusual deal Steele arranged with the company, Danchenko was able to use Target Labs as an employment front.

It turns out that in 2014, when Danchenko first started freelancing regularly for Steele after losing his job at a Washington strategic advisory firm, he set out to get a security clearance to start his own company. But drawing income from a foreign entity like Steele's London-based company, Orbis Business Intelligence, would hurt his chances.

So Steele agreed to help him broker a special "arrangement" with Target Labs, where a Russian friend of Danchenko's worked as an executive, in which the company would bring Danchenko on board as an employee but not put him officially on the payroll. Danchenko would continue working for Steele and getting paid by Orbis with payments funneled through Target Labs. In effect, Target Labs served as the "contract vehicle" through which Danchenko was paid a monthly salary for his work for Orbis, the FBI memo reveals.

Though Danchenko had a desk available to use at Target Labs, he did most of his work for Orbis from home and did not take direction from the firm. Steele continued to give him assignments and direct his travel. Danchenko essentially worked as a ghost employee at Target Labs.

Asked about it, a Target Labs spokesman would only say that Danchenko "does not work with us anymore."

Brian Auten: He wrote the memo on the FBI's interview with the Primary Subsource, which is silent about Danchenko's criminal record. Patrick Henry College

Some veteran FBI officials worry Moscow's foreign intelligence service may have planted disinformation with Danchenko and his network of sources in Russia. At least one of them, identified only as "Source 5" in the FBI memo, was described as having a Russian "kurator," or handler.

"There are legions of 'connected' Russians purveying second- and third-hand -- and often made-up -- due diligence reports and private intelligence," said former FBI assistant director Chris Swecker. "Putin's intelligence minions use these people well to plant information."

Danchenko has scrubbed his social media account. He told the FBI he deleted all his dossier-related electronic communications, including texts and emails, and threw out his handwritten notes from conversations with his subsources.

In the end, Steele walked away from the dossier debacle with at least $168,000, and Danchenko earned a large undisclosed sum.

The FBI interview memo, which is silent about Danchenko's criminal record, was written by FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten, who was called out in the Justice inspector general report for ignoring inconsistencies, contradictions, errors and outright falsehoods in the dossier he was supposed to verify.

It was also Auten's duty to vet Steele and his sources. Auten sat in on the meetings with Danchenko and also separate ones with Steele. He witnessed firsthand the countless red flags that popped up from their testimony. Yet Auten continued to tout their reliability as sources, and give his blessing to agents to use their dossier as probable cause to renew FISA surveillance warrants to spy on Page.

As RCI first reported, Auten teaches a national security course at a Washington-area college on the ethics of such spying .

me name=

[Jul 26, 2020] Obamagate might have consequnces for Obama gang mambers but not for Obama, Biden and Clintons

Jul 26, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

MARK CHAPMAN July 24, 2020 at 5:20 pm

Former Flynn Deputy K.T. McFarland claims the Durham criminal inquiry into the friggin' in the riggin' of the "Russia Investigation" and who knew what and when at the FBI and elsewhere is just about ready to wrap up, and teases that we can expect indictments by the end of the summer. Solid documentary evidence in the form of meeting notes, email exchanges and the like has emerged, she says.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/ex-flynn-deputy-kt-mcfarland-john-durham-has-cold-hard-evidence-that-will-lead-to-indictments

[Jul 23, 2020] Beyond Trump vs. Trump- We Have a Nation to Safeguard

Jul 23, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

The seldom-seen niece's shoddy attempt at psychoanalysis may, despite its flaws, point to worthwhile considerations. (By Gino Santa Maria/Shutterstock)

JULY 23, 2020

|

12:01 AM

JAMES PINKERTON

President Trump is obviously not happy about about the highly unflattering portrait of him painted by his niece, Mary Trump, in her best-selling book, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man.
On July 17, reacting to her description of him as "narcissistic," "dysfunctional," and "perverted," the president jabbed back in a tweet , describing her as "a seldom seen niece who knows little about me, says untruthful things about my wonderful parents (who couldn't stand her!) and me."

Of course, the Main Stream Media loves the new book; indeed, pressies are always careful to insert that Mary Trump is a "clinical psychologist," thereby seeking to assign greater weight to her judgment on the famous uncle; she's not just an estranged family member, she's a trained clinician . Thus when Mary declares that Donald's "pathologies are so complex and his behaviors so often inexplicable that coming up with an accurate and comprehensive diagnosis would require a full battery of psychological and neuropsychological tests that he'll never sit for" -- the MSM treats her words as the voice of an oracular psycho-authority.

https://lockerdome.com/lad/13045197114175078?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13045197114175078-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theamericanconservative.com&rid=www.theamericanconservative.com&width=838

Indeed, speaking of long-distance diagnosis, it might be small comfort to the 45th president to know that plenty of other American presidents have been similarly psychoanalyzed. In fact, no less than the father of psychoanalysis himself, Sigmund Freud, co-authored an unsparing assessment of our 28th president, Thomas Woodrow Wilson: A Psychological Study .

Moreover, we've learned, over the last century or so, that the mind of any individual, when perceived though the Freudian prism, appears to be nothing more than a heaving mass of Greek-named complexes and phobias. And yet through it all, most people manage to get off the couch and do things, including becoming politicians -- a very few even becoming president of the United States. So how do they manage that? And what does that mean for the rest of us?

Some enduring answers to such questions can be found in Harold Lasswell's 1930 book, Psychopathology and Politics. Lasswell is obscure now, but in his day, he was a professor at Yale Law School as well as president of the American Political Science Association. Moreover, he was active when Freud was at the peak of his influence; Psychopathology and Politics is much shaped along the contours of the Viennese Herr Doktor 's thought.

Evidently realizing that the word "psychopathology" in the title would send a strong signal, Lasswell opened his book, a bit defensively, with the declaration, "The purpose of this venture is not to prove that politicians are 'insane.'" In fact, Lasswell, being mostly a political scientist, was careful to stipulate that "the specifically pathological is of secondary importance to the central problem of exhibiting the developmental profile of different types of public characters." In other words, for all his fascination with individual minds, in the end, the author was actually most interested in collective political outcomes.

me title=

https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.398.1_en.html#goog_30920151 00:00 / 00:59 00:00 Next Video × Next Video J.d. Vance Remarks On A New Direction For Pro-worker, Pro-family Conservatism, Tac Gala, 5-2019 Cancel Autoplay is paused

For purposes of analysis, Lasswell categorized three types of political personality: the "agitator," the "administrator," and the "theorist." To illustrate this triptych, Lasswell named a few names; Herbert Hoover, for instance, was labeled an administrator, while Old Testament prophets were labeled as agitators, and Karl Marx labeled as a theorist. Interestingly, Vladimir Lenin was listed as all three types.

Still, for the most part, Lasswell chose to focus, in the Freudian clinical style, on anonymized exemplars of each political personality type, detailing the mental circuities of "Mr. A," as well as "B," "C," and so on.

From there, Lasswell considers how each type meshes with politics. As he puts it, the state is a "manifold," into which political figures enter, and through which political events "are to be understood."

He writes, "political movements derive their vitality from the displacement of private affects upon public objects." Using dark Freudian terminology, Lasswell asserts that "Political crises are complicated by the concurrent reactivation of specific primitive impulses." In that same bleak spirit, he also avers, "Politics is the process by which the irrational bases of society are brought out into the open."

Yet while phrases such as "primitive impulses" and "irrational bases" are the stuff of psychiatry, Lasswell also wrote in political science-y language, as when he laid out his equation for political action: p } d } r = P . Here, p stands for "private motives," } stands for "transformed into," d equals "displacement on to public objects," r stands for " rationalization in terms of public interest," and P "signifies the political man."

In Lasswell's formula, individuals bring their personality with them into the political arena, and then, if they wish to make a mark in politics, they must reconcile, somehow, their own personalities with the political environment. As Lasswell explains, "The distinctive mark of the homo politicus is the rationalization of the displacement in terms of public interests."

We might note that in no sense was Lasswell saying that homo politicus was necessarily good-hearted, or that people were always wise about their own well-being; as he put it, oftentimes, "people are poor judges of their own interests." And so the "solution" in politics, he continued, is "not the 'rationally best' one," but rather, "the emotionally satisfactory one."

Still, Lasswell did not believe in autocracy or dictatorship; he approvingly quoted another political scientist who argued, "Society is not safe . . . when it is forced to follow the dictations of one individual."

Yet because Lasswell shared Freud's gloomy view of human nature, he argued for a sort of guided system, dubbing it "preventive politics." As he put it, "The politics of prevention draws attention squarely to the central problem of reducing the level of strain and maladaptation in society." Thus Lasswell endorsed the application of therapeutic psychology to the population as a whole -- putting the country, as it were, on the therapist's couch.

If that doesn't sound like a plausible solution, we might note that we often do just that to our country's leaders -- and the latest instance is what Mary Trump has done to her uncle.

Yet even those who mistrust a long-distance diagnosis -- and who might see Mary Trump's book as opportunistically timed to the election -- might nonetheless reflect on Lasswell's political equation, p } d } r = P.

After all, individuals do enter into the political system, and they do what they do -- and so it's best if we understand them as well as we can. Indeed, each new entry can be seen as a case study, providing us with an opportunity to learn: What went right? Or, what went wrong? And who makes a good leader?

Such cumulative study gives us all a chance to practice a Lasswellian "politics of prevention." That is, while we don't seem to be able to cure the mentally ill, we can nevertheless take sterner measures to keep the pathological out of political office, especially high political office.

In particular, we might take the view that the electoral political system should serve as a kind of filter, separating out the gold from the dross. If, as Max Weber put it, politics is "the slow boring of hard boards," then maybe we should favor politicians who actually know how to drill a hole, and who know to drill it in the right place -- and not smash the board.

Indeed, if we think of prosaic electoral politics as a filtering process, we might gain more respect for those who prove themselves in a minor office before seeking a major office -- and major responsibility. To put the matter bluntly, if a wannabe pol is maladaptive, let's know early on, when the stakes are low.

This wisdom was well expressed by Sam Rayburn, the Texas politician who served in the U.S. House of Representatives for 48 years, as well as in the Texas state house for six years before that -- and, remarkably, rose to be speaker in both chambers, in Austin as well as in Washington, D.C. As recorded in David Halberstam's classic book about the origins of America's fiasco in the Vietnam War, The Best and the Brightest , in 1961, then-Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson gushed to his old pal Rayburn about how smart and impressive were the men of John F. Kennedy's administration, bandying about brilliant ideas for saving the world. To which Rayburn responded to LBJ, "You may be right and they may be every bit as intelligent as you say, but I'd feel a whole lot better about them if just one of them had run for sheriff once."

In other words, it would be better if the soaring kites of their intellects were tethered to mundane human experience and political reality -- including the reality of running for office. As we know, absent such tethering, those best and brightest led us into an Asian quagmire, drowning even the political career of LBJ.

So now, in 2020, in these extraordinarily trying times, the voters are about to run their political filter yet again. Indeed, if the presidential polls are to be believed, this filtration system is favoring Joe Biden, who has, after all, undergone the "extreme vetting" of a half-century in elective politics.

So is this an instance in which Lasswell's idea of "preventive politics" is being applied? We can never know from the Yale professor himself, of course, since he long ago went to that great ivory tower in the sky. Yet still, one senses that the author of Psychopathology and Politics would be pleased.

Because, after all, the fate of the nation is more important than the strange case of Trump vs. Trump. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

James P. Pinkerton is a longtime contributing editor at The American Conservative , columnist, and author. He served as longtime regular columnist for Newsday. He has also written for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, National Review, The New Republic, Foreign Affairs, Fortune, and The Jerusalem Post. He is the author of What Comes Next: The End of Big Government--and the New Paradigm Ahead (1995) . He worked in the White House domestic policy offices of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush and in the 1980, 1984, 1988 and 1992 presidential campaigns.

[Jul 23, 2020] 'Putin Hacked Our Vaccine' the excessive use of words like ridiculous and stupid; calim is both stupid and evil

Notable quotes:
"... CaitlinJohnstone.com ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... The Washington Post ..."
"... 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. ..."
Jul 23, 2020 | consortiumnews.com

COVID-19: 'Putin Hacked Our Vaccine' Is Dumbest Story Yet July 17, 2020 Save

Caitlin Johnstone tackles the latest "Russiavape" story.

By Caitlin Johnstone
CaitlinJohnstone.com

O MG you guys Putin hacked our coronavirus vaccine secrets!

Today mainstream media is reporting what is arguably the single dumbest Russiavape story of all time, against some very stiff competition.

"Russian hackers are targeting health care organizations in the West in an attempt to steal coronavirus vaccine research, the U.S. and Britain said," reports The New York Times .

"Hackers backed by the Russian state are trying to steal COVID-19 vaccine and treatment research from academic and pharmaceutical institutions around the world, Britain's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) said on Thursday," Reuters reports .

"Russian news agency RIA cited spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying the Kremlin rejected London's allegations, which he said were not backed by proper evidence," adds Reuters.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1283787832549691395&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fconsortiumnews.com%2F2020%2F07%2F17%2Fcovid-19-putin-hacked-our-vaccine-is-dumbest-story-yet%2F&theme=light&widgetsVersion=9066bb2%3A1593540614199&width=550px

I mean, there are just so many layers of stupid.

First of all, how many more completely unsubstantiated government agency allegations about Russian nefariousness are we the public going to accept from the corporate mass media? Since 2016 it's been wall-to-wall narrative about evil things Russia is doing to the empire-like cluster of allies loosely centralized around the United States, and they all just happen to be things for which nobody can actually provide hard verifiable evidence.

Ever since the shady cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike admitted that it never actually saw hard proof of Russia hacking the DNC servers, the already shaky and always unsubstantiated narrative that Russian hackers interfered in the U.S. presidential election in 2016 has been on thinner ice than ever. Yet because the mass media converged on this narrative and repeated it as fact over and over they've been able to get the mainstream headline-skimming public to accept it as an established truth, priming them for an increasingly idiotic litany of completely unsubstantiated Russia scandals, culminating most recently in the entirely debunked claim that Russia paid Taliban-linked fighters to kill coalition forces in Afghanistan.

Secondly, the news story doesn't even claim that these supposed Russian hackers even succeeded in doing whatever they were supposed to have been doing in this supposed cyberattack.

"Officials have not commented on whether the attacks were successful but also have not ruled out that this is the case," Wired reports .

Thirdly, this is a "vaccine" which does not even exist at this point in time, and the research which was supposedly hacked may never lead to one. Meanwhile, Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University reports that it has "successfully completed tests on volunteers of the world's first vaccine against coronavirus," in Russia.

Fourthly, and perhaps most importantly, how obnoxious and idiotic is it that coronavirus vaccine "secrets" are even a thing?? This is a global pandemic which is hurting all of us; scientists should be free to collaborate with other scientists anywhere in the world to find a solution to this problem. Nobody has any business keeping "secrets" from the world about this virus or any possible vaccine or treatment. If they do, anyone in the world is well within their rights to pry those secrets away from them.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-1&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1283875929152909312&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fconsortiumnews.com%2F2020%2F07%2F17%2Fcovid-19-putin-hacked-our-vaccine-is-dumbest-story-yet%2F&theme=light&widgetsVersion=9066bb2%3A1593540614199&width=550px

This intensely stupid story comes out at the same time British media are blaring stories about Russian interference in the 2019 election, which if you actually listen carefully to the claims being advanced amounts to literally nothing more than the assertion that Russians talked about already leaked documents pertaining to the U.K.'s healthcare system on the internet.

"Russian actors 'sought to interfere' in last winter's general election by amplifying an illicitly acquired NHS dossier that was seized upon by Labour during the campaign, the foreign secretary has said," reports The Guardian .

"Amplifying." That's literally all there is to this story. As we learned with the ridiculous U.S. Russiagate narrative , with such allegations, Russia "amplifying" something can mean anything from RT reporting on a major news story to a Twitter account from St. Petersburg sharing an article from The Washington Post . Even the foreign secretary's claim itself explicitly admits that "there is no evidence of a broad spectrum Russian campaign against the General Election."

"The statement is so foggy and contradictory that it is almost impossible to understand it," responded Russia's foreign ministry to the allegations. "If it's inappropriate to say something then don't say it. If you say it, produce the facts."

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-2&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1283786417206956034&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fconsortiumnews.com%2F2020%2F07%2F17%2Fcovid-19-putin-hacked-our-vaccine-is-dumbest-story-yet%2F&theme=light&widgetsVersion=9066bb2%3A1593540614199&width=550px

Instead of producing facts you've got the Murdoch press pestering Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Party candidate, on his doorstep over this ridiculous non-story, and popular right-wing outlets like Guido Fawkes running the blatantly false headline "Government Confirms Corbyn Used Russian-Hacked Documents in 2019 Election." The completely bogus allegation that the NHS documents came to Jeremy Corbyn by way of Russian hackers is not made anywhere in the article itself, but for the headline-skimming majority this makes no difference. And headline skimmers get as many votes as people who read and think critically.

All this new Cold War Russia hysteria is turning people's brains into guacamole. We've got to find a way to snap out of the propaganda trance so we can start creating a world that is based on truth and a desire for peace.

Caitlin Johnstone is a rogue journalist, poet, and utopia prepper who publishes regularly at Medium . Her work is entirely reader-supported , so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking her on Facebook , following her antics on Twitter , checking out her podcast on either Youtube , soundcloud , Apple podcasts or Spotify , following her on Steemit , throwing some money into her tip jar on Patreon or Paypal , purchasing some of her sweet merchandise , buying her books " Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone " and " 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.


Putin Apologist , July 19, 2020 at 17:50

"How many more completely unsubstantiated government agency allegations about Russian nefariousness are we the public going to accept from the corporate mass media?"

The Answer is none. Nobody (well, nobody with a brain) believes anything the "corporate mass media" says about Russia, or China, Iran or Venezuela or anything else for that matter.

James Keye , July 19, 2020 at 10:26

Guy , July 18, 2020 at 15:32

But,but, but we never heard the words "highly likely" ,they must be slipping.LOL


DH Fabian
, July 18, 2020 at 13:41

The Democrat right wing are robotically persistent, and count on the ignorance of their base. By late last year, we saw them begin setting the stage to blame-away an expected 2020 defeat on Russia. Once again, proving that today's Democrats are just too dangerous to vote for. Donald Trump owes a great deal to his "friends across the aisle."

[Jul 23, 2020] Fred Weir- Steele Dossier

This is a very primitive take of Steele dossier. It was part of obama color revolution attempt against Trump.
Jul 23, 2020 | eastwestaccord.com

About the Steele Dossier. From the beginning I was nagged by the question of whether anyone had seriously dug into its provenance? I mean, the chain of custody is critical in evaluating evidence, isn't it? But that didn't seem to matter to most conversations about it for the longest time. The impression was left hanging that Christopher Steele, crackerjack agent, had got the inside stuff straight from people in or near the Kremlin.

Now we learn that the FBI did interview Steele's main conduit for all those claims -- "Primary Sub-source" -- intensively, for three days, early in the Trump administration. They just never bothered to release any of their findings to the public, even as the dossier's main claim -- Trump is a Kremlin agent of long standing, beholden to Putin due to some pee tape kompromat -- took hold in the American political mind and became an article of faith for some. Still is.

The FBI notes of that interview were released just a few days ago. And they reveal the "dossier" had zero original reporting. It was concocted entirely from rumors picked up second-or-third hand, inventive guesses, drunken conversations with persons of no particular expertise, pillow talk between the main sub-source and his dependent Russian lady friend, and fragments of a garbled phone call with a "source" whose identity could not be even approximately established.

In other words, it's way worse than even I thought. And regular readers of this page know pretty well what I thought about the likely veracity of the Steele Dossier. That such a pathetic tissue of speculation, delirium and outright falsehood could capture the American political imagination and drive debate -- for years! -- is simply astounding.

"Much of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation into Donald Trump was built on the premise that Christopher Steele and his dossier were to be believed. This even though, early on, Steele's claims failed to bear scrutiny. Just how far off the claims were became clear when the FBI interviewed Steele's "Primary Subsource" over three days beginning on Feb. 9, 2017. Notes taken by FBI agents of those interviews were released by the Senate Judiciary Committee Friday afternoon."

[Jul 21, 2020] This Skripal thing smelled to high heaven from day 1. My opinion is that Sergei Skripal was involved (to what degree is open to speculation) with the Steele dossier.

Highly recommended!
Apr 20, 2019 | theduran.com
Marcus April 20, 2019

There is something rotten in the state .. of England.

This Skripal thing smelled to high heaven from day 1. My opinion is that Sergei Skripal was involved (to what degree is open to speculation) with the Steele dossier. He was getting homesick (perhaps his mother getting older is part of this) for Russia and he thought that to get back to Russia he needed something big to get back in Putin's good graces. He would have needed something really big because Putin really has no use for traitors. Skripal put out some feelers (perhaps through his daughter though that may be dicey). The two couriers were sent to seal or move the deal forward. The Brits (and perhaps the CIA) found out about this and decided to make an example of Sergei. Perhaps because they found out about this late, the deep state/intelligence people had to move very quickly. The deep state story was was extremely shaky (to put it mildly) as a result. Or they were just incompetent and full of hubris.

Then they were stuck with the story and bullshit coverup was layered on bullshit coverup. 7 Reply FlorianGeyer Reply to Marcus April 20, 2019

@ Marcus.

To hope to get away with lies, one must have perfect memory and a superior intellect that can create a lie with some semblance of reality in real life, as opposed to the digital 'reality' in a Video game. And a rather corny video game at that.

MI5/6 failed on all parts of Lie creation 2 Reply Mistaron April 21, 2019

If Trump was so furious about being conned by Haspel, how come he then went on to promote her to becoming the head of the CIA? It's quite perplexing.

[Jul 21, 2020] The praetorian guard has become indistinguishable from the yellow journalist

Jul 21, 2020 | www.realclearinvestigations.com

debard 1 day ago

The praetorian guard has become indistinguishable from the yellow journalists. Indict them all for treason.

russellremmert 1 day ago

is steel in prison yet Reply 12

DonEstif -> russellremmert 1 day ago

Almost, he's an expert pundit used by CNN

Ban-me Fagggot 1 day ago

If Russia stole the election when Obama was President, why wouldn't they steal the election when Trump is President? Democrats should protest by not voting. It wont make a difference.

TGrade1 1 day ago

Behind all of this, hidden behind the curtain, is a pants suit...

Justis -> TGrade1 11 hours ago

And more importantly, the then leader of the free world, Obama...

[Jul 21, 2020] Tracing John Gleeson, a helper for Flynn Judge Emmet Sullivan, and Andrew Weissmann of the Robert Mueller group - Sic Semper Tyrannis

Jul 21, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

"Getting" Flynn was the key to neutering the danger Trump posed to the deep state, since General Flynn was the one military advisor to Trump who was knowledgeable and who had recognized the salient fact that, under Obama, the US was employing the "raghead" element to do their bidding in Syria and elsewhere.

Without Flynn, Trump, who like many has a tendency to accept the views of credentialled experts, could be convinced to continue the deep state policy of permanent warfare aided by jihadist barbarians. Trump's tragedy was that he accepted what appeared to be the inevitable and allowed Flynn to be taken down.

Posted by: exiled off mainstreet | 21 July 2020 at 06:59 PM

[Jul 20, 2020] The Real 'Russian Playbook' Is Written in English -- Strategic Culture

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... There was a deeply held assumption that, when the countries of Central and Eastern Europe joined NATO and the European Union in 2004, these countries would continue their positive democratic and economic transformation. Yet more than a decade later, the region has experienced a steady decline in democratic standards and governance practices at the same time that Russia's economic engagement with the region expanded significantly. ..."
"... Are these developments coincidental, or has the Kremlin sought deliberately to erode the region's democratic institutions through its influence to 'break the internal coherence of the enemy system'? ..."
"... a false flag operation" involving "an alliance of the far right organizations, specifically the Right Sector and Svoboda, and oligarchic parties, such as Fatherland". There is little in Sharp's book to suggest that non-violent resistance would have had much effect on a really brutal and determined government. He also has the naïve habit of using "democrat" and "dictator" as if these words were as precisely defined as coconuts and codfish. But any "dictatorship" – for example Stalin's is a very complex affair with many shades of opinion in it. So, in terms of what he was apparently trying to do, one can see it only succeeding against rather mild "dictators" presiding over extremely unpopular polities. With a great deal of outside effort and resources. ..."
"... His "playbook" is useful to outside powers that want to overthrow governments they don't like. Especially those run by "dictators" not brutal enough to shoot the protesters down. ..."
Jul 17, 2020 | www.strategic-culture.org

I hadn't given The Russian Playbook much attention until Susan Rice, Obama's quondam security advisor, opined a month ago on CNN that " I'm not reading the intelligence today, or these days -- but based on my experience, this is right out of the Russian playbook ". She was referring to the latest U.S. riots.

Once I'd seen this mention of The Russian Playbook (aka KGB, Kremlin or Putin's Playbook), I saw the expression all over the place. Here's an early – perhaps the earliest – use of the term. In October 2016, the Center for Strategic and International studies (" Ranked #1 ") informed us of the " Kremlin Playbook " with this ominous beginning

There was a deeply held assumption that, when the countries of Central and Eastern Europe joined NATO and the European Union in 2004, these countries would continue their positive democratic and economic transformation. Yet more than a decade later, the region has experienced a steady decline in democratic standards and governance practices at the same time that Russia's economic engagement with the region expanded significantly.

And asks

Are these developments coincidental, or has the Kremlin sought deliberately to erode the region's democratic institutions through its influence to 'break the internal coherence of the enemy system'?

Well, to these people, to ask the question is to answer it: can't possibly be disappointment at the gap between 2004's expectations and 2020's reality, can't be that they don't like the total Western values package that they have to accept, it must be those crafty Russians deceiving them. This was the earliest reference to The Playbook that I found, but it certainly wasn't the last.

Russia has a century-old playbook for 'disinformation' 'I believe in Russia they do have their own manual that essentially prescribes what to do,' said Clint Watts, a research fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and a former FBI agent. (Nov 2018)

The Russian playbook for spreading fake news and conspiracy theories is the subject of a new three-part video series on The New York Times website titled 'Operation Infektion: Russian Disinformation: From The Cold War To Kanye.' (Nov 2018)

I found headlines such as these: Former CIA Director Outlines Russian Playbook for Influencing Unsuspecting Targets (May 2017) ; Fmr. CIA op.: Don Jr. meeting part of Russian playbook (Jul 2017) ; Americans Use Russian Playbook to Spread Disinformation (Oct 2018) ; Factory of Lies: The Russian Playbook (Nov 2018) ; Shredding the Putin Playbook: Six crucial steps we must take on cyber-security -- before it's too late. (Winter 2018) ; Trump's spin is 'all out of the KGB playbook': Counterintelligence expert Malcolm Nance (May 2019) .

Of course, all these people are convinced Moscow interfered in the 2016 presidential election. Somehow. To some effect. Never really specified but the latest outburst of insanity is this video from the Lincoln Project . As Anatoly Karlin observes: "I think it's really cool how we Russians took over America just by shitposting online. How does it feel to be subhuman?" He has a point: the Lincoln Project, and the others shrieking about Russian interference, take it for granted that American democracy is so flimsy and Americans so gullible that a few Facebook ads can bring the whole facade down. A curious mental state indeed.

So let us consider The Russian Playbook. It stands at the very heart of Russian power. It is old: at least a century old . Why, did not Tolstoy's 1908 Letter to a Hindu inspire Gandhi to bring down the British Indian Empire and win the Great Game for Moscow? The Tolstoy-Putin link is undeniable as we are told in A Post-Soviet 'War and Peace': What Tolstoy's Masterwork Explains About Putin's Foreign Policy : "In the early decades of the nineteenth century, Napoleon (like Putin after him) wanted to construct his own international order ". Russian novelists: adepts of The Playbook every one . So there is much to consider about this remarkable Book which has had such an enormous – hidden to most – role in world history. Its instructions on how to swing Western elections are especially important: the 2016 U.S. election ; Brexit ; " 100 years of Russian electoral interference "; Canada ; France ; the European Union ; Germany and many more. The awed reader must ask whether any Western election since Tolstoy's day can be trusted. Not to forget the Great Hawaiian Pizza Debate the Russians could start at any moment.

What can we know about The Playbook? For a start it must be written in Russian, a language that those crafty Russians insist on speaking among themselves. Secondly such an important document would be protected the way that highly classified material is protected. There would be a very restricted need to know; underlings participating in one of the many plays would not know how their part fitted into The Playbook; few would ever see The Playbook itself. The Playbook would be brought to the desk of the few authorised to see it by a courier, signed for, the courier would watch the reader and take away the copy afterwards. The very few copies in existence would be securely locked away; each numbered and differing subtly from the others so that, should a leak occur, the authorities would know which copy read by whom had been leaked. Printed on paper that could not be photographed or duplicated. As much protection as human cunning could devise; right up there with the nuclear codes .

So, The Russian Playbook would be extraordinarily difficult to get hold of. And yet every talking head on U.S. TV has a copy at his elbow! English copies, one assumes. Rachel Maddow has comprehended the complicated chapter on how to control the U.S. power system . Others have read the impenetrably complex section on how to control U.S. voting machines or change vote counts . Many are familiar with the lists of divisions in American society and directions for exploiting them . Adam Schiff has mastered the section on how to get Trump to give Alaska back . Susan Rice well knows the chapter "How to create riots in peaceful communities".

And so on. It's all quite ridiculous: we're supposed to believe that Moscow easily controls far-away countries but can't keep its neighbours under control.

There is no Russian Playbook, that's just projection. But there is a "playbook" and it's written in English, it's freely available and it's inexpensive enough that every pundit can have a personal copy: it's named " From Dictatorship To Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation " and it's written by Gene Sharp (1928-2018) . Whatever Sharp may have thought he was doing, whatever good cause he thought he was assisting, his book has been used as a guide to create regime changes around the world. Billed as "democracy" and "freedom", their results are not so benign. Witness Ukraine today. Or Libya. Or Kosovo whose long-time leader has just been indicted for numerous crimes . Curiously enough, these efforts always take place in countries that resist Washington's line but never in countries that don't. Here we do see training, financing, propaganda, discord being sown, divisions exploited to effect regime change – all the things in the imaginary "Russian Playbook". So, whatever he may have thought he was helping, Sharp's advice has been used to produce what only the propagandists could call " model interventions "; to the "liberated" themselves, the reality is poverty , destruction , war and refugees .

The Albert Einstein Institution , which Sharp created in 1983, strongly denies collusion with Washington-sponsored overthrows but people from it have organised seminars or workshops in many targets of U.S. overthrows . The most recent annual report of 2014 , while rather opaque, shows 45% of its income from "grants" (as opposed to "individuals") and has logos of Euromaidan, SOSVenezuela, Umbrellamovement , Lwili , Sunflowersquare and others. In short, the logos of regime change operations in Ukraine, Venezuela, Hong Kong, Burkina Faso and Taiwan. (And, ironically for today's USA, Black Lives Matter). So, clearly, there is some connection between the AEI and Washington-sponsored regime change operations.

So there is a "handbook" but it's not Russian.

Reading Sharp's book, however, makes one wonder if he was just fooling himself. Has there ever been a "dictatorship" overthrown by "non-violent" resistance along the lines of what he is suggesting? He mentions Norwegians who resisted Hitler; but Norway was liberated, along with the rest of Occupied Europe, by extremely violent warfare. While some Jews escaped, most didn't and it was the conquest of Berlin that saved the rest: the nazi state was killed . The USSR went away, together with its satellite governments in Europe but that was a top-down event. He likes Gandhi but Gandhi wouldn't have lasted a minute under Stalin. Otpor was greatly aided by NATO's war on Serbia. And, they're only "non-violent" because the Western media doesn't talk much about the violence ; "non-violent" is not the first word that comes to mind in this video of Kiev 2014 . "Colour revolutions" are manufactured from existing grievances, to be sure, but with a great deal of outside assistance, direction and funding; upon inspection, there's much design behind their "spontaneity". And, not infrequently, with mysterious sniping at a expedient moment – see Katchanovski's research on the "Heavenly Hundred" of the Maidan showing pretty convincingly that the shootings were " a false flag operation" involving "an alliance of the far right organizations, specifically the Right Sector and Svoboda, and oligarchic parties, such as Fatherland". There is little in Sharp's book to suggest that non-violent resistance would have had much effect on a really brutal and determined government. He also has the naïve habit of using "democrat" and "dictator" as if these words were as precisely defined as coconuts and codfish. But any "dictatorship" – for example Stalin's is a very complex affair with many shades of opinion in it. So, in terms of what he was apparently trying to do, one can see it only succeeding against rather mild "dictators" presiding over extremely unpopular polities. With a great deal of outside effort and resources.

His "playbook" is useful to outside powers that want to overthrow governments they don't like. Especially those run by "dictators" not brutal enough to shoot the protesters down. It's not Russian diplomats that are caught choosing the leaders of ostensibly independent countries . It's not Russians who boast of spending money in poor countries to change their governments . It's not Russian diplomats who meet with foreign opposition leaders . Russia doesn't fabricate a leader of a foreign country . It's not Russia that invents a humanitarian crisis , bombs the country to bits , laughs at its leader's brutal death and walks away. It's not Russia that sanctions numerous countries . It's not Russia that gives fellowships to foreign oppositionists . Even the Washington Post (one of the principals in sustaining Putindunnit hysteria) covered " The long history of the U.S. interfering with elections elsewhere "; but piously insisted "the days of its worst behavior are long behind it". Whatever the pundits may claim about Russia, the USA actually has an organisation devoted to interfering in other countries' business ; one of whose leading lights proudly boasted: " A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA. "

The famous "Russian Playbook" is nothing but projection onto Moscow of what Washington actually does: projection is so common a feature of American propaganda that one may certain that when Washington accuses somebody else of doing something, it's a guarantee that Washington is doing it.

[Jul 20, 2020] That wanker Cecil has a lot to answer for!

Jul 20, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

MOSCOWEXILE July 19, 2020 at 7:35 pm

I just cannot see why the US public -- better said, some of the US public. -- fall for that torrent of verbal diarrhoea that Maddow regularly gushes forth on TV about all things Russian.

The shite that she so regularly spews out is patently untrue and clearly propagandistic. Time and time again, the content of "The Rachel Maddow Show" (Why "show" FFS? Is it because that is what it is -- a distraction, an entertainment vehicle for the uncritical masses?) has repeatedly been shown to be untrue, but never an apology from Maddow.

Oh, what a surprise! Her paternal grandfather's family name was Medvedev, a Four-by-Two who fled the Evil (Romanov) Empire and set up shop in the "Land of the Free".

Something that has often puzzled me is this: If the Russian Empire was such a "Prison of Nations", all crushed by the autocratic state, how come Western Europe and the USA is swarming with the descendants of the Tsar's former Jewish subjects?

To be fair to Maddow -- though I see no reason why I should be, for she is a lying cnut -- her family background is not really kosher: her mother hails from Newfoundland and is of English/Irish descent, and one of her grandmother's forebears were from the Netherlands. Furthermore, Maddow says that she had a conservative Catholic upbringing. I suppose that's why she's now a liberal lesbian. And guess what: she's a Rhodes Scholar with an Oxford PhD.

That wanker Cecil has a lot to answer for!

[Jul 20, 2020] Who was Steele's primary Subsource and who belong his circle of heavily drinking buddies who brainstormed the set of myth which Steele put in the dossier

Did Skripal played any role in this mess. In this case his poisoning looks more logical as an attempt to hide him from Russians, who might well suspect him in playing a role in creating Steele dossier by some myths that were present in it.
Notable quotes:
"... Even Beria would laugh at this kind of "evidence". ..."
Jul 20, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Eric Felten via RealClearInvestigations.com,

Much of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation into Donald Trump was built on the premise that Christopher Steele and his dossier were to be believed. This even though, early on, Steele's claims failed to bear scrutiny. Just how far off the claims were became clear when the FBI interviewed Steele's "Primary Subsource" over three days beginning on Feb. 9, 2017. Notes taken by FBI agents of those interviews were released by the Senate Judiciary Committee Friday afternoon.

The Primary Subsource was in reality Steele's sole source, a long-time Russian-speaking contractor for the former British spy's company, Orbis Business Intelligence. In turn, the Primary Subsource had a group of friends in Russia. All of their names remain redacted. From the FBI interviews it becomes clear that the Primary Subsource and his friends peddled warmed-over rumors and laughable gossip that Steele dressed up as formal intelligence memos.

Paul Manafort: The Steele dossier's "Primary Subsource" admitted to the FBI "that he was 'clueless' about who Manafort was, and that this was a 'strange task' to have been given." AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File

Steele's operation didn't rely on great expertise, to judge from the Primary Subsource's account. He described to the FBI the instructions Steele had given him sometime in the spring of 2016 regarding Paul Manafort: "Do you know [about] Manafort? Find out about Manafort's dealings with Ukraine, his dealings with other countries, and any corrupt schemes." The Primary Subsource admitted to the FBI "that he was 'clueless' about who Manafort was, and that this was a 'strange task' to have been given."

The Primary Subsource said at first that maybe he had asked some of his friends in Russia – he didn't have a network of sources, according to his lawyer, but instead just a "social circle." And a boozy one at that: When the Primary Subsource would get together with his old friend Source 4, the two would drink heavily. But his social circle was no help with the Manafort question and so the Primary Subsource scrounged up a few old news clippings about Manafort and fed them back to Steele.

Also in his "social circle" was Primary Subsource's friend "Source 2," a character who was always on the make. "He often tries to monetize his relationship with [the Primary Subsource], suggesting that the two of them should try and do projects together for money," the Primary Subsource told the FBI (a caution that the Primary Subsource would repeat again and again.) It was Source 2 who "told [the Primary Subsource] that there was compromising material on Trump."

And then there was Source 3, a very special friend. Over a redacted number of years, the Primary Subsource has "helped out [Source 3] financially." She stayed with him when visiting the United States. The Primary Subsource told the FBI that in the midst of their conversations about Trump, they would also talk about "a private subject." (The FBI agents, for all their hardnosed reputation, were too delicate to intrude by asking what that "private subject" was).

Michael Cohen: The bogus story of the Trump fixer's trip to Prague seems to have originated with "Source 3," a woman friend of the Primary Subsource, who was "not sure if Source 3 was brainstorming here." AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File

One day Steele told his lead contractor to get dirt on five individuals. By the time he got around to it, the Primary Subsource had forgotten two of the names, but seemed to recall Carter Page, Paul Manafort and Trump lawyer Michael Cohen. The Primary Subsource said he asked his special friend Source 3 if she knew any of them. At first she didn't. But within minutes she seemed to recall having heard of Cohen, according to the FBI notes. Indeed, before long it came back to her that she had heard Cohen and three henchmen had gone to Prague to meet with Russians.

Source 3 kept spinning yarns about Michael Cohen in Prague. For example, she claimed Cohen was delivering "deniable cash payments" to hackers. But come to think of it, the Primary Subsource was "not sure if Source 3 was brainstorming here," the FBI notes say.

The Steele Dossier would end up having authoritative-sounding reports of hackers who had been "recruited under duress by the FSB" -- the Russian security service -- and how they "had been using botnets and porn traffic to transmit viruses, plant bugs, steal data and conduct 'altering operations' against the the Democratic Party." What exactly, the FBI asked the subject, were "altering operations?" The Primary Subsource wouldn't be much help there, as he told the FBI "that his understanding of this topic (i.e. cyber) was 'zero.'" But what about his girlfriend whom he had known since they were in eighth grade together? The Primary Subsource admitted to the FBI that Source 3 "is not an IT specialist herself."

And then there was Source 6. Or at least the Primary Subsource thinks it was Source 6.

Ritz-Carlton Moscow: The Primary Subsource admitted to the FBI "he had not been able to confirm the story" about Trump and prostitutes at the hotel. But he did check with someone who supposedly asked a hotel manager, who said that with celebrities, "one never knows what they're doing." Moscowjob.net/Wikimedia

While he was doing his research on Manafort, the Primary Subsource met a U.S. journalist "at a Thai restaurant." The Primary Subsource didn't want to ask "revealing questions" but managed to go so far as to ask, "Do you [redacted] know anyone who can talk about all of this Trump/Manafort stuff, or Trump and Russia?" According to the FBI notes, the journalist told Primary Subsource "that he was skeptical and nothing substantive had turned up." But the journalist put the Primary Subsource in touch with a "colleague" who in turn gave him an email of "this guy" journalist 2 had interviewed and "that he should talk to."

With the email address of "this guy" in hand, the Primary Subsource sent him a message "in either June or July 2016." Some weeks later the Primary Subsource "received a telephone call from an unidentified Russia guy." He "thought" but had no evidence that the mystery "Russian guy" was " that guy." The mystery caller "never identified himself." The Primary Subsource labeled the anonymous caller "Source 6." The Primary Subsource and Source 6 talked for a total of "about 10 minutes." During that brief conversation they spoke about the Primary Subsource traveling to meet the anonymous caller, but the hook-up never happened.

Nonetheless, the Primary Subsource labeled the unknown Russian voice "Source 6" and gave Christopher Steele the rundown on their brief conversation – how they had "a general discussion about Trump and the Kremlin" and "that it was an ongoing relationship." For use in the dossier, Steele named the voice Source E.

When Steele was done putting this utterly unsourced claim into the style of the dossier, here's how the mystery call from the unknown guy was presented: "Speaking in confidence to a compatriot in late July 2016, Source E, an ethnic Russian close associate of Republican US presidential candidate Donald TRUMP, admitted that there was a well-developed conspiracy of co-operation between them and the Russian leadership." Steele writes "Inter alia," – yes, he really does deploy the Latin formulation for "among other things" – "Source E acknowledged that the Russian regime had been behind the recent leak of embarrassing e-mail messages, emanating from the Democratic National Committee [DNC], to the WikiLeaks platform."

All that and more is presented as the testimony of a "close associate" of Trump, when it was just the disembodied voice of an unknown guy.

Perhaps even more perplexing is that the FBI interviewers, knowing that Source E was just an anonymous caller, didn't compare that admission to the fantastical Steele bluster and declare the dossier a fabrication on the spot.

But perhaps it might be argued that Christopher Steele was bringing crack investigative skills of his own to bear. For something as rich in detail and powerful in effect as the dossier, Steele must have been researching these questions himself as well, using his hard-earned spy savvy to pry closely held secrets away from the Russians. Or at the very least he must have relied on a team of intelligence operatives who could have gone far beyond the obvious limitations the Primary Subsource and his group of drinking buddies.

But no. As we learned in December from Inspector General Michael Horowitz, Steele "was not the originating source of any of the factual information in his reporting." Steele, the IG reported "relied on a primary sub-source (Primary Sub-source) for information, and this Primary Sub-source used a network of [further] sub-sources to gather the information that was relayed to Steele." The inspector general's report noted that "neither Steele nor the Primary Sub-source had direct access to the information being reported."

One might, by now, harbor some skepticism about the dossier. One might even be inclined to doubt the story that Trump was "into water sports" as the Primary Subsource so delicately described the tale of Trump and Moscow prostitutes. But, in this account, there was an effort, however feeble, to nail down the "rumor and speculation" that Trump engaged in "unorthodox sexual activity at the Ritz."

While the Primary Subsource admitted to the FBI "he had not been able to confirm the story," Source 2 (who will be remembered as the hustler always looking for a lucrative score) supposedly asked a hotel manager about Trump and the manager said that with celebrities, "one never knows what they're doing." One never knows – not exactly a robust proof of something that smacks of urban myth. But the Primary Subsource makes the best of it, declaring that at least "it wasn't a denial."

If there was any denial going on it was the FBI's, an agency in denial that its extraordinary investigation was crumbling.

bh2, 23 minutes ago

Even Beria would laugh at this kind of "evidence".


[Jul 19, 2020] Judicial Watch Uncovers Explosive FBI Emails Appearing To Reference A White House 'Confidential Informant' by Sara Carter

Obama administration was not simply dirty. It was criminal to the core.
Jul 17, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print

Authored by Sara Carter via SaraACarter.com,

A top government watchdog group obtained 136 pages of never before publicized emails between former FBI lovers Peter Strzok and Lisa Page and one in particular appears to refer to a confidential informant inside the White House in 2017, according to a press release from Judicial Watch .

Those emails, some of which are heavily redacted, reveal that "Strzok, Page and top bureau officials in the days prior to and following President Donald Trump's inauguration discussing a White House counterintelligence briefing that could "play into" the FBI's "investigative strategy."

NOW PLAYING

Majority Say They Want to See Trump's Taxes, Many Think Returns Would Hurt Reelection Chances

White House Reportedly Moves to Make Coronavirus Cases Private by Cutting Out CDC

Trump White House Reportedly Conducting 'Loyalty' Interviews of Officials, Appointees

Majority Don't Trust Trump's Public Messages on COVID-19, Disapproval on Pandemic Response Hits 60%

Trump's Niece Says She's Heard Him Use the N-Word, Anti-Semitic Slurs

Trump Administration is Reportedly Out to Smear Dr. Anthony Fauci for Early Comments on Coronavirus

Trump Refuses To Unveil Obama's Portrait At The White House

White House Testing Staff For COVID-19, But Are Results Accurate?

Moreover, another email sent by Strzok to Bill Priestap, the Former Assistant Director for the Counterintelligence Division, refers to what appears to be a confidential informant in the White House. The email was sent the day after Trump's inauguration.

"I heard from [redacted] about the WH CI briefing routed from [redacted]," wrote Strzok. " I am angry that Jen did not at least cc: me, as my branch has pending investigative matters there, this brief may play into our investigative strategy, and I would like the ability to have visibility and provide thoughts/counsel to you in advance of the briefing. This is one of the reasons why I raised the issue of lanes/responsibilities that I did when you asked her to handle WH detailee interaction."

In April, 2019 this reporter first published information that there was an alleged confidential informant for the FBI in the White House. In fact, then senior Republican Chairmen of the Senate Appropriations Committee Charles Grassley and Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson submitted a letter to Department of Justice Attorney General William Barr revealing the new texts from Strzok to Page showing the pair had discussed attempts to recruit sources within the White House to allegedly spy on the Trump administration.

The Chairmen revealed the information in a three page letter. The texts had been already been obtained by SaraACarter.com and information regarding the possible attempt to recruit White House sources had been divulged by several sources to this news site last week.

At the time, texts obtained by this news site and sources stated that Strzok had one significant contact within the White House – at the time that would have been Vice President Mike Pence's Chief of Staff Joshua Pitcock, as reported.

Over the past year, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, along with years of numerous Congressional investigations, has uncovered a plethora of documentation revealing the most intimate details of the FBI's now debunked investigation into Trump's campaign and its alleged conspiracy with Russia.

https://lockerdome.com/lad/13084989113709670?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13084989113709670-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com&rid=www.zerohedge.com&width=890

For example, in a series of emails exchanged by top bureau officials – in the FBI General Counsel's office, Counterintelligence Division and Washington Field office on Jan. 19, 2017 – reveal that senior leadership, including former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe were coordinating with each other in their ongoing attempt to target the incoming administration. Priestap was also included in the email exchanges. The recent discovery in April, of Priestap's handwritten notes taken in January, 2017 before the Strzok and his FBI partner interviewed Flynn were a bombshell. In Priestap's notes he states, "What's our goal? Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?"

In one recent email chain obtained by Judicial Watch, FBI assistant general counsel in the FBI's National Security Law Branch stated in an email to Strzok [which was almost entirely redacted]

"I'll give Trisha/Baker a heads up too," it stated. Strzok's reply to the assistant general counsel, however, was redacted by DOJ. The response back to Strzok has also been redacted.

Then later in the evening at 7:04 p.m., Strzok sends another emails stating, "I briefed Bill (Priestap) this afternoon and he was trying without success to reach the DD [McCabe]. I will forward below to him as his [sic] changes the timeline. What's your recommendation?"

The reply, like many of the documents obtained by Judicial Watch from the DOJ, is almost entirely redacted. The email response to Strzok was from the Counterintelligence Division.

Here's what was not redacted

"Approved by tomorrow afternoon is the request. [Redacted] – please advise if I am missing something." An unidentified official replies, "[Redacted], Bill is aware and willing to jump in when we need him."

Judicial Watch Timeline of Events On Emails Obtained Through FOIA

At 8 p.m., Strzok responds back (copying officials in the Counterintelligence Division, Washington Field Office and General Counsel's office):

"Just talked with Bill. [Redacted]. Please relay above to WFO and [redacted] tonight, and keep me updated with plan for meet and results of same. Good luck."

Strzok then forwards the whole email exchange to Lisa Page, saying, "Bill spoke with Andy. [Redacted.] Here we go again "

The Day After Trump's Inauguration

The day after Trump's inauguration, on Jan. 21, 2017, Strzok forwarded Page and [a redacted person] an email he'd sent that day to Priestap. Strzok asked them to "not forward/share."

In the email to Priestap, Strzok said, "I heard from [redacted] about the WH CI briefing routed from [redacted]. I am angry that Jen did not at least cc: me, as my branch has pending investigative matters there, this brief may play into our investigative strategy , and I would like the ability to have visibility and provide thoughts/counsel to you in advance of the briefing. This is one of the reasons why I raised the issue of lanes/responsibilities that I did when you asked her to handle WH detailee interaction."

" Also, on January 21, 2017, Strzok wrote largely the same message he'd sent to Priestap directly to his counterintelligence colleague Jennifer Boone ," states Judicial Watch.

* * *

From Judicial Watch Press Release:

The records were produced to Judicial Watch in a January 2018 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed after the DOJ failed to respond to a December 2017 request for all communications between Strzok and Page ( Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:18-cv-00154)).

The FBI has only processed emails at a rate of 500 pages per month and has yet to process text messages. At this rate, the production of these communications, which still number around 8,000 pages, would not be completed until at least late 2021.

In other emails, Strzok comments on reporting on the anti-Trump dossier authored by Hillary Clinton's paid operative Christopher Steele.

In a January 2017 email , Strzok takes issue with a UK Independent report which claimed Steele had suspected there was a "cabal" within the FBI which put the Clinton email investigation above the Trump-Russia probe. Strzok, a veteran counterintelligence agent, was at the heart of both the Clinton email and Trump-Russia investigations.

In April and June of 2017, the FBI would use the dossier as key evidence in obtaining FISA warrants to spy on Trump campaign associate Carter Page. In a declassified summary of a Department of Justice assessment of the warrants that was released by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) in January of this year, it was determined that those two applications to secretly monitor Page lacked probable cause.

The newly released records include a January 11, 2017, email from Strzok to Lisa Page, Priestap, and Deputy Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Jon Moffa, a New York Times report which refers to the dossier as containing "unsubstantiated accounts" and "unproven claims." In the email, Strzok comments on the article, calling it "Pretty good reporting."

On January 14, 2017, FBI Assistant Director for Public Affairs Michael Kortan forwards to Strzok, Page and Priestap a link to a UK Independent article entitled "Former MI6 Agent Christopher Steele's Frustration as FBI Sat On Donald Trump Russia File for Months".

The article, citing security sources, notes that "Steele became increasingly frustrated that the FBI was failing to take action on the intelligence from others as well as him. He came to believe there was a cover-up: that a cabal within the Bureau blocked a thorough inquiry into Mr Trump, focusing instead on the investigation into Clinton's emails."

Strzok responds: "Thanks Mike. Of course not accurate [the cover-up/cabal nonsense]. Is that question gaining traction anywhere else?"

The records also include a February 10, 2017, email from Strzok to Page mentioning then-national security adviser Michael Flynn (five days before Flynn resigned) and includes a photo of Flynn and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Strzok also makes a joke about how McCabe had fat shamed Kislyak.

On February 8, 2017, Strzok, under the subject "RE: EO on Economic Espionage," emailed Lisa Page, saying, "Please let [redacted] know I talked to [redacted]. Tonight, he approached Flynn's office and got no information." Strzok was responding to a copy of an email Page had sent him. The email, from a redacted FBI official to Deputy Director McCabe read: "OPS has not received a draft EO on economic espionage. Instead, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce advised OPS that they received a draft, but they did not send us the draft. I'll follow up with our detailees about this EO." Flynn resigned on February 13, 2017.

On January 26, 2017, Nancy McNamara of the FBI's Inspection Division emailed Strzok and Priestap with the subject line "Leak," saying, "Tried calling you but the phones are forwarded to SIOC. I got the tel call report, however [redacted]. Feel free to give me a call if I have it wrong." Strzok forwarded the McNamara email to Lisa Page and an unidentified person in the General Counsel's office, saying, "Need to talk to you about how to respond to this."

On January 11, 2017, Yahoo News reporter Michael Isikoff emailed Kortan, saying he'd learned that Steele had worked for the Bureau's Eurasian organized crime section and had turned over the dossier on Trump-Russian "collusion" to the bureau in Rome. Kortan forwards Isikoff's email to aide Richard Quinn, who forwards to Strzok "just for visibility". Strzok forwards to his boss, Priestap and Moffa, saying, "FYI, [redacted], you or I should probably inform [redacted]. How's your relationship with him? Bill unless you object, I'll let Parmaan [presumably senior FBI official Bryan Paarmann] know." Strzok forwards the whole exchange onto Lisa Page.

On January 18, 2017, reporter Peter Elkind of ProPublica reached out to Kortan, asking to interview Strzok, Michael Steinbach, Jim Baker, Priestap, former FBI Director James Comey and DEA administrator Chuck Rosenberg for a story Elkind was working on. Kortan replied, "Okay, I will start organizing things." Further along in the thread, an FBI Press Office official reached out to an FBI colleague for assistance with the interviews, saying Steinbach had agreed to a "background discussion" with Elkind, who was "writing the 'definitive' account of what happened during the Clinton investigation, specifically, Comey's handling of the investigation, seeking to reconstruct and explain in much greater detail what he did and why he did it." In May 2017, Elkind wrote an article titled "The Problems With the FBI's Email Investigation Went Well Beyond Comey," which in light of these documents, strongly suggests many FBI officials leaked to the publication.

Strzok ended up being scheduled to meet with Elkind at 9:30 a.m. on January 31, 2017, before an Elkind interview of Comey's chief of staff Jim Rybicki. Elkind's reporting on the Clinton email investigation was discussed at length in previous emails obtained by Judicial Watch.

"These documents suggest that President Trump was targeted by the Comey FBI as soon as he stepped foot in the Oval Office," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. "And now we see how the Comey FBI was desperate to spin, through high-level leaks, its mishandling of the Clinton email investigation. And, in a continuing outrage, it should be noted that Wray's FBI and Barr's DOJ continue slow-walk the release of thousands of Page-Strzok emails – which means the remaining 8,000 pages of records won't be reviewed and released until 2021-2022!"

In February 2020, Judicial Watch uncovered an August 2016 email in which Strzok says that Clinton, in her interview with the FBI about her email controversy, apologized for "the work and effort" it caused the bureau and she said she chose to use it "out of convenience" and that "it proved to be anything but." Strzok said Clinton's apology and the "convenience" discussion were "not in" the FBI 302 report that summarized the interview.

Also in February, Judicial Watch made public Strzok-Page emails showing their direct involvement in the opening of Crossfire Hurricane, the bureau's investigation of alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. The records also show additional "confirmed classified emails" were found on Clinton's unsecure non-state.gov email server "beyond the number presented" in then-FBI Director James Comey's statements; Strzok and Page questioning the access the DOJ was granting Clinton's lawyers; and Page revealing that the DOJ was making edits to FBI 302 reports related to the Clinton Midyear Exam investigation. The emails detail a discussion about "squashing" an issue related to the Seth Rich controversy.

In January 2020, Judicial Watch uncovered Strzok-Page emails that detail special accommodations given to the lawyers of Clinton and her aides during the FBI investigation of the Clinton email controversy.

In November 2019, Judicial Watch revealed Strzok-Page emails that show the attorney representing three of Clinton's aides were given meetings with senior FBI officials.

Also in November, Judicial Watch uncovered emails revealing that after Clinton's statement denying the transmission of classified information over her unsecure email system, Strzok sent an email to FBI officials citing "three [Clinton email] chains" containing (C) [classified] portion marks in front of paragraphs."

In a related case, in May 2020, Judicial Watch received the " electronic communication " (EC) that officially launched the counterintelligence investigation, termed "Crossfire Hurricane," of President Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. The document was written by former FBI official Peter Strzok.

[Jul 18, 2020] Real Russiagate bombshell -- FBI knew Steele dossier was fiction, Strzok notes show NYTimes reporting misleading and inaccurate

Notable quotes:
"... "primary sub-source" ..."
"... "misleading and inaccurate" ..."
"... "no evidence" ..."
"... Interestingly, June 2017 is when the FBI and DOJ signed off on the last extension of the FISA warrant to spy on the Trump campaign via adviser Carter Page. The warrant was signed by acting FBI director and Comey's former deputy Andrew McCabe and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein – who wrote both the memo used to fire Comey and the scope memo for the Mueller investigation. ..."
"... Evidence has shown that the initial FISA warrant against Page – in October 2016, shortly before the election – and the three renewals all relied heavily on the Steele Dossier, without making it clear to the court that it was unverified opposition research compiled at the behest of a rival political party. ..."
"... "miscarriage of justice" ..."
"... "collusion" ..."
"... Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! ..."
"... the infamous dossier used as a pretext to spy on President Donald Trump's campaign was unreliable ..."
Jul 17, 2020 | www.rt.com

New documents show the FBI was aware that the infamous dossier used as a pretext to spy on President Donald Trump's campaign was unreliable, and that the New York Times published false information about the 'Russiagate' probe.

The two documents were published on Friday by the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), as part of an ongoing probe of the FBI's investigation of Trump. One is a 59-page, heavily redacted interview of the "primary sub-source" for Christopher Steele, the British spy commissioned through a series of cut-outs by the Hillary Clinton campaign to dig up dirt on Trump during the 2016 election campaign.

While the identity of the source is hidden, the document makes it clear it was not a current or former Russian official, but a non-Russian employee of Steele's British company, Orbis. The source's testimony seriously questioned the claims made in the dossier – which is best known for the salacious accusation that Trump was being blackmailed by Russia with tapes of an alleged sex romp in a Moscow hotel.

The second, and more intriguing, document is a five-page printout of a February 14, 2017 article from the New York Times, along with 13 notes by Peter Strzok, one of the senior FBI agents handling the Russiagate probe. The article was published five days after the FBI interview with the sub-source, and Strzok actually shows awareness of it (in note 11, specifically).

In the very first note, Strzok labeled as "misleading and inaccurate" the claim by the New York Times that the Trump campaign had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials before the 2016 election, noting there was "no evidence" of this.

Likewise, Strzok denied the FBI was investigating Roger Stone (note 10) – a political operative eventually indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller over allegedly lying about (nonexistent) ties to WikiLeaks, whose sentence Trump recently commuted to outrage from 'Russiagate' proponents. Nor was Trump's campaign manager Paul Manafort on any calls involving Russian government officials, contrary to claims by the Times (note 3).

Not only did the FBI know the story was false, in part based on the knowledge they had from Steele's source, but the recently ousted FBI director Jim Comey had openly disputed it in June 2017. The paper stood by its reporting.

Interestingly, June 2017 is when the FBI and DOJ signed off on the last extension of the FISA warrant to spy on the Trump campaign via adviser Carter Page. The warrant was signed by acting FBI director and Comey's former deputy Andrew McCabe and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein – who wrote both the memo used to fire Comey and the scope memo for the Mueller investigation.

Evidence has shown that the initial FISA warrant against Page – in October 2016, shortly before the election – and the three renewals all relied heavily on the Steele Dossier, without making it clear to the court that it was unverified opposition research compiled at the behest of a rival political party.

ALSO ON RT.COM So it wasn't 'by the book'? Strzok notes reveal Obama & Biden were involved in FBI going after General Flynn

The last two renewals, in April and June 2017, were requested after the sub-source interview. Commenting on the document release, Sen. Graham called these two renewals a "miscarriage of justice" and argued that the FBI and the Department of Justice should have stopped and re-evaluated their case.

Mueller eventually found no "collusion" between Trump and Russia as alleged by the Democrats, but not before a dozen people – from Stone and Manafort to Trump's first national security adviser Michael Flynn and innocent Russian student Maria Butina – became casualties of the investigation.

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! 236 13


Austin Rock 22 hours ago Staggering is the monumental deceitful effort to hitch Trump to Russia. And yet for MSM and their poodles in the press no barb thrown is too outragious, no smear is too false enough. With Google, Twitter and Facebook on board we Europeans are being played. But we Europeans are not as stupid as your average US punter. These pathetic fairy tales are an embarressement to journalism.

[Jul 18, 2020] Devin Nunes on new revelations about origins of the Russia probe -- We want indictments

Jul 17, 2020 | news.yahoo.com

Senate panel releases key FBI memo on Christopher Steele; reaction from John Solomon, co-author of 'Fallout,' and Rep. Devin Nunes, ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee.

[Jul 18, 2020] The New Peter Strzok Notes Just Made the NYT Look Like Bigger Idiots Over Their Trump-Russia Collusion Peddling

Jul 18, 2020 | townhall.com

The Trump-Russia collusion story continues to be eaten away, and these new notes from disgraced ex-FBI Agent Peter Strzok center on The New York Times and their reporting that got the ball rolling on this media manufactured myth. Yes, it's about time we say that because these documents, which analyzed the piece about Trump aides having contacts with Russian intelligence officials before the 2016 election, has more utility being used to catch crap from birdcages now that's been exposed as a fraud. In 2017, this "bombshell" dropped . Even at the outset, there was still no evidence of collusion. Just rumor and unsubstantiated gossip.

"The officials interviewed in recent weeks said that, so far, they had seen no evidence of such cooperation," that's what the Times had in their piece. It's one of the many bombshells that turned out to be nothing burgers, part of the liberal media's Russia fetish that turned into one of the biggest, if not the biggest , journalism fails ever. It's sad, really. All one had to do was merely accept that Lady McBeth, aka Hillary Rodham Clinton, lost the 2016 election. Any person with cognitive function knew that this story was just simply too good to be true. Second, when weeks and months go by and no evidence arises, it's a dud. When multiple "breaks" in the case, arise and turn out to be garbage -- there's nothing to the story. It's not real. It's a myth, but the anti-Trump opposition press kept pressing and pressing until we got a clown show the likes of which we have never seen. Now, part of it is a bit annoying because we all knew the truth before these clowns did, but seeing these guys fail and have their work just be totally trashed, burned to a crisp, and then pissed on is just pure gold. Two words that can be applied to the entire Democrat-media complex: Suck. It.

So, let's get to the notes that deliver a tomahawk to the face of the liberal media. Based on the FBI's notes, pretty much everything in it was a lie. "Misleading, inaccurate, and no evidence" are the key phrases Strzok used concerning this fake news story. The story said that Paul Manafort was plugged into the calls. The FBI said, "We are unaware of any calls with any Russian govt official in which Manafort was a party."

The publication said Roger Stone was part of the FBI's Russian inquiry. The FBI denied this. Then-FBI Director James Comey, who would later be fired for cause in May of 2017, also disputed the story but the NYT decided to stand by it because 'orange man bad.' Well, they do deserve Pulitzers I guess for being the biggest dupes in the business for taking fake information at face value. Has the media learned that yet too? Probably not because they're all abjectly stupid people, but not all classified information is true. It can be false. Remember that next time you report on leaks about North Korean Kim Jong-un being brain dead.

The ripple effect from stories like this was severe. It led scores of reporters down a media-manufactured alternate reality that some have not climbed out of yet. They took the blue pill and remained in wonderland.

"Ignorance is bliss," or maybe in this case just pure unadulterated idiocy.

You guys were wrong. How many times do we have to hit you on the head with a baseball bat until you get it? You were wrong. Your stories were trash, based in lies and false information and weaponized by Democrats to try and usurp a duly elected president because you don't like him. You're all entitled brats who deserve an ass-kicking. And Barack Obama appears to be calling the shots on some of the major battles in this fake news fiasco, specifically when it comes to Michael Flynn, who has been vindicated regarding his role in this whole mess. He was innocent and targeted by former members of the Obama administration, including former Vice President Joe Biden.


[Jul 14, 2020] A British court decision unmasks new evidence of FBI abuses in the Russia collusion probe.

Jul 14, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

ET AL July 10, 2020 at 12:22 pm

JustTheNews.com : New Steele evidence strengthens Durham prosecution as frustration over inaction grows
https://justthenews.com/accountability/russia-and-ukraine-scandals/new-steele-evidence-strengthens-durham-prosecution

A British court decision unmasks new evidence of FBI abuses in the Russia collusion probe.

Warby's lengthy ruling unearthed a gem of new evidence to answer the question: Steele kept his own notes of what he told FBI agents the first time he met them on July 5, 2016 in London to discuss his anti-Trump Russia research.

And, Warby revealed, the notes make clear that Steele told his FBI handlers from the get-go that the dossier's "ultimate client were (sic) the leadership of the Clinton presidential campaign."

And after Trump won the election, the judge added, Steele disclosed he gave copies of his dossier to longtime Clinton friend Strobe Talbot in hopes it would get to the top of the State Department
####

Plenty more at the link.

BiDumb has to win in November to make all this go away.

[Jul 14, 2020] Bridgewater -Manufactured False Evidence- To Crush Potential Competitors... And Was Jim Comey Involved- -

Jul 14, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Bridgewater "Manufactured False Evidence" To Crush Potential Competitors... And Was Jim Comey Involved?


by Tyler Durden Mon, 07/13/2020 - 21:05 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print

Who knew that part of Ray Dalio's "radical transparency" fetish was accusing potential competitors of stealing trade secrets, and when there is no theft, to radically fabricate "evidence" to shut them down?

While it has long been known that in the annals of active management lore, not one hedge fund comes even close to pursuing non-compete clauses and trade secrets lawsuits against its former employees with the same ferocity, tenacity and unbridled glee as the world's biggest hedge fund Bridgewater (despite valiant attempts by RenTec and Citadel they are at best runners up), what nobody knew until now, is that when Bridgewater was lacking enough legal facts on its side, it would resort to simply fabricating them.

That's what the world's biggest hedge fund did on at least one occasion according to a panel of three arbitrators, who according to the FT , found that Bridgewater "manufactured false evidence" in its attempt to prove that former employees had stolen its trade secrets.

According to humiliating - to Ray Dalio - court documents which were made public on Monday, and which quote findings from a panel of three arbitrators, Bridgewater - which manages $138BN in assets, and whose billionaire founder prides in the way "radical transparency" is shoved down all employees' throats - was found to have "filed its claims in reckless disregard of its own internal records, and in order to support its allegations of access to trade secrets, manufactured false evidence".

me title=

https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.394.0_en.html#goog_122824125 NOW PLAYING

Wall Street Bounces, After Selloff Fed Boosts Liquidity

SoftBank Said to Plan $14 Billion Sale of Alibaba Shares

China's Companies Have Worst Quarter on Record, Beige Book Says

U.S.-Saudi Oil Alliance Under Consideration, Brouillette Says

ETF Volumes Surge in Current Market Environment

Investors Have Given Up on a V-Shaped Recovery, BNY's Young Cautions

The dramatic discovery emerged as a result of a dispute launched by Bridgewater against former employees, Lawrence Minicone and Zachary Squire, in November 2017, in which the fund claimed the duo had misappropriated trade secrets and breached their contracts. However, Bridgewater's attempt to bully not only its former employees from launching a new fund, but also the legal system, promptly suffered a spectacular breakdown, when a panel of three arbitrators found that Bridgewater had "failed to identify the alleged trade secrets with specificity", knowing Minicone and Squire would have to fight an expensive case in order to defend against the allegations, the court filing states.

In other words, even though its former employees - who quit years prior in mid-2013 - did nothing wrong, Bridgewater knew that simply by throwing armies of lawyers after them, it could bankrupt them into submission. And while this strategy has worked over and over, this time it failed.

"The trade secrets as described constituted publicly available information or information generally known to professionals in the industry, and . . . Claimant [Bridgewater], a highly sophisticated entity, knew that the trade secrets as described did not constitute trade secrets," the tribunal ruled, according to material quoted in the court filing.

There was more. Just to cover its bases, in addition to the trade secrets claim, Bridgewater also accused its two former employees of unfair competition after they co-founded Tekmerion Capital Management, a systematic macro hedge fund with about $60MM in assets under management, which received backing from billionaire Alan Howard and Michael Novogratz.

But here too, Bridgewater hit a brick wall, when the arbitrators found that Bridgewater's claims had been brought in "bad faith".

"Claimant's actions in continuing to press its claims constitute further evidence that its intentions were not to prove misappropriation, but rather, were to adversely affect respondents' ability to conduct a competitive business," the arbitrators ruling stated, according to the new court filing.

about:blank

about:blank

me title=

So how did all of this leak? Simple: Bridgewater was too stingy to pay the falsely accused duo $2 million in lawyer fees, forcing Minicone and Squire to file a court petition against Bridgewater on July 1 to confirm the $2 million in lawyers fees awarded by the arbitration panel in January and, in a move that is set to terminally humiliate and expose Dalio as a consummate hypocrite, to have the full decision by the arbitrators made public.

And while it is hardly news to those in the industry just how despicable Bridgewater's tactics have been in the past when faced with a potential competition emerging from its own ranks who may - gasp - steal the fund's "trading secrets" such as momentum and inverse variance, which incidentally are perfectly public "strategies", or at least expose to the world just how Bridgewater ended up being a $160BN $138BN hedge fund, what we are far more interested in is whether Bridgewater's former general counsel was instrumental in creating the strategy used by the fund against its former employees.

We are, of course, talking about one James Comey.

Here are the specifics: Squire joined Bridgewater in 2010 as an investment associate and spent three years at the group working with its research and trading teams before quitting in mid-2013. Minicone, also an investment associate at Bridgewater, joined in 2008 and remained there for almost five years. He too quit in 2013.

What does that have to do with James Comes? Well, before joining the FBI, readers may or may not know that the man who singlehandedly tried to take down the standing US president on what he knew well were false charges, was general counsel of Bridgewater from 2010 to 2013 - the very years that overlapped with Squire and Minicone's tenure at Bridgewater too. y_arrow Blankenstein , 52 minutes ago

This isn't the first time Dalio has used fear and intimidation.

"Ray Dalio, the billionaire founder of the world's largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, likes to say that one of his firm's core operating principles is "radical transparency" when it comes to airing employee grievances and concerns.

But one employee said in a complaint earlier this year that the hedge fund was like a "cauldron of fear and intimidation."

The employee's complaint with the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities, which has not been previously reported, describes an atmosphere of constant surveillance by video and recordings of all meetings -- and the presence of patrolling security guards -- that silence employees who do not fit the Bridgewater mold.""

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/27/business/dealbook/bridgewater-associates-hedge-fund-culture-ray-dalio.html?_r=0

Blankenstein , 52 minutes ago

This isn't the first time Dalio has used fear and intimidation.

"Ray Dalio, the billionaire founder of the world's largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, likes to say that one of his firm's core operating principles is "radical transparency" when it comes to airing employee grievances and concerns.

But one employee said in a complaint earlier this year that the hedge fund was like a "cauldron of fear and intimidation."

The employee's complaint with the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities, which has not been previously reported, describes an atmosphere of constant surveillance by video and recordings of all meetings -- and the presence of patrolling security guards -- that silence employees who do not fit the Bridgewater mold.""

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/27/business/dealbook/bridgewater-associates-hedge-fund-culture-ray-dalio.html?_r=0

Eastern Whale , 1 hour ago

its ingrained into American culture to accuse then find evidence. Just like WMD in Iraq it happens in corporate America as well.

slightlyskeptical , 1 hour ago

Who writes this rubbish? The author is actually using Bridgewater tactics to try to smear Comey with something that happened 4 years after he left.

The dramatic discovery emerged as a result of a dispute launched by Bridgewater against former employees, Lawrence Minicone and Zachary Squire, in November 2017, in which the fund claimed the duo had misappropriated trade secrets and breached their contracts.

and then

Comey was general counsel of Bridgewater from 2010 to 2013.

Blankenstein , 56 minutes ago

Maybe read the article next time. The suggestion was that Comey developed the strategy for Bridgewater while employed there, as he was involved when the same tactics were used against Trump.

Entertaining1 , 2 hours ago

Even before the Comey angle, a brilliant article.

More of this author, please.

On a hot summer day like this, please remember Google sucks cocksicles by the dozen.

The_American , 2 hours ago

Every FBI "law" ENFORCEMENT act of the last 20 years needs to undergo FULL REVIEW.

These God Damned liars need to be ACCOUNTABLE!

[Jul 14, 2020] Trump confirms he ordered a cyberattack on a notorious Russian troll farm during the 2018 midterms

"It is unusual for countries to publicly talk about cyberwarfare tactics" Is not the USA position itself to consider such an attack to be a declaration fo war?
Jul 14, 2020 | news.yahoo.com

REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

President Trump confirmed in an interview with the Washington Post that the US launched a cyberattack against infamous Russian troll farm the Internet Research Agency (IRA) during the 2018 midterms.

The Post reported the attack in February 2019, but this is the first time Trump has confirmed it took place. It is unusual for countries to publicly talk about cyberwarfare tactics.

The IRA was indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller in 2018 for conspiracy to interfere with the 2016 presidential election. Russian influence campaigns were also detected during the 2018 midterms .

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories .

President Trump has confirmed that the US launched a cyberattack on the Internet Research Agency (IRA), an infamous Russian troll farm, during the 2018 midterm elections.

The Washington Post first reported on the attack, which blocked the IRA's internet access, in February 2019. The administration did not comment on the report at the time, but Trump confirmed the attack in an interview with Post columnist Marc Thiessen published Friday.

Thiessen asked whether Trump had launched the attack, to which the president replied "correct." This is the first time Trump or the White House has confirmed the attack, and it is unusual for countries to publicly talk about cyberwarfare tactics.

According to The Post's 2019 report, US Cyber Command's attack started on the first day of voting for the November 2018 midterm elections, and continued for a few days while votes were tallied. "They basically took the IRA offline," one source familiar with the matter told The Post.

"Look, we stopped it," Trump told Thiessen. The Internet Research Agency was indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller in 2018 for conspiracy to interfere with the 2016 presidential election. Russian influence campaigns were also detected during the 2018 midterms .

Trump also claimed that Obama had remained silent on the issue of Russian disinformation campaigns ahead of the 2016 election.

"[Obama] knew before the election that Russia was playing around. Or, he was told. Whether or not it was so or not, who knows? And he said nothing. And the reason he said nothing was that he didn't want to touch it because he thought [Hillary Clinton] was winning because he read phony polls. So, he thought she was going to win. And we had the silent majority that said, 'No, we like Trump,'" Trump said.

In October 2016, the Obama administration formally accused Russia of hacking into Democratic computers to steal emails that ended up on Wikileaks. In December 2016, one month after Trump had won the election, Obama ejected 35 suspected Russian intelligence officers in retaliation .

Trump's assertion that he took a tougher stance against Russian disinformation campaigns than Obama comes the week after he commuted the prison sentence of former aide Roger Stone , a move that came just days after Facebook announced it had taken down a network of disinformation accounts after an "investigation linked this network to Roger Stone and his associates."

Trump's attitude to Russia has come under fire from critics recently after reports emerged in late June that he was briefed on Russia offering the Taliban bounties to kill US troops in Afghanistan , and chose not to retaliate.

Read the original article on Business Insider


[Jul 14, 2020] I'd bet a dollar to a doughnut Skripal was the source of the Russian 'intelligence', and that he was bumped off afterward to make sure he stayed quiet about Steele dossier.

Notable quotes:
"... If Skripal is involved with all the Clinton stuff, then he would want an insurance policy for example on an USB drive that he could leave for someone to pick up, and leak if something foreshortened his life ..."
Jul 14, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

MARK CHAPMAN July 8, 2020 at 8:08 pm

"The judge also concluded that Steele's notes of his first interaction with the FBI about the dossier on July 5, 2016 made clear that his ultimate client for his research project was Hillary Clinton's campaign as directed by her campaign law firm Perkins Coie. The FBI did not disclose that information to the court."

Finally we are getting down to where the cheese binds. Hillary Clinton's campaign, with Mrs. Clinton's knowledge, commissioned the Steele dossier to try to torpedo Trump's election prospects. She never thought he could win, but the Dems wanted to make sure.

I'd bet a dollar to a doughnut Skripal was the source of the Russian 'intelligence', and that he was bumped off afterward to make sure he stayed quiet.

The whole Russiagate scandal was just Democrat bullshit, and they kept up with it long after they all knew they were lying. And Biden thinks he's going to get elected, after that revelation? The Democrats deserve to be expelled from politics en masse. Leading with that wretched prick Schiff.

JEN July 8, 2020 at 9:42 pm

It would seem likely that had the Klintonator won the 2016 Presidential election, Sergei Skripal might have been left alone mouldering with his guinea pigs and cats in his Salsibury home. Perhaps he had to take the fall for HRC's loss in the election, for whatever reason (not shovelling enough shit into the dossier to bring down Trump perhaps); someone had to take the blame and of course HRC will never admit responsibility for her own failure.

MARK CHAPMAN July 9, 2020 at 8:43 am

Well, you never know – Russians are kind of an endangered species in the UK. They turn up dead whenever a public accusation of another Putin 'state hit' would be a useful feature in the papers.

ET AL July 9, 2020 at 12:34 am

What I want to know is if the paths of the Skripals passed with those of the supposed Russian assassins (which I assume to be possible decoys) or anyone else in space, but not necessarily time. If Skripal is involved with all the Clinton stuff, then he would want an insurance policy for example on an USB drive that he could leave for someone to pick up, and leak if something foreshortened his life

It could well have been a simple dead-drop and when alerted by their phones being turned off and batteries removed, the priority was to immobilize/incapacitate them. A bit tricky in public, but not at all impossible by a near/passer by to their bench with an aerosol, say a cyclist walking with his bike After all, they did also have the Chief nurse of the BA on hand just in case it went wrong as things sometimes do. Which leads to the question, was it just the Brits alone, together with the Americans, or watching the Americans and then cleaning up their mess? 2 or more likely 3 seem most likely if we look at sheer brazeness.

That concludes my speculation for the day! Maybe I should be a journalist. I could be paid for this!

MARK CHAPMAN July 9, 2020 at 9:01 am

Yes, you never know, but it's certainly hard to believe Occam was English. It seems pretty clear the simplest explanation is "MI6 bumped him off and blamed it on Russia". When you are trying to arrange a death which is bound to be suspicious, you want to do it in a way that when it becomes public knowledge, the first people the public thinks of is not you. means, motive and opportunity all strongly favour the English side. It seems to be be fairly common knowledge that Skripal wanted to return to Russia; we have no way of knowing if he planned to live there or just visit, more likely the latter. But Putin decides to send an assassination team to England to rub him out. Instead of welcoming him home to Russia, where he could prevent the British from investigating, and then killing him. Presumably in a much more prosaic fashion – say, running him down with a car – rather than employing some exotic poison or isotope which will scream 'Russia!!' How long would the British have been investigating the Skripals' deaths (if they had died) had they been run down with a 7.5 ton lorry which was subsequently found burned to a shell several counties away? Would the British papers have been shrieking "Putin's Truck!!!" next morning? But no – Russian assassins always have to 'send a message', which must inspire Britain to 'send a message' of its own by punishing the entire country. Maybe it's just me, but flash-cooking Skripal in the High Street with a flamethrower in broad daylight would send a message. And then say to the police, "Keep your hands where I can see 'em, unless you want a couple of shashliks, comrade", before speeding away in an Aurus Senat limousine. That would send a message, too.


[Jul 13, 2020] George Washington Tried To Warn Americans About Foreign Policy Today by Doug Bandow

Highly recommended!
This is all about maintaining the US-centered global neoliberal empire. After empires is created the the USA became the salve of imperial interests and in a way stopped existing as an independent country. Everything is thrown on the altar of "full spectrum Dominance". The result is as close to a real political and economic disaster as we can get. Like USSR leadership the US elite realized now that neoliberalism is not sustainable, but can't do anything as all bets were made for the final victory of neoliberalism all over the world, much like Soviets hoped for the victory of communism. That did not happened and although the USA now is in much better position then the USSR in 60th (but with the similar level of deterioration of cognitive abilities of the politicians as the USSR). In this sense COVID-19 was a powerful catalyst of the crush of the US-centered neoliberal empire
Notable quotes:
"... On the other side are the targets of "inveterate antipathies." This also characterizes US Middle East policy. So hated are Iran and Syria that Washington, DC is making every effort to destroy their economies, ruin their people's livelihoods, wreck their hospitals, and starve their population. The respective governments are bad, to be sure, but do not threaten the US Yet, as the nation's first president explained to Americans, "Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence, frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy." ..."
"... Consider how close the US has come to foolish, unnecessary wars against both nations. There were manifold demands that the US enter the Syrian civil war, in which Americans have no stake. Short of combat the Obama administration indirectly aided the local affiliate of al-Qaeda, the terrorist group which staged 9/11 and supposedly was America's enemy. Moreover, there was constant pressure on America to attack Iran, targeted by the US since 1953, when the CIA helped replace Tehran's democracy with a brutal tyrant, whose rule was highlighted by corruption, torture, and a nuclear program – which then was taken over by Iran's Islamic revolutionaries, to America's horror. ..."
"... The US now is pushing toward a Cold War redux with Russia, after successive administrations treated Moscow as if it was of no account, lying about plans to expand NATO and acting in other ways that the US would never tolerate. Imagine the Soviet Union helping to overthrow an elected, pro-American government in Mexico City, seeking to redirect all commerce to Soviet allies in South America, and proposing that Mexico join the Warsaw Pact. US policymakers would be threatening war. ..."
"... In different ways many US policies illustrate the problem caused by "passionate attachments" – the almost routine and sometimes substantial sacrifice of US economic and security interests to benefit other governments. For instance, hysteria swept Washington at the president's recent proposal to simply reduce troop levels in Germany, which along with so many other European nations sees little reason to do much to defend itself. There are even those who demand American subservience to the Philippines, a semi-failed state of no significant security importance to the US Saudi Arabia is a rare case where the attachment is mostly cash and lobbyists. In most instances cultural, ethnic, religious, and historical ties provide a firmer foundation for foreign political influence and manipulation. ..."
Jul 13, 2020 | original.antiwar.com

Ben Rhodes, Barack Obama's deputy national security adviser, unkindly characterized the foreign policy establishment in Washington, D.C., as "the Blob." Although policymakers sometimes disagree on peripheral subjects, membership requires an absolute commitment to U.S. "leadership," which means a determination to micro-manage the world.

Reliance on persuasion is not enough. Vital is the willingness to bomb, invade, and, if necessary, occupy other nations to impose the Blob's dictates on other peoples. If foreigners die, as they often do, remember the saying about eggs and omelets oft repeated by communism's apologists. "Stuff happens" with the best-intentioned policies.

One might be inclined to forgive Blob members if their misguided activism actually benefited the American people. However, all too often the Blob's policies instead aid other governments and interests. Washington is overrun by the representatives of and lobbyists for other nations, which constantly seek to take control of US policy for their own advantage. The result are foreign interventions in which Americans do the paying and, all too often, the dying for others.

The problem is primarily one of power. Other governments don't spend a lot of time attempting to take over Montenegro's foreign policy because, well, who cares? Exactly what would you do after taking over Fiji's foreign ministry other than enjoy a permanent vacation? Seize control of international relations in Barbados and you might gain a great tax shelter.

Subvert American democracy and manipulate US foreign policy, and you can loot America's treasury, turn the US military into your personal bodyguard, and gain Washington's support for reckless war-mongering. And given the natural inclination of key American policymakers to intervene promiscuously abroad for the most frivolous reasons, it's surprisingly easy for foreign interests to convince Uncle Sam that their causes are somehow "vital" and therefore require America's attention. Indeed, it is usually easier to persuade Americans than foreign peoples in their home countries to back one or another international misadventure.

The culprits are not just autocratic regimes. Friendly democratic governments are equally ready to conspiratorially whisper in Uncle Sam's ear. Even nominally classical liberal officials, who believe in limiting their own governments, argue that Americans are obligated to sacrifice wealth and life for everyone else. The mantra seems to be liberty, prosperity, and peace for all – except those living in the superpower tasked by heaven with protecting everyone else's liberty, prosperity, and peace.

Although the problem has burgeoned in modern times, it is not new. Two centuries ago fans of Greek independence wanted Americans to challenge the Ottoman Empire, a fantastic bit of foolishness. Exactly how to effect an international Balkans rescue was not clear, since the president then commanded no aircraft carriers, air wings, or nuclear-tipped missiles. Still, the issue divided Americans and influenced John Quincy Adams' famous 1821 Independence Day address.

Warned Adams:

"Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom."

"The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force . She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit . [America's] glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice."

Powerful words, yet Adams was merely following in the footsteps of another great American, George Washington. Obviously, the latter was flawed as a person, general, and president. Nevertheless, his willingness to set a critical precedent by walking away from power left an extraordinary legacy. As did his insistence that the Constitution tasked Congress with deciding when America would go to war. And his warning against turning US policy over to foreign influences.

Concern over obsequious subservience to other governments and interests pervaded his famous 1796 Farewell Address. Applied today, his message indicts most of the policy currently made in the city ironically named after him. He would be appalled by what presidents and Congresses today do, supposedly for America.

Obviously, the US was very different 224 years ago. The new country was fragile, sharing the Western hemisphere with its old colonial master, which still ruled Canada and much of the Caribbean, as well as Spain and France. When later dragged into the maritime fringes of the Napoleonic wars the US could huff and puff but do no more than inconvenience France and Britain. The vastness of the American continent, not overweening national power, again frustrated London when it sought to subjugate its former colonists.

Indeed, when George Washington spoke the disparate states were not yet firmly knit into a nation. Only after the Civil War, when the national government waged four years of brutal combat, which ravaged much of the country and killed upwards of 750,000 people in the name of "union," did people uniformly say the United States "is" rather than "are." However, the transformation was much more than rhetorical. The federal system that originally emerged in the name of individual liberty spawned a high tax centralized government that employed one of the world's largest militaries to kill on a mass scale to enforce the regime's dictates. The modern American "republic" was born. It acted overseas only inconsistently until World War II, after which imperial America was a constant, adding resonance to George Washington's message.

Today Washington, D.C.'s elites have almost uniformly decided that Russia is an enemy, irrespective of American behavior that contributed to Moscow's hostility. And that Ukraine, a country never important for American security, is a de facto military ally, appropriately armed by the US for combat against a nuclear-armed rival. A reelection-minded president seems determined to turn China into a new Cold War adversary, an enemy for all things perhaps for all time. America remains ever entangled in the Middle East, with successive administrations in permanent thrall of Israel and Saudi Arabia, allowing foreign leaders to set US Mideast policy. Indeed, both states have avidly pressed the administration to make their enemy, Iran, America' enemy. The resulting fixation caused the Trump administration to launch economic war against the rest of the world to essentially prevent everyone on earth from having any commercial dealing of any kind with anyone in Tehran.

Under Democrats and Republicans alike the federal government views nations that resist its dictates as adversaries at best, appropriate targets of criticism, always, sanctions, often, and even bombs and invasions, occasionally. No wonder foreign governments lobby hard to be designated as allies, partners, and special relationships. Many of these ties have become essentially permanent, unshakeable even when supposed friends act like enemies and supposed enemies are incapable of hurting America. US foreign policy increasingly has been captured and manipulated for the benefit of other governments and interests.

George Washington recognized the problem even in his day, after revolutionary France sought to win America's support against Great Britain. He warned: "nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest."

Is there a better description of US foreign policy today? Even when a favored nation is clearly, ostentatiously, murderously on the wrong side – consider Saudi Arabia's unprovoked aggression against Yemen – many American policymakers refuse to allow a single word of criticism to escape their lips. The US has indeed become "a slave," as George Washington warned.

The consequences for the US and the world are highly negative. He observed that "likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification."

This is an almost perfect description of the current US approach. American colonists revolted against what they believed had become ever more "foreign" control, yet the US backs Israel's occupation and mistreatment of millions of Palestinians. American policymakers parade the globe spouting the rhetoric of freedom yet subsidize Egypt as it imprisons tens of thousands and oppresses millions of people. Washington decries Chinese aggressiveness, yet provides planes, munitions, and intelligence to aid Riyadh in the slaughter of Yemeni civilians and destruction of Yemeni homes, businesses, and hospitals. In such cases, policymakers have betrayed America "into a participation in the quarrels and wars without adequate inducement or justification."

On the other side are the targets of "inveterate antipathies." This also characterizes US Middle East policy. So hated are Iran and Syria that Washington, DC is making every effort to destroy their economies, ruin their people's livelihoods, wreck their hospitals, and starve their population. The respective governments are bad, to be sure, but do not threaten the US Yet, as the nation's first president explained to Americans, "Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence, frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy."

Consider how close the US has come to foolish, unnecessary wars against both nations. There were manifold demands that the US enter the Syrian civil war, in which Americans have no stake. Short of combat the Obama administration indirectly aided the local affiliate of al-Qaeda, the terrorist group which staged 9/11 and supposedly was America's enemy. Moreover, there was constant pressure on America to attack Iran, targeted by the US since 1953, when the CIA helped replace Tehran's democracy with a brutal tyrant, whose rule was highlighted by corruption, torture, and a nuclear program – which then was taken over by Iran's Islamic revolutionaries, to America's horror.

Read George Washington and you would think he had gained a supernatural glimpse into today's policy debates. He worried about the result when the national government "adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations has been the victim."

What better describes US policy toward China and Russia? To be sure, these are nasty regimes. Yet that has rarely bothered Uncle Sam's relations with other states. Saudi Arabia, a corrupt and totalitarian theocracy, has been sheltered, protected, and reassured by the US even after invading its poor neighbor. Among Washington's other best friends: Bahrain, Turkey, Egypt, and United Arab Emirates, tyrannies all.

The US now is pushing toward a Cold War redux with Russia, after successive administrations treated Moscow as if it was of no account, lying about plans to expand NATO and acting in other ways that the US would never tolerate. Imagine the Soviet Union helping to overthrow an elected, pro-American government in Mexico City, seeking to redirect all commerce to Soviet allies in South America, and proposing that Mexico join the Warsaw Pact. US policymakers would be threatening war.

Washington, DC also is treating China as a near-enemy, claiming the right to control China along its own borders – essentially attempting to apply America's Monroe Doctrine to Asia. This is something Americans would never allow another nation, especially China, to do to the US Imagine the response if Beijing sent its navy up the East Coast, told the US how to treat Cuba, and constantly talked of the possibility of war. America's consistently hostile, aggressive policy is the result of "projects of pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives."

This kind of foreign policy also corrupts the American political system. It encourages officials and people to put foreign interests before that of America. As George Washington observed, this mindset: "gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; guiding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation."

For instance, Woodrow Wilson and America's Anglophile establishment backed Great Britain over the interests of the American people, dragging the US into World War I, a mindless imperial slugfest that this nation should have avoided. After the Cold War's end Americans with ties to Central and Eastern Europe pushed to expand NATO to their ancestral homes, which created new defense obligations for America while inflaming Russian hostility. Ethnic Greeks and Turks constantly battle over policy toward their ethnic homelands. Taiwan has developed enduring ties with congressional Republicans, especially, ensuring US government support against Beijing. Many evangelical Christians, especially those who hold a particularly bizarre eschatology (basically, Jews must gather together in their national homeland to be slaughtered before Jesus can return), back Israel in whatever it does to assist the apparently helpless God of creation finish his job. The policies that result from such campaigns inevitably are shaped to benefit foreign interests, not Americans.

Regarding the impact of such a system on the political system George Washington also was prescient: "As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public council. Such an attachment of a small or weak towards a great and powerful nation dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter."

In different ways many US policies illustrate the problem caused by "passionate attachments" – the almost routine and sometimes substantial sacrifice of US economic and security interests to benefit other governments. For instance, hysteria swept Washington at the president's recent proposal to simply reduce troop levels in Germany, which along with so many other European nations sees little reason to do much to defend itself. There are even those who demand American subservience to the Philippines, a semi-failed state of no significant security importance to the US Saudi Arabia is a rare case where the attachment is mostly cash and lobbyists. In most instances cultural, ethnic, religious, and historical ties provide a firmer foundation for foreign political influence and manipulation.

What to do about such a long-standing problem? George Washington was neither naïf nor isolationist. He believed in what passed for globalism in those days: a commercial republic should trade widely. He didn't oppose alliances, for limited purposes and durations. After all, support from France was necessary for the colonies to win independence.

He proposed a practical policy tied to ongoing realities. The authorities should "steer clear of permanent alliances," have with other states "as little political connection as possible," and not "entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils" of other nations' "ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice." Most important, the object of US foreign policy was to serve the interests of the American people. In practice it was a matter of prudence, to be adapted to circumstance and interest. He would not necessarily foreclose defense of Israel, Saudi Arabia, or Germany, but would insist that such proposals reflect a serious analysis of current realities and be decided based on what is best for Americans. He would recognize that what might have been true a few decades ago likely isn't true today. In reality, little of current US foreign policy would have survived his critical review.

George Washington was an eminently practical man who managed to speak through the ages. America's recently disastrous experience of playing officious, obnoxious hegemon highlights his good judgment. The US, he argued, should "observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all."

America may still formally be a republic, but its foreign policy long ago became imperial. As John Quincy Adams warned, the US is "no longer the ruler of her own spirit." Americans have learned at great cost that international affairs are too important to be left to the Blob and foreign policy professionals, handed off to international relations scholars, or, worst of all, subcontracted to other nations and their lobbyists. The American people should insist on their nation's return to a true republican foreign policy.

Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute . A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire .

[Jul 13, 2020] Newt Gingrich has an informative article on FOX this weekend about the threat Trump has posed to traditional Republican court hangers-on. He illustrates how this presidency has destroyed the careers that many of these very wealthy and powerful members of the Deep State saw as their dynastic inheritance.

Jul 13, 2020 | www.unz.com

Emslander , says: July 12, 2020 at 11:25 am GMT

Newt Gingrich has an informative article on FOX this weekend about the threat Trump has posed to traditional Republican court hangers-on. He illustrates how this presidency has destroyed the careers that many of these very wealthy and powerful members of the Deep State saw as their dynastic inheritance. I point it out because Gingrich would know intimately how those people feel.

Couple that with the clumsy approach Trump made to the china shop throughout his campaign, is it any wonder that the FBI, a fundamentally stupid operation now and at all times in the past, has been busting a gut? I came of age in the sixties and went to university at a center of opposition to the Deep State that was then concerned with killing poor yellow peasants in the rice fields of Southeast Asia. We all assumed they had us in dossiers they built and studied carefully as they closed in on our coffee house discussions. Never happened.

Please keep in mind that these bureaucrats would never do anything that might krinkle the crease in their trousers. Also bear in mind that the reports we read are written by English Majors, probably affirmative action hires, in the lower bowels of unhealthy Washington office buildings. The only people who read them are people who manage to pry them out of the sweaty little fingers of desperately single women.

All of the Washington bureaucratic swamp is a manifestation of White Welfare, people hired because they are related to somebody who wants to keep them from turning to prostitution.

[Jul 13, 2020] Graham Asks Mueller To Testify Before Senate After WaPo Editorial Slamming Stone Commutation -

Notable quotes:
"... Speaking as an outside observer, it does seem to me that there is little difference between the FBI investigators and those methods used by the KGB in preparing people to appear at Stalin;s show trials. ..."
"... Mueller is not senile. That was an act. He knows he did terrible things. He does not want to testify as some ambitious prosecutors may wish to do to him,What he did to others ..."
"... An investigation that comes up with zero evidence to back up an accusation, is usually known as a wild goose chase.. ..."
Jul 13, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

The former FBI chief broke his silence last night, when the Washington Post published a Mueller-penned op-ed hitting all the expected notes. Reminding the public - well, more like implying - that Stone knows all the secrets of the Russia-Wikileaks-Trump connection. The DNC hack, Hillary's missing emails, all those twitter bots - all of these victories surely helped sway voters in Trump's favor, Mueller argues.

And without Russia's tacit support, Mueller argues, they would never have happened. But was Stone really so integral to these operations? His reputation as a fabricator and an exaggerator were well covered during the case.

We now have a detailed picture of Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election. The special counsel's office identified two principal operations directed at our election: hacking and dumping Clinton campaign emails, and an online social media campaign to disparage the Democratic candidate. We also identified numerous links between the Russian government and Trump campaign personnel -- Stone among them. We did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired with the Russian government in its activities. The investigation did, however, establish that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome. It also established that the campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts.

Uncovering and tracing Russian outreach and interference activities was a complex task. The investigation to understand these activities took two years and substantial effort. Based on our work, eight individuals pleaded guilty or were convicted at trial, and more than two dozen Russian individuals and entities, including senior Russian intelligence officers, were charged with federal crimes.

Congress also investigated and sought information from Stone. A jury later determined he lied repeatedly to members of Congress. He lied about the identity of his intermediary to WikiLeaks. He lied about the existence of written communications with his intermediary. He lied by denying he had communicated with the Trump campaign about the timing of WikiLeaks' releases. He in fact updated senior campaign officials repeatedly about WikiLeaks. And he tampered with a witness, imploring him to stonewall Congress.

Stone was found guilty by a jury back in November of all seven charges that he faced. He was charged with lying to Congress, witness tampering and obstruction. At the time, the press reported that Stone could face up to 50 years in prison. He was eventually sentenced to between 3 and four years after being convicted on all 7 counts he faced, including the witness tampering charge, which carried a maximum penalty of 20 years, while the maximum for each of the other six charges is five years. Stones convictions will stand, and he will remain a felon.

Mueller also insisted he made every decision based "solely on the facts", though we wonder how tipping off CNN to the military-style raid that brought Stone into federal custody relates to Mueller's "by the book" credo.

Russian efforts to interfere in our political system, and the essential question of whether those efforts involved the Trump campaign, required investigation. In that investigation, it was critical for us (and, before us, the FBI) to obtain full and accurate information. Likewise, it was critical for Congress to obtain accurate information from its witnesses. When a subject lies to investigators, it strikes at the core of the government's efforts to find the truth and hold wrongdoers accountable. It may ultimately impede those efforts.

We made every decision in Stone's case, as in all our cases, based solely on the facts and the law and in accordance with the rule of law. T he women and men who conducted these investigations and prosecutions acted with the highest integrity. Claims to the contrary are false.

Unsurprisingly, Mueller's latest communique (expect the WaPo op-ed, like the Mueller report before it, to be transformed into its own book - then who knows? Maybe a maybe motion picture based on the limited communications of Robert Swan Mueller III?) triggered a wave of hand-wringing in Washington, including among some Republicans, who have groused about Trump's decision to intercede on behalf of his one-time advisor (and, reportedly, friend). Despite being a firm Trump backer and friend, Graham has made noises about joining with Democrats and granting permission to bring Mueller in to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee (nearly a year ago, Mueller participated in a marathon series of hearings before the House Intelligence Committee and House Judiciary).

Most Republicans have generally opposed another round of Mueller testimony, But Graham is facing a competitive election bid, and grandstanding on this topic allows him to both feign bipartisan cooperation while upping the pressure for a Congressional investigation into the origins of the 'Witch Hunt' which would presumably target Mueller, Comey and the rest of the FBI/DoJ leadership who were caught up in it.


Arctic_Fox , 47 minutes ago

Mueller seems about as senile as Biden. They both come across as pretty much over the hill. Get them off the scripted notes and it'll be quite a fiasco.

William Dorritt , 43 minutes ago

Mueller is an act

As soon as it became apparent that the Hoax was falling apart,

Mueller began acting senile

Shouldn't stop him from hanging.

Cardinal Fang , 55 minutes ago

The irony is that the FBI, then Mueller and then Congress were played in a Hillary Campaign oppo research disinfo campaign.

orangedrinkandchips , 1 hour ago

I'm confused. Russia did it all but 4 years and billions later he came up with nothing? That a sore loser

d_7878 , 1 hour ago

There is nothing better Senators on both sides of the aisle love to do more than call people to testify in from of them. A real spectacle where they can pontificate forever with no real substance.That is other than flying around in first class with their entire entourage and spending on lavish outings and much deserved retreats on our dime.

Trump could be re-elected if he would implement term limits as he promised.

Bay of Pigs , 47 minutes ago

He doesn't have the power to institute term limits. Congress has to pass legislation.

Welsh Bard , 1 hour ago

Speaking as an outside observer, it does seem to me that there is little difference between the FBI investigators and those methods used by the KGB in preparing people to appear at Stalin;s show trials.

The only difference in the US is that if you plead guilty under a plea bargain , you will receive a lesser sentence otherwise it is life.

MCDirtMigger , 1 hour ago

Grahmnesty is part of the deep state, just like Sleepy Sesssions . He will do nothing while clucking like the c0ckrobbin that he is.

Amanita Virosa , 2 hours ago

It's time for a multimillion march on Washington. Now

Ron_Mexico , 10 minutes ago

and let's all hold up pictures of whites killed by black criminals . . .

d_7878 , 2 hours ago

Can't wait until January. It will be good to get back to normal with old Lindsey, any way the wind blows, Graham calling Trump an idiot again. Just like the good old days. Make America Normal Again.

emdrive , 2 hours ago

Google, Twitter and FB are trying so hard to influence the upcoming election, along with the Marxist News Networks that it dwarfs any tiny efforts by Russia to do same. Youtube came out and said they found $50,000 in spending by Russians to influence the 2016 election. That's less 'influence' than one suspended comment by Twitter.

This is all right in front of us - they aren't hiding their bias yet the 'news' never mentions it outside of a couple of people on Fox.

spam filter , 2 hours ago

The former FBI chief broke his silence last night, when the Washington Post published a Mueller-penned op-ed hitting all the expected notes

Which we all know someone else wrote it for him going by how clueless he was before congress last time about his supposedly own investigation with his name on it.(blank stares, looks to his handlers)

Would like to see him, and Biden go head to head on Jeopardy.

William Dorritt , 2 hours ago

TREASON IN PLAIN SIGHT

UK Intelligence planned, organized, and implemented the overthrow of the US elected Govt

The Leaders of both parties in the Congress, The Chief Justice, Big Media & Big Tech Oligarchs, and various members of Congress participated in the Treason every step of the way.

The Leadership of the totally corrupt FBI, CIA, DOJ and the Federal Judges implemented the ongoing attempted overthrow of the Elected Govt. supported by an unparalleled Propaganda Offensive on all communications and media platforms.

Most recently Pentagon Leadership outed themselves as Coup Participants when they mutinied under fire.

tangent , 2 hours ago

I would like to see Stone's jury and judge face the death penalty because they all know they were a kangaroo court operation. They literally tried to destroy someone's life for being associated with Trump.

Goodsport 1945 , 2 hours ago

More theater on tap. The questions and performances will be terrific, truths will emerge and nothing meaningful will be done about it. Jail time for the guilty please.

givenoquarter , 3 hours ago

Raise your hand if you think Mueller actually wrote that editorial...

I need to know who the gullible people are so I can fleece them at my convenience...

107cicero , 2 hours ago

At this point I don't think Mueller can defecate by himself let alone write prose.

Whodathunkit , 3 hours ago

and the rest of the FBI/DoJ leadership who were caught up in it.

its obvious by now that they planned AND executed it. Far from "caught up in it". Who wrote this trash?

pparalegal , 3 hours ago

Obama used clemency power more often than any president since Truman. Overall, Obama granted clemency to 1,927 individuals, a figure that includes 1,715 commutations and 212 pardons.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/01/20/obama-used-more-clemency-power/

Philippines , 6 hours ago

Nothing will happen, it's just the sequel to the last 3 years of a political circus with another sequel coming, as they always do.. because orange man bad.

zeropjbaggot , 7 hours ago

The two 302s from flynns intrrview disappeared- why

Supposed flynn testified honestly

As both agents said

The agents reports should be compared with wiretap trsnscript.

If wiretap transcript dishonestly altered

It devices. From 302s

zeropjbaggot , 7 hours ago

Comey did same thing as it dawned him that he might pay for his crimes. He testified he could not remember anything. Just like mueller

It means he is aware he could be a target of Durham. As well he should be

zeropjbaggot , 7 hours ago

Mueller is not senile. That was an act. He knows he did terrible things. He does not want to testify as some ambitious prosecutors may wish to do to him,What he did to others

Scipio Africanuz , 7 hours ago

An investigation that comes up with zero evidence to back up an accusation, is usually known as a wild goose chase..

Try chasing a wild goose, and while you'll probably burn energy while doing so (good cardio exercise..), catching the goose however, is next to impossible and why?

While it's possible to have "free range" geese, there's no such animal as a "wild" goose!

And thus, the accusation without backing evidence, though thoroughly investigated, is what investigators with integrity know as a nothing burger or if you prefer plain speak, ********!

And that's that..

And as appropriate, here's the Commanding Comforter..

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MnDbAKp_U4s

Cheers...

Soloamber , 8 hours ago

Comey said it when they set up Flynn .

The new administration was green and at that early point just getting going . They bi-passed White House council

which they knew was normal process .

Flynn had nothing to hide and he met with them .

The original 302 found he did not lie . The missing 302 .

The real prize *** hat is the Judge .

He thought he had a bow on Flynn for his pal Obama but it fell apart .

He failed . He bullied and he failed . He wanted to become prosecutor and failed .

Now he has delayed again and he will fail again .

A blatantly biased Judge showing just how far Obama will go and the DNC to screw with Flynn .

Every decision that Judge made should be under a microscope .

How many defendants were bullied ? Threatened ?

Take his licence if this is routine behaviour .

palmereldritch , 8 hours ago

Lindsey is that classic cat on a hot tin roof. Dance Lindsey...dance

[Jul 12, 2020] Trove of Leaked FBI, Fusion Center and DHS Documents Provide Insight Into Antifa, Charlottesville, Political Bias, and the Erosion of Civil Liberties by Eric Striker

Notable quotes:
"... The most interesting document of all is an intelligence assessment by DHS in the run up to the now famous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, which starkly contradicts the mainstream media and FBI's narrative. ..."
"... In a document dated August 9th, 2017, DHS wrote "We assess that anarchist extremists' use of violence as a means to oppose racism and white supremacist extremists' preparations to counterattack anarchist extremists are the principal drivers of violence at recent white supremacist rallies." ..."
"... Ideological uniformity is important in the FBI's relationship with local law enforcement, a flyer sent to law enforcement personnel in Texas shows. ..."
"... As Douglas Valentine points out, these fusion centers are Phoenix centers, which CIA developed in Vietnam to eradicate independent civil society. You can see the CIA mannerisms they teach the Junior Spy Cadets at the fusion center: pretend classmarks: (U//LES), Roger, Wilco, Over and Out! Breathless dumbshit cops get to use U just like real spies, but they don't get get collateral access and they have to make up little codes to try and blow off public records law. ..."
Jul 12, 2020 | www.unz.com

The Boston Regional Intelligence Center (BRIC) reported similar information in its investigation of the Boston Free Speech Rally on August 19th, 2017. BRIC noted that the nationalist and free speech demonstrators, about 60 of them in total, had a permit for the event, while the anarchist groups that showed up to heckle-veto them were there illegally.

The leftist rioters began attacking the protesters, and later, began engaging in gratuitous yet apparently coordinated violence against police officers attempting to intervene, causing multiple injuries.

The most interesting document of all is an intelligence assessment by DHS in the run up to the now famous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, which starkly contradicts the mainstream media and FBI's narrative.

In a document dated August 9th, 2017, DHS wrote "We assess that anarchist extremists' use of violence as a means to oppose racism and white supremacist extremists' preparations to counterattack anarchist extremists are the principal drivers of violence at recent white supremacist rallies."

... ... ...

The close working relationship between mainstream social media companies, the FBI and "NGOs" (the ADL and SPLC) is clear and assumed, adding a new layer of understanding when it comes to tech censorship and the power of privately run organizations that are not subject general ethics or government accountability.

Ideological uniformity is important in the FBI's relationship with local law enforcement, a flyer sent to law enforcement personnel in Texas shows.

The event, hosted by the FBI for local cops, featured lectures on "hate" (which is not a crime) from a former member of the Westboro Baptist Church and the ex-lead singer of a skinhead rock band. The conference was hosted in December 2017, so one can only imagine this indoctrination has gotten more intense since then.

Ultimately, we can gather from these documents a climate of incompetence, rejection of facts for political reasons, and a culture of selective prosecution. Those who post memes making fun of the election are treated as conspirators against the Constitutional rights of others, while anarchists who actively conspire in the open to do the same are rarely prosecuted by the FBI.

The most disturbing aspect of all this is how groups like the Anti-Defamation League appear to have more sway over the FBI's investigative priorities than intelligence provided to them by local fusion centers.

It appears that in defense of their power, our elites are willing to do away with all liberal pretenses and take on "emergency orders" that ultimately punishes peaceful dissent while allowing real criminals to go free.


Farrakhan.DDuke.AliceWalker.AllAgree , says: July 11, 2020 at 2:31 am GMT

Local police are doing good work:

Law enforcement is fully aware of who provokes the fighting and rioting at riots: the left. The documents from fusion centers across the country (intelligence provided by local police departments) repeatedly report this.

But

Both the FBI and to a lesser extent the Department of Homeland Security are far more concerned with political ideology and creating propaganda than upholding the law.

,
Phung Hoang , says: July 11, 2020 at 1:23 pm GMT

As Douglas Valentine points out, these fusion centers are Phoenix centers, which CIA developed in Vietnam to eradicate independent civil society. You can see the CIA mannerisms they teach the Junior Spy Cadets at the fusion center: pretend classmarks: (U//LES), Roger, Wilco, Over and Out! Breathless dumbshit cops get to use U just like real spies, but they don't get get collateral access and they have to make up little codes to try and blow off public records law.

This is why when asshole cops strangle you, you can't complain to the city. CIA controls the cops, not the city. This is most obvious in NYPD, with actual CIA secret police like Sanchez and Cohen, arresting you like cops to facilitate illegal CIA domestic spying. DHS and FBI are in there too, of course, fishing for dissent to repress but they're controlled by CIA focal points.

So next time a pig kneels on your head you can't just burn down the precinct, you have to burn down the CIA fusion center, and Langley too.

anon [234] Disclaimer , says: July 11, 2020 at 2:17 pm GMT

Aside from siccing cops on the latest internal enemies, CIA also uses fusion centers to propagate the party line to cops, who will credulously swallow it and pass it on to show off their double-secret spy connections. For instance, they circulated alt media disinfo claiming KGB killed JFK. This happened to coincide with Unz and other bravura JFK coup exposes, and with CIA's Russiagate fiasco.

Reg Cæsar , says: July 11, 2020 at 3:30 pm GMT

If these people are in league with the state, anarchist is the last word to describe them.

Curmudgeon , says: July 11, 2020 at 4:10 pm GMT

"We assess that anarchist extremists' use of violence as a means to oppose racism and white supremacist extremists' preparations to counterattack anarchist extremists are the principal drivers of violence at recent white supremacist rallies."

Is there a bigger political statement than this? The anarchist extremists aren't opposing racism, they are opposing the government(s). "White supremacist" is a pejorative label used to discredit people's right to free assembly. Clearly, the only investigating the FBI does is on whom it decides are political opponents.

kuraudo , says: July 12, 2020 at 6:21 am GMT

I find it incredibly frustrating that all of this scandalous information is out there confirming what we already knew to be true and yet these organizations, the media, and especially elected officials continue on as if this isn't the case. It's vexing. Frustrating. Enraging.

If this was a dictatorship, at least we could rage against that, but because it has the words "democracy" slapped onto it, we are supposedly able to change things. And yet, representative democracy has proven that nothing changes if the elites do not will it. It's just a vile scheme by plutocrats to keep us in chains of our own imagination: "well, we voted for this so I have to live with the results," no we didn't, and do we truly?

Zarathustra , says: July 12, 2020 at 4:28 am GMT

I can tell you this. what is happening in US now, in Communism was not even remotely close that bad.

Anonymous [661] • Disclaimer , says: July 12, 2020 at 11:28 am GMT
@Zarathustra

I think Solzhenitsyn would respectfully disagree on behalf of the 66 million Russian Christians who were tortured, raped and slaughtered during 1917-1989, not to mention the fourteen years he spent locked up in the gulags run by Jewish Communists.

Might also be a few Ukrainians who disagree with your assessment given the 11-17 million murdered by Jewish Bolsheviks in the 1932 Holodomor, which to my knowledge is still the single biggest genocide in human history.

onebornfree , says: • Website July 12, 2020 at 12:02 pm GMT

This just in:

1] the FBI, as well as the CIA and 1000's of other federal agencies, is an entirely unconstitutional federal agency.

Levtraro , says: July 12, 2020 at 12:09 pm GMT
@Exile

Then we'd have a position of strength from which to force the end to Jewish occupation of America – which is necessary before the rest of the world's gentile populations, particularly Europe, can take similar action.

America freeing herself will be good for America, but not necessary for other nations. For instance, Putin freed Russia from her oligarchs, the overwhelming majority of them Jewish, well before America had shown any progress on this matter. Actually, Russia freed herself in spite of America!

Stupid Pig Tricks , says: July 12, 2020 at 1:08 pm GMT

Here's a sample of the busywork CIA gives the crookedest stupidest cops in the Phoenix/fusion centers, the worms like Tom Gerard.

https://mobile.twitter.com/jmorse_/status/1280527030484742144/photo/1

White man's welfare, they call it. They hold pigs in contempt just like everybody else. But this is how CIA finds the eager beaver cops who'll break the law to suck up and play James Bond with them.

That beaner psycho Sanchez blabbed CIA's real intention while he was illegally spying undercover as a NYPD pig: they don't just want to solve crimes, they want to keep you from committing crimes in the first place. They think it's their job to to keep you under control. These drug-dealing, gun-running, money-laundering, kiddy-pimping criminal scumbags rule your country because they can kill you and torture you and get away with it. Even if you're the president. Your government is CIA, and CIA is a totalitarian state. Until you storm Langley like the Germans stormed the Stasi, all your reforms and revolutions are worth shit.

KenH , says: July 12, 2020 at 2:53 pm GMT

Antifa members routinely cross state lines to violate the civil rights of those they perceive as "fascists" yet the FBI does nothing. Since it's obvious the FBI is dominated by partisan leftists who are either sympathetic with antifa (and BLM) or actively colluding them them against pro-white and right of center groups engaged in lawful but politically incorrect activity.

The FBI is clearly taking their marching orders from the ADL who's lobbied them for years to take a more active and hostile stance towards the pro-white and anti-semitic right. But given the leftist ideological proclivities of the average special agent and their superiors this wasn't that hard of a sell.

The FBI declared that it would begin investigating memes posted on Twitter intended to satirize low civic education by telling people to vote for Hillary Clinton via text message as a "Conspiracy Against Rights Provided by the Constitution and Laws of the United States"

Yet the FBI did absolutely nothing about the black panthers intimidating voters at a Philly precinct in 2008. Their illegal actions were witnessed by several poll watchers yet the Obama/Holder DOJ promptly dropped the charges upon taking office.

The FBI is awash in naked partisanship and corruption and should have at least 25% of its funding cut and be barred from surveilling or infiltrating groups engaged in politically incorrect but lawful activity. It's become an appendage of the Democrat party and radical left wing establishment and should be treated as such.

Pop Warner , says: July 12, 2020 at 2:56 pm GMT
@Reg Cæsar

I usually refer to them as neoliberals because there's little that separates the beliefs of antifa and the board of JP Morgan

Ace , says: July 12, 2020 at 5:24 pm GMT
@GMC

the USA, which is a totally failed country – domestically.

There it is. The U.S.A. does not serve the interests of the majority of the population.

Richard B , says: July 12, 2020 at 6:33 pm GMT
@BL

Great comment.

Unite The Right Rally was a so obviously an ADL/$PLC/FBI Production.

I haven't seen choreography that blatant and stiff since the Lee Harvey Oswald assassination.

Priss Factor , says: • Website July 12, 2020 at 8:04 pm GMT
@Anonymous

You are both right. Soviet Communism was far more murderous and brutal, BUT the West faces a greater crisis. After all, communism didn't wipe Russia off the map, and indeed, Russians began to regain control and power after Stalin's death. Also, Stalin had done much to check Jewish Power, and there was a kind of cultural conservatism in many walks of life.

... ... ...

steinbergfeldwitzcohen , says: July 12, 2020 at 8:29 pm GMT
@Levtraro to HIM and had City of London-Israeli financing. So what actually happened is that the Jews, who had been ousted from power by Krushchev and Brezhnev in the post-ww2 era, got back into positions of economic power in Russia. A position that, as I noted, they had lost. This idea that Putin is a nationalist is simply not true. He is a Jew-boy lapdog who takes his orders from Tel Aviv and London..
The Soviet economy has significant State ownership. Part of what Putin did was to put the oil industry back into the hands of the State so the State would have the Revenues. Most countries do this with Oil and Gas revenue. It is very popular and provides employment and desperately needed money to pay the paltry pensions many Russians subside on.
Russia hasn't been free since 1917 and is still not free. To believe otherwise is to be blinded by Eastern Jewish smoke and mirrors.
Robjil , says: July 12, 2020 at 11:28 pm GMT
@Jiminy

The idea of separation of Church (Synagogue) and State is one way that we could get back our "freedoms".

... ... ...

Robjil , says: July 12, 2020 at 11:32 pm GMT
@steinbergfeldwitzcohen

Chabbad is not having the time of its life in Russia. Neither are Zion uber alles like in our Congress. It quite different in Russia. Russia has a bit more freedom that we do from Zion uber alles.

https://chabadinfo.com/news/another-shliach-kicked-out-of-russia/

For the eighth time this past decade, Russian authorities told a foreign Chabad rabbi living in Russia to leave the country.

Josef Marozof, a New York-born rabbi who began working 12 years ago for Chabad in the city of Ulyanovsk 400 miles east of Moscow, was ordered earlier this week to leave because the FSB security service said he had been involved in unspecified "extremist behavior."

[Jul 11, 2020] -British court rules against Christopher Steele ...- just the news - Sic Semper Tyrannis

Jul 11, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

"British court rules against Christopher Steele ..." just the news

"Justice Mark Warby of the High Court of England and Wales ordered Steele's firm, Orbis Business Intelligence, to pay a modest 18,000 English pounds – about $22,596 in American currency – each to Petr Aven and Mikhail Fridman as compensation for a violation of Britain's Data Protection Act 1998 .

Warby ruled that while Steele had a national security interest to share his intelligence with U.S. and British authorities, several of the allegations in Memo 112 of the Steele dossier were "inaccurate or misleading as a matter of fact. "" just the news

*********

"The judge ruled that in Memo 112, one of several that made up Steele's dossier, there were six factually inaccurate or unproven claims that Steele provided from his alleged intelligence sources including that:

  • the businessmen did not do favors for or receive favors from Putin as the memo claimed;
  • Fridman and Aven did not provide informal foreign policy advice to the Russian leader as Steele alleged;
  • Fridman did not meet with Putin in September 2016 as claimed by Steele's source;
  • the businessman did not bribe Putin when he was Deputy Mayor of St Petersburg;And Fridman and Aven did not do Putin's political bidding as the dossier alleged." just the news

**********

"The ruling further accentuates that much of the Steele dossier contained unproven Internet rumor or false information , some possible from Russian intelligence, as the Justice Department inspector general concluded last December. Nonetheless, the FBI used evidence from Steele's dossier to support a warrant targeting Trump campaign figures in four occasions, claiming to the court that agents had verified the information.' j ust the news

*****

"The judge also concluded that Steele's notes of his first interaction with the FBI about the dossier on July 5, 2016 made clear that his ultimate client for his research project was Hillary Clinton's campaign as directed by her campaign law firm Perkins Coie . The FBI did not disclose that information to the court.

"The supposition that the Clinton campaign was the ultimate client "is in line with the FBI Note of 5 July 2016, which records Mr. Steele telling the FBI that Orbis had been instructed by Mr. [Glenn] Simpson of Fusion and 'Democratic Party Associates' but that 'the ultimate client were (sic) the leadership of the Clinton presidential campaign.' The FBI Note also indicates that Mr Steele had been told by that stage that Mrs Clinton herself was aware of what Orbis had been commissioned to do," Warby concluded." just the news

---------------

Justice Sir Mark Warby is, I take it, something like a SCOTUS justice in the US. His decision makes it clear that the "Steele Dossier" is a work of fiction constructed by Steele for the express purpose of helping Clinton defeat Trump.

For this to have taken so much time to emerge indicates to me that the present FBI director is neither loyal to President Trump nor to the truth. Who is the idiot or political enemy who suggested him as FBI Director to Trump. Pence maybe? No, it was Chris Christie. pl

https://justthenews.com/accountability/russia-and-ukraine-scandals/british-court-rules-against-christopher-steele-orders


Harry , 11 July 2020 at 03:36 PM

I noticed the story. Not that any of that is proof. But I think in this case the burden of proof was on Mr. Steel and he failed to meet it.

In looking at the damages, I think Mr. Steele got off very lightly, which makes sense for someone who was probably carrying water only after having been given explicit permission to carry that water by the British intelligence elite.

I remember Chris Steele from college. His hair was always impeccable.

BillWade , 11 July 2020 at 03:45 PM

I've heard informally that AG Barr is wanting to hold the Durham investigation past election so as not to interfere in it. I hope this isn't true.

fakebot , 11 July 2020 at 04:03 PM

Could it have been Chris Christie? He led Trump's transition team at one stage.

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/07/trump-fbi-director-nominee-christopher-wray-239238

Wray acted as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's personal attorney during the federal investigation into lane closures leading to the George Washington Bridge that were put in place by members of Christie's administration as political retribution for a mayor who did not support Christie's reelection campaign.

...

Chris Christie said last week he thought Wray "would provide great leadership at the FBI," though he declined to say whether he had recommended him to the president. The two met when Christie was a U.S. attorney in New Jersey and Wray was at the Justice Department. They collaborated on a criminal investigation into the accounting practices of Bristol-Myers Squibb.

plantman , 11 July 2020 at 04:18 PM

So the Steele Dossier was fake, just like many similar smear campaigns.

But who decided to use it after the election to attack Trump?
I don't think Comey, Clapper or even Obama led the charge.

That leaves Brennan, the most likely suspect in this case.

I just hope Durham has the guts to expose these creeps.

haiku222 , 11 July 2020 at 06:13 PM

> According to the company's last financial account, [2] there isn't enough money to pay the legal bills. Steele's business is bust.

http://johnhelmer.net/the-reputation-of-mikhail-fridman-and-pyotr-aven-is-worth-18000-each-but-it-cost-sixteen-times-that-much-to-defend-enough-to-bankrupt-christopher-steele/print/

johnf , 11 July 2020 at 06:57 PM

The Daily Mail (print edition) recently splashed all over its front page that Christopher Steele has now produced another "dossier" claiming that a lot of Britain's top influential people, including politicians, are being bribed by the Chinese company Huawei to support Huawei's involvement in the construction of Britain's 5G.

The BBC reports on the Mail story:

"For its main story, the Daily Mail says the diplomatic war over Huawei's involvement in Britain's 5G network has taken an extraordinary twist, after a dossier accused China of trying to manipulate key establishment figures in the UK to back the telecoms giant.

It says the report, commissioned by a New York film producer, names several prominent individuals, claiming the aim was to make them China's "useful idiots".

The paper says those identified in the report have issued statements strenuously denying knowledge of or involvement in any such operation.

A Huawei spokesman is quoted as saying the company categorically rejects the unfounded allegations, which it says are the latest in a long-running American campaign against it."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-53315418

(A New York film producer????)

Looks as though MI6/CIA are abandoning Steele and Orbis as the Russia-gate scam collapses.

Wonder if the other Orbis-involved fake, Skripal and the Salisbury poisonings, is also doomed?

Salisbury and Russia-gate are also probably linked through the figure of Skripal.

[Jul 11, 2020] Why Bolton Matters - FPIF

Jul 11, 2020 | fpif.org

Why Bolton Matters

You don't need to lionize Bolton, a far-right hawk, to understand what makes his observations about Trump valuable.

By John Feffer , June 24, 2020 .

Print Friendly, PDF & EmailPrint john-bolton

Shutterstock

Unreliable narrators are a staple of literature. Consider the delusional, self-serving narrator of Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl or the way Humbert Humbert used his cultured references and gorgeous prose to dress up his crimes in Nabokov's Lolita .

Now along comes John Bolton and his account of time served in the Trump administration as national security advisor.

Bolton's latest book has been attacked as fiction by the president, members of his administration, and even members of the administrations of other countries (like South Korea ). Bolton is a thoroughly unpleasant hatchet man who has opposed arms control treaties, diplomacy in most forms, and international institutions of all varieties. He is reliably paleoconservative. But does that make him a reliable narrator of his own story as well?

The picture Bolton paints of the Trump administration is a familiar one. We've been treated to a succession of tell-all accounts of the horror that has been Donald Trump's tenure as president: Michael Wolff's Fire and Fury , Philip Rucker and Carol Leonig's A Very Stable Genius , even A Warning by Anonymous. Each one has added a little more paint to the Hieronymus Bosch picture of the presidency: monsters, unspeakable acts, darkness, and chaos.

Other than a morbid, rubbernecking fascination with atrocity, why is yet another account necessary, and from such a potentially unreliable narrator as John Bolton to boot?

The critics of Bolton's trustworthiness have a point. But Bolton's unreliability resides not so much in his ideology as his opportunism.

As a "kiss-up, kick-down kind of guy," he'll do whatever it takes to attain power. He has a terminal case of Washingtonitis: he thinks he's the smartest man in the room and he reeks of entitlement. He entered the Trump administration not as a true believer in Trump, only a true believer in himself. His book not surprisingly portrays John Bolton as the only person in the Trump administration with any sense at all.

It's easy enough to dismiss Bolton's so-called revelations.

Here's why you shouldn't.

Taking China Off the Table

Foreign policy will not likely be the tipping point for the 2020 presidential election. Trump's base generally doesn't care what happens beyond America's borders (except to keep it beyond America's borders). And the anti-Trump camp just wants to get rid of the president, regardless of what he has done in the international arena.

Still, Trump is running on his foreign policy record. For instance, he has been busy trying to portray his opponent, Joe Biden, as somehow pro-China. "China wants Sleepy Joe sooo badly," Trump tweeted back in April. "They want all of those billions of dollars that they have been paying to the U.S. back, and much more. Joe is an easy mark, their DREAM CANDIDATE!"

Then came the ad campaign that portrayed "Beijing Biden" as "China's puppet" who favors engagement with Beijing without caveats and Biden's son as the beneficiary of sweetheart deals with the Chinese. The Trump ads slam China for its handling of the coronavirus and suggest that Biden would have fumbled the U.S. response out of deference to Beijing (uh, sound familiar?).

The inconvenient truth, however, is that Trump, to quote Nicholas Kristof , "has been China's stooge, a sycophantic flatterer and enabler of President Xi Jinping."

In fact, Beijing would prefer four more years of Trump, not so much because of this sycophancy, but because Trump has been busy upending U.S. alliances that have constrained Chinese geopolitical influence. The trade disputes are an irritant, but China can't expect Joe Biden to be any easier to deal with on that score. Four more years of Trump, on the other hand, would mean four more years of the ebbing of U.S. engagement in world affairs.

As Trump and Biden escalate their China-bashing, along comes Bolton. No friend of Beijing, the national security advisor is appalled at Trump's exchanges with Xi Jinping. In one such conversation, Trump effectively signs up the Chinese leader as an in-kind contributor to his reelection campaign. Bolton had to excise Trump's actual words from his book, but Vanity Fair has filled in the blanks :

According to an unredacted passage shown to Vanity Fair by a source, Trump's ask is even more crudely shocking when you read Trump's specific language. "Make sure I win," Trump allegedly told Xi during a dinner at the G20 conference in Osaka, Japan last summer. "I will probably win anyway, so don't hurt my farms. Buy a lot of soybeans and wheat and make sure we win.

Trump was, of course, impeached for attempting the same strategy with Ukraine.

The other shocking revelation from Bolton's book is Trump's response to China's construction of "re-education" camps for the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang province. It's not simply that Trump ignored China's action, as he contends, to ensure that trade negotiations moved forward. According to Bolton , "Trump said that Xi should go ahead with building the camps, which Trump thought was exactly the right thing to do."

An American president encouraged another country to engage in a massive human rights violation?

True, American presidents have given the green light to such things in the past: Sukarno's slaughter of suspected Communists in Indonesia in 1965, Pinochet's coup and subsequent crackdown on Allende supporters in Chile in 1973, the Salvadoran government's widespread human rights violations in the 1980s. Horrifying as these atrocities were, American conservatives could rationalize U.S. support for these dictatorships because they were U.S. allies.

But China? That's going to be a difficult sell for an electorate that's already been primed, by the Trump administration itself, to demonize Beijing.

So, in effect, the Bolton book has removed China from the 2020 election campaign. Trump will think twice about accusing Biden of cozy ties with Beijing when the Democrats can literally throw the book (Bolton's, that is) at the president.

Impeachment: Not Dead Yet

Trump loves to play the role of a cornered badger that emerges triumphant in the end. Impeachment would have given an ordinary politician pause. Trump simply held up the Senate's failure to convict as exoneration, despite all the damning evidence produced by the whistleblower and the subsequent Mueller investigation.

The Democrats wanted Bolton to testify during the hearings. He refused to do so voluntarily. Later, he said that he would testify before the Senate if it issued a subpoena. The Republicans, with the exception of Mitt Romney (R-UT) and Susan Collins (R-ME), voted against calling additional witnesses.

Bolton argues in his book that the Democrats made a mess of the impeachment inquiry. Yet, he could have corroborated the charge of collusion with Ukraine and provided evidence of impeachable offenses in other realms of foreign policy. He didn't do so.

Now, of course, some Republicans are saying that it would have been better for Bolton to have testified before Congress rather than save his revelations for now. "One of the things about making allegations in a book for $29.95 -- certainly it's going to be a best-seller I'm sure -- the problem is that when you're selling it in a book, you're not putting yourself in a position to be cross-examined," Tim Scott (R-SC) recently said .

If Scott and one other Republican had simply voted for additional witnesses, they could have made that happen. And they could have saved themselves the cost of buying Bolton's book.

In the end, it probably wouldn't have made much of a difference in the final votes on impeachment. Except for Romney, the Republicans were unwilling to break with the president.

Bolton's book, however, is disinterring all the issues surrounding impeachment and in a light unfavorable to the president. Bolton confirms the infamous quid pro quo -- military assistance in exchange for an investigation into the Ukraine dealings of Biden's son -- that Trump discussed in a phone call with the Ukrainian president and that was flagged by a whistleblower. "Nor, at the time, did I think Trump's comments in the call reflected any major change in direction; the linkage of the military assistance with the Giuliani fantasies was already baked in. The call was not the keystone for me, but simply another brick in the wall," Bolton writes .

Before you shell out $29.95 for the book (actually $32.50 list price), you might wait to see if Congress drags Bolton back to tell his story. This week, Adam Schiff (D-CA) hinted that he might depose the former national security advisor before the House Intelligence Committee.

Who knows? Trump might have to reckon with a second impeachment hearing as he heads into November.

The Benefits of Being Bolton

Bolton predictably criticizes Trump for not being sufficiently hawkish. The president wanted to withdraw troops from the Middle East. He wanted to make nice with North Korea. He had the gall to prioritize trade with China.

From a progressive point of view, that makes Bolton an unreliable narrator. Maybe he was tweaking the facts to make himself look stalwart and wise at the expense of a slow-witted, insufficiently martial president.

But here's the thing: Bolton hasn't written anything in his book that contradicts other accounts of the presidency. There was plenty of evidence of the quid pro quo with Ukraine. Trump did not hide his admiration for Xi Jinping. The president is obsessed with getting re-elected, not because he particularly likes his job but because he must prove that he is a winner.

What makes Bolton's observations most valuable is not their novelty or their acuity but his credentials as a hawk's hawk. His book isn't going to make any Democrats or independents or moderate Republicans change their minds about Trump. But it will introduce some doubts into hardcore conservative supporters. They might not publicly renounce the president. Like Bolton himself , they might not even pull the lever for the Democratic candidate.

But they might decide, because of Bolton, to stay home on November 3, just like so many Republicans decided not to attend Trump's rally in Tulsa this last weekend.

And that, ultimately, is what really puts the fear of Bolton into the Trump reelection campaign.

John Feffer is the director of Foreign Policy In Focus.

[Jul 11, 2020] This Week In The Coup D'etat - A Turning Point

Notable quotes:
"... But the enemy is actually very weak, if you actually think about the situation. Picture New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, joined by former FBI informant Al Sharpton, painting Black Lives Matter on 5th Avenue in front of Trump Tower in New York City as hundreds of New York City police officers submit their resignations, with the inevitable results which will follow. The furies of the nameless murdered, in Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Seattle, and New York and other cities are gathering. ..."
Jul 11, 2020 | larouchepac.com

President Donald J. Trump disembarks Marine One at Joint Base Andrews Friday, July 10, 2020, and is escorted to Air Force One by U.S. Air Force personnel. (Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour)

Fake poll, after fake poll, after fake poll, sampling mostly Democrats, shows the senile Joe Biden leading President Donald Trump. The claims of Trump's doom and defeat were the mainstream media's major narrative this week as the nation struggled with COVID spikes. This is aimed solely at demoralizing Trump supporters and creating a sense of inevitability about the election and about the Jacobin revolution now being conducted by Wall Street and large multinational corporations, together with Silicon Valley, and other members of the national security state.

Most targeted, momentarily, are the weak reeds in the U.S. Senate, the Administration, and the Republican Party establishment who have supported Trump only because they fear their own electorate.

But the enemy is actually very weak, if you actually think about the situation. Picture New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, joined by former FBI informant Al Sharpton, painting Black Lives Matter on 5th Avenue in front of Trump Tower in New York City as hundreds of New York City police officers submit their resignations, with the inevitable results which will follow. The furies of the nameless murdered, in Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Seattle, and New York and other cities are gathering.

Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote about our present moment in his Poem, the Mask of Anarchy. Here is how he described it:

Last came Anarchy: he rode
On a white horse, splashed with blood;
He was pale even to the lips,
Like Death in the Apocalypse.

And he wore a kingly crown;
And in his grasp a sceptre shone;
On his brow this mark I saw--
'I AM GOD, AND KING, AND LAW!'

With that context, let's review the coup's main events of the past week.

On July 9th, the U.S. Supreme Court, ruling 7-2, closed their eyes to the obvious, and said that New York City's RESIST DA, Cy Vance, Jr., can get his hands on 7 years of the President's tax returns. The sole purpose of this exercise, as everyone knows, is to fuel more smears of the President, although Vance claims that he is conducting a New York County Grand Jury investigation. It is widely reported that the so-called Grand Jury centers on whether Donald Trump, as a private citizen, made hush money payments to Stormy Daniels and other women with whom he allegedly had sexual encounters. A federal investigation of the same nonsense has already closed down while the chief purveyors of this crap, Michael Avenatti and Michael Cohen languish under house arrest or in prison for fraud. It is not expected that the records Vance subpoenaed will be formally released before the election as the Supreme Court remanded the case to the lower federal court where more litigation will take place.

The same day, the Supreme Court, also ruling 7-2, said that the President was not immune from 4 absolutely abusive subpoenas from 3 House Committees seeking 10 years of financial records from the President, every member of his family, and all of his businesses. Nancy Pelosi's minions justified this fishing expedition by claiming that Congress needed these records to investigate loopholes in present legislation concerning "money laundering," "terrorism," and "foreign interference in elections." Here again, the Supreme Court majority studiously avoided the actual issue before them: the targeting of the President for a roving inquisition by a Congress bent on illegally removing him from office. Here, also, the Supreme Court sent the case back to the lower federal court with the instruction that "separation of powers" concerns should be kept in mind. Again, it appears that these records will not see the light of day until after the election but the willful blindness and evil countenanced by the majority of the highest court in the land and the legal pettifoggery used to justify it, is disgusting.

Meanwhile Back in the Seditious Haven, the D.C. U.S. District Court

On July 9th, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan filed a request for a hearing by the entire U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, after an appeals panel of the same Court, by a vote of 2-1, ordered Sullivan to dismiss Lt. General Michael Flynn's criminal prosecution. Split decisions by appeals court panels can result in hearings before the full appeals court if the whole court votes to hear the case en banc. The Justice Department had moved to dismiss Flynn's prosecution which, normally, would have ended the case. Instead, Judge Sullivan, who clearly hates both Trump and Flynn, is staging a bizarre RESIST side show and refusing to dismiss the case.

The DOJ motion to dismiss the Flynn charges followed a shocking round of disclosures of exculpatory evidence discovered only when Attorney General William Barr ordered an independent review of the Flynn prosecution file by U.S. Attorney Jeff Jensen in St. Louis. That evidence, underlining Flynn's innocence, had never been disclosed to the defense. Further, the actual transcripts of calls between Flynn and Russian Ambassador Kislyak during the transition were declassified. These transcripts are at the heart of the entire Flynn faux scandal and his firing and reveal that nothing whatsoever untoward or illegal had occurred.

The developments in the case make it abundantly clear that Flynn was framed because he knew where the dirty secrets were buried within the national security state and had vowed to reorganize the completely rogue and privatized U.S. intelligence apparatus. As importantly, notes from former FBI counterintelligence leader Peter Strzok and others, make clear that a January 5th meeting in the Oval Office involving President Obama, Joe Biden, Susan Rice, and James Comey, planned and orchestrated Flynn's demise.

Judge Sullivan, is a crony of former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder. Flynn pled guilty as the result of a program of legal and financial torture, including threats to jail his son, conducted under former Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Flynn was forced to sell his house to pay the millions of legal fees charged by his former lawyers, Covington and Burling, where none other than Eric Holder is a name partner. Despite a DOJ recommendation of probation as a sentence, Judge Sullivan took to the bench at the original sentencing hearing and declared Flynn a traitor to the U.S. who had sold out his country, offering him further cooperation with the government as the only means to avoid jail.

Despite a record before him now demonstrating Flynn's innocence, something a defendant should never have to prove, Sullivan greeted the DOJ's motion to dismiss by appointing his own counsel, a self-identified published member of RESIST, retired U.S. District Judge John Gleeson, to search out whether the prosecutors' motion to dismiss was proper or improperly influenced by Attorney General Barr, and to advise whether or not Judge Sullivan should bring perjury charges against Flynn because he withdrew his guilty plea. The panel of the Court of Appeals found that Judge Sullivan's conduct violated the Constitution's separation of powers.

Roger Stone's attorneys have also filed an emergency motion with the same Court of Appeals to stay his report to federal prison in Jessup, Georgia. Stone, who suffers from maladies which predispose him to COVID-19, has been ordered to report to prison by July 14th by D.C. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson. Jackson, like Sullivan, flaunts her RESIST sentiments at every occasion. She handled one of Paul Manafort's indictments and put in in solitary confinement pre-trial in that case. She imposed a gag order on Stone which prevented him from publicly arguing his innocence. She denied a motion for a new trial after the forewoman of Stone's jury was discovered to be a RESIST partisan and a lawyer, who knew how to get herself on Stone's jury. Judge Jackson continues to lambast Stone for "witness tampering" based on what Stone and the "witness," Randy Credico, both describe as typical late night trash talk between the two. Despite no Justice Department opposition to postponing Stone's surrender until September, Jackson gave him only two extra weeks in her June 26th decision on Stone's surrender postponement request. Her decision, fairly dripping with animus, also placed Stone under house arrest in the interim. In a press availability on July 10th, President Trump said he was looking at commuting Stone's sentence or pardoning him.

And In London, the Empire's Fall Guy Gets a Fine for His Lies

Across the pond, as they say, in London, on July 8th, a British court did do some justice by fining Christopher Steele's spy firm, Orbis, for lies told in the dirty dossier Steele authored for MI6, the FBI, and imperial interests more generally, against Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Justice Mark Warby ruled in a defamation case brought by Russian billionaires Petr Aven and Mikhail Fridman that Steele's claims that the pair delivered "large amounts of illicit cash to Mr. Putin" and continued to do favors for him were outright deliberate lies. Justice Warby ordered Orbis to pay $23,000 each in damages to Aven and Fridman. As most know, Steele's lying fabrications were referred to as the "Crown Materials" by the FBI and were the framework for the entire Russiagate hoax conducted through the intelligence community and the Democratic Party in the United States.

Justice? Whither Durham and Indictments?

Washington is rife with rumors concerning the John Durham investigation and whether it will ever see the light of day. Some say Durham will issue indictments of some type around Labor Day. Others say that the investigation has been delayed because of COVID and Deep State political pressures and will be kicked until after the election. One of the problems of course, is that the aforementioned U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, enemy territory, is the likely venue for any prosecutions. If Biden wins, of course, Durham's investigation will be forever buried.

As of July 10th, the D.C. pundit class who claim to be on the President's side are already discounting for a post election Durham Deep Six, saying, "No matter, it has already been proven." The President, for his part, is kicking Senator Lindsay Graham who promised public investigations through the Senate Judiciary Committee as a major effort against the coup, but has delivered nothing but happy talk. Other Trump allies are recommending that Durham should do a report on his investigation, heavy with evidence, and not worry about putting people in jail before the election.

Lindsay Graham has been dragging his feet. If you are in South Carolina, where the Democratic Jacobins have mobilized to defeat Graham in his re-election race in November, you should be kicking Lindsay in the butt, demanding he take action to save the Republic. More generally, there needs to be an uproar from the population generally. The people who are attempting to overturn our Constitution and have been running an insurrection for three and one half years cannot walk free. That is what is at stake in this election. Tell your representative or Senator that ending the coup will determine your vote. The people who put this country through a seditious coup must be punished and jailed. Otherwise, the Empire prevails.

We close by returning to our favorite poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley and his immortal poetic sketch as to how anarchy is defeated, always, when the population realizes its own power.

And these words shall then become
Like Oppression's thundered doom
Ringing through each heart and brain,
Heard again -- again -- again--

'Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number--
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you--
Ye are many -- they are few.'

Read the full poem, "The Mask of Anarchy: Written on the Occasion of the Massacre at Manchester" By Percy Bysshe Shelley.

[Jul 10, 2020] FBI Man At The Heart Of Surveillance Abuses Is A Professor Of Spying Ethics by Paul Sperry

Notable quotes:
"... Auten, identified by congressional sources who spoke on condition of anonymity, never confirmed the most explosive allegations in the dossier compiled by ex-British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, cutting a number of corners in the verification process, Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz pointed out in his December report on FBI abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. ..."
Jul 10, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Submitted by Paul Sperry of RealClearInvestigations

The unnamed FBI "Supervisory Intelligence Analyst" cited by the Justice Department's watchdog for failing to properly vet the so-called Steele dossier before it was used to justify spying on the Trump campaign teaches a class on the ethics of spying at a small Washington-area college, records show.

Above, Brian J. Auten, the FBI analyst who vetted applications to spy on Carter Page, has taught a course on spying ethics at Patrick Henry College since 2010

The senior FBI analyst, Brian J. Auten, has taught the course at Patrick Henry College since 2010, including the 11-month period in 2016 and 2017 when he and a counterintelligence team at FBI headquarters electronically monitored an adviser to the Trump campaign based on false rumors from the dossier and forged evidence.

Auten, identified by congressional sources who spoke on condition of anonymity, never confirmed the most explosive allegations in the dossier compiled by ex-British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, cutting a number of corners in the verification process, Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz pointed out in his December report on FBI abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

By January 2017, the lead analyst had ample evidence the dossier was bogus. Auten could not get sources who provided information to Steele to support the dossier's allegations during interviews. And collections from the wiretaps of Trump aide Carter Page failed to reveal any confirmation of the claims. Auten even came across exculpatory evidence indicating Page was not the Russian asset the dossier alleged, but was in fact a CIA asset helping the U.S. spy on Moscow.

Nonetheless, he and the FBI continued to use the Steele material as a basis for renewing their FISA monitoring of Page, who was never charged with a crime.

Auten did not respond to requests for comment, and the FBI declined to comment.

Christopher Steele: The most explosive allegations in the dossier compiled by this ex-British spy were never confirmed by the person responsible for vetting them, FBI analyst Brian Auten.

In his report, Horowitz wrote that the analyst told his team of inspectors that he did not have any "pains or heartburn" over the accuracy of the Steele reports. As for Steele's reliability as an FBI informant, Horowitz said, the analyst merely "speculated" that his prior reporting was sound and did not see a need to "dig into" his handler's case file, which showed that past tips from Steele had gone uncorroborated and were never used in court.

According to the IG report, Auten also wasn't concerned about Steele's anti-Trump bias or that his work was commissioned by Trump's political opponent, calling the fact he worked for Hillary Clinton's campaign "immaterial." Perhaps most disturbing, the analyst withheld the fact that Steele's main source disavowed key dossier allegations from a memo Auten prepared summarizing a meeting he had with that source.

Auten appears to have violated his own stated "golden rule" for spying. A 15-year supervisor at the bureau, Auten has written that he teaches students in his national security class at the Purcellville, Va., college that the FBI applies "the least intrusive standard" when it considers surveilling U.S. citizens under investigation to avoid harm to "a subject's reputation, dignity and privacy."

At least three Senate oversight committees are seeking to question Auten about fact-checking lapses, as well as "grossly inaccurate statements" he allegedly made to Horowitz, as part of the committee's investigation of the FBI's handling of wiretap warrants the bureau first obtained during the heat of the 2016 presidential race.

Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz: His team learned from Auten that the FBI analyst had no "pains or heartburn" over the accuracy of the Steele reports. AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

FBI veterans worry Auten's numerous missteps signal a deeper rot within the bureau beyond top brass who appeared to have an animus toward Donald Trump, such as former FBI Director James Comey and his deputy Andrew McCabe, as well as subordinates Lisa Page and Peter Strzok. They fear these main players in the scandal enlisted group-thinking career officials like Auten to ensure an investigative result.

"Anyone in his position has tremendous access to information and is well-positioned to manipulate information if he wanted to do so," said Chris Swecker, a 24-year veteran of the FBI who served as assistant director of its criminal investigative division, where he oversaw public corruption cases.

"Question is, was it deliberate manipulation or just rank incompetence?" he added. "How much was he influenced by McCabe, Page, Strzok and other people we know had a deep inherent bias?"

Auten is a central, if overlooked, figure in the Horowitz report and the overall FISA abuse scandal, though his identity is hidden in the 478-page IG report, which refers to him throughout only as "Supervisory Intelligence Analyst" or "Supervisory Intel Analyst." In fact, the 51-year-old analyst shows up at every major juncture in the FISA application process.

Bruce Ohr (center): FBI analyst Auten met with this Justice official and processed the dirt Ohr fed the FBI from Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS.

Auten was assigned to the Crossfire Hurricane investigation from its opening in July 2016 and supervised its analytical efforts throughout 2017. He played a key supportive role for the agents preparing the FISA applications, including reviewing the probable-cause section of the applications and providing the agents with information about Steele's sub-sources noted in the applications. He also helped prepare and review the renewal drafts.

Auten assisted the case agents in providing information on the reliability of Steele and his sources and reviewing for accuracy their information cited in the body of the applications, as well as all the footnotes. His job was also to fill gaps in the FISA application or bolster weak areas.

In addition, Auten personally met with Steele and his "primary sub-source," reportedly a Russian émigré living in the West, as well as former MI6 colleagues of Steele. He also met with Justice Department official Bruce Ohr and processed the dirt Ohr fed the FBI from Glenn Simpson, the political opposition research contractor who hired Steele to compile the anti-Trump dossier on behalf of the Clinton campaign.

Auten was involved in the January 2017 investigation of then-Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, according to internal emails sent by then-FBI counterintelligence official Strzok.

Michael Flynn: Auten was involved in the January 2017 investigation of then-Trump National Security Adviser Flynn, according to Peter Strzok emails.

What's more, the analyst helped draft a summary of the dossier attached to the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment on Russian interference, which described Steele as "reliable." Other intelligence analysts argued against incorporating the dossier allegations -- including rumors about potentially compromising sexual material -- in the body of the report because they viewed them as "internet rumor."

According to the IG report, "The Supervisory Intel Analyst was one of the FBI's leading experts on Russia." Auten wrote a book on the Russian nuclear threat during the Cold War, and has taught graduate courses about U.S. and Russian nuclear strategy.

Still, he could not corroborate any of the allegations of Russian "collusion" in the dossier, which he nonetheless referred to as "Crown material," as if it were intelligence from America's closest ally, Britain.

To the contrary, "According to the Supervisory Intel Analyst, the FBI ultimately determined that some of the allegations contained in Steele's election reporting were inaccurate," the IG report revealed. Yet the analyst and the case agents he supported continued to rely on his dossier to obtain the warrants to spy on Page -- and by extension, potentially the Trump campaign and presidency -- through incidental collections of emails, text messages and intercepted phone calls.

Steele Got the Benefit of the Doubt

According to the IG report , the supervisory intelligence analyst not only failed to corroborate the Steele dossier, but gave Steele the benefit of the doubt every time sources or developments called into question the reliability of his information or his own credibility. In many cases, he acted more as an advocate than a fact-checker, while turning a blind eye to the dossier's red flags. Examples:

  • When a top Justice national security lawyer initially blocked the Crossfire team's attempts to obtain a FISA warrant, Auten proactively turned to the dossier to try to push the case over the line. In an email to FBI lawyers, he forwarded an unsubstantiated claim from Steele's Report 94 that Page secretly met with a Kremlin-tied official in July 2016, and asked, "Does this put us at least *that* much closer to a full FISA on [Carter Page]?" (Emphasis in original).
  • Even though internal FBI emails reveal Auten knew Steele was working for the Clinton campaign by early January 2017, he did not share this information with the Justice lawyer or the FISA court before helping agents reapply for warrants. He told the IG he viewed the potential for political influences on the Steele reporting as "immaterial."
  • While most of Steele's past reporting as an informant for the FBI had not been corroborated and had never been used in a criminal proceeding, including his work for an international soccer corruption investigation, Auten wrote that it had in fact been "corroborated and used in criminal proceedings." His language made it into the FISA renewal applications to help convince the court Steele was still reliable, despite his leaking the FBI's investigation to media outlet Mother Jones in late October 2016. Auten had merely "speculated" that Steele's prior reporting was sound without reviewing an internal file documenting his track record.
  • Auten's notes from a meeting with Steele in early October 2016 reveal that Steele described one of his main dossier sources -- identified in the IG report only as "Person 1," but believed to be Belarusian-American realtor Sergei Millian -- as a "boaster" who "may engage in some embellishment." Yet the IG report noted the analyst "did not provide this description of Person 1 for inclusion in the Carter Page FISA applications despite relying on Person 1's information to establish probable cause in the applications."
  • Auten failed to disclose to the FISA court negative feedback from British intelligence service colleagues of Steele. They told Auten during a visit he made to London in December 2016 that Steele exercised "poor judgment" and pursued as sources "people with political risk but no intel value," the IG report said.
  • In January 2017, Steele's primary sub-source told Auten that Steele "misstated or exaggerated" information he conveyed to him in multiple sections of the dossier, according to a lengthy summary of the interview by the analyst. For instance, Steele claimed that Kremlin-tied figures offered Page a bribe worth as much as $10 billion in return for lifting U.S. economic sanctions on Russia. "We reviewed the texts [between Steele and the source] and did not find any discussion of a bribe," the IG report found. Still, Auten let the rumor bleed into the FISA applications.
  • The primary sub-source also told the analyst he did not recall any discussion or mention of WikiLeaks conspiring with Moscow to publish hacked Democratic National Committee emails, or that the Russian leadership and the Trump campaign had a "well-developed conspiracy of cooperation," as described by Steele in his Report 95. The primary sub-source "did not describe a 'conspiracy' between Russia and individuals associated with the Trump campaign or state that Carter Page served as an 'intermediary' between [the campaign] and the Russian government," the IG found. Yet "all four Carter Page FISA applications relied on Report 95 to support probable cause."
  • In addition, Auten's summary of the primary sub-source cast doubt on the dossier's allegation that the disclosure of DNC emails to WikiLeaks was made in exchange for a GOP convention platform change regarding Ukraine. Yet this unsubstantiated rumor also found its way into the applications. Confronted by Horowitz's investigators about all the discrepancies, the analyst offered excuses for Steele. He said that while it was possible that Steele exaggerated or misrepresented information he received from the source, it was also possible the source was lying to the FBI.
  • Even though the primary sub-source's account contradicted the allegations in Steele's reporting, the supervisory intel analyst said he did not have any "pains or heartburn" about the accuracy of the Steele reporting.
  • Auten didn't try to get to the bottom of discrepancies between Steele and his sources until two months after the third and final renewal application was filed. The analyst's September 2017 interview with Steele revealed clear bias against Trump. According to the FBI's FD-302 summary of the interview, Steele and his London business partner, Christopher Burrows, who was also present, described Trump as their "main opponent" and said that they were "fearful" about the negative impact of the Trump presidency on the relationship between the United States and Britain.
  • The analyst also appeared to mislead, or at least misinform, the FBI's counterintelligence chief, Bill Priestap, by omitting the primary sub-source's claim that Steele "exaggerated" much of the information in the dossier. In late February 2017, Auten sent a two-page memo to Priestap briefing him about his meeting with the source, "but the memorandum did not describe the inconsistencies," the IG report noted.
  • Finally, recently declassified footnotes in the IG report directly contradict statements provided by Auten in the IG report concerning the potential for Russian disinformation infiltrating Steele's reporting. The analyst told Horowitz's team that "he had no information as of June 2017 that Steele's election reporting source network had been penetrated or compromised [by Russian intelligence]." Yet, in January 2017, the FBI received a report that some of Steele's reporting "was part of a Russian disinformation campaign" and in February 2017, the FBI received a second report that another part of Steele's reporting was "the product of [Russian Intelligence Services] infiltrat[ing] a source into the network."

Senators Want to Question Auten

Sen. Ron Johnson: "Deeply troubled by the grossly inaccurate statements by the supervisory intelligence analyst."

Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley recently questioned the analyst's candor and integrity in a letter to the FBI. "We are deeply troubled by the grossly inaccurate statements by the supervisory intelligence analyst," they wrote.

The powerful senators have asked the FBI to provide additional records shedding light on what the analyst and other officials knew about Russian disinformation as they were drafting the FISA applications.

Meanwhile, Auten's name appears on a list of witnesses Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham recently gained authorization to subpoena to testify before his own panel investigating the FISA abuse scandal. Graham intends to focus on the investigators, including the lead analyst, who interviewed Steele's primary sub-source in January 2017 and discovered the Steele allegations were nothing more than "bar talk," as Graham put it in a recent interview, and should never have been used to get a warrant in the first place, to say nothing of renewing the warrant.

In a Dec. 6 letter to Horowitz, FBI Director Christopher Wray informed the inspector general he had put every employee involved in the 2016-2017 FISA application process through "additional training in ethics." The mandatory training included "an emphasis on privacy and civil liberties."

Wray also assured Horowitz that he was conducting a review of all FBI personnel who had responsibility for the preparation of the FISA warrant applications and would take any appropriate action to deal with them.

It's not immediately known if Auten has undergone such a review or has completed the required ethics training. The FBI declined comment.

"That analyst needs to be investigated internally," Swecker said.

NEVER MISS THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST

ZEROHEDGE DIRECTLY TO YOUR INBOX

Receive a daily recap featuring a curated list of must-read stories.

Auten appears to have violated the ethics training he provides his students at Patrick Henry College.

Sen. Lindsey Graham: Auten's name appears on a list of witnesses the Senate Judiciary Chairman recently gained authorization to subpoena.

"When I teach the topic of national security investigations to undergraduates, we cover micro-proportionality, discrimination, and the 'least intrusive standard' via a tweaked version of the Golden Rule -- namely, if you were being investigated for a national security issue but you knew yourself to be completely innocent, how would you want someone to investigate you?" Auten wrote in a September 2016 article in Providence magazine, headlined "Just Intelligence, Just Surveillance & the Least Intrusive Standard."

He wrote the six-page paper to answer the question: "Is an intelligence operation, national security investigation or act of surveillance being initiated under the proper authorities for the right purposes? Will an intelligence operation, national security investigation or act of surveillance achieve the good it is meant to? And, in the end, will the expected good be overwhelmed by the resulting harm or damage arising out of the planned operation, investigation or surveillance act?"

"National security investigations are not ethics-free," he asserted, advising that a federal investigator should never forget that "the intrusiveness or invasiveness of his tactics places a subject's reputation, dignity and privacy at risk and has the ability to cause harm."

At the same time, Auten said more intrusive methods such as electronic eavesdropping may be justified -- "If it is judged that the threat is severe or the targeted foreign intelligence is of key importance to U.S. interest or survival." National security "may necessitate collection based on little more than suspicion." In these cases, he reasoned, the harm to the individual is outweighed by the benefit to society.

"Surveillance is not life-threatening to the surveilled," he said.

However, Page, a U.S. citizen, told RealClearInvestigations that he received "numerous death threats" from people who believed he was a "traitor," based on leaks to the media that the FBI suspected he was a Russian agent who conspired with the Kremlin to interfere in the 2016 election.

Auten also rationalized the risk of "incidental" surveillance of non-targeted individuals, writing: "If the particular act of surveillance is legitimately authorized, and the non-liable subject has not been intentionally targeted, any incidental surveillance of the non-liable subject would be morally licit."

A member of the International Intelligence Ethics Association, Auten has lectured since 2010 on "intelligence and statecraft" at Patrick Henry College, where he is an adjunct professor . He also sits on the college's Strategic Intelligence Advisory Board.

FBI veterans say the analyst's lack of rigor raises alarms.

"I worked with intel analysts all the time working counterintelligence investigations," said former FBI Special Agent Michael Biasello, a 25-year veteran of the FBI who spent 10 years in counterintelligence. "This analyst's work product was shoddy, and inasmuch as these FISA affidavits concerned a presidential campaign, the information he provided [to agents] should have been pristine."

He suspects Auten was "hand-picked" by Comey or McCabe to work on the sensitive Trump case, which was tightly controlled within FBI headquarters.

"The Supervisory Intel Analyst must be held accountable now, particularly where his actions were intentional, along with anyone who touched those fraudulent [FISA] affidavits," Biasello said.

[Jul 10, 2020] The man behind Iraq WDM hoax rips Fake Russia Bounty Story

Jul 10, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

When Colin Powell of all people has to appear on MSNBC to slam fake reporting you know mainstream media has lost the plot.

In a rare moment, the former Secretary of State under Bush slammed the wall-to-wall coverage of the Russian bounties in Afghanistan story as "almost hysterical" . It's all the more awkard for MSNBC, which had him on the network Thursday to talk about it, given he's one of those 'never Trump' Bush-era officials, who despite a legacy of having fed the world lie after lie to invade Iraq, has since been given "resistance hero" status among liberals.

Describing that military commanders on the ground didn't give credence to The New York Times claim that Russia's GRU was paying Taliban and other militants to kill American soldiers, Powell said the media "got kind of out of control" in the first days after the initial report weeks ago.

"I know that our military commanders on the ground did not think that it was as serious a problem as the newspapers were reporting and television was reporting," Powell told MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell. "It got kind of out of control before we really had an understanding of what had happened. I'm not sure we fully understand now."

"It's our commanders who are going to go deal with this kind of a threat, using intelligence given to them by the intelligence community," Powell continued. "But that has to be analyzed. It has to be attested. And then you have to go find out who the enemy is. And I think we were on top of that one, but it just got almost hysterical in the first few days."

He also deflated the ongoing manufactured atmosphere which seeks to maintain a perpetual Washington hawkish position vis-a-vis Moscow, based on perceived "Russian aggression".

"I don't think we're in a position to go to war with the Russians," Powell said. "I know Mr. Putin rather well. He's just figuring out a way to stay in power until 2036. The last thing he's looking for is a war, and the last thing he's looking for is a war with the United States of America."

[Jul 09, 2020] Indictments Imminent In 'Obamagate' Probe by John Solomon

Notable quotes:
"... Top former [Obama] officials, including former CIA Director John Brennan, are said to be targets of the Durham investigation. ..."
"... "The deep state is so deep that ppl get away w political crimes," wrote Grassley on Twitter. "Durham should be producing some fruit of his labor." ..."
Jul 09, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Via WND.com,

Investigative reporter John Solomon says there's a "lot of activity" in U.S. Attorney John Durham's criminal investigation of the Obama administration's probe of now-debunked claims of Trump-Russia collusion during the 2016 election.

"My sources tell me there's a lot of activity. I'm seeing, personally, activity behind the scenes [showing] the Department of Justice is trying to bring those first indictments, " Solomon said in an interview with the Fox Business Network's Lou Dobbs reported by the Washington Examiner .

"And I would look for a time around Labor Day to see the first sort of action by the Justice Department."

Solomon said he's seeing "action consistent with building prosecutions and preparing for criminal plea bargains."

"Until they bring it before the grand jury you never know if it's going to happen. I'm seeing activity consistent with that. "

Top former [Obama] officials, including former CIA Director John Brennan, are said to be targets of the Durham investigation.

But Attorney General William Barr has said he doesn't expect Obama and former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, to be subjects of a criminal investigation.

Solomon said he is hearing from defense lawyers and people "on the prosecution side" that complications with the coronavirus pandemic are "slowing down" the grand jury process.

"There is overwhelming evidence in the public record now that crimes were committed," Solomon said.

He cited "falsification of documents, false testimony, false representations before the FISA court."

WND reported this week Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said Durham should launch any prosecutions before the November election.

"The deep state is so deep that ppl get away w political crimes," wrote Grassley on Twitter. "Durham should be producing some fruit of his labor."

A report from DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz found at least 17 "significant" errors or omissions related to the Obama administration's efforts to use the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act provisions against Trump.

WND reported former U.S. attorney Joe DiGenova said the public shouldn't worry about whether or not charges are filed against Obama and Biden.

"Shaming" them will undoubtedly happen, with or without charges, he argued in an interview with Boston radio host Howie Carr.

"I happen to believe that the public shaming of former President Obama and Vice President Biden is far more important than indicting them," he said.

[Jul 09, 2020] Is Strzok Memo The Rosetta Stone Of Obamagate- -

Jul 09, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Is Strzok Memo The Rosetta Stone Of Obamagate? by Tyler Durden Wed, 07/08/2020 - 22:25 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print

Authored by Frank Miele via RealClearPolitics.com,

So much happens so fast in a world with a 15-minute news cycle that it's difficult for a journalist to stop and breathe, let alone ponder the meaning of the latest breathless reporting.

As an example, it seems like it was months ago when the D.C. Court of Appeals ordered Judge Emmet Sullivan to dismiss the case against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, but it was actually less than two weeks ago. June 24 to be exact, but to Flynn it probably seems like forever. No word from Sullivan about whether he intends to follow the order of the senior court, or continue to stall in an effort to punish Lt. Gen. Flynn for his political crime of supporting President Trump. But based on his record so far, Sullivan can probably be counted on to drag his feet while thumbing his nose at justice.

me title=

https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.393.1_en.html#goog_1147260250

Whether it is the Flynn case, or the persecution of one-time Trump adviser Roger Stone for a procedural crime of lying before a malevolent Congress, the implicit reason behind all the over-the-top harassment almost seems to be to goad Trump into pardoning his much-maligned associates in order to create another fake news cycle as we head into the 2020 election. Nobody asks, "Did you see what that corrupt judge did? Or what the Democrat-worshiping DOJ did?" It's always " Did you hear what that crazy bastard Trump did?" )

It doesn't seem to matter to the mainstream media that evidence has mounted into the stratosphere that Trump has been right all along about his campaign being illegally surveilled by the Obama administration. It doesn't matter that Trump survived a two-plus year investigation by a special counsel and was cleared of any kind of collusion with the Russians. The Democrats and their agents in the Deep State know that whatever they do to harass Trump will be treated as noble and patriotic by the corrupt media, and that whenever evidence surfaces of their criminal behavior it will be promptly buried again.

Which brings us to the infamous handwritten notes by disgraced FBI agent Peter Strzok about a White House meeting that surfaced in a recent filing in the Flynn case. Strzok had already earned a prominent place in the "Wish I Hadn't Done That" Hall of Fame for his serial confession via text message of not just marital infidelity but also constitutional perfidy. But the half-page of notes released by Flynn's defense team rises to the level of a history-altering "Oops!" Indeed, it could well be the Rosetta stone that allows us to penetrate the secrets of the anti-Trump conspiracy that stretched from the FBI to the CIA, the Justice Department and the White House.

What we know about the provenance of the notes comes from Flynn's attorney Sidney Powell, who said they were written by Strzok about a meeting that took place on Jan. 4, 2017. The only problem is that the cast of characters in the memo duplicates those who were in attendance at the White House on Jan. 5, 2017, to discuss how the Obama administration should proceed in its dealings with Flynn, who was accused of playing footsie with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak prior to assuming his official role as national security adviser. Attorney General William Barr has gone on the record (on the "Verdict With Ted Cruz" podcast) that the notes actually describe the Jan. 5 meeting.

If so, the notes strongly contradict Susan Rice's CYA "memo to self" where the Obama national security adviser recounts the Jan. 5 meeting and stresses three times that President Obama and his team were handling the Flynn investigation "by the book." Methinks the lady doth protest too much, especially now that we have Strzok's contemporaneous notes to contradict her memo, which suspiciously was written in the final minutes of the Obama administration as Donald Trump was being sworn in at the Capitol.

From what we can tell, Strzok (unlike Rice) was not writing his memo to protect anyone. He seems to have merely jotted down some notes about what various participants in the meeting said, including President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Rice, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and Strzok's boss -- FBI Director James Comey. Chances are, at this point Strzok had no idea his dirty laundry was going to be aired or that his role as a master of the universe was going to be toppled.

https://lockerdome.com/lad/13084989113709670?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13084989113709670-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com&rid=www.zerohedge.com&width=890

But to see the importance of these notes, we need to transcribe them from the cryptic handwritten notes. Words and phrases that are outright guesses are reproduced in brackets. Speakers are noted at the beginning of each line. "NSA" stands for Rice. "D" stands for Comey. "DAG" stands for Yates. "VP" stands for Biden. "P" stands for Obama. "Cuts" is said to refer to summaries of phone calls monitored under a FISA warrant to collect foreign intelligence.

NSA - D - DAG: Flynn cuts. Other [countries].

D - DAG: Lean forward on [illegible, but possibly "ambass" as in ambassador. Others have speculated on "useless" or "unless," which don't fit the context, or "unclass" as in "unclassified" or even a name beginning with m. We just don't know.]

VP: "Logan Act"

P: These are unusual times

VP: I've been on the Intel Committee for 10 years and I never

P: Make sure you look at thing[s] + have the right people on it

P: Is there anything I shouldn't be telling transition team?

D: Flynn -- > Kislyak calls but appear legit.

[Apple][??] - Happy New Year - Yeah right

The reasons why these nine lines are so important have been adequately explored by other writers on most of the relevant topics. Most significantly from a political point of view is confirmation that Biden lied when he said he had nothing to do with the criminal prosecution of Flynn. The Logan Act is a more than 200-year-old statute that forbids ordinary Americans from negotiating with foreign governments that have a dispute with the United States. No one has ever been convicted under the law, and Flynn was not an ordinary American, but rather the incoming national security adviser; nonetheless it was a central plank in the plan to give Flynn enough rope to hang himself. The fact that quotes appear only around the words Logan Act suggest that this was a direct quote from Biden.

In addition, the order by Obama presumably to Comey to "have the right people on it" suggests that there was a political element to the investigation and that the president wanted loyalists to handle it. What other explanation is there? Who exactly are the "wrong people" in the FBI? (That's a rhetorical question. Obviously the wrong people were Strzok, Comey and their buddies at the FBI and CIA who were wiretapping honest Americans and framing a president.)

Finally, and most importantly for Flynn and his attorneys, we have a contemporaneous account of the FBI director assuring the president that Flynn's conversations with Kislyak were "legit." In that case, why did Strzok reveal in an instant message on Jan. 4, 2017, the day before this historic meeting, that the FBI agent in charge should NOT close the case against Flynn even though it should have already been closed because no evidence had accrued against him? If Comey thought the general's conversations with Kislyak were "legit," then why did Strzok tell another FBI contact that the "7th floor [was] involved" in the decision to keep the Flynn case alive. The seventh floor being where the offices of Comey and the rest of the top FBI brass are located. Strzok was ecstatic to find out that the case had "serendipitously" not been closed, and told his girlfriend Lisa Page, "Our utter incompetence actually helps us."

There seems to be no consensus among analysts about the context of Strzok's notes. According to Rice's independent recollection of the Jan. 5 meeting, only the principals named above were present. CIA Director John Brennan and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper had already been booted out of the meeting after giving a briefing on alleged Russian election interference. It seems unlikely that Strzok would have been present in any capacity.

Andrew McCarthy at National Review speculates that "Strzok's notes were taken when someone later briefed him about the White House meeting that Strzok did not attend." The New York Post concludes that the Strzok memo is "plainly Strzok's notes of FBI chief Jim Comey's account." Certainly if Strzok were briefed by someone in attendance, it was most likely Comey. But Ivan Pentchoukov of The Epoch Times floats a much more interesting idea about how Strzok came to be in possession of the facts he recorded in the memo.

"The on-the-fly nature of the notes suggest that he was either physically present or listened in on a conference call," Pentchoukov speculates.

Well, the Washington Post reports that "Strzok's lawyer told The Fact Checker that Strzok did not attend the meeting," and then suggests that probably means "the notes may recount what someone else - perhaps Comey - told him about the meeting." Yes, maybe so, but there is good reason not to skate over the possibility that, as Pentchoukov puts it, Strzok "listened in" on the conversation.

NEVER MISS THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST

ZEROHEDGE DIRECTLY TO YOUR INBOX

Receive a daily recap featuring a curated list of must-read stories.

This is indeed heady stuff, as it is beyond reason to think that Strzok was an invited participant. The last thing anyone at that meeting would want is an independent account of what was said as they planned how to entrap one of the incoming president's closest aides. Yet that does not eliminate the chance that Strzok benefited from some kind of surveillance technique to eavesdrop on the conversation, either with the knowledge of one person in the room or possibly with none. Of course it is scary to think that the FBI was wiretapping the White House, but they did it to Trump Tower, so who knows?

It is the nature of the notes themselves that lends credence to this speculation. If they were written after the fact to memorialize a conversation Strzok had with Comey or someone else, there is no way to account for the brevity and choppiness of the account. Rather than just put "Logan Act" next to VP, an after-the-fact recitation would have been more likely to specify, "The Vice President brought up the Logan Act as one statute that could be used to prosecute Flynn's dangerous dealings with the Russian ambassador." And most suspiciously, there is no explanation for why Strzok would have cut off the end of Biden's other contribution to the conversation. "I've been on the Intel Committee for 10 years and I never," the transcript goes. "Never what?" the reader wants to know.

Of course we can add the words ourselves: "Never heard of anyone being prosecuted for talking to a foreign leader, especially not if they had a legitimate interest in establishing relations with their counterpart prior to a new president taking office." If Strzok were making leisurely notes while talking to his boss, or especially if he had gone back to his own office and thought it worthwhile to record what he had been told, would it make any sense for him to stop in mid-sentence?

No, it wouldn't. It only makes sense if, as Pentchoukov describes it, the notes were written "on the fly." Certainly not with a tape recorder running, where one could establish an exact transcript, but hurriedly, sloppily, furtively. That would also explain why the handwriting is not exactly consistent with other known samples of Strzok's script. Presumably, the FBI has validated the handwriting as Strzok's, but does the FBI have any reason to lie about that? Hmm.

Ultimately, if Strzok is indeed the author, we need him to testify under oath exactly what is in the notes, and how they came to be written. Hopefully the FBI, the attorney general or someone else will declassify the extensive redactions above and below the nine lines that were released. One has to imagine that in those passages, Strzok revealed his source for the material quoted, as well as confirming the date of the meeting, and possibly the reason for the meeting. He has quite a tale to tell -- one that could change history.

If there were even one Republican senator in charge of a committee who had the curiosity of a 3-year-old, it is likely we could actually get to the bottom of the shenanigans that nearly toppled a president and finally pin the "tale" on the donkey -- the Democratic donkey that is.

But Republican senators in an election year have better things to do than protect and defend the Constitution. There are fundraisers to attend, after all.


[Jul 08, 2020] British Judge Orders Christopher Steele To Pay Damages To Russian Bankers Over Dossier Lies by John Solomon

Notable quotes:
"... The judge ruled Steele violated the law by failing to aggressively check the accuracy of one claim accusing Aven and Fridman of making illicit payments to Russia President Vladimir Putin before distributing it to various U.S. and British figures, including the FBI. ..."
"... The ruling involves a long-discredited claim in Steele's dossier – repeatedly used by U.S. news media – that Russia's Alfa Bank, connected to Aven and Fridman, was transmitting secret messages between Moscow and the Trump campaign during the 2016 election. ..."
Jul 08, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by John Solomon via JustTheNews.com,

A British judge ruled Wednesday that Christopher Steele violated a data privacy law by failing to check the accuracy of information in his infamous dossier, ordering the former spy's firm to pay damages to two businessmen he wrongly accused of making illicit payments in Russia.

Justice Mark Warby of the High Court of England and Wales ordered Steele's firm, Orbis Business Intelligence, to pay a modest 18,000 English pounds – about $22,596 in American currency – each to Petr Aven and Mikhail Fridman as compensation for a violation of Britain's Data Protection Act 1998 .

Warby ruled that while Steele had a national security interest to share his intelligence with U.S. and British authorities, several of the allegations in Memo 112 of the Steele dossier were "inaccurate or misleading as a matter of fact."

https://www.scribd.com/embeds/468448754/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll&access_key=key-Q9WAS2JHy9YhvpYYXlxu

The judge ruled Steele violated the law by failing to aggressively check the accuracy of one claim accusing Aven and Fridman of making illicit payments to Russia President Vladimir Putin before distributing it to various U.S. and British figures, including the FBI.

"That is an allegation of serial criminal wrongdoing, over a prolonged period. Even in the limited and specific context of reporting intelligence for the purposes I have mentioned, and despite all the other factors I have listed, the steps taken to verify that proposition fell short of what would have been reasonable ," Warby ruled.

"The allegation clearly called for closer attention, a more enquiring approach, and more energetic checking," the judge added.

The ruling involves a long-discredited claim in Steele's dossier – repeatedly used by U.S. news media – that Russia's Alfa Bank, connected to Aven and Fridman, was transmitting secret messages between Moscow and the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.

The FBI concluded the computer pings were not nefarious messages but rather routine behavior most likely connected to email spam. Special Counsel Robert Mueller told Congress last year he did not believe the allegations.

Fridman hailed the ruling in a statement.

" We are delighted with the outcome of this case and that Mr Justice Warby has determined what we have always known to be the case – that the contents of Memorandum 112 are inaccurate and misleading ," he said. "Ever since these odious allegations were first made public in January 2017, my partners and I have been resolute and unwavering in our determination to prove that they are untrue, and through this case, we have finally succeeded in doing so."

Developing...

[Jul 08, 2020] Impeachment Witness Vindman Quits Over 'White House Bullying' -

Jul 08, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman - who was accused of being coached by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff during testimony when he told House committees that he "did not think it was proper" for President Trump to ask Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky to investigate former VP Joe Biden during a July 25 phone call - is retiring from the US Army after over 21 years, according to CNN .

Vindman has endured a "campaign of bullying, intimidation, and retaliation" spearheaded by the President following his testimony in the impeachment inquiry last year, according to his attorney, Amb. David Pressman. - CNN

Last November, Vindman admitted to violating the chain of command when he reported his concerns over a July 25 phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky, in which Trump requested an investigation into Joe Biden and his son Hunter over corruption.

Vindman, a NSC Ukraine expert (who was asked three times to become their Defense Minister), claimed he had no idea that Burisma, a natural gas company which paid Hunter to sit on its board, routed over $3 million to accounts tied to Hunter Biden .

... ... ...

Vindman fell under scrutiny during the impeachment - and has been accused of leaking knowledge of the July 25 call with Zelensky to the whistleblower whose complaint (after consulting with Adam Schiff's office) sparked Trump's impeachment.

[Jul 08, 2020] Alexander Vindman, Trump impeachment witness, retires from military

This arrogant and clueless neocon got only part of he deserved. He decided to play big politics and was burned, although not as badly as he should be. So far he escaped prison.
Notable quotes:
"... History will remember him as an incompetent, arrogant, office gossip ..."
"... ! Both he and his brother should have been charged with mishandling classified information! ..."
Jul 08, 2020 | www.foxnews.com

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman , a key impeachment witness against President Trump , retired from the Army Wednesday, with his lawyer citing "a campaign of bullying, intimidation and retaliation" for cutting short his military career.

... ... ...

Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., last Thursday announced her intention to block Senate confirmations for 1,123 senior U.S. Armed Forces promotions until Defense Secretary Mark Esper confirms he will not block the "expected and deserved" promotion for Vindman , an Iraq war veteran.

Duckworth, also an Iraq War veteran who served as a helicopter pilot, accused Trump of trying to politicize the armed forces.


nlocker Leader 23s

Good riddance to traitorous rubbish. See ya, MR. Vindman.

RustynFL Leader 24s

The House of Representatives' sham impeachment inquiry was an act of political revenge a) for losing the 2016 presidential election, and b) for impeaching Bill Clinton. It's as simple as that. V. looked like he had trouble remembering what he was told to say. Wasn't three rehearsals enough? He lied when he called it a "demand.' What demand? No demand. "Favor." V didn't follow the chain of command. Then lies about it being a busy day. NO. He was told what to say and who to go to. No officer can trust a subordinate that leaks, goes public, etc for political or personal gain. No one trusts a man that should be charged with sedition.

ᴅᴇsᴛʀᴜᴄᴛɪᴠᴇ-ᴀʟᴛʀᴜɪsᴛs Leader 26s

That next chapter should be prison.

useyourhead19 Leader 31s

Bullying like doing everything possible to undermine a presidency

IveSeenthisbefore Leader 46s

This is a traitor! A very bad person who never accepted President Trump in his heart.

RobertKearney45 Leader 1m

History will remember him as an incompetent, arrogant, office gossip of classified imformation! Both he and his brother should have been charged with mishandling classified information!

oldmarine83 Leader 1m

Well now that that lying sack of poo is leaving, he can take that job of Defense Minister of Ukraine. That's want he wants. Hopefully he will renounce his citizenship in America and not receive a penny in retirement pay if he take that position in a foreign country. Don't need people like him in the military. Need to sack EVERY Democrat in Congress. And any Obama holdovers. Let them know what the unemployment line is like and how it works. Cut the "retirement" pay also, since they REALLY HAVE NEVER WORKED since they went to the house or senate.

nlocker Leader 16s ArizonaConservative738

Vindman broke the chain of command, leaked classified information, and helped the Dems try to overthrow the President. He deserves prison.

[Jul 03, 2020] I don't think we can assume that even now Trump actually has control of the FBI; it is still in hands of Obama faction

Highly recommended!
FBI does have strong levers on Trump. This is the essence of the "Deep State" concept -- intelligence agencies became unhinged and work as a powerful political actors.
Notable quotes:
"... Thank you Mina, yes that or the deep state throwing down the gauntlet. I don't think we can assume that Trump actually has control of the FBI. If he did he would likely have deep sixed the Democrazis through the Awan family spy and blackmail scam. But he didn't. They and Debbie Wasserman Shultz were protected/had dirt on DT. ..."
Jul 03, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
uncle tungsten , Jul 3 2020 7:08 utc | 107

Mina #101

Maxwell's arrest makes me wonder if it is not about Trump throwing down the gauntlet?

Thank you Mina, yes that or the deep state throwing down the gauntlet. I don't think we can assume that Trump actually has control of the FBI. If he did he would likely have deep sixed the Democrazis through the Awan family spy and blackmail scam. But he didn't. They and Debbie Wasserman Shultz were protected/had dirt on DT.

If the kiddy fiddlers get outed following Ghislaine dropping some of her likely thousands of hours of home movies then that includes Trump and Biden.

In the fetid atmosphere of accusations against pussy grabbers and finger f#ckers and hair sniffers neither could survive. The pack will run rabid.

Is there a woman in the house? Yes, they cried AND she has experience!! Plus the campaign will be televised and it would be a virtual campaign because Covid. No need to rig audience, the polls or the balllot.

[Jul 03, 2020] My take on Tucker and Maddow: both serve those who write their paychecks, but one of the two bosses is a better businessman.

Jul 03, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Piotr Berman , Jul 3 2020 5:43 utc | 96

My take on Tucker and Maddow: both serve those who write their paychecks, but one of the two bosses is a better businessman.

Tucker does not duplicate Hannity which lets them serve different (if overlapping) segments of the audience. Showing Paralimpil and Gabbard to the viewers did not lead to any major perturbation in American politics, but it lets his viewer feel that they are better informed than the fools who watch Maddow. And it helps that to a degree they are.

uncle tungsten , Jul 3 2020 6:53 utc | 103

JC #72

I get that Tucker invites good a reasonable people on his show and gives voice space where they would not otherwise get it. That is deliberate.

I bet you that the stats show that the demented monotone oozing out of MSNBC and CNN etc has been a serious turn off for a sector of audience that is well informed and exercise critical faculties. That is exactly what Tucker needs to pay for his program as I would be fairly sure these people are Consumers of a desirable degree and advertisers like Tucker's formula and Fox Bosses like Tuckers income generator.

I don't think it is more complex than that and his bosses will entertain most heresies as long as the program generates advertiser demand for that time slot.

So Tucker is OK and he is reasonable and he will interview a broad spectrum. Good for him. But he smooths the pillow and caresses the establishment arse.

[Jul 03, 2020] Dangerous Game - How the Wreckage of Russiagate Ignited a New Cold War by Kyle Anzalone and Will Porter

Jul 02, 2020 | libertarianinstitute.org

It's been nearly four years since the myth of Trump-Russia collusion made its debut in American politics, generating an endless stream of stories in the corporate press and hundreds of allegations of conspiracy from pundits and officials. But despite netting scores of embarrassing admissions, corrections, editor's notes and retractions in that time, the theory refuses to die.

Over the years, the highly elaborate "Russiagate" narrative has fallen away piece-by-piece. Claims about Donald Trump's various back channels to Moscow -- Carter Page , George Papadopoulos , Michael Flynn , Paul Manafort , Alfa Bank -- have each been thoroughly discredited. House Intelligence Committee transcripts released in May have revealed that nobody who asserted a Russian hack on Democratic computers, including the DNC's own cyber security firm , is able to produce evidence that it happened. In fact, it is now clear the entire investigation into the Trump campaign was without basis .

It was alleged that Moscow manipulated the president with " kompromat " and black mail, sold to the public in a " dossier " compiled by a former British intelligence officer, Christopher Steele. Working through a DC consulting firm , Steele was hired by Democrats to dig up dirt on Trump, gathering a litany of accusations that Steele's own primary source would later dismiss as "hearsay" and "rumor." Though the FBI was aware the dossier was little more than sloppy opposition research, the bureau nonetheless used it to obtain warrants to spy on the Trump campaign.

Even the claim that Russia helped Trump from afar, without direct coordination, has fallen flat on its face. The " troll farm " allegedly tapped by the Kremlin to wage a pro-Trump meme war -- the Internet Research Agency -- spent only $46,000 on Facebook ads, or around 0.05 percent of the $81 million budget of the Trump and Clinton campaigns. The vast majority of the IRA's ads had nothing to do with U.S. politics, and more than half of those that did were published after the election, having no impact on voters. The Department of Justice, moreover, has dropped its charges against the IRA's parent company, abandoning a major case resulting from Robert Mueller's special counsel probe.

Though few of its most diehard proponents would ever admit it, after four long years, the foundation of the Trump-Russia narrative has finally given way and its edifice has crumbled. The wreckage left behind will remain for some time to come, however, kicking off a new era of mainstream McCarthyism and setting the stage for the next Cold War.

It Didn't Start With Trump

The importance of Russiagate to U.S. foreign policy cannot be understated, but the road to hostilities with Moscow stretches far beyond the current administration. For thirty years, the United States has exploited its de facto victory in the first Cold War, interfering in Russian elections in the 1990s, aiding oligarchs as they looted the country into poverty, and orchestrating Color Revolutions in former Soviet states. NATO, meanwhile, has been enlarged up to Russia's border, despite American assurances the alliance wouldn't expand " one inch " eastward after the collapse of the USSR.

Unquestionably, from the fall of the Berlin Wall until the day Trump took office, the United States maintained an aggressive policy toward Moscow. But with the USSR wiped off the map and communism defeated for good, a sufficient pretext to rally the American public into another Cold War has been missing in the post-Soviet era. In the same 30-year period, moreover, Washington has pursued one disastrous diversion after another in the Middle East, leaving little space or interest for another round of brinkmanship with the Russians, who were relegated to little more than a talking point. That, however, has changed.

The Crisis They Needed

The Washington foreign policy establishment -- memorably dubbed " the Blob " by one Obama adviser -- was thrown into disarray by Trump's election win in the fall of 2016. In some ways, Trump stood out as the dove during the race, deeming "endless wars" in the Middle East a scam, calling for closer ties with Russia, and even questioning the usefulness of NATO. Sincere or not, Trump's campaign vows shocked the Beltway think tankers, journalists, and politicos whose worldviews (and salaries) rely on the maintenance of empire. Something had to be done.

In the summer of 2016, WikiLeaks published thousands of emails belonging to then-Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, her campaign manager, and the Democratic National Committee. Though damaging to Clinton, the leak became fodder for a powerful new attack on the president-to-be. Trump had worked in league with Moscow to throw the election, the story went, and the embarrassing email trove was stolen in a Russian hack, then passed to WikiLeaks to propel Trump's campaign.

By the time Trump took office, the narrative was in full swing. Pundits and politicians rushed to outdo one another in hysterically denouncing the supposed election-meddling, which was deemed the "political equivalent" of the 9/11 attacks , tantamount to Pearl Harbor , and akin to the Nazis' 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom. In lock-step with the U.S. intelligence community -- which soon issued a pair of reports endorsing the Russian hacking story -- the Blob quickly joined the cause, hoping to short-circuit any tinkering with NATO or rapprochement with Moscow under Trump.

The allegations soon broadened well beyond hacking. Russia had now waged war on American democracy itself, and "sowed discord" with misinformation online, all in direct collusion with the Trump campaign. Talking heads on cable news and former intelligence officials -- some of them playing both roles at once -- weaved a dramatic plot of conspiracy out of countless news reports, clinging to many of the "bombshell" stories long after their key claims were blown up .

A large segment of American society eagerly bought the fiction, refusing to believe that Trump, the game show host, could have defeated Clinton without assistance from a foreign power. For the first time since the fall of the USSR, rank-and-file Democrats and moderate progressives were aligned with some of the most vocal Russia hawks across the aisle, creating space for what many have called a " new Cold War. "

Stress Fractures

Under immense pressure and nonstop allegations, the candidate who shouted "America First" and slammed NATO as " obsolete " quickly adapted himself to the foreign policy consensus on the alliance, one of the first signs the Trump-Russia story was bearing fruit.

Demonstrating the Blob in action, during debate on the Senate floor over Montenegro's bid to join NATO in March 2017, the hawkish John McCain castigated Rand Paul for daring to oppose the measure, riding on anti-Russian sentiments stoked during the election to accuse him of "working for Vladimir Putin." With most lawmakers agreeing the expansion of NATO was needed to "push back" against Russia, the Senate approved the request nearly unanimously and Trump signed it without batting an eye -- perhaps seeing the attacks a veto would bring, even from his own party.

Allowing Montenegro -- a country that illustrates everything wrong with NATO -- to join the alliance may suggest Trump's criticisms were always empty talk, but the establishment's drive to constrain his foreign policy was undoubtedly having an effect. Just a few months later, the administration would put out its National Security Strategy , stressing the need to refocus U.S. military engagements from counter-terrorism in the Middle East to "great power competition" with Russia and China.

On another aspiring NATO member, Ukraine, the president was also hectored into reversing course under pressure from the Blob. During the 2016 race, the corporate press savaged the Trump campaign for working behind the scenes to " water down " the Republican Party platform after it opposed a pledge to arm Ukraine's post-coup government. That stance did not last long.

Though even Obama decided against arming the new government -- which his administration helped to install -- Trump reversed that move in late 2017, handing Kiev hundreds of Javelin anti-tank missiles. In an irony noticed by few , some of the arms went to open neo-Nazis in the Ukrainian military, who were integrated into the country's National Guard after leading street battles with security forces in the Obama-backed coup of 2014. Some of the very same Beltway critics slamming the president as a racist demanded he pass weapons to out-and-out white supremacists.

Ukraine's bid to join NATO has all but stalled under President Volodymyr Zelensky, but the country has nonetheless played an outsized role in American politics both before and after Trump took office. In the wake of Ukraine's 2014 U.S.-sponsored coup, "Russian aggression" became a favorite slogan in the American press, laying the ground for future allegations of election-meddling.

Weaponizing Ukraine

The drive for renewed hostilities with Moscow got underway well before Trump took the Oval Office, nurtured in its early stages under the Obama administration. Using Ukraine's revolution as a springboard, Obama launched a major rhetorical and policy offensive against Russia, casting it in the role of an aggressive , expansionist power.

Protests erupted in Ukraine in late 2013, following President Viktor Yanukovych's refusal to sign an association agreement with the European Union, preferring to keep closer ties with Russia. Demanding a deal with the EU and an end to government corruption, demonstrators -- including the above-mentioned neo-Nazis -- were soon in the streets clashing with security forces. Yanukovych was chased out of the country, and eventually out of power.

Through cut-out organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy, the Obama administration poured millions of dollars into the Ukrainian opposition prior to the coup, training, organizing and funding activists. Dubbed the "Euromaidan Revolution," Yanukovych's ouster mirrored similar US-backed color coups before and since, with Uncle Sam riding on the back of legitimate grievances while positioning the most U.S.-friendly figures to take power afterward.

The coup set off serious unrest in Ukraine's Russian-speaking enclaves, the eastern Donbass region and the Crimean Peninsula to the south. In the Donbass, secessionist forces attempted their own revolution, prompting the new government in Kiev to launch a bloody "war on terror" that continues to this day. Though the separatists received some level of support from Moscow, Washington placed sole blame on the Russians for Ukraine's unrest, while the press breathlessly predicted an all-out invasion that never materialized.

In Crimea -- where Moscow has kept its Black Sea Fleet since the late 1700s -- Russia took a more forceful stance, seizing the territory to keep control of its long term naval base. The annexation was accomplished without bloodshed, and a referendum was held weeks later affirming that a large majority of Crimeans supported rejoining Russia, a sentiment western polling firms have since corroborated . Regardless, as in the Donbass, the move was labeled an invasion, eventually triggering a raft of sanctions from the U.S. and the EU (and more recently, from Trump himself ).

The media made no effort to see Russia's perspective on Crimea in the wake of the revolution -- imagining the U.S. response if the roles were reversed, for example -- and all but ignored the preferences of Crimeans. Instead, it spun a black-and-white story of "Russian aggression" in Ukraine. For the Blob, Moscow's actions there put Vladimir Putin on par with Adolf Hitler, driving a flood of frenzied press coverage not seen again until the 2016 election.

Succumbing to Hysteria

While Trump had already begun to cave to the onslaught of Russiagate in the early months of his presidency, a July 2018 meeting with Putin in Helsinki presented an opportunity to reverse course, offering a venue to hash out differences and plan for future cooperation. Trump's previous sit-downs with his Russian counterpart were largely uneventful, but widely portrayed as a meeting between master and puppet. At the Helsinki Summit, however, a meager gesture toward improved relations was met with a new level of hysterics.

Trump's refusal to interrogate Putin on his supposed election-hacking during a summit press conference was taken as irrefutable proof that the two were conspiring together. Former CIA Director John Brennan declared it an act of treason , while CNN gravely contemplated whether Putin's gift to Trump during the meetings -- a World Cup soccer ball -- was really a secret spying transmitter. By this point, Robert Mueller's special counsel probe was in full effect, lending official credibility to the collusion story and further emboldening the claims of conspiracy.

Though the summit did little to strengthen U.S.-Russia ties and Trump made no real effort to do so -- beyond resisting the calls to directly confront Putin -- it brought on some of the most extreme attacks yet, further ratcheting up the cost of rapprochement. The window of opportunity presented in Helsinki, while only cracked to begin with, was now firmly shut, with Trump as reluctant as ever to make good on his original policy platform.

Sanctions!

After taking a beating in Helsinki, the administration allowed tensions with Moscow to soar to new heights, more or less embracing the Blob's favored policies and often even outdoing the Obama government's hawkishness toward Russia in both rhetoric and action.

In March 2018, the poisoning of a former Russian spy living in the United Kingdom was blamed on Moscow in a highly elaborate storyline that ultimately fell apart (sound familiar?), but nonetheless triggered a wave of retaliation from western governments. In the largest diplomatic purge in US history, the Trump administration expelled 60 Russian officials in a period of two days, surpassing Obama's ejection of 35 diplomats in response to the election-meddling allegations.

Along with the purge, starting in spring 2018 and continuing to this day, Washington has unleashed round after round of new sanctions on Russia, including in response to " worldwide malign activity ," to penalize alleged election-meddling , for " destabilizing cyber activities ," retaliation for the UK spy poisoning , more cyber activity , more election-meddling -- the list keeps growing.

Though Trump had called to lift rather than impose penalties on Russia before taking office, worn down by endless negative press coverage and surrounded by a coterie of hawkish advisers, he was brought around on the merits of sanctions before long, and has used them liberally ever since.

Goodbye INF, RIP OST

By October 2018, Trump had largely abandoned any idea of improving the relationship with Russia and, in addition to the barrage of sanctions, began shredding a series of major treaties and arms control agreements. He started with the Cold War-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), which had eliminated an entire class of nuclear weapons -- medium-range missiles -- and removed Europe as a theater for nuclear war.

At this point in Trump's tenure, super-hawk John Bolton had assumed the position of national security advisor, encouraging the president's worst instincts and using his newfound influence to convince Trump to ditch the INF treaty. Bolton -- who helped to detonate a number of arms control pacts in previous administrations -- argued that Russia's new short-range missile had violated the treaty. While there remains some dispute over the missile's true range and whether it actually breached the agreement, Washington failed to pursue available dispute mechanisms and ignored Russian offers for talks to resolve the spat.

After the U.S. officially scrapped the agreement, it quickly began testing formerly-banned munitions. Unlike the Russian missiles, which were only said to have a range overstepping the treaty by a few miles, the U.S. began testing nuclear-capable land-based cruise missiles expressly banned under the INF.

Next came the Open Skies Treaty (OST), an idea originally floated by President Eisenhower, but which wouldn't take shape until 1992, when an agreement was struck between NATO and former Warsaw Pact nations. The agreement now has over 30 members and allows each to arrange surveillance flights over other members' territory, an important confidence-building measure in the post-Soviet world.

Trump saw matters differently, however, and turned a minor dispute over Russia's implementation of the pact into a reason to discard it altogether, again egged on by militant advisers. In late May 2020, the president declared his intent to withdraw from the nearly 30-year-old agreement, proposing nothing to replace it.

Quid Pro Quo

With the DOJ's special counsel probe into Trump-Russia collusion coming up short on both smoking-gun evidence and relevant indictments, the president's enemies began searching for new angles of attack. Following a July 2019 phone call between Trump and his newly elected Ukrainian counterpart, they soon found one.

During the call , Trump urged Zelensky to investigate a computer server he believed to be linked to Russiagate, and to look into potential corruption and nepotism on the part of former Vice President Joe Biden, who played an active role in Ukraine following the Obama-backed coup.

Less than two months later, a " whistleblower " -- a CIA officer detailed to the White House, Eric Ciaramella -- came forward with an "urgent concern" that the president had abused his office on the July call. According to his complaint , Trump threatened to withhold U.S. military aid, as well as a face-to-face meeting with Zelensky, should Kiev fail to deliver the goods on Biden, who by that point was a major contender in the 2020 race.

The same players who peddled Russiagate seized on Ciaramella's account to manufacture a whole new scandal: "Ukrainegate." Failing to squeeze an impeachment out of the Mueller probe, the Democrats did just that with the Ukraine call, insisting Trump had committed grave offenses, again conspiring with a foreign leader to meddle in a U.S. election.

At a high point during the impeachment trial, an expert called to testify by the Democrats revived George W. Bush's "fight them over there" maxim to argue for U.S. arms transfers to Ukraine, citing the Russian menace. The effort was doomed from the start, however, with a GOP-controlled Senate never likely to convict and the evidence weak for a "quid pro quo" with Zelensky. Ukrainegate, like Russiagate before it, was a failure in its stated goal, yet both served to mark the administration with claims of foreign collusion and press for more hawkish policies toward Moscow.

The End of New START?

The Obama administration scored a rare diplomatic achievement with Russia in 2010, signing the New START Treaty, a continuation of the original Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty inked in the waning days of the Soviet Union. Like its first iteration, the agreement places a cap on the number of nuclear weapons and warheads deployed by each side. It featured a ten-year sunset clause, but included provisions to continue beyond its initial end date.

With the treaty set to expire in early 2021, it has become an increasingly hot topic throughout Trump's presidency. While Trump sold himself as an expert dealmaker on the campaign trail -- an artist , even -- his negotiation skills have shown lacking when it comes to working out a new deal with the Russians.

The administration has demanded that China be incorporated into any extended version of the treaty, calling on Russia to compel Beijing to the negotiating table and vastly complicating any prospect for a deal. With a nuclear arsenal around one-tenth the size of that of Russia or the U.S., China has refused to join the pact. Washington's intransigence on the issue has put the future of the treaty in limbo and largely left Russia without a negotiating partner.

A second Trump term would spell serious trouble for New START, having already shown willingness to shred the INF and Open Skies agreements. And with the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) already killed under the Bush administration, New START is one of the few remaining constraints on the planet's two largest nuclear arsenals.

Despite pursuing massive escalation with Moscow from 2018 onward, Trump-Russia conspiracy allegations never stopped pouring from newspapers and TV screens. For the Blob -- heavily invested in a narrative as fruitful as it was false -- Trump would forever be "Putin's puppet," regardless of the sanctions imposed, the landmark treaties incinerated or the deluge of warlike rhetoric.

Running for an Arms Race

As the Trump administration leads the country into the next Cold War, a renewed arms race is also in the making. The destruction of key arms control pacts by previous administrations has fed a proliferation powder keg, and the demise of New START could be the spark to set it off.

Following Bush Jr.'s termination of the ABM deal in 2002 -- wrecking a pact which placed limits on Russian and American missile defense systems to maintain the balance of mutually assured destruction -- Russia soon resumed funding for a number of strategic weapons projects, including its hypersonic missile. In his announcement of the new technology in 2018, Putin deemed the move a response to Washington's unilateral withdrawal from ABM, which also saw the U.S. develop new weapons .

Though he inked New START and campaigned on vows to pursue an end to the bomb, President Obama also helped to advance the arms build-up, embarking on a 30-year nuclear modernization project set to cost taxpayers $1.5 trillion. The Trump administration has embraced the initiative with open arms, even adding to it , as Moscow follows suit with upgrades to its own arsenal.

Moreover, Trump has opened a whole new battlefield with the creation of the US Space Force , escalated military deployments, ramped up war games targeting Russia and China and looked to reopen and expand Cold War-era bases.

In May, Trump's top arms control envoy promised to spend Russia and China into oblivion in the event of any future arms race, but one was already well underway. After withdrawing from INF, the administration began churning out previously banned nuclear-capable cruise missiles, while fielding an entire new class of low-yield nuclear weapons. Known as "tactical nukes," the smaller warheads lower the threshold for use, making nuclear conflict more likely. Meanwhile, the White House has also mulled a live bomb test -- America's first since 1992 -- though has apparently shelved the idea for now.

A Runaway Freight Train

As Trump approaches the end of his first term, the two major U.S. political parties have become locked in a permanent cycle of escalation, eternally compelled to prove who's the bigger hawk. The president put up mild resistance during his first months in office, but the relentless drumbeat of Russiagate successfully crushed any chances for improved ties with Moscow.

The Democrats refuse to give up on "Russian aggression" and see virtually no pushback from hawks across the aisle, while intelligence "leaks" continue to flow into the imperial press, fueling a whole new round of election-meddling allegations .

Likewise, Trump's campaign vows to revamp U.S.-Russian relations are long dead. His presidency counts among its accomplishments a pile of new sanctions, dozens of expelled diplomats and the demise of two major arms control treaties. For all his talk of getting along with Putin, Trump has failed to ink a single deal, de-escalate any of the ongoing strife over Syria, Ukraine or Libya, and been unable to arrange one state visit in Moscow or DC.

Nonetheless, Trump's every action is still interpreted through the lens of Russian collusion. After announcing a troop drawdown in Germany on June 5, reducing the U.S. presence by just one-third, the president was met with the now-typical swarm of baseless charges. MSNBC regular and retired general Barry McCaffrey dubbed the move "a gift to Russia," while GOP Rep. Liz Cheney said the meager troop movement placed the "cause of freedom in peril." Top Democrats in the House and Senate introduced bills to stop the withdrawal dead in its tracks, attributing the policy to Trump's "absurd affection for Vladimir Putin, a murderous dictator."

Starting as a dirty campaign trick to explain away the Democrats' election loss and jam up the new president, Russiagate is now a key driving force in the U.S. political establishment that will long outlive the age of Trump. After nearly four years, the bipartisan consensus on the need for Cold War is stronger than ever, and will endure regardless of who takes the Oval Office next.

[Jul 02, 2020] Was Nikolai Yezhov (head of the NKVD from 1936 to 1938) an inspiration for Pelosi: she now claims tha the USA should sanction Russia for alleged bounty scheme

It is not just senility. Looks like Ukrainegate is not enough for her and she wants to throw kitchen sink at Trump. Charging for "alleged" action is directly from Stalin's NKVD practice
Jul 02, 2020 | www.msn.com

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday called for US sanctions against Russia's intelligence service over bounties that it reportedly offered Taliban militants to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan.

[Jul 01, 2020] Russiagate's Last Gasp by Ray McGovern

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... One can read this most recent flurry of Russia, Russia, Russia paid the Taliban to kill GIs as an attempt to pre-empt the findings into Russiagate's origins. ..."
"... But Moscow recognized from the start that Washington was embarked on a fool's errand in Vietnam. There would be no percentage in getting directly involved. And so, the Soviets sat back and watched smugly as the Vietnamese Communists drove U.S. forces out on their "own resources." As was the case with the Viet Cong, the Taliban needs no bounty inducements from abroad. ..."
"... Former CIA Director William Casey said: "We'll know when our disinformation program is complete, when everything the American public believes is false." ..."
"... If Durham finds it fraudulent (not a difficult task), the heads of senior intelligence and law enforcement officials may roll. That would also mean a still deeper dent in the credibility of Establishment media that are only too eager to drink the Kool Aid and to leave plenty to drink for the rest of us. ..."
"... I am not a regular Maddow-watcher, but to me she seemed unhinged -- actually, well over the top. ..."
Jun 29, 2020 | consortiumnews.com

One can read this most recent flurry of Russia, Russia, Russia paid the Taliban to kill GIs as an attempt to pre-empt the findings into Russiagate's origins.

By Ray McGovern
Special to Consortium News

O n Friday The New York Times featured a report based on anonymous intelligence officials that the Russians were paying bounties to have U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan with President Donald Trump refusing to do anything about it. The flurry of Establishment media reporting that ensued provides further proof, if such were needed, that the erstwhile "paper of record" has earned a new moniker -- Gray Lady of easy virtue.

Over the weekend, the Times ' dubious allegations grabbed headlines across all media that are likely to remain indelible in the minds of credulous Americans -- which seems to have been the main objective. To keep the pot boiling this morning, The New York Times' David Leonhardt's daily web piece , "The Morning" calls prominent attention to a banal article by a Heather Cox Richardson, described as a historian at Boston College, adding specific charges to the general indictment of Trump by showing "how the Trump administration has continued to treat Russia favorably." The following is from Richardson's newsletter on Friday:

  • "On April 1 a Russian plane brought ventilators and other medical supplies to the United States a propaganda coup for Russia;
  • "On April 25 Trump raised eyebrows by issuing a joint statement with Russian President Vladimir Putin commemorating the 75th anniversary of the historic meeting between American and Soviet troops on the bridge of the Elbe River in Germany that signaled the final defeat of the Nazis;
  • "On May 3, Trump called Putin and talked for an hour and a half, a discussion Trump called 'very positive';
  • "On May 21, the U.S. sent a humanitarian aid package worth $5.6 million to Moscow to help fight coronavirus there. The shipment included 50 ventilators, with another 150 promised for the next week;
  • "On June 15, news broke that Trump has ordered the removal of 9,500 troops from Germany, where they support NATO against Russian aggression. "

Historian Richardson added:

"All of these friendly overtures to Russia were alarming enough when all we knew was that Russia attacked the 2016 U.S. election and is doing so again in 2020. But it is far worse that those overtures took place when the administration knew that Russia had actively targeted American soldiers. this bad news apparently prompted worried intelligence officials to give up their hope that the administration would respond to the crisis, and instead to leak the story to two major newspapers."

Hear the siren? Children, get under your desks!

The Tall Tale About Russia Paying for Dead U.S. Troops

Times print edition readers had to wait until this morning to learn of Trump's statement last night that he was not briefed on the cockamamie tale about bounties for killing, since it was, well, cockamamie.

Late last night the president tweeted: "Intel just reported to me that they did not find this info credible, and therefore did not report it to me or the VP. "

For those of us distrustful of the Times -- with good reason -- on such neuralgic issues, the bounty story had already fallen of its own weight. As Scott Ritter pointed out yesterday:

"Perhaps the biggest clue concerning the fragility of the New York Times ' report is contained in the one sentence it provides about sourcing -- "The intelligence assessment is said to be based at least in part on interrogations of captured Afghan militants and criminals." That sentence contains almost everything one needs to know about the intelligence in question, including the fact that the source of the information is most likely the Afghan government as reported through CIA channels. "

And who can forget how "successful" interrogators can be in getting desired answers.

Russia & Taliban React

The Kremlin called the Times reporting "nonsense an unsophisticated plant," and from Russia's perspective the allegations make little sense; Moscow will see them for what they are -- attempts to show that Trump is too "accommodating" to Russia.

A Taliban spokesman called the story "baseless," adding with apparent pride that "we" have done "target killings" for years "on our own resources."

Russia is no friend of the Taliban. At the same time, it has been clear for several years that the U.S. would have to pull its troops out of Afghanistan. Think back five decades and recall how circumspect the Soviets were in Vietnam. Giving rhetorical support to a fraternal Communist nation was de rigueur and some surface-to-air missiles gave some substance to that support.

But Moscow recognized from the start that Washington was embarked on a fool's errand in Vietnam. There would be no percentage in getting directly involved. And so, the Soviets sat back and watched smugly as the Vietnamese Communists drove U.S. forces out on their "own resources." As was the case with the Viet Cong, the Taliban needs no bounty inducements from abroad.

Besides, the Russians knew painfully well -- from their own bitter experience in Afghanistan, what the outcome of the most recent fool's errand would be for the U.S. What point would they see in doing what The New York Times and other Establishment media are breathlessly accusing them of?

CIA Disinformation; Casey at Bat

Former CIA Director William Casey said: "We'll know when our disinformation program is complete, when everything the American public believes is false."

Casey made that remark at the first cabinet meeting in the White House under President Ronald Reagan in early 1981, according to Barbara Honegger, who was assistant to the chief domestic policy adviser. Honegger was there, took notes, and told then Senior White House correspondent Sarah McClendon, who in turn made it public.

If Casey's spirit is somehow observing the success of the disinformation program called Russiagate, one can imagine how proud he must be. But sustained propaganda success can be a serious challenge. The Russiagate canard has lasted three and a half years. This last gasp effort, spearheaded by the Times , to breathe more life into it is likely to last little more than a weekend -- the redoubled efforts of Casey-dictum followers notwithstanding.

Russiagate itself has been unraveling, although one would hardly know it from the Establishment media. No collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Even the sacrosanct tenet that the Russians hacked the DNC emails published by WikiLeaks has been disproven , with the head of the DNC-hired cyber security firm CrowdStrike admitting that there is no evidence that the DNC emails were hacked -- by Russia or anyone else .

U.S. Attorney John Durham. (Wikipedia)

How long will it take the Times to catch up with the CrowdStrike story, available since May 7?

The media is left with one sacred cow: the misnomered "Intelligence Community" Assessment of Jan. 6, 2017, claiming that President Putin himself ordered the hacking of the DNC. That "assessment" done by "hand-picked analysts" from only CIA, FBI and NSA (not all 17 intelligence agencies of the "intelligence community") reportedly is being given close scrutiny by U. S. Attorney John Durham, appointed by the attorney general to investigate Russiagate's origins.

If Durham finds it fraudulent (not a difficult task), the heads of senior intelligence and law enforcement officials may roll. That would also mean a still deeper dent in the credibility of Establishment media that are only too eager to drink the Kool Aid and to leave plenty to drink for the rest of us.

Do not expect the media to cease and desist, simply because Trump had a good squelch for them last night -- namely, the "intelligence" on the "bounties" was not deemed good enough to present to the president.

(As a preparer and briefer of The President's Daily Brief to Presidents Reagan and HW Bush, I can attest to the fact that -- based on what has been revealed so far -- the Russian bounty story falls far short of the PDB threshold.)

Rejecting Intelligence Assessments

Nevertheless, the corporate media is likely to play up the Trump administration's rejection of what the media is calling the "intelligence assessment" about Russia offering -- as Rachel Maddow indecorously put it on Friday -- "bounty for the scalps of American soldiers in Afghanistan."

I am not a regular Maddow-watcher, but to me she seemed unhinged -- actually, well over the top.

The media asks, "Why does Trump continue to disrespect the assessments of the intelligence community?" There he goes again -- not believing our "intelligence community; siding, rather, with Putin."

In other words, we can expect no let up from the media and the national security miscreant leakers who have served as their life's blood. As for the anchors and pundits, their level of sophistication was reflected yesterday in the sage surmise of Face the Nation's Chuck Todd, who Aaron Mate reminds us, is a "grown adult and professional media person." Todd asked guest John Bolton: "Do you think that the president is afraid to make Putin mad because maybe Putin did help him win the election, and he doesn't want to make him mad for 2020?"

"This is as bad as it gets," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi yesterday, adding the aphorism she memorized several months ago: "All roads lead to Putin." The unconscionably deceitful performance of Establishment media is as bad as it gets, though that, of course, was not what Pelosi meant. She apparently lifted a line right out of the Times about how Trump is too "accommodating" toward Russia.

One can read this most recent flurry of Russia, Russia, Russia as a reflection of the need to pre-empt the findings likely to issue from Durham and Attorney General William Barr in the coming months -- on the theory that the best defense is a pre-emptive offense. Meanwhile, we can expect the corporate media to continue to disgrace itself.

Vile

Caitlin Johnstone, typically, pulls no punches regarding the Russian bounty travesty:

"All parties involved in spreading this malignant psyop are absolutely vile, but a special disdain should be reserved for the media class who have been entrusted by the public with the essential task of creating an informed populace and holding power to account. How much of an unprincipled whore do you have to be to call yourself a journalist and uncritically parrot the completely unsubstantiated assertions of spooks while protecting their anonymity? How much work did these empire fluffers put into killing off every last shred of their dignity? It boggles the mind.

It really is funny how the most influential news outlets in the Western world will uncritically parrot whatever they're told to say by the most powerful and depraved intelligence agencies on the planet, and then turn around and tell you without a hint of self-awareness that Russia and China are bad because they have state media.

Sometimes all you can do is laugh."

Ray McGovern works for Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. During his 27-years as a CIA analyst he led the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch and prepared The President's Daily Brief for Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Reagan. In retirement, he co-created Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.


Aaron , June 30, 2020 at 12:33

If anything, all roads lead to Israel. You have to consider the sources, the writers, journalists, editors, owners, and rich people from which these stories come. This latest ridiculous story will certainly help Trump, so the sources of these Russia stories are actually fans of Trump, they love his tax cuts, he helps their revenue streams, and he's the greatest friend and Zionist to Israel so far and also Wall Street. I think most Americans can understand that Putin doesn't possess all of the supernatural all-encompassing powers and mind-controlling omnipotence that Pelosi and her ilk attribute to him. That's why at his rallies, when Trump points to where the journalists are and sneers at them calling them bloodsuckers and parasites and all that, the people love it, because of stuff like this. It's like saying "look at those assholes, those liberal journalists over at CNN say that you voted for me because of Vladimir Putin?!" It just pisses off people to keep hearing that mantra over and over. So it's a gift to Trump, it helps him so much. And seeing that super expensive helicopter flying around the barren rocky slopes of the middle east, seems like it's out of some Rambo movie. And like Rambo, the tens of thousands of American servicemen that were sacrificed over there, and still commit suicides at a horrific rate, have always been treated by the architects of these wars that only helped the state of Israel, as the expendables. Whether it's a black life, a soldier fighting in Iraq, a foreclosed on homeowner by Mnuchin's work, or a brainwashed New York Times subscriber, we don't seem to matter, we seem to feel the truth that to these people were are indeed expendable. The question to answer I think is, not who is a Russian asset, but who is an Israeli asset?

Andrew Thomas , June 30, 2020 at 12:04

Great reporting as usual, Ray. But special kudos for the NYT moniker 'Gray lady of easy virtue.' I almost laughed out loud. A rare occurrence these days.

Michael P Goldenberg , June 30, 2020 at 10:45

Thanks for another cogent assessment of our mainstream media's utter depravity and reckless irresponsibility. They truly have become nothing more than presstitutes and enemies of the people.

Bob Van Noy , June 30, 2020 at 10:42

"It's all over but the shouting" goes the idiom and I think that is true of Russiagate, especially, thank all goodness, here at Robert Parry's Journalistic site!

I have a theory that propaganda has a lifetime but when it reaches a truly absurd level, it's all over. Clearly, we've reached that level Thanks to all at CN

evelync , June 30, 2020 at 10:33

You call Rachel Madcow "unhinged", Ray ..well, yes, I'm shocked at myself that there was a time that I tuned in to her show .
Sorry Ms Madcow you've turned yourself into a character from Dr Strangelove

The key threats – climate change, pandemics, nuclear war – and why we continue to fail to address these real things while filling the airwaves instead with the tiresome russia,russia,russia mantra – per Accam's razer suggests that it serves very short term interests of money and power whoever whatever the MICIMATT answers to.
"Former CIA Director William Casey said: "We'll know when our disinformation program is complete, when everything the American public believes is false." "

Who exactly was the "we" Casey was answering to each day?
I know it wasn't me or the planet or humanity or anyone I know.

Bill Rice , June 30, 2020 at 10:20

If only articles like this were read by the masses. Maybe people would get a clue. Blind patriotism is not patriotic at all. Skepticism is healthy.

torture this , June 30, 2020 at 09:54

It's a shame that VIPS reporting is top secret. It's the only information coming from people familiar with the ins and outs of spy agencies that can be trusted.

GeorgeG , June 30, 2020 at 09:45

Ray,
You missed the juicy stuff. See: tass.com/russia/1172369 Russia Foreign Ministry: NYT article on Russia in Afghanistan fake from US intelligence. Here is the kicker:

The Russian Foreign Ministry pointed to US intelligence agencies' involvement in Afghan drug trafficking.
"Should we speak about facts – moreover, well-known [facts], it has not long been a secret in Afghanistan that members of the US intelligence community are involved in drug trafficking, cash payments to militants for letting transport convoys pass through, kickbacks from contracts implementing various projects paid by American taxpayers. The list of their actions can be continued if you want," the ministry said.

The Russian Foreign Ministry suggested that those actions might stem from the fact that the US intelligence agencies "do not like that our and their diplomats have teamed up to facilitate the start of peace talks between Kabul and the Taliban (outlawed in Russia – TASS)."

"We can understand their feelings as they do not want to be deprived of the above mentioned sources of the off-the-books income," the ministry stressed.

Thomas Fortin , June 30, 2020 at 12:08

Affirmative Ray, two of my old comrades who were SF both did security on CIA drug flights back in the day, and later on both while under VA care decided to die off God I miss them, great guys and honest souls.

DH Fabian , June 30, 2020 at 09:41

One point remains a mystery. Why would anyone think that when the US invades a country, someone would need to pay the people of that country a bounty to fight back?

Mark Clarke , June 30, 2020 at 09:27

If Biden wins the presidency and the Democrats take back the Senate, Russiagate will strengthen and live on for many years.

Al , June 30, 2020 at 12:11

All to deflect from Clinton's private server while SOS, 30,000 deleted emails, and the sale of US interests via the Clinton Foundation.

Zedster , June 30, 2020 at 12:56

That, or we learn Chinese.

Skip Scott , June 30, 2020 at 09:08

Another interesting aside is that Tulsi Gabbard's "Stop funding Terrorists" bill went nowhere in Congress. So it's Ok for us and our Arab allies to fund them, but not the Russians? Maybe we should go back to calling them the Mujahideen?

Thomas Scherrer , June 30, 2020 at 12:10

Preach, my child.

And aloha to the last decent woman in those halls.

HARRY M HAYS , June 30, 2020 at 09:01

Do you not think that the timing of all this (months after the report was allegedly presented to Trump) is an attempt to stop Trump from signing an agreement with the Taliban that will allow him to withdraw American troops from that country?

Skip Scott , June 30, 2020 at 08:58

Great article Ray, but I have to question whether Durham will fulfill his role and get to the bottom of the origins of RussiaGate. If he actually does name names and prosecute, how will the MSM cover it? What will Ms. Madcow have to say? Ever since the fizzling failure of the Epstein investigation, I have had my doubts about Barr and his minion Durham. I hope I'm wrong. Time will tell.

Thomas Fortin , June 30, 2020 at 12:24

I think on here I can talk about this issue you brought up Scott, on other places when I tried to have a rational discussion on the matter, I got shouted down, well they tried anyway.
I highly suggest to any readers of this here on Consortium to get Gore Vidal's old book, Imperial America, and also watch his old documentary, THE UNITED STATES OF AMNESIA.
Here is the point of it,
"Officially we have two parties which are in fact wings of a common party of property with two right wings. Corporate wealth finances each. Since the property party controls every aspect of media they have had decades to create a false reality for a citizenry largely uneducated by public schools that teach conformity with an occasional advanced degree in consumerism."
-GORE VIDAL, The United States of Amnesia
Also,
"There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt -- until recently and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties."
? Gore Vidal
Others have pointed out the same like this,
"Nobody should have any illusions. The United States has essentially a one-party system and the ruling party is the business party."
? Noam Chomsky
"In the United States [ ] the two main business-dominated parties, with the support of the corporate community, have refused to reform laws that make it virtually impossible to create new political parties (that might appeal to non-business interests) and let them be effective. Although there is marked and frequently observed dissatisfaction with the Republicans and Democrats, electoral politics is one area where notions of competitions and free choice have little meaning. In some respects the caliber of debate and choice in neoliberal elections tends to be closer to that of the one-party communist state than that of a genuine democracy."
? Robert W. McChesney, Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order
"The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies is a foolish idea. 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. Then it should be possible to replace it, every four years if necessary, by the other party which will be none of these things but will still pursue, with new vigor, approximately the same basic policies."
? Carroll Quigley [1910 – 1977 was an American historian and theorist of the evolution of civilizations. He is remembered for his teaching work as a professor at Georgetown University, for his academic publications.]
Teddy Roosevelt, whose statue is under attack in NYC, had this to say,
"The bosses of the Democratic party and the bosses of the Republican party alike have a closer grip than ever before on the party machines in the States and in the Nation. This crooked control of both the old parties by the beneficiaries of political and business privilege renders it hopeless to expect any far-reaching and fundamental service from either."
-THEODORE ROOSEVELT, The Outlook, July 27, 1912
I suggest also that you look up on line this article, Heads They Win, Tails We Lose: Our Fake Two-Party System
by Prof. Stephen H. Unger at Columbia, here is his concluding thought,
"The drift toward loss of liberty, unending wars, environmental degradation, growing economic inequality can't be stopped easily, but it will never be halted as long as we allow corporate interests to rule our country by means of a pseudo-democracy based on the two-party swindle."
With this all in mind, and if your my age, you might recall about how over the past more then 50 years, no matter which party gets in power, nothing of any significance changes, the wars continue, the transfer of wealth to the few, and the erosion of basic civil liberties continues pretty well unabated.
Trump is surrounded by neo-cons and I expect nothing will happen to change anything. I would get into how most called liberals are hardly that, but in reality neo-cons, but I've said enough for now, when you consider the statements I shared, then the Matrix begins to come unraveled.

Grady , June 30, 2020 at 08:01

Not to mention the potential peace initiative with Afghanistan and Taliban that is looming. Peace is not profitable, so who has the dual interests in maintaining protracted war in a strategic location while ensuring the poppy crop stays the most productive in the world? It seems said poppy production under the pre war Taliban government was minimal as they eliminated most of it. Attacking the Taliban and thwarting its rule allowed for greater production, to the extent it is the global leader in helping to fulfill the opiate demand. Gary Webb established long ago that the intelligence community, specifically the CIA, has somewhat of a tradition in such covert operations and logic would dictate they're vested interest lies in maintaining a high yield crop while feeding the profit center that is the MIC war machine. While certainly a bit digressive, the dots are there to connect.

Paul , June 30, 2020 at 07:54

My friend, I love your columns. Thank you, you have been one of the few sane voices on Russiagate from the beginning.

Sadly most Americans and most people in the world will not receive these simple truths you are telling. (not their fault)

We will continue our fight against the system.

Peace, Paul from South Africa

Voice from Europe , June 30, 2020 at 07:38

Don't think this will be the last Russiagate gasp whoever becomes the next president.
The 'liberal democrats' believe their own delusions and as long as they control the MSM, they won't stop. Lol.

Thomas Fortin , June 30, 2020 at 12:29

You should read my reply to Scott, most of these Democrats are not liberals, but neo-cons who just liberal virtue signal while in reality supporting the neo-con agenda. I hate it how the so called alternative or independent media abuse terms and words, which obscures realities. Anyway, take a look at my reply and the quotes I shared.
"Definition of liberal, one who is open-minded or not strict in the observance of orthodox, traditional, or established forms or ways, progressive, broad-minded, . willing to respect or accept behavior or opinions different from one's own; open to new ideas, denoting a political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise."
? Derived from Webster's and the Oxford Dictionaries

"Liberal' comes from the Latin liberalis, which means pertaining to a free man. In politics, to be liberal is to want to extend democracy through change and reform. One can see why that word had to be erased from our political lexicon."
? Gore Vidal, "The Great Unmentionable: Monotheism and its Discontents," The Lowell Lecture, Harvard University, April 20, 1992.

Tom Welsh , June 30, 2020 at 06:23

Er, hypocrisy much?

"'Kill Russians and Iranians, threaten Assad,' says ex-CIA chief backing Clinton"
hXXps://www.rt.com/usa/355291-morrell-kill-russians-clinton/

Tom Welsh , June 30, 2020 at 06:13

Once again I would like to compliment Mr McGovern on his magnificently Biblical appearance. That full set would do credit to any Old Testament prophet.

I see him as the USA's own Jeremiah.

Tom Welsh , June 30, 2020 at 06:12

Seeing that picture of Johnson's sad, wicked bloodhound features really, really makes me wish I had had a chance to be outside his tent pissing in. I'd have been careful to drink as many gallons of beer as possible beforehand.

Although it would have been better, from a humanitarian pont of view, just to set fire to the tent.

Tom Welsh , June 30, 2020 at 06:10

"Historian Richardson "

Clearly a serious exaggeration.

Tom Welsh , June 30, 2020 at 06:09

Ah, the Chinook! The 60-year-old helicopter that epitomises everything Afghan patriots love about the USA. It's big, fat, slow, clumsy, unmanoeuvrable, and may carry enough US troops to make shooting it down a damaging political blow against Washington.

Vivek , June 30, 2020 at 05:43

Ray,
What do you make of Barbara Honeggar's second career as a alternative story peddler?
see hXXps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jB21BVFOIjw

CNfan , June 30, 2020 at 03:43

A brilliant piece, with a deft touch depicting the timeless human follies running our foreign policy circus. Real-world experience, perspective, and courage like Ray's were the dream of the drafters of our 1st Amendment. And ending with Caitlin's hammer was effective. As to who benefits? I suspect the neocons – our resident war-addicts and Israeli assets. Paraphrasing Nancy, "All roads lead to Netanyahu."

Ehzal , June 30, 2020 at 03:12

So,Russia what will do in next Upcoming Years during these covid-19.

Realist , June 30, 2020 at 02:54

Ray, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has embraced these allegations against Russia as the gospel truth and has threatened to seek revenge against Putin once he occupies the White House.

He said Americans who serve in the military put their life on the line. "But they should never, never, never ever face a threat like this with their commander in chief turning a blind eye to a foreign power putting a bounty on their heads."

"I'm quite frankly outraged by the report," Biden said. He promised that if he is elected, "Putin will be confronted and we'll impose serious costs on Russia."

This is the kind of warmongering talk that derailed the expected landslide victory for the Queen of Warmongers in 2016. This time round though, Trump has seemingly already swung and badly missed three times in his responses to the Covid outbreak, the public antics attributed to BLM, and the Fed's creation of six trillion dollars in funny money as a gift to the most privileged tycoons on the planet. In baseball, which will not have a season in spite of the farcical theatrics between ownership and players, that's called a "whiff" and gets you sent back to the bench.

According to all the pollsters, Donnie's base of white working class "deplorables" are already abandoning his campaign–bigly, prompting the none-too-keen Biden to assume that over-the-top Russia bashing is back in season, especially since trash-talking Nobel Laureate Obama is now delivering most of the mute sock puppet Biden's lines. It was almost comical to watch Joe do nothing but grin in the framed picture to the left of his old boss during their most recent joint interview with the press. This dangerous re-set of the Cold War is NOT what the people want, nor is it good for them or any living things.

DH Fabian , June 30, 2020 at 10:18

Biden already lost 2020 -- in spite of the widely-disliked Trump. This is why Democrats began working to breath life back into Russia-gate by late last year, setting the stage to blame Russia for their 2020 defeat. We spent the past 25 years detailing the demise of the Democratic Party (replaced by the "New Democrat Party"), and it turned out that the party loyalists didn't hear a word of it.

John A , June 30, 2020 at 02:15

As a viewer from afar, in Europe, I find it mindboggling how the American public seem to believe all this nonsense about Russia. Have the people there really been that dumbed down by chewing gum for the eyes television and disgusting chemical and growth h0rmone laced food? Sad, sad, sad.

Tom Welsh , June 30, 2020 at 06:17

John, I think there is something to what you say about dumbing down. I recall Albert Jay Nock lamenting, in about 1910, how dreadfully US education had already been dumbed down – and things have been going steadily downhill ever since.

But I don't think we can quite release the citizenry from responsibility on account of their ignorance. (Isn't it a legal maxim that ignorance is not an excuse?)

There is surely deep down in most people a sly lust for dominance, a desire to control and forbid and compel; and also a quiet satisfaction at hearing of inferior foreigners being harmed or killed by one's own "world class" armed forces.

TS , June 30, 2020 at 11:14

> As a viewer from afar, in Europe, I find it mindboggling how the American public seem to believe all this nonsense about Russia.

May I remind you that most of the mass media in Europe parrot all this nonsense, and a large segment of the public swallows it?

Charles Familant , June 30, 2020 at 00:50

Mr. McGovern has not made his case. To his question as to why Taliban militants need any additional incentive to target U.S. troops in Afghanistan, it is not far-fetched to believe these militants would welcome additional funds to continue their belligerency. Waging war is not cheap and is especially onerous for relatively small organizations as compared to major powers. What reason would Putin have to pay such bounty? The increase in U.S. troop casualties would provide Trump an additional rationale to bring the troops home, as he had promised during his campaign speeches in 2015 and 2016. This action would be a boon to his re-election prospects. Putin is well aware that if Biden wins in November, there is little likelihood of the hostility in Afghanistan or anywhere else being brought to an end. But, more to the point, the likelihood of U.S. sanctions against Russia being curtailed under a Biden presidency is remote. To what he deemed rhetorical, Mr. McGovern asks how successful were U.S. interrogators of such captured Taliban in the past, I remind him that there were opposing views regarding which techniques were most effective. Might not these interrogators have, in the present case, employed more effective means? Finally, it should not even be a question as to why any news agency does not reveal its sources. But in this case, the New York Times specifically mentions that the National Security Council discussed the intelligence finding in late March. Further, if it is true that Trump, Pence et al ignored the said briefs of which the administration was well aware, this should be no surprise to any of us. Case in point: how long did it take Trump to respond to the present pandemic? One telling observation: Mr. McGovern says that Heather Cox Richardson is "described as a historian at Boston College.' She is not just "described as a historian" Mr. McGovern, she IS a historian at Boston College; in fact, she is a professor at that college and has authored six scholarly works that have been published as books, the most recent of which in March of this year by the Oxford University Press. Mr. McGovern states that the points Richardson made her most most recent newsletter as "banal." I see nothing banal in that newsletter, but rather a list of relevant factual occurrences. Finally (this time it really is final), Mr. McGovern employs the use of sarcasm to discount what Richardson and others have contended regarding this most recent expose. And seems to give more credibility to the comments made by Trump and his cohorts, as though this administration is remarkable for its integrity.

Sam F , June 30, 2020 at 11:05

Plausible interest does not make unsupported accusations a reality. What bounties did the US offer?
Have you forgotten that the US set up Al Qaeda in Afghanistan with weapons to attack the USSR there?

Zhu , June 30, 2020 at 00:34

Come December this year, which losing party will blame which scapegoat? Russia? China? The Man in the Moon? It must be a hard decision!

Zhu , June 30, 2020 at 00:31

Unfortunately, bad ideas and conspiracy fictions rarely disappear completely. But that Afghans need to be paid to kill invaders is the dumbest conspiracy fiction yet.

Thomas Fortin , June 29, 2020 at 21:31

Excellent report Ray, as usual.
Interesting note here, I watched The Hill's Rising program, and listened to young conservative Saagar say, although he does not believe that Russia-gate is credible, he made the statement that Russia is supplying the Taliban weapons and wants us to get out of Afghanistan, and that is considered a fact by all journalists!
Saagar is a bit conflicted, he does not, but does believe the gods of intelligence, like so many did with the Gulf of Tonkin so long ago, I remember that all too well.
As I look out upon the ignorant masses and useful idiots who strain at those Confederate and other monuments, while continuing to elect the same old people back into office who continue the status quo, its a bit discouraging. We were told so long ago about our current situation, that,
"It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising the sovereignty. Usurpation is then an easy attainment, and an usurper soon found. The people themselves become the willing instruments of their own debasement and ruin." [James Monroe, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1817]
As a historian of some sort and educational film maker, I do my best to educate people, though its a bit overwhelming at times how ignorant and fascist brain-washed most are. Monroe, like the other founders knew the secret of maintaining a free and prosperous republic, from the same piece, "Let us, then, look to the great cause, and endeavor to preserve it in full force. Let us by all wise and constitutional measures promote intelligence among the people as the best means of preserving our liberties."
George Carlin got it right about why education "sucks", it was by design, so our work is cut out for us.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
~Thomas Jefferson

GMCasey , June 29, 2020 at 21:25

Why would Putin even bother? America and its endless wars is doing itself in. Afghanistan is said to be," the graveyard of empires." It was for Alexander the Great -- –it was for Russia and I suppose that it will be for America too -- -

DW Bartoo , June 29, 2020 at 20:50

Ray, I certainly hope that Durham and Barr will not wait too long a time to make public the truth about Russiagate.

Indeed, certain heads should, figuratively, roll, and as well, the whole story about who was behind the setting up of Flynn needs to, somehow, make it through the media flack.

Judge Sullivan's antics having been rather thoroughly shot down, though the media is desperately trying to either spin or ignore the reality that it was not merely Flynn that Sullivan was hoping to harm, but also the power of the executive branch relative to the judicial branch.

The role of Obama and of Biden who, apparently, suggested the use of the Logan Act as the means to go after Flynn, who we now know was intentionally entrapped by the intrepid FBI, need to be made clear as well.

Just as with the initial claims that torture was the work of "a few bad apples", when anyone with any insight into such "policy" actions had to have known that it WAS official policy (crafted by Addington, Bybee, and Yoo, as it turned out, directed to do so by the Bush White House), so too, must it be realized that it was not some rogue agents and loose cannons, but actual instructions "from above", explicit or implicit, that "encouraged" the behavior of those who spoke of "Insurance" policies designed to hamper, hinder, and harm the incoming administration.

Clearly, I am no fan of Trump, and while I honestly regard the Rule of Law as essentially a fairytale for the gullible (as the behavior of the "justice" system from the " qualified immunity" of the police, to the "absolute immunity" of prosecutors, judges, and the political class must make clear,to even the most giddy of childish believers in U$ purity, innocence, and exceptionalism, that the "law" serves to protect wealth and power and NOT the public), I should really like to consider that even in a pretend democracy, some things are simply not to be tolerated.

Things, like torture, like fully politicized law enforcement or "intelligence" agencies, like secret court proceedings, where judges may be lied to with total impunity and actual evidence is not required. As well as things like a media thoroughly willing to requrgitate blatant propaganda as "fact" (while having, again, no apparent need of genuine evidenc), or other things like total surveillance, and the destruction of habeas corpus.

One should like to imagine that such things might concern the majority.

Yet, a society that buys into forever wars, lesser-evil voting, and created Hitler like boogeymen, that countenances being lied into wars and consistently lied to about virtually everything, is hardly likely to discern the truth of things until the "Dream" collapses into personal pain, despair, and Depression.

Unless there is an awakening quite beyond that already tearing down statues, but yet still , apparently, unwilling to grasp the totality of the corruption throughout the entire edifice of "authority", of the total failure of a system that has no real legitimacy, except that given it by voters choosing between two sides of the same tyranny, it may be readily imagined, should Biden be "victorious", that Russiagate, Chinagate, Irangate, Venezuelagate, and countless other "Gates" will become Official History.

In which case, this is not a last gasp, of Russiagate, but a new and full head of steam for more of the same.

How easy it has been for the lies to prevail, to become "truth" and to simply disappear the voices of those who ask for evidence, who dare question, who doubt.

How easy to co-opt and destroy efforts to educate or bring about critically necessary change.

There are but a few months for real evidence to be revealed.

If Durham and Barr decide not to "criminalize policy differences", as Obama, the "constitutional scholar", did regarding torture, then what might we imagine will be the future of those who have an understanding of even those lies long being used, and with recent additions, for example, to torture Julian Assange?

All of the deceit has common purpose, it is to maintain absolute control.

If Russiagate is not completely exposed, for all that it is and was intended to be, then quaint little discussions about elite misbehavior will be banished from general awareness, and those who persist in questioning will be rather severely dealt with.

Antonia , June 30, 2020 at 11:43

ABSOLUTELY. Well said. NOW where to make the changes absolutely necessary?

Zalamander , June 29, 2020 at 18:47

Thanks Ray. There are multiple reasons for the continued existance of Russiagate as the Democratic party has no real answers for the economic depression affecting millions of Americans. Neoliberal Joe Biden is also an exceptionally weak presidential candidate, who does not even support universal healthcare for all Americans like every other advanced industrialized country has. That said, the Dems are indeed desperate to deflect attention away from the Durham investigation, as it is bound to expose the total fraud of Crossfire Hurricane.

Sam F , June 29, 2020 at 18:16

Thanks, Ray, a very good summary, with reminders often needed by many in dealing with complex issues.

[Jul 01, 2020] Control freaks that cannot even control their own criminal impulses!

Highly recommended!
Jul 01, 2020 | www.unz.com

No Friend Of The Devil , says:

Control freaks that cannot even control their own criminal impulses!

...They suffer from god-complexes, since they do not believe in God, they feel an obligation to act as God, and decide the fates of over 7 billion people, who would obviously be better off if the PICs were sent to the Fletcher Memorial Home for Incurable Tyrants!

[Jun 29, 2020] After Iraq WMD and Russia Collusion, we should ask for real evidence instead of the top intelligence sources

Petty scoundrels from NYT are not that inventive. They just want to whitewash Russiagate fiasco. This whole "story" stinks to high heaven. Judy Miller redux - regime-change info ops, coordinated across multiple media organizations.
Notable quotes:
"... After Iraq WMD and Russia Collusion, we should ask for real evidence instead of the "top intelligence sources". And we should not buy we can't provide any evidence because of sources & methods. ..."
"... On a practical note, how was a Taliban soldier militant meant to verify his claim to a bounty? I assume that scalping was not a feasible option, but if you are going to offer a bounty then you are going to want proof that the person claiming that bounty did, indeed, do the job. ..."
Jun 29, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com
"Russia offered bounties to Afghan militants to kill US troops" - TTG - Sic Semper Tyrannis

blue peacock | 27 June 2020 at 10:19 PM

After Iraq WMD and Russia Collusion, we should ask for real evidence instead of the "top intelligence sources". And we should not buy we can't provide any evidence because of sources & methods.

Be skeptical of anything published by Pravda on the Hudson and Pravda on the Potomac when it comes to intelligence matters. Especially months before a general election.

Fred | 27 June 2020 at 10:32 PM

On to Moscow! Where's Bomb'n Bolton when we need him? "a European intelligence official told CNN."..... "The official did not specify as to the date of the casualties, their number or nationality, or whether these were fatalities or injuries."

So, unknown official, unknown date, unknown if there were any actual casualties.

"The US concluded that the GRU was behind the interference in the 2016 US election and cyberattacks against the Democratic National Committee and top Democratic officials."

Quick, someone tell the House Impeachment Inquiry Committee! Oh, wait, that was Ukraine. What did Mueller collude, I mean conclude, about that Russian interference?

Let me quote the former acting DNI: "You clearly don't understand how raw intel gets verified. Leaks of partial information to reporters from anonymous sources is dangerous because people like you manipulate it for political gain."

https://twitter.com/RichardGrenell/status/1277024942232530945

I believe he was tweeting that to the press, but then they are doing this for political reasons. Lockdowns and socialist revolutionary riots must not be working in the left's favor. I wonder why?

Yeah, Right | 28 June 2020 at 12:50 AM

On a practical note, how was a Taliban soldier militant meant to verify his claim to a bounty? I assume that scalping was not a feasible option, but if you are going to offer a bounty then you are going to want proof that the person claiming that bounty did, indeed, do the job.

So if a coalition soldier died on *this* day how was a Talibani supposed to confirm to the GRU that "Yep, I did that. Where's my money?"

TTG, I think you are being led away from the truth by your significant bias against Russia. Those with a blinkered vision see only what they want to see. No mystery there.

Now you want to portray NYT as the paragon of truth telling!! Haven't we seen enough examples of the lying by Jewish owned neocon media, especially the Times? Now that the Russia-gate fire is nearly put out, these guys are pumping this story.
You really need to understand the depth of hatred the Jews have for Russia and Russians that makes them like this. That's the only country /civilisation that got away from their grasp just when they thought have got it. Not once, but twice in the last century.

But then isn't your ancestry from Lithuania. Your hatred is strong. I get that - I see that all time with people from the ex-Soviet republics formerly ruled by Russia. Hope others see that too.

Barbara Ann , 28 June 2020 at 09:42 AM

Regardless of its veracity, this story will definitely hit Trump where it hurts - chapeau to the individual(s) who conceived this work of fiction, if indeed it is so.

Again, whether or not performance bonuses* were actually offered by the GRU, has anyone considered that this may still be a Russian Intelligence op?

Perhaps we should first ask whether the Kremlin wants to deal with a US under another 4 years of Trump. From their FP POV, the huge uncertainty and instability they see in the US now will surely be ramped up to a whole new level, in the event that he is re-elected. And of course all hope that Trump may be able to improve the relationship with Russia was dashed long ago, by Russiagate and the ongoing Russophobia among the Borg. Jeffrey's mission in Syria is a case in point. At least the US Deep State is the devil they know.

If the answer to the above question is "no" it must surely be a trivial matter for the GRU to feed such a damaging story to Trump's enemies in the USIC.

* "bounties" is an emotive word, useful to Trump's enemies, evoking individual pay for an individual death - real personal stuff. As others have pointed out the practicality of such a scheme seems improbable. Surely it is more likely that any such incentive pay would be for the group, upon coalition casualties confirmed in the aftermath of an attack. The distinction may not seem important, but the Resistance media can be relied upon to use language designed to inflict the most harm.

Flavius , 28 June 2020 at 09:48 AM

'Intel' without evidence is "bunk". Have we learned nothing from Chrissy Steele and the Russiagate fiasco - I know a guy who knows a guy who said... the Russians are bad and Donald Trump is an a......e. Bob Mueller and 18 pissed off democrats have concluded that the Russians are systemically bad and Donald Trump is an a......e. 4 months before a Presidential election intel sources have revealed to the NYT that the Russians are very very bad and Donald Trump is an a......e. Ah yes, the New York Ridiculously Self Degraded Times has broken another important story. I wonder why? Enough already...and yes, we have made a systemic laughing stock of ourselves.

Oh, and remind me again of why we've been staying around Kabul - something about improving the lot of women, or gays, or someone?

Diana Croissant , 28 June 2020 at 09:51 AM

I'm personally not ready to "duck and cover" after reading this.

I have accepted the fact that Russia is no longer the Soviet Union. I am watching television news at night but no longer see the clock ticking as I turn it off and go to sleep. So far, no one I know has taken to building a fallout shelter in his back yard.

I want an answer to this question: Whatever happened to the pillow and blanket I had to bring to school and store in the school's basement in case we all had to retreat there and be locked down in it during the bombing? Who do I go to to get reparations for the cost of those items? (I was never given the opportunity to retrieve them when I graduated.) Did Khrushchev have to take his shoe to a cobbler after using it to pound on the table while threatening to bury us?

Babak makkinejad , 28 June 2020 at 10:19 AM

TTG

The rebuttal from Russia.

Which raises the ante by making very very serious accusations of drug trade by US Intelligence.

https://tass.com/russia/1172369/amp?__twitter_impression=true

Charlie Wilson , 28 June 2020 at 11:06 AM

I think the killing of soldiers should be strictly forbidden. Only civilians should be targeted. It is easier and no one gives a shit.

The Twisted Genius , 28 June 2020 at 11:17 AM

Babak,

There's a rich history of stories about USI involvement in the drug trade. CIA was involved in the heroin trade during the Viet Nam War. The Iran-Contra mess involved selling Columbian cocaine to help finance Nicaraguan anti-Communist rebels. US involvement in the Afghanistan drug trade has been talked about for years. As I said, there are no glitter fartin' unicorns here.

Babak makkinejad , 28 June 2020 at 11:42 AM

TTG

The Iranian statistics do not lie. Transhipment of drugs across Iran from Afghanistan has been increasing since the American invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.

The US Office of Foreign Asset Control, the US DIA, the CIA etc. are powerless to do anything about that but are, evidently, all powerfull against USD transactions of the Iranian government.

[Jun 28, 2020] Russian position for Start talks: "We don't believe the US in its current shape is a counterpart that is reliable, so we have no confidence, no trust whatsoever".

Highly recommended!
Jun 28, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

START. Talks began in Vienna with a childish stunt by the American side . I wouldn't expect any results: the Americans are fatally deluded . As for the Russians: " We don't believe the U.S. in its current shape is a counterpart that is reliable, so we have no confidence, no trust whatsoever ".Russian has a word for that: недоговороспособны and it's characterised US behaviour since at least this event (in Obama's time). Can't make an agreement with them and, even if you do, they won't keep it.

[Jun 28, 2020] It is the US intelligence s job to lie to you. NYT s Afghan bounty story is CIA press release by Caitlin Johnstone

This whole "story" stinks to high heaven. Judy Miller redux - regime-change info ops, coordinated across multiple media organizations.
Notable quotes:
"... To be clear, this is journalistic malpractice. Mainstream media outlets which publish anonymous intelligence claims with no proof are just publishing CIA press releases disguised as news. They're just telling you to believe what sociopathic intelligence agencies want you to believe under the false guise of impartial and responsible reporting. This practice has become ubiquitous throughout mainstream news publications, but that doesn't make it any less immoral. ..."
"... "Same old story: alleged intelligence ops IMPOSSIBLE to verify, leaked to the press which reports them quoting ANONYMOUS officials," tweeted journalist Stefania Maurizi. ..."
"... "So we are to simply believe the same intelligence orgs that paid bounties to bring innocent prisoners to Guantanamo, lied about torture in Afghanistan, and lied about premises for war from WMD in Iraq to the Gulf of Tonkin 'attack'? All this and no proof?" ..."
"... "It's totally outrageous for Russia to support the Taliban against Americans in Afghanistan. Of course, it's totally fine for the US to support jihadi rebels against Russians in Syria, jihadi rebels who openly said the Taliban is their hero," ..."
"... On the flip side, all the McResistance pundits have been speaking of this baseless allegation as a horrific event that is known to have happened, with Rachel Maddow going so far as to describe it as Putin offering bounties for the "scalps" of American soldiers in Afghanistan. This is an interesting choice of words, considering that offering bounties for scalps is, in fact, one of the many horrific things the US government did in furthering its colonialist ambitions , which, unlike the New York Times allegation, is known to have actually happened. ..."
Jun 28, 2020 | www.rt.com
By Caitlin Johnstone , an independent journalist based in Melbourne, Australia. Her website is here and you can follow her on Twitter @caitoz

Whenever one sees a news headline ending in "US Intelligence Says", one should always mentally replace everything that comes before it with "Blah blah blah we're probably lying."

"Russia Secretly Offered Afghan Militants Bounties to Kill Troops, US Intelligence Says", blares the latest viral headline from the New York Times . NYT's unnamed sources allege that the GRU "secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing coalition forces in Afghanistan -- including targeting American troops", and that the Trump administration has known this for months.

To be clear, this is journalistic malpractice. Mainstream media outlets which publish anonymous intelligence claims with no proof are just publishing CIA press releases disguised as news. They're just telling you to believe what sociopathic intelligence agencies want you to believe under the false guise of impartial and responsible reporting. This practice has become ubiquitous throughout mainstream news publications, but that doesn't make it any less immoral.

Also on rt.com There they go again: NYT serves up spy fantasy about Russian 'bounties' on US troops in Afghanistan

In a post-Iraq-invasion world, the only correct response to unproven anonymous claims about a rival government by intelligence agencies from the US or its allies is to assume that they are lying until you are provided with a mountain of independently verifiable evidence to the contrary. The US has far too extensive a record of lying about these things for any other response to ever be justified as rational, and its intelligence agencies consistently play a foundational role in those lies.

Voices outside the mainstream-narrative control matrix have been calling these accusations what they are: baseless, lacking in credibility, and not reflective of anything other than fair play, even if true.

"Same old story: alleged intelligence ops IMPOSSIBLE to verify, leaked to the press which reports them quoting ANONYMOUS officials," tweeted journalist Stefania Maurizi.

America to end 'era of endless wars' & stop being policeman, Trump gives same old election promises he broke

"So we are to simply believe the same intelligence orgs that paid bounties to bring innocent prisoners to Guantanamo, lied about torture in Afghanistan, and lied about premises for war from WMD in Iraq to the Gulf of Tonkin 'attack'? All this and no proof?" tweeted author and analyst Jeffrey Kaye.

"It's totally outrageous for Russia to support the Taliban against Americans in Afghanistan. Of course, it's totally fine for the US to support jihadi rebels against Russians in Syria, jihadi rebels who openly said the Taliban is their hero," tweeted author and analyst Max Abrams.

On the flip side, all the McResistance pundits have been speaking of this baseless allegation as a horrific event that is known to have happened, with Rachel Maddow going so far as to describe it as Putin offering bounties for the "scalps" of American soldiers in Afghanistan. This is an interesting choice of words, considering that offering bounties for scalps is, in fact, one of the many horrific things the US government did in furthering its colonialist ambitions , which, unlike the New York Times allegation, is known to have actually happened.

It is true, as many have been pointing out, that it would be fair play for Russia to fund violent opposition the the US in Afghanistan, seeing as that's exactly what the US and its allies have been doing to Russia and its allies in Syria, and did to the Soviets in Afghanistan via Operation Cyclone . It is also true that the US military has no business in Afghanistan anyway, and any violence inflicted on US troops abroad is the fault of the military expansionists who put them there. The US military has no place outside its own easily defended borders, and the assumption that it is normal for a government to circle the planet with military bases is a faulty premise.

'Unsophisticated' disinformation: Moscow rebuffs NYT story alleging Russia offered Taliban money to kill US troops in Afghanistan

But before even getting into such arguments, the other side of the debate must meet its burden of proof that this has even happened. That burden is far from met. It is literally the US intelligence community's job to lie to you. The New York Times has an extensive history of pushing for new wars at every opportunity, including the unforgivable Iraq invasion , which killed a million people, based on lies. A mountain of proof is required before such claims should be seriously considered, and we are very, very far from that.

I will repeat myself: it is the US intelligence community's job to lie to you. I will repeat myself again: it is the US intelligence community's job to lie to you. Don't treat these CIA press releases with anything but contempt.

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.

[Jun 28, 2020] https://saraacarter.com/ag-barr-reveals-durhams-probe-into-fbi-will-have-developments-by-summers-end/

Jun 28, 2020 | saraacarter.com

Bartiromo's interview with Barr on "Sunday Morning Futures," is the first time the Attorney General has given a time frame for the information. He also noted that he was surprised by the lack of public interest in Durham's investigation.

Unfortunately, in the opinion of this writer, the lack of public interest in the Durham probe may have more to do with the Justice Department's secrecy to discuss the investigation publicly and the failure – as of yet – to indict or hold many of those involved legally accountable for their actions.

Although Barr has been the most informative on the Durham investigation during his interviews, other Justice Department officials have been less than cooperative when asked about developments in the probe and therefore making it less likely to garner public interest.

Durham's investigation, however, is expanding on the evidence amassed by both Congress and Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz's December report. That report revealed numerous omissions and lies in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Application on Carter Page, a short term 2016 Trump campaign volunteer.

"So that has been surprising to me, that people aren't concerned about civil liberties and the integrity of our governmental process in terms of the future of Durham's investigation," Barr said. "You know, he's pressing ahead as hard as he can. And I expect that, you know, we will have some developments hopefully before the end of the summer." Still, Barr made it clear that Durham's probe is expected to continue passed the November's election.

He noted one caveat, that depends "on who wins the election."

He also discussed with Bartiromo the unmasking of Trump campaign officials during the 2016 elections saying, "I would say it's unusual for an outgoing administration, high level officials, to be unmasking very, you know, very much in the days they're preparing to leave office. Makes you wonder what they were doing."

[Jun 26, 2020] Gaslighting Nobody, The Blob Struggles for Primacy by Kelley Beaucar Vlahos

Jun 24, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

The national security elite now wants us to believe we are seeing things that aren't really there. 'Gaslight' lobbycard, from left, Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, 1944. (Photo by LMPC via Getty Images)

Ten years ago, "restraint" was considered code for "isolationism" and its purveyors were treated with nominal attention and barely disguised condescension. Today, agitated national security elites who can no longer ignore the restrainers -- and the positive attention they're getting -- are trying to cut them down to size.

We saw this recently when Peter Feaver, Hal Brands, and William Imboden, who all made their mark promoting George W. Bush's war policies after 9/11, published "In Defense of the Blob" for Foreign Affairs in April. My own pushback received an attempted drubbing in The Washington Post by national security professor Daniel Drezner ( he of the Twitter fame ): "For one thing, her essay repeatedly contradicts itself. The Blob is an exclusive cabal, and yet Vlahos also says it's on the wane."

One can be both, Professor. As they say, Rome didn't fall in a day. What we are witnessing are individuals and institutions sensing existential vulnerabilities. The restrainers have found a nerve and the Blob is feeling the pinch. Now it's starting to throw its tremendous girth around.

The latest example is from Michael J. Mazarr, senior political scientist at the Rand Corporation, which since 1948 has essentially provided the brainpower behind the Military Industrial Congressional Complex. Mazarr published this voluminous warrant against restrainers in the most recent issue of The Washington Quarterly, which is run by the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. Its editorial board reeks of the conventional internationalist thinking that has prevailed over the last 70 years.

In "Rethinking Restraint: Why It Fails in Practice," Mazarr insists that the critics have it all wrong: "American primacy" is way overstated and the U.S. has been more moderate in military interventions than it's given credit for. Moreover, he says, the restrainers divide current "US strategy into two broad caricatures -- primacy or liberal hegemony at one extreme, and restraint at the other. Such an approach overlooks a huge, untidy middle ground where the views of most US national security officials reside and where most US policies operate."

There is much to unpack in his nearly 10,000-word brief, and much to counter it. For example, Monica Duffy Toft has done incredible research into the history of U.S. interventions over the last 70 years, in part studying the number of times we've used force in response to incidents of foreign aggression. While the United States engaged in 46 military interventions from 1948 to 1991, from 1992 to 2017, that number increased fourfold to 188 (chart below). Kind of calls Mazarr's "frequent impulse to moderation" theory into question.

But I would like to zero in on the most infuriating charge, which mimics Drezner, Brands, Feaver, et al.: that the idea of a powerful, largely homogeneous foreign policy establishment dominating top levels of government, think tanks, media, and academia is really all in our heads. It's not real.

This weak attempt to gaslight the rest of us is an insult to George Cukor's 1944 Hollywood classic . It's unworthy. In the section "There is No Sinister National Security Elite," Mazarr turns to Stephen Walt (who wrote an entire book on the self-destructive Blob) and Andrew Bacevich (who has written that the ideology of American exceptionalism and primacy "serves the interests of those who created the national security state and those who still benefit from its continued existence"). This elite, both men charge, enjoy "status, influence, and considerable wealth" in return for supporting the consensus.

To this Mazarr contends, "Apart from collections of anecdotes, those convinced of the existence of such a homogenous elite offer no objective evidence -- such as surveys, interviews, or comprehensive literature reviews -- to back up these sweeping claims." Then failing to offer his own evidence, he argues:

on specific policy questions -- whether to go to war or conduct a humanitarian intervention, or what policy to adopt toward China or Cuba or Russia or Iran -- debates in Washington are deep, intense, and sometimes bitter. To take just a single example from recent history, the Obama administration's decision to endorse a surge in Afghanistan came only after extended deliberation and soul-searching, and it included a major, and highly controversial, element of restraint -- a very public deadline to begin a graduated withdrawal.

Let's go back to 2009, because some of us actually remember these "deep, intense, and sometimes bitter" times.

First, the only "bitter debates" were between the military, which wanted to "surge" 40,000 troops into Afghanistan in the first year of Obama's presidency, and the president, who had promised to bring the war to an end. After months, Obama "compromised" when in December 2009, he announced a plan for 30,000 new troops (which would bring the then-current number to 98,000) and a timetable for withdrawal of 18 months hence, which really pleased no one , not even the outlier restrainers, like Mazarr suggests.

In fact, restrainers knew the timetable was bunk, and it was. In 2011, there were still 100,000 troops on the ground. In fact, it didn't get down to pre-2009 levels until December 2013.

But let it be clear: the only contention in December 2009 was over the timetable (the hawks at the Heritage Foundation and AEI wanted an open-ended commitment) and whether the president should have been more deferential to his generals (General Stanley McCrystal had just been installed as commander in Afghanistan and the mainstream media was fawning ). Otherwise, every major think tank in town and national security pundit blasted out press releases and op-eds supporting the presidents strategy with varying degrees of enthusiasm. None, aside from the usual TAC suspects, raised a serious note against it. Examples:

John " Eating Soup with a Knife " Nagl, Center for a New American Security : "This strategy will protect the Afghan population with international forces now and build Afghan security forces that in time will allow an American drawdown–leaving behind a more capable Afghan government and a more secure region which no longer threatens the United States and our allies." Each of the CNAS fellows on this press release offer a variation on the same theme, with some more energetic than others. Ditto for this one from The Council on Foreign Relations .

Vanda Felhab-Brown, Brookings Institution : "there would have been no chance to turn the security situation around, take the momentum away from the Taliban, and hence, enable economic development and improvements in governance and rule of law, without the surge."

David Ignatius, The Washington Post : "Obama has made what I think is the right decision: The only viable 'exit strategy' from Afghanistan is one that starts with a bang -- by adding 30,000 more U.S. troops to secure the major population centers, so that control can be transferred to the Afghan army and police."

Ahead of Obama's decision (during the "bitter debate"), the Brookings Institution's Michael O'Hanlon, a fixture on The Washington Pos t op-ed pages and cable news shows -- was pushing for the maximum : "President Barack Obama should approve the full buildup his commanders are requesting, even as he also steels the nation for a difficult and uncertain mission ahead."

Meanwhile, all of the so-called progressive national security groups, including the Center for American Progress, Third Way, and the National Security Network, heralded Obama's plan as "a smarter, stronger strategy that stated clear objectives and is based on American security interests, namely preventing terrorist attacks."

"Counterintuitively," they said in a joint statement , "sending more troops will allow us to get out more quickly."

Anthony Cordesman at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has always been a thoughtful skeptic, but he never fails to offer a hedge on whatever new plan comes down the pike. Here he is on Obama's surge , exemplifying how difficult it was/is for the establishment to just call a failure a failure:

The strategy President Obama has set forth in broad terms can still win if the Afghan government and Afghan forces become more effective, if NATO/ISAF national contingents provide more unity of effort, if aid donors focus on the fact that development cannot succeed unless the Afghan people see real progress where they live in the near future, and if the United States shows strategic patience and finally provides the resources necessary to win.

That's a lot of "ifs," but they provide amazing cover for those who don't want to admit the cause is lost -- or can't -- because their work depends on giving the military and State Department something to do. This is what happens when your think tank relies on government contracts and grants and arms industry money . According to The New York Times, major defense contractors Lockheed Martin and Boeing gave some $77 million to a dozen think tanks between 2010 and 2016.

They aren't getting the money to advocate that troops, contractors, NGO's, and diplomats come home and stay put. Money and agenda underwrites who is heading the think tanks, who speaks for the national security programs, and who populates conferences, book launches, speeches, and television appearances. Mazarr doesn't think this can be quantified but it's rather easy. Google "2009 Afghanistan conference/panel/speakers" and plenty of events come up. Pick any year, the results are predictable.

Here's a Brookings Panel in August 2009 , assessing the Afghanistan election, including Anthony Cordesman, Kimberly Kagan, and Michael O'Hanlon. Not a lot of "diversity" there. Here's a taste of the 2009 annual CNAS conference, which featured the usual suspects, including David Petraeus, Ambassador Nicholas Burns, and 1,400 people in attendance. Aside from Andrew " Skunk at the Garden Party " Bacevich, there was little to distinguish one world view from another among the panelists. (CNAS was originally founded in support of Hillary Clinton's 2008 campaign; she spoke at the inaugural conference in 2007. Former president Michele Flournoy later landed in the E-Ring of the Pentagon.) Meanwhile, here's a Hudson Institute tribute to David Petraeus, attended by Scooter Libby, and a December 2009 Atlantic Council panel with -- you guessed it -- Kimberly Kagan and two military representatives thrown in to pump up McChrystal and NATO and staying the course.

On top of it all, these events and their people never failed to get the attention of the major corporate media, which just loved the idea of warrior-monk generals "liberating" Afghanistan through a "government in a box" counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy.

Honestly, thank goodness for Cato , which before the new Quincy Institute, was the only think tank to feature COIN critics like Colonel Gian Gentile , and not just as foils. The Center for the National Interest also harbored skeptics of the president's strategy. But they were outnumbered too.

This is what I want to convey. Mazarr boasts there is a galaxy of opinion today over U.S. policy in Iran, China, Russia, NATO. I would argue there is a narrow spectrum of technical and ideological disagreement in all these cases, but nowhere was it more important to have strong, competing voices than during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and there was none of that in any realistic sense of the word.

I challenge him and the others to take down the straw men and own the ecosystem to which they owe their success in Washington (Mazarr just published a piece called "Toward a New Theory of Power Projection" for goodness sake). Stop trying to pretend what is there isn't. Realists and restrainers are happy to debate the merits of our different approaches, but gaslighting is for nefarious lovers and we're no Ingrid Bergman. about the author

Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, executive editor, has been writing for TAC since 2007, focusing on national security, foreign policy, civil liberties and domestic politics. She served for 15 years as a Washington bureau reporter for FoxNews.com, and at WTOP News in Washington from 2013-2017 as a writer, digital editor and social media strategist. She has also worked as a beat reporter at Bridge News financial wire (now part of Reuters) and Homeland Security Today, and as a regular contributor at Antiwar.com. A native Nutmegger, she got her start in Connecticut newspapers, but now resides with her family in Arlington, Va.

[Jun 25, 2020] Flynn Dismissal Order 'Thoroughly Demolishes' Dissenting Judge's Opinion

Notable quotes:
"... Once the FBI's malfeasance was uncovered, the Justice Department moved to dismiss the case after Attorney General William Barr tapped an outside prosecutor to examine the FBI's conduct. Judge Sullivan rejected the DOJ's request - instead calling on an outside lawyer to make arguments against the DOJ's move to drop the case. ..."
"... Shortly before the DOJ move to dismiss, former Mueller prosecutor Brandon Van Grack suddenly withdrew from the case (and others). Flynn's new attorney, Sidney Powell, said that government documents revealed "further evidence of misconduct by Mr. Van Grack specifically." ..."
Jun 25, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

by Tyler Durden Thu, 06/25/2020 - 04:12 Update (2135ET): Missouri appellate attorney John Reeves has weighed in on today's decision by the US Court of Appeals for DC ordering Judge Emmett Sullivan to grant a DOJ request to drop the case against Michael Flynn.

The opinion, authored by one of the three judges on the panel, Neomi J. Rao, " thoroughly demolishes " a dissenting opinion by Judge Robert Wilkins - who Reeves thinks was so off-base that he " shot himself in the foot " when it comes to any chance of an 'en-banc review' in which the Flynn decision would be kicked back for a full review by the DC appellate court.

Neomi Rao testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee during her confirmation hearing to be U.S. Circuit Judge for the District of Columbia Circuit, on Tuesday, February 5, 2019. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM (via law.com)

Reeves, who has written filings for US Supreme Court cases, unpacks Rao's "outstanding opinion" in the below Twitter thread, conveniently adding which page you can find what he's referring to ( condensed below after the first tweet, emphasis ours ):

THREAD re: Flynn mandamus opinion
1) Judge Rao's opinion--joined by Judge Henderson--granting Flynn mandamus is outstanding not only for its legal reasoning, but also for how it COMPLETELY EVISCERATES Judge Wilkins' dissenting opinion. https://t.co/LBqGihkrMH

-- John M. Reeves (@reeveslawstl) June 24, 2020

In all my years of appellate practice, I don't think I've ever seen a non-US Supreme Court appellate opinion that so thoroughly demolishes a dissenting opinion as this one. Judge Rao could not have done better in writing the opinion , and it should be required law school rdg.

In addition, Judge Wilkins' dissenting opinion is so off-the-mark that I believe he has shot himself in the foot for purposes of en banc review --in other words, he has ensured that otherwise-sympathetic judges on the DC Circuit will vote against en banc review.

Judge Rao comes out swinging by holding that its earlier opinion in Fokker "foreclose[s] the district court's proposed scrutiny of the government's motion to dismiss the Flynn prosecution." p. 7.

In relying on Fokker, Judge Rao explicitly rejects Judge Wilkinson's argument that Fokker's holding is dicta (that is, non-binding) . She holds Fokker "is directly controlling here." p. 14.

Keep in mind that Fokker was written by Chief Judge Srinivasan, an OBAMA appointee. Judge Srinivasan does NOT want Fokker's legitimacy undermined , no matter his politics.

Judge Wilkins' dissent implies that Fokker was wrongly decided , and that it conflicts with other federal appellate courts. See p. 23 of 28. Judge Srinivasan will NOT be impressed by this argument in deciding whether to grant en banc rehearing . Fokker does not create a split.

Judge Rao goes on to emphasize that while judicial inquiry MAY be justified in some circumstances, Flynn's situation "is plainly not the rare case where further judicial inquiry is warranted." p. 6.

Rao notes that Flynn agrees with the Govt.'s dismissal motion, so there's no risk of his rights being violated. In addition, the Government has stated insufficient evidence exists to convict Flynn . p. 6.

Rao also holds that " a hearing cannot be used as an occasion to superintend the prosecution's charging decisions. " p. 7.

But by appointing amicus and attempting to hold a hearing on these matters, the district court is inflicting irreparable harm on the Govt. because it is subjecting its prosecutorial decisions to outside inquiry. p. 8

Thus, Judge Rao holds, it is NOT true that the district court has "yet to act" in this matter, contrary to Judge Wilkins' assertions. p. 16.

" [T]he district court HAS acted here....[by appointing] one private citizen to argue that another citizen should be deprived of his liberty regardless of whether the Executive Branch is willing to pursue the charges. " p. 16. This justified mandamus being issued NOW.

Judge Rao also makes short work of Judge Wilkins' argument that the court may not consider the harm to the Government in deciding whether to grant mandamus bc the Government never filed a petition for mandamus. p. 17.

Judge Rao notes " [o]ur court has squarely rejected this argument, " and follows with a plethora of supporting citations. p. 17.

Judge Rao also notes--contrary to what many legal commentators have misled the public to believe--that it is "black letter law" that the Govt. can seek dismissal even after a guilty plea is made . This does not justify greater scrutiny by the district court. p. 6, footnote 1.

As to Judge Wilkins' argument that a district court may conduct greater scrutiny where, as here, the Govt. reverses its position in prosecuting a case, Judge Rao points out that " the government NECESSARILY reverses its position whenever it moves to dismiss charges.... " p. 13

"Given the absence of any legitimate basis to question the presumption of regularity, there is no justification to appoint a private citizen to oppose the government's motion to dismiss Flynn's prosecution. " p. 13.

But Judge Rao saves her most stinging and brutal takedown of Judge Wilkins' dissent for the end.....(cont)

Judge Rao writes that " the dissent swings for the fences--and misses--by analogizing a Rule 48(a) motion to dismiss with a selective prosecution claim. " p. 17. (cont)

While it is true that the Executive cannot selectively prosecute certain individuals "based on impermissible considerations," p. 18, " the equal protection remedy is to dismiss the prosecution, NOT to compel the Executive to bring another prosecution ." p. 18 (emph. added).

And Judge Rao is just getting warmed up here....She then notes that " unwarranted judicial scrutiny of a prosecutor's motion to dismiss puts the court in an entirely different position [than selective prosecution caselaw assigns the court] ." p. 18 (cont)

"Rather than allow the Executive Branch to dismiss a problematic prosecution, the court [as Judge Wilkins and Judge Sullivan would have it] assumes the role of inquisitor, prolonging a prosecution deemed illegitimate by the Executive. " p. 18 (cont).

And now for Judge Rao's KO to Judge Wilkins and Judge Sullivan: " Judges assume that role in some countries, but Article III gives no prosecutorial or inquisitional power to federal judges ." p. 18. (cont)

In other words, Judge Rao is likening Judge Wilkins' arguments, and Judge Sullivan's actions, to what is done in non-democratic, third world countries . p. 18. Outstanding opinion. No mercy . END

Judge Robert Wilkins of the District of Columbia Circuit ( Credit: Diego M. Radzinschi / NLJ)

* * *

Like a liquid-metal terminator with half its head blown apart, the case against Michael Flynn just won't die.

Hours after the US Court of Appeals for DC ordered Judge Emmett Sullivan to grant the DOJ's request to drop the case, the retired 'resistance' judge hired to defend Sullivan's actions has filed a motion requesting an extension to file his findings against Flynn .

The D.C. Appeals Court today vacated the lawless appointment of a left-wing shadow prosecutor to go after Flynn.

Gleeson, the Resistance dead-ender hired by Sullivan, is ignoring the order and plowing ahead with his illegal inquisition against Flynn. https://t.co/bOeG7pRJxv

-- Sean Davis (@seanmdav) June 24, 2020

* * *

In a major victory for Michael Flynn, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has ordered Judge Emmet Sullivan to grant the Justice Department's request to dismiss the case against the former Trump National Security Adviser.

"Upon consideration of the emergency petition for a writ of mandamus, the responses thereto, and the reply, the briefs of amici curiae in support of the parties, and the argument by counsel, it is ORDERED that Flynn's petition for a writ of mandamus be granted in part; the District Court is directed to grant the government's Rule 48(a) motion to dismiss; nd the District Court's order appointing an amicus is hereby vacated as moot , in accordance with the opinion of the court filed herein this date," reads the order.

Appeals court orders Flynn judge to grant dismissal of the case pic.twitter.com/MmWSDrzHCh

-- kadhim (^ー^)ノ (@kadhim) June 24, 2020

In their decision, the appeals court wrote: " Decisions to dismiss pending criminal charges - no less than decisions to initiate charges and to identify which charges to bring - lie squarely within the ken of prosecutorial discretion . "

"The Judiciary's role under Rule 48 is thus confined to "extremely limited circumstances in extraordinary cases.""

Hence, no dice for Judge Sullivan.

Great! Appeals Court Upholds Justice Departments Request To Drop Criminal Case Against General Michael Flynn!

-- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 24, 2020

Flynn pleaded guilty in December 2017 to lying to the FBI about his conversations with former Russian Ambassador to the US, Sergey Kislyak, during the presidential transition following the 2016 US election. He later withdrew his plea after securing new legal counsel, while evidence emerged which revealed the FBI had laid a ' perjury trap ' - despite the fact that the agents who interviewed him in January, 2017 said they thought he was telling the truth . Agents persisted hunting Flynn despite the FBI's recommendation to close the case.

Once the FBI's malfeasance was uncovered, the Justice Department moved to dismiss the case after Attorney General William Barr tapped an outside prosecutor to examine the FBI's conduct. Judge Sullivan rejected the DOJ's request - instead calling on an outside lawyer to make arguments against the DOJ's move to drop the case.

In their Wednesday decision , the Appeals court noted that "the government's motion includes an extensive discussion of newly discovered evidence casting Flynn's guilt into doubt."

Specifically, the government points to evidence that the FBI interview at which Flynn allegedly made false statements was "untethered to, and unjustified by, the FBI's counterintelligence investigation into Mr. Flynn." -US Court of Appeals

Shortly before the DOJ move to dismiss, former Mueller prosecutor Brandon Van Grack suddenly withdrew from the case (and others). Flynn's new attorney, Sidney Powell, said that government documents revealed "further evidence of misconduct by Mr. Van Grack specifically."

Sullivan urged the federal appeals court to also reject Flynn's bid to bring an end to the case, which has now ruled against the judge .

Meanwhile...

Looks like @JoeBiden and @BarackObama were complicit in framing @GenFlynn .

I can't wait for Flynn to tell all he knows about these traitors. https://t.co/JynrbnuawE

-- John Cardillo (@johncardillo) June 24, 2020

Read the full decision below:

[Jun 25, 2020] 'Russiagate' case against ex-Trump adviser Michael Flynn effectively OVER, as DC appeals court orders to close it

Jun 25, 2020 | www.rt.com

An appeals court in Washington, DC, ruled that the case against President Trump's one-time national security adviser, Michael Flynn, must end. The Justice Department had dropped charges against Flynn, but his case remained open. In a ruling issued on Wednesday, the Washington DC Circuit Court of Appeals effectively ended the case against Flynn, ordering federal judge Emmet Sullivan to heed the Justice Department's advice and close the case. Sullivan had attempted to keep the case active, even though the Justice Department dropped its charges against Flynn last month.

The appeals battle was a last-ditch showdown between Flynn and the Justice Department on one side, and Sullivan on the other. Though reporters as recently as last week reckoned the appeals court would side with Sullivan, they were proven wrong on Wednesday morning.

[Jun 25, 2020] Meanwhile...

Jun 25, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Looks like @JoeBiden and @BarackObama were complicit in framing @GenFlynn .

I can't wait for Flynn to tell all he knows about these traitors. https://t.co/JynrbnuawE

-- John Cardillo (@johncardillo) June 24, 2020

[Jun 25, 2020] Seven Big Hints AG Barr Has Dropped About Durham's Probe Of The Russia Investigators

Jun 25, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Seven Big Hints AG Barr Has Dropped About Durham's Probe Of The Russia Investigators


by Tyler Durden Wed, 06/24/2020 - 13:50 Authored by John Solomon via JustTheNews.com,

Attorney General William Barr is bringing increasing clarity to the focus of U.S. Attorney John Durham's criminal investigation into the conduct of the Russia collusion investigators.

In a series of recent interviews, the nation's chief enforcement officer has dropped some big hints about what is under investigation, who is and isn't being investigated, and what evidence uncovered by the Durham team is emerging as important.

Barr also has suggested what events in the timeline are emerging as important in the 2016-17 effort to find dirt on President Trump and his campaign and transition team.

Here are the seven most important revelations Barr has made over the last month.

1. Timetable: Durham's investigation has been slowed by the pandemic. But some action is expected by end of summer, and the probe could stretch beyond Election Day.

Barr told Fox News' Maria Bartiromo on Sunday that the coronavirus has slowed Durham's ability to interview witnesses and use a grand jury if needed, though he did not officially confirm there was grand jury activity in the case.

"It is a fact that there have not been grand juries in virtually all districts for a long period of time," Barr said.

But most importantly, the attorney general laid out a likely timeline for when the first actions might be taken in the case, while stressing the probe could carry beyond the election.

"In terms of the future of Durham's investigation, he's pressing ahead as hard as he can, and I expect that we will have some developments, hopefully before the end of the summer," Barr said. "But as I've said, his investigation will continue. It's not going to stop because of the election. What happens after the election may depend on who wins the election."

2. Barr believes evidence used by the FBI to justify opening an investigation into the Trump campaign's ties to Moscow was very thin.

The attorney general has made clear in multiple interviews that Australian diplomat Alexander Downer's meeting with Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos at a London bar in May 2016 was a weak justification for opening Crossfire Hurricane.

Downer claimed Papadopoulos made comments about Russians possessing dirt on Hillary Clinton, and the FBI believed that was enough to predicate a counterintelligence investigation.

DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz agreed in his report that was enough, but found substantial evidence the FBI cheated afterwards to keep the probe going in the absence of evidence of wrongdoing.

Barr does not seem to accept the opening of the FBI probe was justified.

Papadopoulos' alleged "comment in a London wine bar" would be "a very slender reed to get law enforcement and intelligence agencies involved in investigating the campaign of one's political opponent," Barr declared Sunday.

Barr isn't the only high-profile figure to think that. Former FBI Assistant Director for Intelligence Kevin Brock has said the FBI memo opening Crossfire Hurricane did not meet the standards for opening a counter-intelligence investigation.

3. Investigators are focused on what happened before Crossfire Hurricane officially started, including when Christopher Steele first began compiling his dossier.

In multiple interviews, Barr has made clear Durham's team is examining what actions government officials and private individuals may have taken in the winter and spring of 2016 before the FBI officially opened its probe of the Trump campaign on July 31, 2016.

Perhaps the most tantalizing statement Barr has made on this came Sunday when he suggested it was important that Steele began working on his dossier before July 2016, raising the possibility that some unexplained events earlier that year may have been connected to that early Steele work.

"I understand why it is important to try to determine whether there was any activity before July, before the Papadopoulos wine bar conversation," Barr explained. "And so people are looking at that. It's significant also that the dossier was initiated before July."

4. Barr views the FBI's continuation of the Russia probe after the Steele dossier "collapsed" as an illegitimate effort to remove the president.

Barr has repeatedly cited the fact that the FBI continued to rely on the Steele dossier after the former MI6 agent's primary sub-source contradicted information in the dossier in January 2017 and March 2017 -- and failed to tell the FISA court about the problems with the repudiated evidence.

"The dossier pretty much collapsed at that point -- and yet they continued to use it as a basis for pursuing this counterintelligence investigation," Barr noted this past weekend.

The attorney general suggested such behavior supports arguments that what was really going on was an attempted coup to remove Trump from office. "It is the closest we have come to an organized effort to push a president out of office," he said.

5. There are multiple criminal investigations into leaks of classified information.

Barr made clear that Durham and others are examining multiple leaks for possible criminal violations while cautioning proving leak cases can be challenging. One of those is focused on who leaked Michael Flynn's call with the Russian ambassador.

"Leaking national defense information, unauthorized disclosure of that information is a felony," Barr said. "We have a lot of leak investigations underway."

6. Barr is concerned by the outgoing Obama administration's extensive unmasking of Americans' conversations ... but don't expect Barack Obama or Joe Biden to get in trouble.

After the recent revelation that more than three dozen Obama administration officials sought to unmask intercepted conversations of incoming Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, Barr declared, "It makes you wonder what they were doing."

"It's unusual for an outgoing administration, high-level officials, to be unmasking very much in the days they're preparing to leave office," he added.

As a sign of that concern, Barr has named a U.S. attorney from Texas to assist Durham to examine the unmaskings for any illegalities.

But Barr also tamped down any expectation that the former president or vice president will be investigated, stating clearly they are not targets of the probe.

"As to President Obama and Vice President Biden, whatever their level of involvement, based on the information I have today, I don't expect Mr. Durham's work will lead to a criminal investigation of either man," the attorney general said last month. "Our concern over potential criminality is focused on others."

7. Durham is examining whether political pressures were applied during the intelligence community's assessment of Russia's intentions in 2016 election meddling. That could be bad news for former CIA chief John Brennan.

In the Obama administration's final days, Brennan, outgoing DNI James Clapper and then-FBI Director James Comey release the Intelligence Community Assessment, which declared Russia meddled in the 2016 election with hacking and Facebook ads and that Moscow's intention was to help Trump win.

The first conclusion is widely accepted, while the second is more controversial, especially now that evidence has been declassified showing Russia was feeding derogatory disinformation about Trump to Steele. Why, experts wonder, would Russia be doing that if Putin wanted Trump to win?

Barr said Durham is investigating whether any political pressure was brought to bear to come to that second conclusion. Sources have told Just the News there is some evidence that CIA analysts and others had concerns about the strength of the evidence about Russia's intentions.
play_arrow Itinerant , 1 hour ago

The first conclusion is widely accepted ... declared Russia meddled in the 2016 election with hacking and Facebook ads

And it's high time for a dose of reality.

1. There's no evidence of a hack , as CrowdStrike stated in interviews that have been released. There is a lot of evidence that it was a leak from inside the DNC premises, and that Guccifer is an Intelligence Agency persona.

2. There's no evidence that Putin (or his administration) directed any purported Russian meddling campaign.

3. There's no evidence that the Facebook ads were not click bait and were ever intentioned to cause "Division". No coherent account can be given as to what "disinformation" they were trying to spread, and why the Russian leadership would want to spread such "disinformation". In fact, "it was so sophisticated that it remained hidden in plain view". That's because the whole story is just psychological projection, based on assumptions of what the Russians would want to do (no connection to anything they've ever said). Just look at some of the examples, and you can reach no other conclusion than: Click bait.

CallOfTheWild , 3 hours ago

The Watch Pot NEVER BOILS.....WTF

Brennan
Clapper
Comey
McCabe
Strzok
Page
Ohr
Halper
Mifsud
Baker
Preistep
Yates
Rosenstein
Obama
Wray
Simpson
Clinton x2
Weissmann
Lynch
Jarrett
Rice
Fritsch
Power
McLaughlin
Ferrante

Boomer's revenge , 6 hours ago

Un acceptable. They commited a treasonous Coup d'état with impunity, insulting and ridiculing all of us as they did it. "Could smell the Trump voters at Walmart".

ComradeChe , 7 hours ago

There was genius in the "Russian Collision" narrative; they kept it up, incessantly, even as it was factually falling apart. There was no link. And still they kept at it. The result was that everyone is SICK TO DEATH of this crap. No one cares. The Trump haters gonna hate regardless-- and everyone else, whether they back the president or not, are just over it. It blew up in Pelosi's face-- but no one cares.

Now, most of America is three mortgage payments behind and they don't give a damn about anything but trying to keep their lives together. Obama, Rice, Clapper, Brennan et al pulled off the most egregious political crime in the history of the republic. Even in his wildest dreams Tricky **** Nixon couldn't get the IRS, the NSA and the CIA to do political hits for him. But Obama-- nails it. The trifecta: the IRS 'rogue agents from Cincinnati' stifle the Tea Party; the FBI/CIA jerk off the FISA Court with a bought and paid for shovel full of BS, and then use the NSA to spy on a political candidate-- and better yet, conspire with foreign intelligence services who utilize electronic surveillance within the US, so the CIA can keep its skirts clean; and lastly, the circular firing squad of the National Security council facilitates the 'unmasking' of dozens of Americans who are not terrorists, or spies but political opponents.

No this didn't happen in Guatemala. This happened in the US.

And you know what? Obama and all his minions ARE going to get away with it. Barry got away with presenting a birth certificate cobbled together on Adobe Illustrator; they didn't even bother to make a PDF out of it. It was BAM in your face, 23 different fonts on 15 different layers. So what? Hillary got away with keeping hundreds of Top Secret Codeword documents on a home made web server. So what? Then she got away with accepting a sweet &130 million payoff for the Clinton Foundation, right after she okayed the transfer of 25% of our enriched Uranium to... wait for it... Putin. And then the IC blames Trump for being a stooge of Putin.

It's too rich. If you are waiting for justice, forget it. I've seen this movie before.

Arch_Stanton , 8 hours ago

1. Timetable: Durham's investigation has been slowed by the pandemic. But some action is expected by end of summer, and the probe could stretch beyond Election Day.

There will be no action, or should I say inaction, until after the election

2. Barr believes evidence used by the FBI to justify opening an investigation into the Trump campaign's ties to Moscow was very thin.

3. Investigators are focused on what happened before Crossfire Hurricane officially started, including when Christopher Steele first began compiling his dossier.

4. Barr views the FBI's continuation of the Russia probe after the Steele dossier "collapsed" as an illegitimate effort to remove the president.

This is true and we all knew this over 3 years ago.

5. There are multiple criminal investigations into leaks of classified information.

Multiple leaks? No kidding.

6. Barr is concerned by the outgoing Obama administration's extensive unmasking of Americans' conversations ... but don't expect Barack Obama or Joe Biden to get in trouble.

We are all far more than "concerned". This was a coup. Obama initiated this whole coup and Biden was in on the planning and we know it. Why do they skate?

7. Durham is examining whether political pressures were applied during the intelligence community's assessment of Russia's intentions in 2016 election meddling. That could be bad news for former CIA chief John Brennan.

Hoping it's more than news. Hoping for indictments.

This is a joke, and I'm not surprised. If Trump loses, this whole affair will be dropped and consigned to the memory hole immediately.

Chocura750 , 7 hours ago

Thin justification is enough considering the importance of the claim.

BaNNeD oN THe RuN , 8 hours ago

Perhaps the most tantalizing statement Barr has made on this came Sunday when he suggested it was important that Steele began working on his dossier before July 2016, raising the possibility that some unexplained events earlier that year may have been connected to that early Steele work.

It was reported in real time in 2016 that the Steele Dossier work was initiated at the request of rival Republican candidates (likely Jeb Bush, possibly Ted Cruz) and they handed it off to the Clinton Campaign to continue. The Bush family then supported Clinton in the election. This was a uni-party effort to keep control in the 2 families.

Gerb00 , 8 hours ago

They all skate by, no one goes to jail, they all get multi million dollar gooka dn movie deals, mr senile and mr o-*** get nobel peace prizes and shrines where the lincoln memorial used to be..

David Wooten , 8 hours ago

"...the attorney general laid out a likely timeline for when the first actions might be taken in the case, while stressing the probe could carry beyond the election."

Wrongdoings by past administrations go beyond Obiden to Bush 43 or earlier and also include most members of the Senate and a fair number in the House. They stretch from Russia to Ukraine to Libya to Syria to the UK to France to Israel to Assange, etc. They cover members of both parties in the US and back to Tony Blair in Britain and some very powerful people. They are all tied together in some way.

It will take far longer than the election to get the bottom of it and, given the anti-Trump atmosphere that prevails, Durham is unlikely to produce any unsealed indictments before the election lest they be tainted with politics, ie, helping Trump - as Ken Starr's report was tainted as undermining Clinton's election.

Those involved are so powerful that the best that can be expected is to remove them from positions of power, both in and out of government. Some these guys would rather die or bring on a nuclear war than spend years to decades in prison.

Don't hold your breath.

bumboo , 8 hours ago

Hush Hush. Durham and Barr are part of the establishment. Barr and Robert Muller are friends (attend same Bible class). One of them invited the other one to his daughter's wedding (nothing wrong). Part of the Cabal.

Durham investigated the Guantanamo tapes burning by a CIA officer and wrote the per someone's instructions. The author is assuming that his readers are fools and lazy. Sorry, those days are gone, thanks to alternate Media and citizen's journalism or empowerment. We dont have relay journalists in their rocking chair and writing superficial stuff. Did the writer address Joseph Misfud, the Maltese guy.

https://time.com/5633912/joseph-mifsud-mueller-testimony/

Durham and Barr visited him to investigate.

Dr. Bonzo , 8 hours ago

There is sufficient information in the public sphere, including inculpatory evidence that would be more than sufficient to produce indictments. The fact that Trump's AG drags his feet on this within months of the election suggests Trump continues to waffle and go soft in the knees when it matters most. In spite of talking a big game, Trump is a softie.

He might be an incredibly sophisticated media manipulator, and good for him, but I'm not really sure he understands that this burgeoning insurrection, including the complex campaign to unseat him during his presidency, constitutes an insurgency against the Constitutional Republic.

This makes the agents within the Deep State traitors, the executing agents acting in the streets insurrectionists and BLM potentially foreign agents. Trump and his team seem to think this is all just disgruntled political opposition. IT's nothing of the sort.

[Jun 25, 2020] Did Obama-Biden Lie Strzok's Newly Discovered FBI Notes Reignite Obamagate by John Solomon

Jun 24, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by John Solomon via JustTheNews.com,

The belated discovery of disgraced FBI agent Peter Strzok's January 2017 notes raises troubling new questions about whether President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden were coordinating efforts during their final days in office to investigate Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn -- even as the FBI wanted to shut down the case.

Investigators will need to secure testimony from Strzok, fired two years ago from the FBI, to be certain of the exact meaning and intent of his one paragraph of notes, which were made public in court on Wednesday.

But they appear to illuminate an extraordinary high-level effort by outgoing Obama-era officials during the first weekend of January to find a way to sustain a counterintelligence investigation of Flynn in the absence of any evidence of wrongdoing.

The Justice Department says the notes were written between Jan. 3-5, 2017, the very weekend the FBI agent who had investigated Flynn's ties to Russia for five months recommended the case be closed because there was "no derogatory" evidence that he committed a crime or posed a counterintelligence threat. FBI supervisors overruled the agent's recommendation.

Strzok's notes appear to quote then-FBI Director James Comey as suggesting that Flynn's intercepted calls with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak "appear legit," bolstering other recently disclosed evidence showing the bureau saw nothing wrong with Flynn's behavior.

The notes also suggest Biden -- who once claimed he had no knowledge of the Flynn probe -- raised the issue of the Logan Act, an obscure, centuries-old law, as a possible avenue for continuing to investigate Flynn.

And Strzok appears to quote Obama as suggesting the FBI assign "the right people" to pursue the case.

You can read the notes here:

These conversations, if accurately portrayed in the Strzok notes, occurred during the same three-day period in which FBI supervisors overruled their field agent's recommendation to shut down the Flynn case and pivoted toward the strategy of luring Flynn into an FBI interview where he might be caught lying.

Sidney Powell, Flynn's lawyer, laid out the potential ramifications of the notes in a court filing on Wednesday, calling the new evidence "stunning and exculpatory."

"Mr. Obama himself directed that 'the right people' investigate General Flynn. This caused former FBI Director Comey to acknowledge the obvious: General Flynn's phone calls with Ambassador Kislyak 'appear legit,'" Powell argued in her new motion.

" According to Strzok's notes, it appears that Vice President Biden personally raised the idea of the Logan Act. That became an admitted pretext to investigate General Flynn," she added.

You can read her filing here: The notes are unlikely to have a substantial impact on the outcome of Flynn's case because a three-judge appeals court panel in Washington earlier Wednesday ordered U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan to immediately dismiss Flynn's prior conviction for lying to the FBI.

Even if the rebuked judge appeals the decision or the full appeals court reconsiders the case, Flynn is likely on a path to being a free and innocent man.

The real impact of the notes may be on the Justice Department's ongoing investigation of the Russia investigators, where U.S. Attorneys John Durham and Jeff Jensen are determining whether the FBI or others committed crimes in deceiving the courts or Congress about the evidence in the now-discredited Russia collusion allegations.

A former senior FBI official told Just the News that Strzok's notes about the White House meeting are a red flag that the Comey-led bureau may have been involving itself illegitimately in a political dispute between the outgoing Obama administration and incoming Trump administration.

"It was a political meeting about a policy dispute, and the bureau had no business being involved," Former Assistant Director for Intelligence Kevin Brock said. "No other FBI director would ever have attended such a meeting.

"Comey is quoted in the notes as saying the Kislyak call appeared legit. At that point he should have gotten up and left the room," Brock added.

"The FBI had no business being represented in that meeting. It did not have a counterintelligence interest any longer."

A second impact of the notes could be on the campaign trail. A few months ago, Biden claimed he was unaware of the Flynn probe as he was leaving the VP's office.

"I know nothing about those moves to investigate Michael Flynn," he said.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/3Yrblo64caA

He then clarified his denial.

"I was aware that they asked for an investigation," Biden said. "But that's all I know about it, and I don't think anything else."

If Powell's interpretation of the notes is correct, Biden was knowledgeable enough to suggest a possible pretext for continued investigation, the Logan Act. And he eventually unmasked one of Flynn's intercepted phone calls a week later.

Former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes told Just the News on Wednesday the newly discovered notes affirm his long-held suspicion that the Obama White House was trying to influence the FBI's Russia probe in untoward ways.

" Now we know both Obama and Biden were directly involved in planning the attack on Flynn ," Nunes said.

"The Obama administration exploited our intelligence community to spy on their political opponents and engineer bogus investigations and prosecutions of them.

"This is the single biggest abuse of power I've seen in my lifetime," he added.

[Jun 24, 2020] Advice to Russigaters of the Democratic Party

Jun 24, 2020 | www.unz.com

JoaoAlfaiate , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 2:48 pm GMT

Before confronting the Russians, it might be a good idea to regain control of Minneapolis and Seattle ..

[Jun 24, 2020] Trump has caved numerous times, he is an idiot when it comes to hiring his enemies hoping to appease them, but there is no question that he opposes mass immigration and invasions.

Jun 24, 2020 | www.unz.com

Hegar , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 5:44 pm GMT

Giraldi's first paragraph is spot on. But after corona dealing the economy a heavy blow, I don't think Trump will start a war before the election. I don't think he would have done that otherwise either, though there was some risk. Trump has caved numerous times, he is an idioht when it comes to hiring his enemies hoping to appease them, but there is no question that he opposes mass immigration and invasions.

I suppose most people here know this, but let's look at how many of the pro-war names mentioned belong to the 2.5 % "Chosen":

George Bush
Donald Rumsfeld
Hillary Clinton
Michael Ledeen (White, but studied history under *George Mosse, immigrated from Germany)
Reuel Gerecht
Dan Senor

*Richard Perle
*Paul Wolfowitz (The architect of the Afghan-Iraq invasions, who gathered support for them in Congress and organized the pro-war communication)
*Douglas Feith (would have been the Sec. of Defense if people hadn't objected too much, as he was infamous after the Iran-Contra affair)
*Eliot Abrams
*Lewish "Scooter" Libby of the dead eyes
*Robert Kagan
*Frederick Kagan
*Victoria Nuland
*Madeleine Albright (Half a million dead Iraqi children from starvation sanctions and bombing the infrastructure for twelve years was "worth it")

That's six Whites and nine Tribe.

If those nine hadn't existed millions would have been alive today, there would have been no flood of Somalis, Afghans, Iraqis and Syrians to Europe, and the U.S. and the Middle East would have been far better off.

[Jun 23, 2020] CIA's massive 'Vault 7' leak resulted from 'woefully lax' security protocols within the agency's own network by Sonam Sheth

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Editor's Note: This article originally appeared on ..."
"... most of the CIA's sensitive cyberweapons "were not compartmented, users shared systems administrator-level passwords, there were no effective removable media [thumb drive] controls, and historical data was available to users indefinitely," the report said ..."
"... The Center for Cyber Intelligence also did not monitor who used its network, so the task force could not determine the size of the breach. However, it determined that the employee who accessed the intelligence stole about 2.2 billion pages -- or 34 terabytes -- of information, the Post reported. ..."
Jun 20, 2020 | taskandpurpose.com

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared on Business Insider .

The Central Intelligence Agency's elite hacking team "prioritized building cyber weapons at the expense of securing their own systems," according to an internal agency report prepared for then-CIA director Mike Pompeo and his deputy, Gina Haspel, who is now the agency's director.

The Washington Post first reported on the document , which said the hacking unit's failure to secure the CIA's systems resulted in the theft of highly classified cyberweapons in 2016.

In March 2017, US officials discovered the breach when the radical pro-transparency group WikiLeaks published troves of documents detailing the CIA's electronic surveillance and cyberwarfare capabilities. WikiLeaks dubbed the series of documents "Vault 7," and officials say it was the biggest unauthorized disclosure of classified information in the agency's history.

The internal report was introduced in criminal proceedings against former CIA employee Joshua Schulte, who was charged with swiping the hacking tools and handing them over to WikiLeaks.

The government brought in witnesses who prosecutors said showed, through forensic analysis, that Schulte's work computer accessed an old file that matched some of the documents WikiLeaks posted.

Schulte's lawyers, meanwhile, pointed to the internal report as proof that the CIA's internal network was so insecure that any employee or contractor could have accessed the information Schulte is accused of stealing.

A New York jury failed to reach a verdict in the case in March after the jurors told Judge Paul Crotty that they were "extremely deadlocked" on many of the most serious charges, though he was convicted on two counts of contempt of court and making false statements to the FBI.

Crotty subsequently declared a mistrial, and prosecutors said they intended to try Schulte again later this year.

The report was compiled in October 2017 by the CIA's WikiLeaks Task Force, and it found that security protocol within the hacking unit that developed the cyberweapons, housed within the CIA's Center for Cyber Intelligence, was "woefully lax," according to the Post.

The outlet reported that the CIA may never have discovered the breach in the first place if WikiLeaks hadn't published the documents or if a hostile foreign power had gotten a hold of the information first.

"Had the data been stolen for the benefit of a state adversary and not published, we might still be unaware of the loss," the internal report said.

It also faulted the CIA for moving "too slowly" to implement safety measures "that we knew were necessary given successive breaches to other U.S. Government agencies." Moreover, most of the CIA's sensitive cyberweapons "were not compartmented, users shared systems administrator-level passwords, there were no effective removable media [thumb drive] controls, and historical data was available to users indefinitely," the report said .

The Center for Cyber Intelligence also did not monitor who used its network, so the task force could not determine the size of the breach. However, it determined that the employee who accessed the intelligence stole about 2.2 billion pages -- or 34 terabytes -- of information, the Post reported.

More from Business Insider:

[Jun 21, 2020] Senate approves subpoenas of Obama officials in Russian collusion probe - Washington Times

Jun 21, 2020 | www.washingtontimes.com

A Senate committee approved subpoenas Thursday for more than 50 mostly Obama-era officials in a dramatic escalation of the investigation into origins of the Trump-Russia collusion probe.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who is wielding the subpoena power, said the move will finally put on the hot seat top officials, including former FBI Director James B. Comey and former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.

"Comey and McCabe and that whole crowd -- their day is coming," Mr. Graham said.

Others targeted for subpoenas are former National Intelligence Director James R. Clapper, former CIA chief John O. Brennan, former Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch, former Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates, Justice Department official Bruce Ohr and FBI officials Lisa Page, Peter Strzok, James Baker and Bill Priestap.

The panel's politically charged inquiry has the potential to rewrite the Russia collusion narrative that until recently dominated Washington and colored voters' views of the Justice Department and the Obama administration, in which presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joseph R. Biden served as vice president.

Democrats said the investigation is a fishing expedition intended to smear President Trump's political enemies as the campaign season heats up.

"Never has a chairman devoted the full weight of this committee's resources to pursue a wholly partisan investigation after being prompted by a presidential campaign," said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat and a panel member.

The committee's probe also is a response to public pressure from Trump supporters who are frustrated with the lack of accountability for top officials at the FBI and Justice Department who publicly pushed the unsubstantiated collusion accusations.

Accusations of collusion with Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election dogged Mr. Trump since he took office and fueled Democrats' charges that he occupies the Oval Office illegitimately.

Most of Mr. Trump's term was conducted under the cloud of special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation, which failed to dig up evidence of collusion or charge any Trump allies on charges related to conspiring with Russia.

Mr. Trump calls the Russia probe a "hoax."

His supporters think it was a political hit job orchestrated by Democrats with the help of a deep state.

In a party-line vote, Republicans on the panel granted Mr. Graham the authority to subpoena individuals for documents and testimony about the origins of the Russia probe.

Mr. Graham has the power to subpoena "any current or former executive branch official or employee involved in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation," the name of the FBI's investigation into alleged ties to the Trump campaign and Russia.

He also has the authority to subpoena individuals involved in the dissemination of a report by former British spy Christopher Steele, who compiled a salacious but unverified opposition-research dossier against Mr. Trump funded by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.

Fusion GPS founder Glenn R. Simpson and Nellie Ohr are expected to receive subpoenas for their roles in commissioning and distributing the dossier.

Republicans contend that mounting evidence suggests the Russia probe was not on the up and up.

A report last year by the Justice Department inspector general found multiple errors and omissions in the FBI's application for a court order to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

The omissions, which included potentially exculpatory evidence, have raised questions about whether Mr. Page was a political target by anti-Trump officials in the FBI before and after the election.

Mr. Graham also wants to probe the case against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations with the Russian ambassador.

The Justice Department moved this year to dismiss the case after spending roughly two years prosecuting it. The department said the FBI did not have a sufficient basis to interview Flynn because it sought to close the case after failing to uncover wrongdoing.

Sen. Mazie K. Hirono, Hawaii Democrat, accused Mr. Graham of going over "ground that has already been covered."

In a bid to upend the subpoena vote, Democrats sought to add a series of amendments to compel testimony and documents from Mr. Trump's allies.

Among the individuals Democrats want to be subpoenaed are former Trump fixer Michael Cohen, former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani and Flynn.

The amendments were defeated easily in a series of party-line votes.

"The fact that you are turning down every single relevant witness tells us and tells the world this is an irrelevant investigation," said Sen. Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat.

Mr. Graham clapped back that Trump associates were heavily scrutinized in the Mueller probe.

"I don't understand why you would want to do the Mueller investigation all over again after we've spent 2½ years and $25 million doing it," said Mr. Graham. "I'm sorry it didn't turn out the way people liked, but it is behind us. Now we are going to look at what happened and the misconduct involved and hold people accountable."

Under committee rules, Mr. Graham cannot issue a subpoena unilaterally. The committee chairman can issue a subpoena only with the consent of the ranking member or a committee vote.

Democrats said the granting of subpoena power to one person violated the committee's bipartisan spirit. They accused Mr. Graham of trying to grant himself "unilateral subpoena authority."

"The resolution would give the chair sole authority to issue literally hundreds of subpoenas without any agreement from the ranking member of any committee to vote on any specific subpoena," said Dianne Feinstein of California, the ranking Democrat on the committee.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted last week to authorize subpoenas from individuals associated with the Russia probe. It is not clear how the two committees will work together with similar investigations and subpoenas.


[Jun 17, 2020] Sen. Graham on FBI misconduct: On the left they only care about getting Trump

Notable quotes:
"... Graham dragging his feet again. Swamp creatures everywhere. ..."
"... No one believes "I could wear a wire" Rosenstein didn't know what he was signing ..."
"... I was a bit concerned when I heard Lindsey Graham in essence exonerate Rosenstein from any guilt. ..."
Jun 17, 2020 | www.youtube.com

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, discusses the ongoing investigation into the Steele Dossier. #FoxNews


Ben Allmark , 4 days ago

Why is it Lindsay is always telling us the crimes have been committed but nobody's going to jail ? WHY

Travis Priest , 5 days ago

Graham dragging his feet again. Swamp creatures everywhere.

jim Murihiku , 4 days ago

Rosenstein knew exactly what he was doing, He's a liar. Jail time

Srikanth Paniker , 5 days ago

Lindsay Graham is weak and incompetent. He's useless despite having a powerful position.

Michael Jovich , 5 days ago

Senator "All Talk" Graham. Not sure why Hannity has this RINO on constantly.

Patton Was Right , 5 days ago

"WE DEFEATED THE WRONG ENEMY!" Now the enemy controls our media and government

Susan Swinskey , 4 days ago

No one believes "I could wear a wire" Rosenstein didn't know what he was signing

waQup , 5 days ago

I was a bit concerned when I heard Lindsey Graham in essence exonerate Rosenstein from any guilt. The investigation has only just begun. Anyone else get the feeling deals are being done. I mean Graham was in on it from the start wasn't he?

So He's obviously got some sort of immunity deal to be allowed any where near such a vitally important investigation.

So it will be interesting to see how they navigate around that one. Another big day tomorrow...I feel that General Flynn may have some interesting input a little bit further down the track. Patriots world wide. WWG1WGA.

[Jun 17, 2020] Trey Gowdy: Strzok s fingerprints are on every aspect of Russia probe

Notable quotes:
"... We know Stzrok is all over it but I fear they are looking at taking him down and sparing the other traitors. ..."
"... Strzok and Rosenstein ..the ugliest of the swamp creatures. ..."
"... Lisa Paige to Peter Strzok: "POTUS wants to know everything." ..."
Jun 10, 2020 | www.youtube.com

Valentin Casillas , 6 days ago

We need arrest to take place! The deep state needs to go down

Golden showers 4 liberals , 6 days ago

Trump didn't create the hate in the left , he simply exposed it!

Bambi Forester , 6 days ago

We are sick of hearing the crimes and no consequences. ARREST SOMEBODY ALREADY!

shep , 6 days ago

Take every last one of these treasonous DemoRats down!!

JET JET , 6 days ago

She says POSSIBLE spying, there was no possible!! THERE (WAS) SPYING AND THERE'S ((FACTS))) TO PROVE IT!!!

kerry the truth , 6 days ago

Talk talk no arrest. Do something! Arrest someone! Enough our country is literally burnning to the ground!

Candy Kang , 6 days ago

Obama was the LEAD CONSPIRATOR of this CRIME!!!

Dave Alexander , 6 days ago

Barr found out Obama & Killery masterminded this whole thing & Obama put HIS TRAITORS into the key positions.

Tony Colbourne , 6 days ago (edited)

We know Stzrok is all over it but I fear they are looking at taking him down and sparing the other traitors. Time will tell. In my opinion everyone involved was equally complicit. WWG1WGA UK

Philip McDonald , 6 days ago

Strzok and Rosenstein ..the ugliest of the swamp creatures.

NOTHING BURGER - CONFIRMED. , 6 days ago

PETER STRZOK , CREEPlEST MEME OF ALL TIME AWARD

MrAwak3 , 6 days ago

Trey you didn't do ANYTHING about it!!!! ALL TALK!!!! You were just on these committees as a gate keeper to ask the questions that would produce the pre-written responses. YOU ARE COMPROMISED! Everybody watching.... Trey Gowdy KNEW this was a hoax and DID NOTHING!

Vicki Vaught , 6 days ago

Brett isn't going to get any info out of Barr. I avoid Brett, Chris Wallace, and a few others on Fox.

william filiciello , 6 days ago

Endless investigations. When is someone gonna get arrested for an attempted overthrow of the President ?

Mark Suvanish , 6 days ago

All cops are bad -- -except Comey and crew....hmmmmmm. I gotta ponder that. 🤔

Russell Rideout , 6 days ago (edited)

Lisa Paige to Peter Strzok: "POTUS wants to know everything."

[Jun 16, 2020] Saagar Enjeti- Obamagate is real and the media can't just ignore it

They gaslighted the whole nation. Amazing achievement. In other words, they are a real criminal gang, a mafia. No questions about it. This is Nixon impeachment level staff. This are people that brought us Lybia, Syria: this senile Creepy Joe.
Jun 16, 2020 | www.youtube.com

Saagar Enjeti blasts former President Obama after it was revealed in transcripts he was the person who told then-deputy attorney general Sally Yates about Mike Flynn's intercepted phone call with the Russian ambassador, Joe Biden responds to Flynn claims on Good Morning America.

Maniachael Productions , 1 month ago

Lmao a war criminal complaining about the rule of law not being upheld

C.I.A. , 3 weeks ago

It's disgusting to me how news sources say that Obama gate isn't real.

[Jun 16, 2020] Saagar Enjeti- BOMBSHELL reveals Biden at center of Obamagate, media ignores

They gaslighted the whole nation. Amazing achievement. In other words, they are a real criminal gang, a mafia. No questions about it.
Jun 16, 2020 | www.youtube.com

Columbus1152 , 1 month ago

Dementia comes in handy at a time like this.

RayC1 , 1 month ago

Biden just described his entire political career, "I was there, but i had nothing to do with it"

Arthur Sprong , 1 month ago

He's not senile, he's getting ready to be "unfit for trial".

Charles Jannuzi , 1 month ago

Bad Brain Joe was Obomber's point man in the Ukraine coup and all the grifting and grafting that followed.

john smith , 1 month ago

"I know nothing about those moves to investigate Flynn." "These documents clearly outline that you were in a meeting at a specific time specifically about that." "OH! I'm sorry! I thought you asked if I was INVOLVED IN IT!"

Jeff Zekas , 1 month ago (edited)

The word is "entrapment" - Years ago, one of the officers in the investigations squad said to me, "How can you claim to be better than them, if you break the law to catch 'em?" - Now I understand what he was saying.

[Jun 16, 2020] Judge Sullivan created an awkward situation for the DOJ, Michael Flynn, and the Court of Appeals - Sic Semper Tyrannis

Jun 16, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

walrus , 16 June 2020 at 04:37 PM

The corrupt and despicable charade against Flynn conducted by at least the FBI and the so called courts of justice in the United States has destroyed any possible semblance of the idea that there is equal justice under the law or the laughable notion that anything remotely like a fair trial is available to anyone for any alleged offence at all.

The message contained in this prosecution and those of other Trump supporters is quite clear: any person who attempts to assist a political candidate not approved by so called liberals will be punished. Flynn is an example of what will happen to Trump backers in future.

I am amazed at the staying power of SST member Robert Willmann in even reporting this disgusting slow motion attempted lynching.

To put that another way, I now understand why suspects in the USA occasionally risk their lives by running from Police - they reason it is unlikely they will ever receive a fair trial.

The net effect of all these so called legal procedures is to destroy what little is left of America's international legal reputation that reached its highest point at the Nuremberg trials. That will not be to our advantage when, instead of shredding international treaties, we one day seek to negotiate the same.

Brian B , 16 June 2020 at 05:10 PM

The FBI is the secret police working on behalf of the interests of the oligarchs. The federal courts role is to implement and enforce the interests of the oligarchs. The Supreme Court's role is to come up with legal mumbo jumbo to justify this tyranny of the minority.

All the judges in this case (Sullivan, Wilkins, Rao) as merely proxy warriors, tools of the oligarchs. It's not coincidental they are also 'people of color'. This has been the m.o. of the oligarchs for over a hundred years. It was the Spingarn brothers (two lawyers from a rich Jewish family) who started the NAACP with their front man, the mixed race W.E.B. Du Bois. The first mission of the NAACP, and the task assigned to Du Bois, to destroy Booker T. Washington who had a large following in the black community and was advocating for more harmonious race relations. The oligarchs (Spingarns, et al.) running the NAACP needed to silence Washington because they wanted to create more racial division to gain power and subvert American culture. You can read more about this fascinating history in Catholic historian E. Michael Jones' "The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit" (Fidelity, 2008), pp. 679-715; 745-793; 831-843.

Here's a good interview where Jones touches on a lot of this in an interview with Dr. Kirk Meighoo (Indo Caribbean Diaspora News): https://youtu.be/gtdWbTkBQxk

[Jun 16, 2020] Ex-top FBI lawyer who took Steele dossier 'seriously' joins Twitter team

Jun 16, 2020 | www.washingtonexaminer.com

by Daniel Chaitin, Breaking News Editor & Jerry Dunleavy, Justice Department Reporter |

James Baker, who was general counsel for the bureau during the period surrounding the 2016 election, was welcomed by the social media giant's top lawyer Monday evening.

"Thrilled to welcome @thejimbaker to @Twitter as Deputy General Counsel. Jim is committed to our core principles of an open internet and freedom of expression, and brings experience navigating complex, global issues with a principled approach," said Twitter general counsel Sean Edgett.

"Thanks @edgett!! I'm very excited to join such a great team @Twitter doing such important work. Glad to be on board," Baker tweeted back.

Thanks @edgett !! I'm very excited to join such a great team @Twitter doing such important work. Glad to be on board. https://t.co/ypHOJNUtUD

-- Jim Baker (@thejimbaker) June 16, 2020

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/ex-top-fbi-lawyer-who-took-steele-dossier-seriously-joins-twitter

[Jun 15, 2020] Do Deep State Elements Operate within the Protest Movement? by Mike Whitney

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... "The extraordinary destruction of white and Asian businesses in many instances wiping out a family's lifetime work, the looting of national businesses whose dumbshit CEOs support the looters, the merciless gang beatings of whites and Asians who attempted to defend their persons and their property, the egging on of the violence by politicians in both parties and by the entirely of the media including many alternative media websites, shows a country undergoing collapse. ..."
"... This is why it is not shown in national media . Some local media show an indication of the violent destruction in their community, but it is not accumulated and presented to a national audience. Consequently, Americans think the looting and destruction is only a local occurrence I just checked CNN and the BBC and there is nothing about the extraordinary economic destruction and massive thefts." ..."
"... Why has the media failed to show the vast destruction of businesses and private property? Why have they minimized the effects of vandalism, looting and arson? Why have they fanned the flames of social unrest from the very beginning, shrugging off the ruin and devastation while cheerleading the demonstrations as a heroic struggle for racial justice? Is this is the same media that supported every bloody war, every foreign intervention, and every color-revolution for the last 5 decades? Are we really expected to believe that they've changed their stripes and become an energized proponent of social justice? ..."
"... The scale and coordination alone suggests that elements in the deep state are probably involved. We know from evidence uncovered during the Russiagate probe, that the media works hand-in-glove with the Intel agencies and FBI while–at the same time– serving as a mouthpiece for elites. ..."
"... That hasn't changed, in fact, it's gotten even worse. The uniformity of the coverage suggests that that same perception management strategy is being employed here as well. Even at this late date, the determination to remove Trump from office is as strong as ever even though, in the present case, it has been combined with the broader political strategy of inciting fratricidal violence, obliterating urban areas, and spreading anarchy across the count ..."
"... This isn't about racial justice or police brutality, it's about regime change, internal destabilization, and martial law. ..."
"... What the Black Lives Matter movement does not understand is that they are being used by the billionaire white capitalists who are fighting to push the working class even lower ..."
"... The rightful grievance over racism against blacks is now used to get Trump since Russia Gate, Impeachment, the corona scandal ..."
"... The protests are merely a fig leaf for a "color revolution" that bears a striking resemblance to the more than 50 CIA-backed coups launched on foreign governments in the last 70 years ..."
"... "Use a grievance that the local population has against the system, identify and support those who oppose the current government, infiltrate and strengthen opposition movements, fund them with millions of dollars, organize protests that seem legitimate and have paid political instigators dress up in regular clothes to blend in." ..."
"... "The logistical capabilities of antifa+ are also impressive. They can move people around the country with ease, position pallet loads of new brick, 55 gallon new trash cans of frozen water bottles and other debris suitable for throwing on gridded patterns around cities in a well thought out distribution pattern. Who pays for this? Who plans this? Who coordinates these plans and gives "execute orders?" ..."
"... Antifa+ can create massive propaganda campaigns that fit their agenda. These campaigns are fully supported by the MSM and by many in the Congressional Democratic Party. The present meme of "Defund the Police" is an example. This appeared miraculously, and simultaneously across the country. I am impressed. Yesterday the frat boy type who is mayor of Minneapolis was booed out of a mass meeting of radicals in that fair city because he refused to endorse abolishing the police force. ..."
"... Colonel Lang is not the only one to marvel at Antifa's "logistical capabilities". The United States has never experienced two weeks of sustained protests in hundreds of its cities at the same time. ..."
"... it points to extensive coordination with groups across the country, a comprehensive media strategy (that probably preceded the killing of George Floyd), a sizable presence on social media (to put people on the street), and agents provocateur whose task is to incite violence, loot and create mayhem. ..."
"... This a destabilization campaign similar to the CIA's color revolutions designed to topple the regime (Trump), install a puppet government (Biden), impose "shock therapy" on the economy ..."
"... "The BLM represents the forefront of an effort to divide Americans along racial and political lines, thus keeping race and identity-based barbarians safely away from more critical issues of importance to the elite, most crucially a free hand to plunder and ransack natural resources, minerals, crude oil, and impoverish billions of people whom the ruling elite consider unproductive useless eaters and a hindrance to the drive to dominate, steal, and murder . ..."
"... The protest movement is the mask that conceals the maneuvering of elites. The real target of this operation is the Constitutional Republic itself ..."
"... that explains why anti-fa attack Yellow Vests in Germany. The Yellow Vests are the true people's movement and as shown in the video below it is not about the left and the right for the yellow vest but common people fed up with the system ..."
"... Watch every frame of this. It shows the government-media complex and their little thugs, ANTIFA, in perfect collusion to interfere with the regular Germans trying to stop the Satanic communist-Globo homo project. ..."
"... My bro is one of the few people flying, for work. He says the only people on the airlines are antifa thugs moving all around the country. ..."
"... Won't these riots create a wave of revulsion among the silent majority and consolidate Trump's support base? ..."
"... Is Antifa a group of deep state agitators? That's the question. In the Sunday edition of the New York Times– the official propaganda organ of US elites– an article is entirely devoted to creating "plausible deniability" that Antifa is behind the violence in the protests that have swept the country. ..."
Jun 15, 2020 | www.unz.com

"Revolutions are often seen as spontaneous. It looks like people just went into the street. But it's the result of months or years of preparation. It is very boring until you reach a certain point, where you can organize mass demonstrations or strikes. If it is carefully planned, by the time they start, everything is over in a matter of weeks." Foreign Policy Journal

Does anyone believe the nationwide riots and looting are a spontaneous reaction to the killing of George Floyd?

It's all too coordinated, too widespread, and too much in-sync with the media narrative that applauds the "mainly peaceful protests" while ignoring the vast destruction to cities across the country. What's that all about? Do the instigators of these demonstrations want to see our cities reduced to urban wastelands where street gangs and Antifa thugs impose their own harsh justice? That's where this is headed, isn't it?

Of course there are millions of protesters who honestly believe they're fighting racial injustice and police brutality. And more power to them. But that certainly doesn't mean there aren't hidden agendas driving these outbursts. Quite the contrary. It seems to me that the protest movement is actually the perfect vehicle for affecting dramatic social changes that only serve the interests of elites. For example, who benefits from defunding the police? Not African Americans, that's for sure. Black neighborhoods need more security not less. And yet, the New York Times lead editorial on Saturday proudly announces, " Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police–Because reform won't happen." Check it out:

"We can't reform the police. The only way to diminish police violence is to reduce contact between the public and the police .There is not a single era in United States history in which the police were not a force of violence against black people. Policing in the South emerged from the slave patrols in the 1700 and 1800s that caught and returned runaway slaves. In the North, the first municipal police departments in the mid-1800s helped quash labor strikes and riots against the rich. Everywhere, they have suppressed marginalized populations to protect the status quo.

So when you see a police officer pressing his knee into a black man's neck until he dies, that's the logical result of policing in America. When a police officer brutalizes a black person, he is doing what he sees as his job " (" Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police–Because reform won't happen" , New York Times)

So, according to the Times, the problem isn't single parent families, or underfunded education or limited job opportunities or fractured neighborhoods, it's the cops who have nothing to do with any of these problems. Are we supposed to take this seriously, because the editors of the Times certainly do. They'd like us to believe that there is groundswell support for this loony idea, but there isn't. In a recent poll, more than 60% of those surveyed, oppose the idea of defunding the police. So why would such an unpopular, wacko idea wind up as the headline op-ed in the Saturday edition? Well, because the Times is doing what it always does, advancing the political agenda of the elites who hold the purse-strings and dictate which ideas are promoted and which end up on the cutting room floor. That's how the system works. Check out this excerpt from an article by Paul Craig Roberts:

"The extraordinary destruction of white and Asian businesses in many instances wiping out a family's lifetime work, the looting of national businesses whose dumbshit CEOs support the looters, the merciless gang beatings of whites and Asians who attempted to defend their persons and their property, the egging on of the violence by politicians in both parties and by the entirely of the media including many alternative media websites, shows a country undergoing collapse.

This is why it is not shown in national media . Some local media show an indication of the violent destruction in their community, but it is not accumulated and presented to a national audience. Consequently, Americans think the looting and destruction is only a local occurrence I just checked CNN and the BBC and there is nothing about the extraordinary economic destruction and massive thefts." (" The Real Racists", Paul Craig Roberts, Unz Review)

Roberts makes a good point, and one that's worth mulling over. Why has the media failed to show the vast destruction of businesses and private property? Why have they minimized the effects of vandalism, looting and arson? Why have they fanned the flames of social unrest from the very beginning, shrugging off the ruin and devastation while cheerleading the demonstrations as a heroic struggle for racial justice? Is this is the same media that supported every bloody war, every foreign intervention, and every color-revolution for the last 5 decades? Are we really expected to believe that they've changed their stripes and become an energized proponent of social justice?

Nonsense. The media's role in concealing the damage should only convince skeptics that the protests are just one part of a much larger operation. What we're seeing play out in over 400 cities across the US, has more to do with toppling Trump and sowing racial division than it does with the killing of George Floyd. The scale and coordination alone suggests that elements in the deep state are probably involved. We know from evidence uncovered during the Russiagate probe, that the media works hand-in-glove with the Intel agencies and FBI while–at the same time– serving as a mouthpiece for elites.

That hasn't changed, in fact, it's gotten even worse. The uniformity of the coverage suggests that that same perception management strategy is being employed here as well. Even at this late date, the determination to remove Trump from office is as strong as ever even though, in the present case, it has been combined with the broader political strategy of inciting fratricidal violence, obliterating urban areas, and spreading anarchy across the country.

This isn't about racial justice or police brutality, it's about regime change, internal destabilization, and martial law. Take a look at this article at The Herland Report:

"What the Black Lives Matter movement does not understand is that they are being used by the billionaire white capitalists who are fighting to push the working class even lower and end the national sovereignty principles that president Trump stands for in America .

The rightful grievance over racism against blacks is now used to get Trump since Russia Gate, Impeachment, the corona scandal and nothing else has worked. The aim is to end democracy in the United States, control Congress and politics and assemble the power into the hands of the very few

It is all about who will own the United States and have free access to its revenues: Either the American people under democracy or globalist billionaire individuals." (" Politicized USA Gene Sharp riots is another attempted coup d'etat – New Left Tyranny" The Herland Report

That sounds about right to me. The protests are merely a fig leaf for a "color revolution" that bears a striking resemblance to the more than 50 CIA-backed coups launched on foreign governments in the last 70 years. Have the chickens have come home to roost? It certainly looks like it. Here's more from the same article:

"Use a grievance that the local population has against the system, identify and support those who oppose the current government, infiltrate and strengthen opposition movements, fund them with millions of dollars, organize protests that seem legitimate and have paid political instigators dress up in regular clothes to blend in."

So, yes, the grievances are real, but that doesn't mean that someone else is not steering the action. And just as the media is shaping the narrative for its own purposes, so too, there are agents within the movement that are inciting the violence. All of this suggests the existence of some form of command-control that provides logistical support and assists in communications. Check out this excerpt from a post at Colonel Pat Lang's website Sic Semper Tyrannis:

"The logistical capabilities of antifa+ are also impressive. They can move people around the country with ease, position pallet loads of new brick, 55 gallon new trash cans of frozen water bottles and other debris suitable for throwing on gridded patterns around cities in a well thought out distribution pattern. Who pays for this? Who plans this? Who coordinates these plans and gives "execute orders?"

Antifa+ can create massive propaganda campaigns that fit their agenda. These campaigns are fully supported by the MSM and by many in the Congressional Democratic Party. The present meme of "Defund the Police" is an example. This appeared miraculously, and simultaneously across the country. I am impressed. Yesterday the frat boy type who is mayor of Minneapolis was booed out of a mass meeting of radicals in that fair city because he refused to endorse abolishing the police force.

Gutting the civil police forces has long been a major goal of the far left, but now, they have the ability to create mass hysteria over it when they have an excuse ." ("My take on the present situation", Sic Semper Tyrannis)

Colonel Lang is not the only one to marvel at Antifa's "logistical capabilities". The United States has never experienced two weeks of sustained protests in hundreds of its cities at the same time. It's beyond suspicious, it points to extensive coordination with groups across the country, a comprehensive media strategy (that probably preceded the killing of George Floyd), a sizable presence on social media (to put people on the street), and agents provocateur whose task is to incite violence, loot and create mayhem.

None of this has anything to do with racial justice or police brutality. America is being destabilized and sacked for other purposes altogether. This a destabilization campaign similar to the CIA's color revolutions designed to topple the regime (Trump), install a puppet government (Biden), impose "shock therapy" on the economy pushing tens of millions of Americans into homelessness and destitution, and leave behind a broken, smoldering shell of a country easily controlled by Federal shock troops and wealthy globalist mandarins. Here's a short excerpt from an article by Kurt Nimmo at his excellent blog "Another Day in the Empire":

"The BLM represents the forefront of an effort to divide Americans along racial and political lines, thus keeping race and identity-based barbarians safely away from more critical issues of importance to the elite, most crucially a free hand to plunder and ransack natural resources, minerals, crude oil, and impoverish billions of people whom the ruling elite consider unproductive useless eaters and a hindrance to the drive to dominate, steal, and murder .

It is sad to say BLM serves the elite by ignoring or remaining ignorant of the main problem -- boundless predation by a neoliberal criminal project that considers all -- black, white, yellow, brown -- as expliotable and dispensable serfs. " (" 2 Million Arab Lives Don't Matter ", Kurt Nimmo, Another Day in the Empire)

The protest movement is the mask that conceals the maneuvering of elites. The real target of this operation is the Constitutional Republic itself. Having succeeded in using the Lockdown to push the economy into severe recession, the globalists are now inciting a fratricidal war that will weaken the opposition and prepare the country for a new authoritarian order.


Godfree Roberts , says: Website Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 3:39 am GMT

the media narrative that applauds the "mainly peaceful protests" while ignoring the vast destruction to Hong Kong where there was neither police violence nor racial discrimination. Look like the same organizing principles were used in both places.
Malla , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 6:33 am GMT
Of course that explains why anti-fa attack Yellow Vests in Germany. The Yellow Vests are the true people's movement and as shown in the video below it is not about the left and the right for the yellow vest but common people fed up with the system, a true grass roots movement of the people. And Anti-fa, the Whores of the Satanic elites attack them. Why would anti-fascists attack the common man?

https://www.bitchute.com/embed/raZCHzKjrjA/

Watch every frame of this. It shows the government-media complex and their little thugs, ANTIFA, in perfect collusion to interfere with the regular Germans trying to stop the Satanic communist-Globo homo project.

PetrOldSack , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 1:14 pm GMT
Few arguments in contra of the article. Can any-one conceive of there being a competition between BLM rioting organizing and covertly supporting, and Corona-19, where the elites were very cohesive internationally in the face.

The target, Trump, the man with no policies, the implement nothing, is it such a worthy target to a fraction of the power elites? That would speak for shallowness on their behalf. Creating back-ground noise to fade out the re-organizing of society, regardless of actors as Trump could be an acceptable explanation. "Keep the surplus population busy. Keep the attention on the streets".

There is a trade-off. The international elites see the exposure of the US internal policies, the expenditure of energy, do they regard the situation as something to copy-paste, an interesting experiment, or as weakness to be taken advantage of? Probably the first, then BLM covert support chains perfectly with Corona-19, and scales things up.

nickels , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 1:36 pm GMT
My bro is one of the few people flying, for work. He says the only people on the airlines are antifa thugs moving all around the country.
ICD , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 1:39 pm GMT
"Black neighborhoods need more security not less."

Police are not security, they're repression. Anybody of any color who thinks they're safer with heavily armed bureaucrats blundering around is a moron.

And since when does reductions in guard labor equal austerity? There are several economic rights that should not be derogated, but assholes with guns impounding cars is not one of them. If the residents of a community are asking for more cops, that's one thing. They are not. Law enforcement budgets are stuffed up the ass of residents and often municipalities. Look into e.g. the MA "strong chief" enabling acts. States have massive unfunded pension liabilities in large part because of police featherbedding. That's what's being pushed by the "deep state" (you mean CIA.) The evident CIA use of provocateurs is aimed at justifying further increases in repressive capacity.

anonymous [299] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 2:34 pm GMT
Now this is the ideal solution:

https://www.lawofficer.com/america-we-are-leaving/

OK bye! Don't let the door hit your fat ass on the way out! Stupid and delusional though pigs are, it's dimly dawning on them that America considers them crooked loudmouthed violent assholes. Here's a typical one exercising what Gore Vidal called the core competence of police, whining.

Boo hoo hoo, asshole, go home and beat your wife or eat a gun or whatever it is you dream of doing in retirement, cause the states can't afford your crooked unions' pensions in this induced depression. Cut these white man's welfare jobs.

Escher , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 3:48 pm GMT
Won't these riots create a wave of revulsion among the silent majority and consolidate Trump's support base?
Mike Whitney , says: Website Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 3:51 pm GMT
Is Antifa a group of deep state agitators? That's the question. In the Sunday edition of the New York Times– the official propaganda organ of US elites– an article is entirely devoted to creating "plausible deniability" that Antifa is behind the violence in the protests that have swept the country.

Why is the Times so concerned that its readers might have a different opinion on this matter? Why do they want to convince people that the protests-riots are merely spontaneous outbursts of anti-racist sentiment? Could it be because the Times job is to create a version of events that suits the interests of the elites it serves? Here's a few excerpts from today's piece titled "Federal Arrests Show No Sign That Antifa Plotted Protests":

While anarchists and anti-fascists openly acknowledged being part of the immense crowds, they call the scale, intensity and durability of the protests far beyond anything they might dream of organizing. Some tactics used at the protests, like the wearing of all black and the shattering of store windows, are reminiscent of those used by anarchist groups, say those who study such movements. (plausible deniability)

Anarchists and others accuse officials of trying to assign blame to extremists rather than accept the idea that millions of Americans from a variety of political backgrounds have been on the streets demanding change. Numerous experts also called the participation of extremist organizations overstated. (plausible deniability)

"A significant number of people in positions of authority are pushing a false narrative about antifa being behind a lot of this activity," said J.M. Berger, the author of the book "Extremism" and an authority on militant movements. "These are just unbelievably large protests at a time of great turmoil in this country, and there is surprisingly little violence given the size of this movement.".. (plausible deniability)

In New York, the police briefed reporters on May 31, claiming that radical anarchists from outside the state had plotted ahead of protests by setting up encrypted communications systems, arranging for street medics and collecting bail funds.

Within five days, however, Dermot F. Shea, the city's police commissioner, acknowledged that most of the hundreds of people arrested at the protests in New York were actually New Yorkers who took advantage of the chaos to commit crimes and were not motivated by political ideology . John Miller, the police official who had briefed reporters, told CNN that most looting in New York had been committed by "regular criminal groups." (plausible deniability)

Kit O'Connell, a longtime radical leftist activist and community organizer in Austin, said that shortly after Mr. Trump's election, the group took part in anti-fascist protests in the city against a local white supremacist group and scuffled separately with Act for America, an anti-Muslim organization.

"They've been an influence at the protests but they're not in charge -- no one's really in charge," Mr. O'Connell said. (plausible deniability)
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/11/us/antifa-protests-george-floyd.html

Why is the Times acting like Antifa's attorney? Why are the trying to minimize the role of professional agitators? Why is the Times so determined to shape the public's thinking on this matter?

Doesn't this suggest that Antifa and other groups operating within the protest movement are actually linked to agencies in the deep state that are conducting another operation against the American people?

Brian Reilly , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 4:00 pm GMT
@anonymous anonymous, I have been encouraging cops to quit for a long time. They are protecting the wrong people, being used to protect people in the ruling class that hate and despise cops just a little less than they hate and despise the rest of us civilians.

To the issue at hand, black people should only be policed, arrested, charged, prosecuted, defended, judged, and (if found guilty) punished by other blacks. No white person should have anything to do with it. Any white person policing negros in America is making a huge mistake, and should immediately quit.

The pensions are not going to be paid, and the crazy, Soros paid for black people are going to make it impossible for a white cop pretty soon anyway. Might as well walk before they make you run.

anonymous [263] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 4:13 pm GMT
Don't worry about BLM, which is corporate phoney bullshit protest, easter parades and internet posturing. The blacks in the street don't fall for that shit. Look what happens when coopted oreos try to herd everybody back to tame marching:

https://www.blackagendareport.com/ooh-la-la-atlantas-mayor-keisha-and-civil-rights-myths-black-mecca

Fuck Killer Mike
Fuck TI
Fuck KKKeisha

The provocateurs are not influencing them. The sellout house negroes are not influencing them. They know what they want. The regime is shitting its pants. If they scapegoat Trump and purge him, Biden will inherit the same problem only worse.

botazefa , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 4:53 pm GMT
@Escher

Won't these riots create a wave of revulsion among the silent majority and consolidate Trump's support base?

That's what I am wondering too. It makes more sense to me that the elites driving these BLM riots are those who support Trump. Terrify people and threaten the existence of police is a good way to get elderly white voters out of their covid lockdowns on election day.

botazefa , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 5:03 pm GMT
@Mike Whitney

Doesn't this suggest that Antifa and other groups operating within the protest movement are actually linked to agencies in the deep state that are conducting another operation against the American people?

Do we really want to suggest the CIA is committing treason against the American people? Isn't it more likely that the Times is agitating against the CIA for other reasons? Reasons Carlos Slim could explain?

Mike Whitney , says: Website Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 5:13 pm GMT
For those who haven't read Pepe Escobar's latsest on BLM, here's a couple clips:

Black Lives Matter, founded in 2013 by a trio of middle class, queer black women very vocal against "hetero-patriarchy", is a product of what University of British Columbia's Peter Dauvergne defines as "corporatization of activism".

Over the years, Black Lives Matter evolved as a marketing brand, like Nike (which fully supports it). The widespread George Floyd protests elevated it to the status of a new religion. Yet Black Lives Matter carries arguably zero, true revolutionary appeal. This is not James Brown's "Say It Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud". And it does not get even close to Black Power and the Black Panthers' "Power to the People".

Black Lives Matter profited in 2016 from a humongous $100 million grant from the Ford Foundation and other philanthropic capitalism stalwarts such as JPMorgan Chase and the Kellogg Foundation.

The Ford Foundation is very close to the U.S. Deep State. The board of directors is crammed with corporate CEOs and Wall Street honchos. In a nutshell; Black Lives Matter, the organization, today is fully sanitized; largely integrated into the Democratic Party machine; adored by mainstream media; and certainly does not represent a threat to the 0.001%.

https://www.unz.com/pescobar/syria-in-seattle-commune-defies-the-u-s-regime/

I rest my case.

Brás Cubas , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 5:16 pm GMT
Mike is one of the more interesting writers in Unz. He occasionally writes some irreflected lines, though:

Of course there are millions of protesters who honestly believe they're fighting racial injustice and police brutality. And more power to them.

Those "honest" people are actually useful idiots, and the last thing I want is to give them more power.

anonymous [306] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 5:20 pm GMT
IMO the best evidence for state provocation is this traditional strange-fruit lynching,

https://www.rt.com/usa/491698-robert-fuller-hanging-tree-california/

an evident ham-handed attempt to make this all about race. The real threat to this police state is racial and international solidarity against state predation – the stuff that got Fred Hampton killed,

"when I talk about the masses, I'm talking about the white masses, I'm talking about the black masses, and the brown masses, and the yellow masses, too We say you don't fight racism with racism. We're gonna fight racism with solidarity. We say you don't fight capitalism with no black capitalism; you fight capitalism with socialism."

or Angela Davis and the Che-Lumumba club. BAP is right back on this and the resonating international demonstrations show that that's the right track. The whole world sees what this is about, except for a few fucked-over US whites.

anbonymous , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 5:31 pm GMT
botazefa, of course the CIA is committing treason against the American people. Where were you when they whacked JFK, then RFK? Where were you when they blew up OKC? Where were you when they released anthrax on the Senate, infiltrated and protected 9/11 terrorists, assigned more terrorists to MITRE to blind NORAD, blew up the WTC for the second time, and exfiltrated the Saudi logisticians?

Anybody unaware that CIA has been pure treason from inception is (1) retarded XOR (2) a CIA traitor.

Do you really want to tell us trust the CIA?

obwandiyag , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 6:05 pm GMT
Sorry. The assholes on this asshole site will not let you say that what is important is how the super-billionaires control us. They are going to insist that it's niggerniggernigger all the way home and that's all there is to it. You would think they were paid. Or really, really stupid.
Realist , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 6:19 pm GMT
@botazefa

Do we really want to suggest the CIA is committing treason against the American people?

Oh, hell yes the FBI and a significant portion of the federal government.

Juliette Kayyem , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 6:29 pm GMT
When Gina, she-wolf of Udon Thani, got busted for trying to overthrow the United States government with Russiagate, she hung onto her job by rigging the succession with all the Brennan traitors who ran the Russiagate coup.

https://gosint.wordpress.com/2020/06/14/one-year-ago-cia-new-order-of-succession-june-14-2019/#more-21679

So we should expect that Gina will now stage a couple massacres like Kent State and Jackson State, because that's how CIA ratfucked Nixon when he didn't knuckle under.

Gina's extra motivated to stay on top because she's criminally culpable for systematic and widespread torture:

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/intelligence-torture-archive/2018-04-26/gina-haspels-cia-torture-file

CIA wanted a DCI who would kill another president (even after JFK and Reagan) to preserve CIA's impunity.

Realist , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 6:29 pm GMT
@Mike Whitney Excellent article and I believe excellent analysis of the situation.

Where we may differ is with Trump's complicity in Deep State efforts. I believe Trump is a minion of the Deep State. His actions and inactions can not be explained any other way.

Mike Whitney , says: Website Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 7:28 pm GMT
Let's assume for a minute, that Pepe Escobar is correct when he says this:

"Black Lives Matter profited in 2016 from a humongous $100 million grant from the Ford Foundation and other philanthropic capitalism stalwarts such as JPMorgan Chase and the Kellogg Foundation .

The Ford Foundation is very close to the U.S. Deep State. The board of directors is crammed with corporate CEOs and Wall Street honchos. In a nutshell; Black Lives Matter, the organization, today is fully sanitized; largely integrated into the Democratic Party machine; adored by mainstream media; and certainly does not represent a threat to the 0.001%.

https://www.unz.com/pescobar/syria-in-seattle-commune-defies-the-u-s-regime/

If this is true–and I believe it is– then Black Lives Matter is no different than USAID or any of the other NGOs that are used to incite revolution around the world. If this is true, then there is likely a CIA link to these protests, the main purpose of which is to remove Trump from office.

So Black Lives Matter= activist NGO linked to US Intel agencies= Regime Change Operation

But there is something else going on here too, (that many readers might have noticed) that is, the way social media has been manipulated to put millions of young people on the street in order to promote the agenda of elites.

How did they manage that?

How did they get millions of young people to come out day after day (14 days so far) in over 400 cities to protest an issue about which they know very little aside from the media's irritating reiteration of "systemic racism", (a claim that is not supported by the data.)

IMO, we are seeing the first successful social media saturation campaign launched probably by the Pentagon's Office Strategic Communications or a similar outfit within the CIA. Having already taken control over the entire mainstream media complex, the intel agencies and their friends at the Pentagon are now wrapping their tentacles around internet communications in order to achieve their goal of complete tyrannical social control.

As always, the target of these massive covert operations is the American people who had better pull their heads out of the sand pronto and come up with a plan for countering this madness.

Anon [184] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 7:29 pm GMT
@anonymous The elephant in the room, that seems to be ignored by all is the simple fact that Hispanics are working class heroes. And they outnumber the blacks, and hate their guts for the most part. Not the scrawny punks withe Che t-shirts, but the actual working types that are less than thrilled to deal with the weak. Notice how no Hispanic barrios have EVER been f ** ked with, no matter when the race riot? There is an open fatwa from La Eme regarding blacks that has never been rescinded. Has a lot to do with the kneegro exodus from the LA area, which correlates with the lack of looting in the formerly black areas. Which the MSM prefers to ignore. The happy idiots are mugging for the cameras on a daily basis in Hollywood, but the Hispanic run Sheriff's office has no problem with popping gas and defending businesses. Also note that the MSM only reports on areas when a local government craters to the mob. LA County was under curfew for 7 days due to a mob of looters that numbered perhaps 2000. If that Jew mayor (with the Italian surname) had not allowed the looting, then we would have seen the kind of 36 hour turnaround like we had with Rodney King. The ethnic group that ignores the MSM and stands up for its own people will win in the end. Right now we are looking more toward the kind of Celtic/Meso-American alliance that is well known in the penal system. These groups can exist side by side, with each ignoring the other. Blacks, on the other paw seem to be unable to keep to themselves, at least on the ghetto level, and will always be an issue for civilization. It's time we stop calling for a generic and all-inclusive White establishment. The race traitors and weaklings forfeit that right. When Celts, Italians, Germans, etc. were proud and independent, there was strength. It's time to return to that ideal. Only the negroid actually lumps all whites together, which the Jews use as a divisive tool. Strength should be idolized, rather than weakness exploited.

Hail Victory

botazefa , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 7:30 pm GMT
@anbonymous

Do you really want to tell us trust the CIA?

I'm saying that the NYT is not necessarily mouthpiece *only* for the Deep State. As for your JFK assassination – Senate Anthrax – 9/11 etc, those are considered conspiracy theories and I've never been persuaded otherwise. I've read up on the theories and they are not strong.

I don't know what a retarded XOR is except as it relates to logic diagrams and I don't work for the CIA.

botazefa , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 7:32 pm GMT
@Realist

Oh, hell yes the FBI and a significant portion of the federal government

Fair enough.

Priss Factor , says: Website Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 8:02 pm GMT

Do Deep State Elements Operate Within the Protest Movement?

It's called Jewish lawfare for Antifa, Jewish control of media, and Jewish cult of Magic Negro.

Even though Jews led the Gentric Cleansing campaigns against blacks by using mass immigration, globo-homo celebration, and white middle class return to cities, the Jews are now pretending be with the blacks and throwing the immigrants, white middle class, and homos to the black mobs.

Priss Factor , says: Website Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 8:05 pm GMT
@obwandiyag Super billionaires control nations, but an average person is more likely to get mugged, raped, or murdered by a Negro.
schnellandine , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 9:47 pm GMT
@Anon

simple fact that Hispanics are working class heroes

Some are. Most aren't. And the 'not'% grows with selective Americanization (not assimilation). Still, I'll take them over the blacks, even with their generally inferior (to White) culture.

Whites are better with separation from them along with blacks. Whatever the prime driver, both groups have poisoned America, likely beyond repair. Conquistador gonnna conquistador.

Stepinfetchit has a dream , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 10:07 pm GMT
M. Whitney in comment 21 clarifies his view of BLM as the impetus for this rebellion. That does not square with the reports of people on the street.

BLM is exactly analogous to BDS: a controlled opposition of feckless halfassed gestures designed to distract from the real movement. You hear BLM apparatchiks whining about getting their movement hijacked because people in the streets show solidarity with oppressed groups worldwide – and youe hear BLM getting booed by the people they're trying to corral. BLM's mission is putting words in the protestors' mouths. You hear Democrat BLM spokesmodels trying to distort calls for police abolition and no more impunity. And real protestors call bullshit.

BLM works on dumb white guys: hating on BLM makes them feel very edgy and defiant. Black Lives Matter! Blue Lives Matter! Black! Blue! Black! Blue! Catnip for dumbshits, courtesy of CIA. Keeps them away from the really subversive stuff, which makes perfect sense for whites too.

https://blackagendareport.com/

Cause CIA's fucking us all. They're hostis humani generis.

R.C. , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 10:47 pm GMT
Do Deep State Elements Operate Within the Protest Movement?
Does a one legged duck swim in circles?
Ann Nonny Mouse , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 11:42 pm GMT
@ICD Look into whether the training of cops has been outsourced and privatized. Or simply shortened to save money.

And ask why the police are even armed when in Communist China they are not, and traditionally in the non-American West they were not, now are in imitation of America.

ICD , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 12:18 am GMT
Ann Nonny Mouse, truer words were never spoken. Chinese cops have these cute little nightsticks, and sometimes they will bop a guy and the guy just stands there and says Ow and the cops continue to reason with him, no restraint, incapacitation, any of that shit. British cops used to be that way, they used to reason with you. Now they're all American style Assholes, if not Israeli concentration camp guards. Just nuke FOP HQ in Memphis.

Koch sees privatization as a future profit center and a chance to control the cops himself. They're not trainable, they're too fucking stupid. We all did fine without pigs up through most of the 19th century. Hue and cry works fine. Fire all the cops and replace them with unarmed women social workers. That's all they are, prodigiously incompetent social workers.

ThreeCranes , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 12:46 am GMT
Too, those many businesses with all that unsold inventory sitting around gathering dust due to Covid isolation will benefit from insurance payments covering their losses due to looting. The cherry on top.
niteranger , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 1:18 am GMT
@Mike Whitney Whitney:

Are you just clueless or what? Did you notice the names of the Antifa leaders that have been exposed? They are Amish Right? They are Jews and they will always be Jews! Soros and other Jews have been running this game for a long time. Where have you been? SDS in Chicago no Jews there right!

The CIA and the FBI overwhelmed with Jews can you count? All the professors who have been destroying whites with their fake studies blaming everything wrong in the world on Whites and Western Civilization. The entire Media owned by who?

Either you were dropped out of a spaceship a few days ago or you are a total idiot and can't see the forest before trees.

Try this: The Percentage of all Ivy League Presidents, top adminstrators, deans etc take a guess then go count them and see which group they belong to.

Loup-Bouc , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 1:38 am GMT

Does anyone believe the nationwide riots and looting are a spontaneous reaction to the killing of George Floyd?

It's all too coordinated, too widespread, and too much in-sync with the media narrative .

* * *

This a destabilization campaign similar to the CIA's color revolutions designed to topple the regime (Trump), install a puppet government (Biden), impose "shock therapy" on the economy pushing tens of millions of Americans into homelessness and destitution, and leave behind a broken, smoldering shell of a country easily controlled by Federal shock troops and wealthy globalist mandarins.

One must wonder: How could the CIA and the U.S. Democrat establishment foment and coordinate all of the Black Lives Matter protests occurring in Canada, several nations of South and Central America, the U.K., Ireland, throughout the European Union, and in Switzerland, the Middle East (Turkey, Iran ), and in Asia (Korea, Japan .) and New Zealand, Australia, and Africa?

Mr. Whitney: Neither magic nor bigotry-induced hallucinations can forge a tenable conspiracy theory.

Biff , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 1:43 am GMT
@botazefa

and I don't work for the CIA.

Plausible deniability

MrFoSquare , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 2:12 am GMT
I think the primary reason the mainstream media doesn't want the general public, especially those living outside the major cities, to understand the extent of the destruction and violence that spread in a highly-coordinated fashion across America, is that this would be cause for alarm among a majority of Americans who would demand more Law & Order, which would redound to Trump's benefit.

Notice Trump is countering by tweeting "LAW & ORDER!"

Here is Trump tweeting "Does anyone notice how little the Radical Left takeover of Seattle is being discussed in the Fake News Media[?] That is very much on purpose "

Does anyone notice how little the Radical Left takeover of Seattle is being discussed in the Fake News Media. That is very much on purpose because they know how badly this weakness & ineptitude play politically. The Mayor & Governor should be ashamed of themselves. Easily fixed!

-- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 14, 2020

The outcome of the election in November could hinge on the urgency the public places on the issue of Law & Order. Hence the media's all out effort to minimize the extent of the Anarchy and Violence and the financial sponsorship, planning, and coordination behind it.

Loup-Bouc , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 2:18 am GMT
@Mike Whitney Mr. Whitney:

Please see my comment of June 15, 2020 at 1:38 am GMT (comment # 34). I must apologize for that comment's insufficiency (owed to my posting that comment before I happened upon your comment to which this comment replies). Had I encountered your comment earlier, my June 15, 2020 at 1:38 am GMT comment (comment # 34) would have observed that you are triumphantly illogical as you are a world class crackpot.

obwandiyag , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 2:42 am GMT
@ICD You said it. Police Departments country-wide are stuffed up the wazoo with more cash than they can spend. But what do they cry? Poor us. Poor us. We ain't got no money.

This is what they, and by they, I mean all our owners and their overseers, always do. They cry poverty when they are rolling in loot.

That way you get more loot!

Duh.

Biff , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 3:08 am GMT

Do Deep State Elements Operate Within the Protest Movement?

Yes, and the left(unwittingly) will help them with their cause, and the right will cowardly hide right behind the deep state as protection from the violent left.

Revolutions made easy!

Brought to you by the blob incorporated.

JohnPlywood , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 5:01 am GMT
@Priss Factor You are extremely unlikely to receive any of those things from a "Negro". 90% of Americans are unlikely to even see more than ten black people in their entire lives.

I wish you psychotic fucking female idiots on this website who are constantly blathering about black people could realize how annoying you are to the 90% of white people who are not living in or next to black ghettos. Please STFU and allow discourse to trend in more pertinent directions, and move away from black people if you're so paranoid about them.

Robert Dolan , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 5:57 am GMT
Of course Antifa works for the deep state jews.

It was obvious after C 'ville.

Antifa has the full support of all of the 3 letter agencies;
ADL
FBI
CIA
DNC
DOJ

This is the very same Bolshevik scum the poor Germans had to deal with.

Al Liguori , says: Website Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 6:01 am GMT
@Mike Whitney The (((media))) have an uphill battle in convincing us to deny the evidence of our eyes -- black-hooded white punks throwing bricks through storefronts then inviting joggers to loot.

That is why so many platforms, even "free speech" GAB, are wildly censoring counter-narratives.

Thomasina , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 6:37 am GMT
@Brian Reilly Stephen Molyneux said that police forces were originally geared to operate under white Christian societies where there was a high level of trust and people were law-abiding. I remember when I was a kid, we didn't even lock our doors. Our bikes were left out on the front lawn, sometimes for days, weeks, and nobody took them. Nobody locked their car doors. People just didn't steal other people's stuff. When a cop tried to pull you over, you didn't hit the gas pedal and take off. You didn't run from the cops; you were polite to them and they were polite to you.

Tucker Carlson said that Blacks are now asking for their own hospitals (I forget what city this was) and their own doctors and nurses. Blacks schools, Black police forces.

Tribes don't mix. Their culture is different than our culture. Why should they change for us, and why should we change for them?

It is a marriage that does not work. Either send them back to Africa (best solution) or give them Mississippi and put up a big wall. Then let them pay for their own upkeep – all of it. Good luck with that.

Sean , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 6:47 am GMT

Yesterday the frat boy type who is mayor of Minneapolis was booed out of a mass meeting of radicals in that fair city because he refused to endorse abolishing the police force.

Mayor Jacob Frey got elected at his extremely young age by flanking on the Left with anti police rhetoric, He is the the originator of this crisis; as soon as the video of Floyd's death was public Frey publicly and literally called the four cops murderers and said he was powerless to have them arrested. That was a false accusation of police impunity, because the supposedly powerless Frey was able to order the police to vacate their own station thus letting the demonstrators take over and burn it. Yet to draw back a bit the Deep State if worried about other states.

That event Frey largely created was the key moment of this whole thing. Trump could have nipped it in the bud by had sending in troops immediately the Minneapolis 3rd Precinct was burnt down. Crushing the riots in that city and preventing the example infecting the demonstrations in other cities. and turning them into cover for riots. Trump did not want to be seen as Draconian although it would not have been at all violent, because no one is going to challenge the army's awesome presence once it arrived on the streets,as worked in the Rodney King riots.

The real target of this operation is the Constitutional Republic itself. Having succeeded in using the Lockdown to push the economy into severe recession, the globalists are now inciting a fratricidal war that will weaken the opposition and prepare the country for a new authoritarian order.

George Floyd had foam visible at the corners of his mouth when the police arrived. Autopsy tests revealed Fentanyl and COVID-19: both from Wuhan. I Can't Breath is America gearing up to confront and settle accounts with Xi's totalitarian state.

Current events might seem to be a setback for the US, but provide the opportunity for a re-set with the black community, with a potential outcome of resolving race tensions that have been a cause of dissension and internal weakness, just as during the Cold War racial integration was thought essential by anti communists like Nixon. America is gearing up to settle accounts with China, which is a Deep State new Cold War. While it is a possibility that whites could lose control of their society, and see it fall into the hands of an explicitly anti -acist elite/ minorities alliance, the Deep State is not the same as the hyper capitalist elite whose growing wealth depends on China.

Do Deep State Elements Operate Within the Protest Movement?

Yes, and it is a good thing.

Thomasina , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 7:56 am GMT
@Mike Whitney The Duran did an excellent video titled "Social Media 'Unchecked Power'" where they talk about Trump and Barr going after the tech companies and their virtual monopolies with an executive order.

At 33:45 they state that Microsoft (Bill Gates) invested $1 billion and the CIA invested $16 million into Facebook when it was still operating as a university network. The CIA were one of the first investors in Facebook.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/OwPVQ8N8hhk?feature=oembed

Why the hell was the CIA investing $16 million to get Facebook off the ground? Hmmm. Could it be because Facebook would be instrumental in controlling the narrative?

The young people, who have no experience and no real knowledge of history, are being taken in by these social media companies who are playing on their emotions. Any dissenting opinions are blocked or banned. Very dangerous.

Gast , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 8:12 am GMT
@Loup-Bouc Well, the "deep state" is just an euphemism for the jewish power structure, and all those places you named are run be jews. That jews cooperate in extended conspiracies without regard of borders should be common knowledge for every observer of history and current politics. I see nothing far-fetched. Honestly, my mind would boggle if I should explain, how the Antifa gets away with those things it always gets away with, if it wasn't controlled by the "deep state". And I couldn't explain the international cooperation either.
GMC , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 8:15 am GMT
As Pepe' Escobar said – Americans looting is a natural thing – just look at how the US Military has stolen the gaz and oil from Iraq, Syria, Libya, etc. and is trying like hell for the Venezuelan oil fields. Not to mention where all their gold, silver and billions of dollars have gone. The list of the USG looting criminal record is unprecedented . It's a Family Tradition. Enjoyed the article !
Thomasina , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 8:37 am GMT
@MrFoSquare The Capitol Hill area of Seattle that has been taken over as an "autonomous zone" by the protesters is really rather laughable.

One of the first things they did was put up what they called "light fencing". Oh, so when THEY put up walls, that's perfectly fine. When Trump tries to do it, that's evil and racist. Borders are A-okay when they're doing it.

They've colonized an area for themselves. I thought the Progressive Left was against colonialism, taking someone else's property. Isn't that what they've done? They've taken over whole neighborhoods.

And they've got armed patrol guards checking people as they enter. If you're not in agreement with their ideology, you're not allowed to enter. So apparently it's okay to have border controls when they're running the world.

They're doing everything they profess to be against. Hilarious.

Thomasina , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 8:48 am GMT
@niteranger Along with the tech and social media companies, Hollywood, State Department, Department of Justice.
Some Guy sdfsdfs , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 8:59 am GMT
@Brian Reilly "anonymous, I have been encouraging cops to quit for a long time."

Dude, why? I don't want to get jacked by some thug or some immigrant policeman from Honduras. And I can't defend myself because it would be a hate crime.

Thank God for white cops.

peter mcloughlin , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 9:02 am GMT
There are underlying motives, or "hidden agendas", beneath the authentic struggle for justice. The greatest motive is for power: either to retain it or gain it. The need or desire for power can be identified in every conflict in history.
https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
Thomasina , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 9:23 am GMT
@Realist So you think that everything they've done to Trump has been one big show and he's been in on it? The pussy tape, Stormy Daniels, spying on his campaign, the leaking, the Steele Dossier, Russiagate, Ukrainegate, his impeachment, lying to the FISA Courts by the FBI, CIA's involvement, Mueller Report, DNC server, Clinton and Loretta Lynch on the tarmac, fake news media, sanctuary cities, courts disobeying his executive orders, Covid-19, protests – all of it has been a ruse to fool us into thinking that Trump is a legitimate opposition?

What, it's better to have the citizens split politically 50/50? That way there's never a majority who start throwing their weight around and making trouble for the elite looters? Keep the people fighting among each other and divided?

Trump has gone through all of this, but he's just faking it? Are we Truman from the Truman Show?

I guess you could be right, but what if you're not? What if Trump is actually an outsider? He's never really ever been part of the elite, not really. If he is truly an outsider, then these people have been a party to an attempted coup against a duly-elected President.

And if so, then that's sedition and they should hang.

Just a random Polish guy , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 9:35 am GMT
@PetrOldSack Trump is just a puppet, well maybe a bit more, of the part of the MIC and Deep State that apparently has a different agenda. This is not to say that they are "good people" but they seem to want to keep the US as a functioning republic and a major power. Maybe they have some plans re the other group(s) in the elites that are extremely dangerous for those groups. Which would explain why those groups ("globalists") want to remove those elements of influence people behind Trump get from the fact that he is the president. This explains why fake Covid-19 was so pumped by the media and when that apparently did not work they moved on to BLM "color revolution". It is interesting how all of this plays out, as it will decide the fate of the world. Ironically, Xi, Putin and other leaders that represent groups wanting to maintain (some) sovereignty of their states have a common enemy, even as their states are in competition, namely "globalist" elements within their own power structures.
James N. Kennett , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 9:39 am GMT
One of the goals of the British security service, MI5, is to control the leader or deputy leader of any subversive organisation larger than a football team. The same is likely true in every country.

The typical criticism of MI5 is that it is too passive, and does not use its knowledge to close down hostile groups. In Algeria, the opposite happened: the Algerian security service infiltrated the most extreme Islamist group in the 1990s and aggravated the country's civil war by committing massacres, with the goal of creating public revulsion for the Islamists.

This range of possibilities makes it hard to figure out what the Deep State and other manipulators are doing.

Thomasina , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 9:47 am GMT
@Sean Frey is a weak Leftist. The equally weak Governor (another Leftie) needed to handle the situation. He didn't. Trump told him that the feds would help if he asked; he didn't.

This is all on the state and local governments. They did nothing except to tell the cops to stand down while the city got looted and burned.

If Trump had sent in the military, they would have screamed blue murder. They probably would have called for his impeachment. Of course, that's what they wanted Trump to do. Thank goodness Trump didn't fall for their trap.

Commentator Mike , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 9:58 am GMT
So the NYT has joined the vanguard af the American People's Revolution?! People change sides and not all organisations are uniform, even the CIA. There has to be some organisation to these protests and whoever is providing it, I doubt the protesters are complaining, but want even more of it, and for it to be more effective, widespread and to grow. And finding protesters is no problem now or in the future considering the state of the economy, business closures, rising unemployment, expensive education. What are all these young people supposed to do? Sit at home playing video games, surfing porn, watching TV? Or go on a holiday? Now in these circumstances? I guess they're bored with all that so they may as well hit the streets and stay on the streets as they'll be on the streets anyway when they get evicted because they can't pay the rent. And as they're being impoverished they may as well steal what they can. And obviously they don't fear arrest and are happy to get a criminal record since even a clean sheet won't get them a job in the failing economy, and they know that. I'm sure many want a solution that will provide for their future. But who is providing it? So it's on them to create it. Of course politicians will want to use them and manipulate them for their own ends. And the elites, and the deep state too. And sure there are Jews in it as in anything. And sure they're fat, ugly, and degenerate – they're Americans reflecting their own society. But where it goes nobody knows
Commentator Mike , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 10:12 am GMT
@Sean So the Chinks killed George Floyd, and not the cops. LOL.
animalogic , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 10:55 am GMT
@Mike Whitney "Is Antifa a group of deep state agitators? That's the question."
99% of them wouldn't have a clue as to any larger strategic direction. Sorry,
but to repeat myself: "useful idiots".
onebornfree , says: Website Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 11:01 am GMT
"Do Deep State Elements Operate Within the Protest Movement?"

Well, duh! It seems likely that the entire George Floyd murder on camera was a staged event, its even possible that he/it was never really killed. See:

PSYOP? George Floyd "death" was faked by crisis actors to engineer revolutionary riots, video authors say

" Numerous videos are now surfacing that directly question the authenticity of the claimed "death" of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. Several trending videos appear to reveal striking inconsistencies in the official explanations behind the reported death of Floyd. These videos appear to reinforce the idea that the George Floyd incident was, if not entirely falsified, most definitely planned and rigged in advance. It is already confirmed that the Obama Foundation was tweeting about George Floyd more than a week before he is claimed to have died. "

"Obviously, since Barack Obama doesn't own a time machine, the only way the Obama Foundation could have tweeted about George Floyd a week before his death is it the entire event was planned in advanced.

Note: We do not endorse every claim in each of the videos shown below, but we believe the public has the right to hear dissenting views that challenge the official narratives, and we believe public debate that incorporates views from all sides of a particular issue offers inherent merit for public discourse.

Numerous video authors are now spotting stunning inconsistencies in the viral videos that claim to show white cops murdering George Floyd in broad daylight. Without exception, these video authors, many of whom are black, believe:

at least one of the "police officers" was actually a hired crisis actor who has appeared in other staged events in recent years.

that the black man depicted in the viral videos is not, in fact, an individual named George Floyd.
that the responding medical personnel were not EMTs but were in fact mere crisis actors wearing police costumes.

Each of the video authors shown below reveals still images and video clips that they say support their claims. Here's an overview of some of the most intriguing videos and the summary of what those videos are saying: .":

https://jamesfetzer.org/2020/06/mike-adams-psyop-george-floyd-death-was-faked-by-crisis-actors-to-engineer-revolutionary-riots-video-authors-say/

Regards, onebornfree

animalogic , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 11:05 am GMT
@Mike Whitney I think you are correct Mike. IF blm got $100 million from anyone it follows that they are beholden -- & the only entities capable of such "generosity" are "establishment" it therefore follows that BLM are beholden (controlled) by the establishment ( .the deep state .)
Really No Shit , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 11:09 am GMT
Now the New York Times thinks that the black, brown, white and yellow lives are dispensable does it mean their own GRAY lives matter more to the rest of us? No, it does not!
Christophe GJ , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 11:09 am GMT

The scale and coordination alone suggests that elements in the deep state are probably involved.

It seems right and logical.
But what I don't understand, is why the deep state elite don't understand that in the end the collapse of the "traditional society" will touch them too in their private life. In the long run the ruining of the US will ruin everybody in the US including them. Don't they get it ? Maybe they are intoxicated by their own lies are are begining to lose their lucidity. Like Al Pacino intoxicated by his own coke in scarface.

Digital Samizdat , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 11:10 am GMT
@obwandiyag Meanwhile, who's paying for BLM and Antifa?
Biff , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 11:22 am GMT
@JohnPlywood Triggered troll
animalogic , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 11:33 am GMT
@MrFoSquare What we need are some solid numbers:
How many arrested? (& who are they?)
How many properties destroyed?
Dollars worth of damage?
Which cities had the worst damage?
A social media "history" of protest/riot posting ?
Where/who are responsible for brick/frozen water bottle stashes?
Travel histories of notable offenders?
Links between "protesters" & the media ?
Money? Who/what/when/how was all this funded on a day-to-day basis.
And so on.
John Thurloe , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 11:48 am GMT
Mike Whitney doesn't know the first thing. It takes a lot of organizing time and personnel to properly prepare and lead in the field any large public protest. There are people experienced in this. Getting them together and deploying their capability is required.

These protests are classic unplanned, spontaneous actions. At least the first major wave of them. Only after some time will parties try to lead, organize. Or manipulate.

First thing, it's like trying to herd cats. So, you need marshals. Lots of them. Ably led, and clearly seen. Just to try and steer a protest down one street or to some point. You need first aid available, provision for seniors and children. Water. Knowledgeable people to deal with the media.

People who know what they're doing to deal with senior police. With city transit, buses, taxis. Hospitals, road construction, fire departments. A good protest cleans itself up too so provide the means for that. Loudspeakers, music – all this an more has to be organized. By some people.

And 100% of this or even a hint of organizing is not evident at these protests. And the evidence is easy to see. Organizers advertise too for volunteers. Everything in plain sight for those with eyes to see.

If you are stupid enough to think that some handful of fruitcakes from some official agency could even find their way to a protest, actually have a clue how to conduct themselves and not get laughed at or just ignored – there's no hope for you. You know nothing about protests and are pedalling fantasy.

Gryunt Linglebrunt, 7th Level Bard , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 12:13 pm GMT
@obwandiyag As usual, you're completely delusional. Most police departments are in the exact same boat as the municipalities that fund them: one downturn (like, say, a public lockdown followed by public disorder and looting) from going right to the wall.

There won't be any need to "defund" police; most of America's cities and towns are soon to be on the bread line, looking for those Ctrl-P federal dollars. Quarterly deficits of twenty trillion, here we come!

Uomiem , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 12:33 pm GMT
@Thomasina The power elite have different factions and they fight each other to a point, but they do not try to expose each other. This is why none of Trump enemies are going to be put in prison.

This is why Trump supports don't know what Genie Engery is, not that they would care.

The scum Trump appointed should tell you what side he's on.

Dr. X , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 12:39 pm GMT
I don't know if Antifa is run directly by the three-letter FedGov agencies. But I do know that the university is the breeding ground for these vermin, and all universities, even "private" ones, are largely funded by the governmnent, and are tax exempt.

So yes, the government is behind Antifa.

Niebelheim , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 12:42 pm GMT
@schnellandine The Hispanics in America are similar to waves of Italians in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, except the numbers are far larger and never ending, which impacts assimilation. The Hispanics are the ones doing the hard physical labor for low pay, and they are the ones in American society to invest in learning the skill to perform some of those backbreaking, low paying jobs well. They are the Super Marios of today. Many of them ply their trades as small businessmen. They are thankful for their jobs and the people they serve.
Many are loving, salt-of-the-earth type people who genuinely love their blanco friends. Howard Stern thinks their music sucks but at least they sing songs about el corazon, music of the heart and of love. (No one is comparable to the Italians in that department, but what do you suppose happened to the beautiful love music produced by black male vocalists as late as a generation ago?) Except for the fact that Hispanics come from countries with long traditions of corrupt, El Patron governments which unfortunately they want to enact here as a social safety net, they are often traditional in their attitudes about religion and family. Of course, they get in drunken brawls, abuse their women, and the graft and incompetence in their institutions can be outrageous. The reason they flee here is because the world they've created themselves in the shithole places they've leaving isn't as good as the West created by Caucasian cultures. The law abiding, decent family people I'm speaking of prosper alongside of whites and many come to recognize that whites and Hispanics can build a common destiny that's far preferable to the direction black agitators are taking blacks in America.
Realist , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 12:45 pm GMT
@Thomasina

So you think that everything they've done to Trump has been one big show and he's been in on it? The pussy tape, Stormy Daniels, spying on his campaign, the leaking, the Steele Dossier, Russiagate, Ukrainegate, his impeachment, lying to the FISA Courts by the FBI, CIA's involvement, Mueller Report, DNC server, Clinton and Loretta Lynch on the tarmac, fake news media, sanctuary cities, courts disobeying his executive orders, Covid-19, protests – all of it has been a ruse to fool us into thinking that Trump is a legitimate opposition?

Absolutely.

Keep the people fighting among each other and divided?

Yes, but the elite do not fear the majority they are in complete control through insouciance and stupidity on the majority.

I guess you could be right, but what if you're not? What if Trump is actually an outsider?

He's not his actions and inactions are impossible to logically explain away he is a minion of the Deep State.

Old and Grumpy , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 12:49 pm GMT
@botazefa Does either Trump or the GOP strike you as opposition when all they do is snivel. This operation is about demoralizing the silent majority.
Desert Fox , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 12:50 pm GMT
The protest movement is directed and controlled by the same zionists who control the government and their goal is the destruction of America and they are being allowed to do the wrecking and destruction that they are doing, as this helps full fill the zionist communist takeover of America.

To see where this is leading read up on the bolshevik-communist revolution in Russia and the communist revolution in China and Cuba and Cambodia, and there is the future of America.

Realist , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 12:55 pm GMT
@John Thurloe You are gullibility personified or a troll.
Old and Grumpy , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 1:02 pm GMT
@Christophe GJ They enjoy human suffering. Who knows maybe their compensation is linked to dead bodies. The deep state types will dwell in gate communities that will never be breached. The perks of owning both segments of the "opposition." As for the CIA's owners, a sharp depopulation has been their goal for some time. Why it has to be so ghoulish and prolong is anyone's guess.
Avalanche , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 1:06 pm GMT
@Brian Reilly "To the issue at hand, black people should only be policed, arrested, charged, prosecuted, defended, judged, and (if found guilty) punished by other blacks."

Yeah, some city tried that. To try to satisfy the "Get White police out of our neighborhoods" they did -- they re-orged and sent only black cops into black neighborhoods, and let the White cops police the White neighborhoods. And the BLACK POLICE SUED to end that! They were, they claimed (and legitimately, too!) being treated unfairly by making THEM police the most violent, the most dangerous, the most deadly neighborhoods, and "protecting" the White cops from that duty by letting only the White cops work the nice neighborhoods. They WON too!

This commenter gets it when he wrote the following. http://stuffblackpeopledontlike.blogspot.com/2015/05/will-last-white-person-to-leave.html

(note: "IKAGO" = "I know a good one." the all-too-often excuse from the unawakened!)
=====================
I don't mourn the loss of Baltimore. Or Detroit, Chicago, Gary, Atlanta, etc etc etc.

It is ultimately a huge benefit to have Negroes concentrated in these huge teeming Petri dishes.

As always I advocate the complete White withdrawal from these horrible urban sh_tholes, and as always I advocate that since Negroes do not want to be policed, to immediately stop policing them.

And to anyone who might be naive enough to say "hey, there are good people in those neighborhoods, who try to work and raise their kids, who obey the law and who abhor the lawlessness and rioting as much as anyone" . my response is that these same IKAGO's voted for a Negro president, for Negro mayors, Negro city council members, Negro police chiefs and Negro school superintendents, and now they are getting exactly what they deserve, good and effing hard.

I have ZERO sympathy for blacks.
=====================

And the new rule:
Remember when seconds count, the police are not even obligated to respond.

jadan , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 1:11 pm GMT
Of course "deep state elements" operate in protests! What A STUPID question, Whitney. All kinds of political tricksters, manipulators, provocateurs, idiots, fools, people suffering from ennui, you name it Mike, they're involved. And yes, the murder of the black man in Minneapolis was the trigger.

That's not the only cause of social unrest. There are lots of reasons that drive the displeasure of the mass of people and it's not the silly "deep state". Before you use that term, if you want any sort of salute from intelligent people, you need to define your terms. Or are just just waving a red flag so you can attract a bunch of stupid Trumpsters?

There's a whole lot of deep state out there, good buddy. Just examine the federal budget and whatever money you cannot assign to a particular institution or specific purpose, that is funding your your "deep state". It's billions and billions. But there is no Wizard of Oz behind the curtain to spend it all on nefarious purposes. Sure, the deep state destroyed the WTC and killed a few thousand people. These hidden operators can do things civilians can only imagine, but they cannot create movements, Whitney. You just can't fool all of the people all of the time.

Are you having a touch of brain degeneration, Mike, like dear autocrat in the White House?

Chet Roman , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 1:15 pm GMT
A great article. While Trump may have some ties to the Deep State, I doubt very much that he is their puppet. He won the nomination because he was against some of the Deep States key policies. He even tried to implement his policies but mostly failed due to traitors in his administration and all the coordinated coup attempts.

One recent development that causes me to think that this article is spot on is the blatant attacks by retired generals and even currently serving generals against a sitting president. Even Defense Sec. Esper (the Raytheon lobbyist) criticized Trump's comments on the Insurrection Act, which was totally unnecessary since Trump only said that he had the authority to use it.

The coordinated criticism of the generals just reminds me of how similar it is to the coordinated effort by the CIA, FBI, State Department and NSA to use the Russiagate hoax and impeachment hoax to remove Trump. The riots, the money funneled from BLM to Biden 2020, support of Antifa by the MSM and the generals treasonous actions are not coincidences.

the_old_one , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 1:28 pm GMT
I'm surprised by the generally low level of the responses.

Mr. Whitney:

There haven't been 'millions' of protestors, maybe some thousands.
Please list the "valid grievances" that negros hold concerning the cops; are the cops supposed to raise black IQ? These riots need to be suppressed pronto; don't waste your time waiting for the fat orange buffoon to do anything.

Negros have no 'communities', and never will.

I'm wondering why Mr. Unz thinks he is required to let leftists like Whitney post here.

(1)-There is a 'deep state'
(2)-(1) does NOT imply that negros are a noble race.

You may now resume sympathizing with rioters.

Justvisiting , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 1:39 pm GMT
@botazefa The international protests are what is called a _clue_.

Protesting white supremacy in Japan–really?

https://globalnews.ca/news/7064204/george-floyd-protesters-japan-new-zealand/

This is obviously international deep state activity–they are up to no good.

Digital Samizdat , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 2:11 pm GMT
@Thomasina CHAZ sounds a bit like a second Israel, doesn't it!
anonymous [400] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 2:18 pm GMT
The opening statement is quite true. They've apparently been organizing under the radar for some years now. Diversity is our greatest weakness and these fissures that run through the country can be exploited. Blacks have been weaponized and used as the spearpoint along with the more purposeful real Antifa (lots of wannabes walking around clad in black). Everything has really been well coordinated and the Gene Sharp playbook followed. These 'color revolution' employees are actually all over the globe, funded by various front groups and NGOs. The money trail often leads to various billionaires like the ubiquitous Soros but people like that may just be acting as fronts themselves. Supposed leftists working against the interests of the value producing working class?
onebornfree , says: Website Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 2:19 pm GMT
@onebornfree ATTENTION!

The George Floyd murder was a obviously a wholly staged Deep State event, complete with the usual crisis actors, as this video summary clearly illustrates :

Bitchute video "CRISIS ACTOR TRIGGERS RACE WAR":


https://www.bitchute.com/embed/OItT0WD55x0w/

Regards., onebornfree

Neoconned , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 2:19 pm GMT
CHP officers & feds were noted at the Occupy protests in 2011:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/26/occupy-oakland-veteran-critical-condition

And later during the 2016 BLM protests.

Johnny Smoggins , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 2:20 pm GMT
@Brian Reilly "To the issue at hand, black people should only be policed, arrested, charged, prosecuted, defended, judged, and (if found guilty) punished by other blacks. No white person should have anything to do with it. "

And when these same blacks attack or steal from a White person, which they often do, do you think they'll get a just punishment from their fellow blacks or a high five?

The solution to the black problem is complete separation, there is no other way.

Digital Samizdat , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 2:22 pm GMT
@John Thurloe The protests may well have been spontaneous and sincere, but the riots are not. The latter are definitely getting help from above.
gay troll , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 2:23 pm GMT
@Mike Whitney But why do you assume the CIA wants to get rid of Trump? Isn't that tantamount to judging a book by its cover? Americans have been on to the evil shenanigans of the intelligence community for decades. Trump is nothing more than controlled opposition and a false sense of security for "patriots". One needs look no further than the prognostications of Q to see that Trump is the beneficiary of deep state propaganda. The CIA's modus operandi, together with the rest of the IC, is to deceive. So if they appear to be doing one thing (fighting Trump) you can be sure they intend the opposite.

Americans are nose deep in false dichotomies, and Trump is a pole par excellence. Despite his flagrant history as an NYC liberal, putative fat cat, swindler, and network television superstar, he is now depicted as either a populist outsider, or a literal Nazi. The simple fact is that he is an actor and confidence artist. He is playing a role, and he is playing to both sides of the aisle, and his work is to deceive the entirety of the American public, together with the mockingbird media, which is merely the yin to his pathetic yang.

Too many Americans think they have a choice, or a chance, by simply minding their own business, consuming their media of choice, and voting. In fact, Americans are face to face with the end of their history, as the country has been systematically looted for decades, and will soon be demolished as it is no longer profitable to the oligarchs who manage the globe. Obama-Trump is a 1-2 knockout punch.

Digital Samizdat , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 2:27 pm GMT
@Uomiem That's a good point, and it's of the main problems I do have with Trump: his cabinet picks and financial backers (Adelsen, Singer, et al.). But in fairness, what happens when he tries to pick someone who's not approved by the system? Well, if they're cabinet officers, they'll never get approved by the senate. And even if they're not, they will be driven out of the White House somehow–just like Gen. Flynn and Steve Bannon. In short, when it comes to staffing, Trump's choices are limited by the same swamp he's fighting. Sad but true
Chet Roman , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 2:27 pm GMT
@Thomasina Interesting comments by the Duran but I cannot find any evidence of a direct investment by the CIA in Facebook. The CIA's investment arm, In-Q-Tel, did invest in early Facebook investor Peter Theil's company Palantir and other companies. Also, Graylock Partners were also early investors in Facebook along with Peter Theil and the head of Graylock is Howard Cox who served on In-Q-Tel's board of directors. But these are indirect inferences.

Unlike the clear and direct investment of the CIA in the company that was eventually purchased by Google and is now called Google Earth, I can't find any evidence of a direct investment by the CIA in Facebook. I have no doubt it's true since it's a perfect tool for data gathering. Do you have any direct evidence of such an investment?

Beavertales , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 2:40 pm GMT
Is the Deep State stage-managing the "BLM" protests to further an agenda? Absolutely.

The main influence of the Deep State is felt in its complete dominance of the controlled media.

Like mantras handed down by the commissars, the mainstream media keep repeating key phrases to narrowly define what's happening: "mostly peaceful protests", "anti-black racism".

The media is an organ of the Deep State. The Deep State will decide when the protests will end, and when that day arrives, the media will suddenly pivot on cue like a school of fish or a flock of birds.

Realist , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 2:53 pm GMT
Perhaps some non believers in the Deep State would like to explain why the multi trillion dollar corporations in America are supporting BLM, Antifa and other anarchy groups since on the face of it anarchy would be antithetical to these corporations?

Hint: The wealthy and powerful (aka Deep State) know that anarchy divides a populous thereby removing their ability to resist their true enemy and even more draconian laws. The die is being cast at this moment and the complete subjugation of the American people will, probably, be effectuate by the end of this year. A full court press is under way and life is about to change for 99% of the American people.
If you disagree with my hint correct it.

Realist , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 3:15 pm GMT
@gay troll

Too many Americans think they have a choice, or a chance, by simply minding their own business, consuming their media of choice, and voting. In fact, Americans are face to face with the end of their history, as the country has been systematically looted for decades, and will soon be demolished as it is no longer profitable to the oligarchs who manage the globe. Obama-Trump is a 1-2 knockout punch.

Your points are excellent. All tragic, devastating events in the last, at least, 20 years have been staged or played to facilitate the total control by the Deep State.

See my comment #90 below.

DaveE , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 3:27 pm GMT
The problem is power – and the nature of those who lust for it. The police are very powerful, by necessity and the nature of police work is the exercise of power – on the street.

Not to mention the fact that police forces, like every other institution, are managed from the top. Sgt. Bernstein back at the station calls the shots, gets to decide who is hired / fired and generally runs the department like a CEO runs a company. Not all cops are rotten, but if Sgt. Bernstein is a scumbag, the whole department tends to behave as a scumbag.

I'll give you two guesses, the second one doesn't count, as to which tribe of psychopaths – who call themselves "chosen" – have mastered the art of playing both sides against the middle, using the police as a very powerful tool to accomplish an ancient agenda of world-domination, straight out of The Torah.

The police are just another sad story of the destruction of America, by Shlomo.

James Scott , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 3:34 pm GMT
@Mike Whitney Any explanation that ignores that the catalyst for what is happening is the Federal Reserve Notes free fall is not a good explanation.

This is a failed Communist Putsch. The people pushing it have enough control of major cities to keep it alive but not enough to push it into the heartland. 400 million guns and a few billion bullets are protecting freedom in the USA just like they were intended to.

All failed communist revolutions end in fascism taking power. The Yahoo news comments sections are way to big to censor properly and they are already taking on a Fascist tone with almost half the posters. This is only just beginning and most people are beginning to understand that these lies non whites tell about the fake systemic racism are too dangerous to go unchallenged. The idea that the protests ,the protests not the riots, have no foundation in truth is starting to work its way to the forefront of white peoples minds.

Non whites are coddled by the establishment in the USA and no real racists have any power in the USA so this whole thing is and has been for 50 years based on lies.

The jew mob is going to lose all their economic power over the next year or so as the Fed Note hyper-inflates. The mob knows this and made a grab for ideological power using low IQ ungrateful non whites they have been inculcating with anti white ideals for decades as their foot soldiers.

They are screwed because the places they control are parasitic just like they are. Cities are full of people making nothing and pretty much just doing service jobs for each other. All the things needed to keep cities going come from outside the cities and the jew mob is not in charge in the places that actually produce things. Not like they are in the cities anyway.

Ignoring the currency rises makes you dishonest Mike.

Alfred , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 3:43 pm GMT
I think the leadership and tactics of the police are deplorable. I can only surmise that the local political leadership in many cities is on the inside of this latest scam.

The police should be able to launch attacks on the crowd to single out those who are Antifa activists. That is what the riot police in France would do. They should try to ignore the rabble behind which these activists are sheltering.

By remaining on the defensive and without using the element of surprise to capture these activists, the police are sitting ducks.

My dad told me what it was like in Cairo when the centre of the city was destroyed in 1952. I was tiny at that time and remember my mother carrying me. We watched Cairo burning in the distance. We were on the roof of the huge house of my Egyptian grandfather in Heliopolis.

The looters and arsonists were well-equipped. It was not by any means spontaneous. They smashed the locks on the draw-down shutters of the shops with sledge hammers. Next, they looted the shop. Lastly, they tossed in Molotov cocktails. The commercial heart of Cairo was largely destroyed in a few hours. Cinemas and the Casino were burnt. Cairo was a very pleasant metropolis in those days. It became prosperous during WW2 by supplying the Allies.

My family's small factory was in the very centre of Cairo – in Abbassia. My father rounded up his workers to defend the factory. Many lived on the premises. They were all tough Sa'idi from Upper Egypt. Many were Coptic Christians. They all had large staffs that they knew how to use. The arsonists and looters kept well clear.

Cairo fire 1952

SunBakedSuburb , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 4:03 pm GMT
@Priss Factor "Jewish cult of Magic Negro"

The Temple of the Sacred Black Body is really a worship of golems.

Agent76 , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 4:03 pm GMT
JUNE 9, 2020 CityLab University: A Timeline of U.S. Police Protests

The latest protests against police violence toward African Americans didn't appear out of nowhere. They're rooted in generations of injustice and systemic racism.

https://www.citylab.com/equity/2020/06/american-history-protest-police-brutality-black-lives-racism/612445/

Jun 2, 2020 Brick Pallets For Riots From ACME BRICK CO Own By Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett & Bill Gates

https://www.youtube.com/embed/VqhgO9Dz7Rc?feature=oembed

Wally , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 4:05 pm GMT
@Sean said:
"While it is a possibility that whites could lose control of their society, and see it fall into the hands of an explicitly anti -[r]acist elite/ minorities alliance,"

"Anti-racist?

The entire matter is "explicit" racism directed against Euro-whites.

SunBakedSuburb , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 4:16 pm GMT
@gay troll "But why do you assume the CIA wants to get rid of Trump?"

John Brennan collaborated with James Comey on the Russian collusion narrative. Brennan is indicative of the upper-echelon CIA and its orientation towards the globalist billionaire class.

Wizard of Oz , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 4:20 pm GMT
@Loup-Bouc Maybe you also noticed that the opening pages of the article suggested that the author was unhinged when he made so much of an alleged editorial in the NYT which wasn't an editorial but an opinion piece by an activist. And what about the spontaneous eruptions of protest all round the world? Masterminded by the US "Deep State"? Absurd.

Mr. Whitney may have got to an age when he can no longer understand the young and their latest fashionable fatuities and follies.

jbwilson24 , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 4:47 pm GMT
@obwandiyag " The assholes on this asshole site will not let you say that what is important is how the super-billionaires control us. "

Nonsense, I rant against the largely Jewish super-billionaires all the time.

Truth is that blacks and working class whites are in relatively similar positions compared to the 1%. We should be seeking alliances with people like Rev. Farrakhan, but instead, for some curious reason, big Jewish money is pouring into keeping racial grievances alive and kicking. It looks very much like a divide and conquer strategy.

Where did the antiwar and Occupy Wall Street movements go after Obama's election? My guess is that the financial elite saw the danger of having OWS ask questions about the bailouts, so they devoted a ton of time and energy into pushing racial grievance politics, gender neutral bathrooms and the like. Their co-ethnics in the media collaborated with them in making sure only one perspective made the news.

PS: if you don't like the website, simply avoid visiting it. Trust me, no one will miss your inane posts.

Nancy Pelosi's Latina Maid , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 4:52 pm GMT
@JohnPlywood

"90% of Americans are unlikely to even see more than ten black people in their entire lives."

I sure hope you're talking about IRL, because I see more than ten black people in any commercial break on any TV show on any cable or network TV station every hour of every day. In fact, it's at least 50/50 B/W and it feels more like 60/40 B/W. And it's always the blacks who are in charge, the whites spill chips all over the kitchen floor

JimDandy , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 5:05 pm GMT
After all the nonsensical rumors that this guy was a cop fell away, why didn't anyone look at this guy in the context that this article explores?

https://heavy.com/news/2020/05/jacob-pederson-auto-zone-cop-not-umbrella-man/

gay troll , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 5:23 pm GMT
@SunBakedSuburb 15 seasons of The Apprentice on NBC is indicative of Trump's orientation towards the globalist billionaire class. It sure was nice of NBC to thus rehabilitate Trump's image after it became clear he was a cheat who could not even hold down a casino. From fake wrestler to fake boardroom CEO, Trump has ALWAYS been made for TV.

As for Russiagate, it was a transparent crock of shit from the moment Clapper sent his uncorrobated assertions under the aegis of "17 intelligence agencies". You assume the point of the charade was to "get Trump", but really Russiagate was designed to deceive "liberals" just as Q was designed to deceive "conservatives". It is the appearance of conflict that serves to divide Americans into two camps who both believe the other is at fault for all of society's ills. In fact, it is the Zionists and bankers who are to blame for society's ills, and like the distraction of black vs. white, Democrat vs. Republican keeps everybody's attention away from the real chauvinists and criminals.

Brás Cubas , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 5:31 pm GMT
@Sean Well, I can't deny that yours is an extremely original interpretation. It sure made me think. I can't say I'm convinced, though it doesn't seem to have any conspicuous a priori inconsistency with facts. I guess time will tell.
schnellandine , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 5:35 pm GMT
@JimDandy

After all the nonsensical rumors that this guy was a cop

The alleged nonsensical rumors were that he was a specific cop. The sensible assumption was that he was a cop or similar state sludge.

Alden , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 5:40 pm GMT
@Realist Agree. Someone posted he had a friend at Minneapolis airport. Incoming planes were full of antifa types the day after Floyd died.

They are very well organized. They are notorious around universities. Well, not universities in dangerous black neighborhoods. They live like students in crowded apartments and organize all their movements. Plenty of dumb kids to recruit. Plenty of downwardly mobile White grads who can't get jobs or into grad s hook because they're White. Those Whites go into liberal rabble rousing instead of rabble rousing against affirmative action, so brainwashed are they. Portland is a college town. That's why antifa is so well organized there. Seattle's a college town too as is Chicago.

AnonFromTN , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 5:41 pm GMT

Do Deep State Elements Operate Within the Protest Movement?

Silly question. Of course, they do. Just look at the MSM coverage, full of blatant lies.

Iva , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 5:49 pm GMT
Why ANTIFA doesn't loot banks, doesn't stand in front od Soros home, JPMorgan headquarters, big corporations, Bezos business .etc? Because rich are paying for riots ..the same way they payed to support Hitler during WWII.
anon8383892 , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 6:06 pm GMT
@Anon Thanks for highlighting the complex racial politics -- in this case between Hispanics and Africans. That was something Ron Unz got right as well -- independently of the numerology -- in the other article; basically saying that there have been a lot of various social-engineering projects going on.
Naturally I'm liable for everything else you said ;/ no comment, no contest,

I think it will be alright if we can get back to basics, natural rights, republican representative organization, pluralism, etc The corporate nightmare has everyone crammed into a vat of human resources. Undo that, see how it goes, then take it from there.

Alden , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 6:11 pm GMT
@Mike Whitney The reason most of the rioters arrested were native New Yorkers is that they were the useful idiots designated fall guys.

The organizers are adept at changing clothes hats and sunglasses. Their job is to get things started by smashing windows of a Nike's store and running away letting a few looters be arrested.

I remember something written by an Indian communist, not Indian nationalist How To Start a Riot in the 1920s.

1 Start rumors about abuse of Indians by British.
2. Decide where to start the riots.
3 Best place is in the open air markets around noon. The merchants will have collected substantial money. The local lay abouts will be up and about.
4 Instigators start fights with the merchants raid cash boxes overturn tables and the riot is on.

The ancient Roman politicians started riots that way. It's standard procedure in every country in every era. All this fuss and discussion by the idiot intelligentsia is ridiculous as is everything the idiot intelligentsia thinks, writes and does.

We Americans experience a black riot every few years, just as we experience floods, droughts, blizzards , earthquakes, forest fires, tornadoes floods and hurricanes.

As long as we have blacks and liberal alleged intellectuals we'll have riots.

[Jun 15, 2020] Full Special Investigation - Donald Trump vs The Deep State

Highly recommended!
This is an amazing video. highly recommended
Notable quotes:
"... Firstly your definition of 'deep state' is too limited, it includes the bureaucracy, much of the judiciary, banks and other financial institutions, and the major political parties. It is not restricted only to the intelligence agencies. It is not a US-specific issue, but a global one. For the deep state exists everywhere, and is often more powerful in commonwealth countries, such as here in apathetic Australia. ..."
"... When the CIA kills Kennedy you know you've got problems... And whilst agents in the CIA probably did not pull the trigger - their "assets" did... If you don't believe me spare me your tiresome ignorant replies and go and do some research... ..."
"... " We were warned about the Military Industrial Complex, Sadly the Government Media Complex, has done way more damage, and will be much harder to overcome" ~ Dr. Mike Savage 2008 ..."
Jun 15, 2020 | www.youtube.com

Sky News Australia In this Special Investigation Sky News speaks to former spies, politicians and investigative journalists to uncover whether US President Donald Trump is really at war with "unelected Deep State operatives who defy the voters".


Cee Zee , 7 months ago

Was it not for Trump, we would never have had a clue just how evil and corrupt the fbi, cia, leftist media and big tech giants are!

Tron Javolta , 6 months ago

George Soros, The clintons, The royal family, The Rothschild's, the Federal reserve as a whole, The modern Democrat, cia, fbi, nsa, Facebook, Google, not to mention all the faceless unelected bureaucrats who create and push policies that impact our every day lives. This, my lads, is the deep state. They run our world and get away with whatever they want until someone in their circle loses their use (Epstein)

k-carl Manley , 1 month ago

JFK was right: dismantle the CIA and throw the remaining dust to the wind - same for the traitorous leaders in the FBI!

Nick Krikorian , 7 months ago

The deep state killed JFK

Joe Mamma , 1 week ago

The deep state is real and they are powerful and have an evil agenda!

Joe Graves , 1 month ago

Anyone that says a "deep state" doesn't exist in America, is part of the American deep state.

ceokc13 , 3 days ago (edited)

The Cabal owns the US intelligence agencies, the media, and Hollywood. That's how all these big name corrupted figure heads aren't in prison for their crimes. The Clinton email scandal is a prime example. This is much bigger than the USA... it's effects are world wide.

Francis Gee , 1 week ago (edited)

The Four Stages of Ideological Subversion: 1 - Demoralization 2 - Destabilization 3 - Crisis 4 - Normalization Are you not entertained? The above is "their" roadmap. Learn what it means and spread this far & wide, as that will be the means by which to end this.

TheConnected Chris , 1 day ago

President JFK on April 17, 1961: "Today no war has been declared--and however fierce the struggle may be, it may never be declared in the traditional fashion. Our way of life is under attack. Yet no war has been declared, no borders have been crossed by marching troops, no missiles have been fired. If the press is awaiting a declaration of war before it imposes the self-discipline of combat conditions, then I can only say that no war ever posed a greater threat to our security. If you are awaiting a finding of 'clear and present danger,' then I can only say that the danger has never been more clear and its presence has never been more imminent. It requires a change in outlook, a change in tactics, a change in missions--by the government, by the people, by every businessman or labor leader, and by every newspaper. For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence--on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations. Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed. It conducts the Cold War, in short, with a war-time discipline no democracy would ever hope or wish to match." thoughts: by saying, 'conducts the Cold War' did he directly call out the CIA???

Fact Chitanda , 2 weeks ago

The secret services are only one arm of the deep state. Its bigger than them!

David Stanley , 3 days ago

Most troubling now it is known about the deep state: is Trump a double agent just another puppet just giving the appearance of working against the deep state?

Miroslav Skoric , 2 months ago

"I' never saw corruption" said the blind monkey "I never heard any corruption " said the deaf monkey The mute monkey,of course said nothing.

Franco Lust , 2 months ago

Thank you Australians for having rhe courage to speak out for us Patriots!!! We know the Deep State Cabal retaliated with the fires. We love you guys from 💖💗

Always Keen , 7 months ago

Drain that swamp!

joe wood , 2 days ago

Found and cause all wars. Mislead both sides .

Peter Kondogonis , 1 month ago (edited)

Well done Skynews. THE DEEP STATE IS REAL. I woke up 10+ years ago. Turn off the TV for 1-2 years to study and awaken. Make a start on learning with David ickes Videos and books. WWG1 WGA

silva lloyd , 1 month ago

"How does democracy survive" We don't live in a democracy. The English isles and commonwealth are a constitutional monarchy, America is a republic.

Rhsheeda Russell , 5 days ago

And President Trump was right. Senator Graham is a sneaky, lying, sloth who enjoys his status and takes taxpayers money to do nothing.

Jerry Kays , 1 day ago

Before I go and pass this on to as many as I can get to follow it I just wanted to commend those that produced this and I hope that it gets fuller dissemination because it is such a rare truth in such a time of utter deceit by most all of the MSM (Main Stream Media) that this country I reside in uses to supposedly inform the American people ...what a crock! Thank You, Australia for making this available (but beware, the Five Eyes are always very active in related matters to this) ... This has been welcome confirmation of what many of us have known and attempted to tell others for about 5 years now. Sadly, I doubt that has or will help very much, The System is so corrupted from top to bottom ... IMnsHO and E.

Jonathan King , 7 months ago (edited)

Firstly your definition of 'deep state' is too limited, it includes the bureaucracy, much of the judiciary, banks and other financial institutions, and the major political parties. It is not restricted only to the intelligence agencies. It is not a US-specific issue, but a global one. For the deep state exists everywhere, and is often more powerful in commonwealth countries, such as here in apathetic Australia.

GB3770 , 1 month ago (edited)

When the CIA kills Kennedy you know you've got problems... And whilst agents in the CIA probably did not pull the trigger - their "assets" did... If you don't believe me spare me your tiresome ignorant replies and go and do some research...

BassBreath100 , 2 months ago

" We were warned about the Military Industrial Complex, Sadly the Government Media Complex, has done way more damage, and will be much harder to overcome" ~ Dr. Mike Savage 2008

Scocasso Vegetus , 1 month ago (edited)

14:20 I met a guy from Canada in the early 2000s, a telephone technician, told me about when he worked at the time for the government telephone company in the early 80s. He was given a really strange job one day, to go do some work in the USA. Some kind of repair work that required someone with experience and know-how, but apparently someone from out-of-country, he guesses, because there certainly must have been many people in the USA who could have done it, he figured. He flew down to oregon, then was driven for hours out into the middle of nowhere in navada, he said. They came to a small building that was surrounded by fencing etc. Nothing interesting. Nothing else around, he said, as far as he could see. They went in, and pretty much all that was there was an elevator. They went in, and he said, he didn't know how many floors down it went, or how fast it was moving, but seemed to take quite sometime, he figured about 8 stories down, was his guess, but he didn't know. He was astounded to see that there was telephone recording stuff in there about the size of two football-fields. He said they were recording everything. He said, even at that time, it was all digital, but they didn't have the capacity to record everything, so it was set up to monitor phone calls, and if any key words were spoken, it would start recording, and of course it would record all phone calls at certain numbers. "So, who knows what they've got in there today, he said" back in the early 2000s. So, imagine what they've got there today, in the 2020s. I didn't know whether or not to believe this story, until I saw a doc about all of the telephone recording tapes they have in storage, rotting away, which were used to record everyone's phone calls onto magnetic tape. Literally tonnes and tonnes of tapes, just sitting there in storage now, from the 1970s, the pre-digital days. They've always been doing it. They're just much better at it today than ever. Now they can tell who you are by your voice, your cadence, your intonation, etc. and record not just a call here and there, but everything.

cuppateadee , 3 days ago

Assange got banged up because he exposed war crimes by this lot on film Chelsea Manning also. They are heroes.

Shaun Ellis , 7 months ago

"The greatest trick the devil ever pulled is convincing the world he didnt exist" Credit the --- Usual Suspects ---- That's the playbook of the "Deep State"

Cheryl Lawlor , 2 weeks ago

Even Obama said, "the CIA gets what the CIA wants." Even he wouldn't upset them.

NeXus Prime , 1 week ago

The last guy (denying the deep state's existence) was lying. When someone shakes their head when talking in the affirmative you can be 100% sure it is a lie (micro expressions 101).

zetayoru , 1 month ago

JFK said he wanted to expose a deeper and more sinister group. And when he was moving closer to it, he got killed.

adolthitler , 1 week ago

Yuri Bezmenov will tell you the deepstate has too much power. Yuri was right about much.

Ed P , 3 weeks ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULZdtvhtYQI

Shirley van der Heijden , 1 month ago

Evil never is satisfied!

The Vault , 5 days ago

https://www.facebook.com/kyle.darbyshire/posts/1085832538454860

Bitcoin Blockchain , 1 day ago


Bitcoin Blockchain
1 day ago
1950–1953:	Korean War United States (as part of the United Nations) and South Korea vs. North Korea and Communist China
1960–1975:	Vietnam War	United States and South Vietnam vs. North Vietnam
1961: Bay of Pigs Invasion	United States vs. Cuba
1983: Grenada United States intervention
1989: U.S.Invasion of Panama	United States vs. Panama
1990–1991: Persian Gulf War United States and Coalition Forces vs. Iraq
1995–1996: Intervention in Bosnia and Herzegovina	United States as part of NATO acted as peacekeepers in former Yugoslavia
2001–present: Invasion of Afghanistan	United States and Coalition Forces vs. the Taliban regime in Afghanistan to fight terrorism
2003–2011: Invasion of Iraq The United States and Coalition Forces vs. Iraq
2004–present: War in Northwest Pakistan United States vs. Pakistan, mainly drone attacks
2007–present: Somalia and Northeastern Kenya	United States and Coalition forces vs. al-Shabaab militants
2009–2016: Operation Ocean Shield (Indian Ocean) NATO allies vs. Somali pirates
2011: Intervention in Libya	U.S. and NATO allies vs. Libya
2011–2017: Lord's Resistance Army U.S. and allies against the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda
2014–2017: U.S.-led Intervention in Iraq U.S. and coalition forces against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria
2014–present: U.S.-led intervention in Syria U.S. and coalition forces against al-Qaeda, ISIS, and Syria
2015–present: Yemeni Civil War Saudi-led coalition and the U.S., France, and Kingdom against the Houthi rebels, Supreme Political Council in Yemen, and allies
2015–present: U.S. intervention in Libya
Ken Martin , 5 months ago

Deep State is the "Wealthy Oligarchy", an "International Mafia" who controls the Central Bank (a privacy owned banking system which controls the worlds currencies). The Wealthy Oligarchy "aka Deep State" controls most all Democratic countries, and controls the International Media. In the United States, both the Republican and Democrat parties are controlled by the Wealthy Oligarchy aka Deep State.

pharcyde110573 , 6 months ago (edited)

A beautifully crafted and delivered discourse, impressive! As a Londoner I have become increasingly interested in Sky News Australia, you are a breath of fresh air and common sense in this world of ever growing liberal media hysteria!

Gord Pittman , 22 hours ago

I have to laugh at the people, including our supposedly unbiased and intelligent media, who said the Russia thing was the truth when it was nothing but a conspiracy theory. Everything else was a conspiacy theory according to the dems ans the mainstream media..

joe wood , 1 week ago

CIA did 9-11 with bush cabal pulling strings

Joseph Hinton , 1 month ago

Wall Street and the banksters control the CIA. One can imagine the ramifications of control of the world via the moneyed interests backed by James Bond and the Green Berets, the latter, under control of the CIA.

Karen Reaves , 2 weeks ago (edited)

Every nation has the same deep state. CIA Mossad MI6 and CCP protect the deep state like one big Mafia. Thank you Sky News. outofshadows.org

killtheglobalists , 2 days ago (edited)

Deep State Powers have been messing with your USA long before your War of Independence . Your Founding Fathers knew , why do you think they wrote your Constitution that way. Now everyone is always crying about something but fail to realize you gave your freedoms away over time . The Deep State never left it just disguised itself and continued to regain control under a new face or ideaology. Follow the money . "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."― Edmund Burke

Kauz , 1 week ago

Timothy Leary gives the CIA TOTAL CREDIT for sponsoring and initiating, the entire consciousness movement and counter-culture events of the 1960's.

Sierra1 Tngo , 2 weeks ago

After the John F. Kennedy assassination the took full power,those who are in power now are the descendants of the criminals who did it,some of their sons just have a different last name but they are the same family,like George Bush and John Kerry are cousins but different last name and the list goes and goes.

iwonka k , 3 hours ago

Council on Foreign Relation is more Deep State than CIA and FBI . The two worked for CFR. CFR tel president whom to appoint to what positions. Nixon got a list of 22 deep state candidates for top US position and all were hired. Obama appointed 11 from the list. Kissinger is behind the scenes strings puller also.

R Tarz , 2 months ago

Thanks Sky and Peter for bringing this to the mainstream attention, it really is time! Wished you had aired John Kiriakou,s other claims off child sex trafficking to the elites which has been corroborated by so many other sources now and is the grossest deformity of this deep state which you can see footage of trump talking about. I am amazed and greatful to see Trump has done more about this than all other presidents in the last 20 years. Lets end this group. All we need to do is shine the light on them

Adronicus -IF- , 2 months ago

The CIA are only an intelligence and operations functioning part of the deep state its much more complex and larger than just the CIA. The British empire controls the deep state they always have it is just a modern version of the old East India Company controlled by the same families with the same ideology. https://theduran.com/the-origins-of-the-deep-state-in-north-america/

John Doe , 1 month ago

It's funny how for decades "the people" were crying on their knees about how bad every president was n how corrupt n controlled they were. Now you've got a president with no special interest groups publicly calling out the deep state n ur still bitching. U know you've got someone representing the people when the cia n fbi r out to get him. In 50 years trump will be looked back at with the likes of Washington, Lincoln n jfk. Once the msm smear campaign is out of everyone's brain.

Nicholas Napier , 2 months ago (edited)

When they start spying on people within the United States and when they used in National Defense authorization act that gave them a lot of power since after 911 to give them more power now they have Homeland Security which is the next biggest threat to the United States it can be abused and some of these people have a higher security clearance than the president.... they're not under control the NSA is one of them you don't mention in here either one is about the more that you don't even know about that they don't have names are acronyms that we knew about that's why the American people have been blindsided by this overtime they've been giving all this money to do things... allocation of money they gathered to do this and now Congress itself doesn't know temperature of Schumer when you caught him saying to see I can get back at you three ways to Sunday I mean he's got some words in this saying to the president of usa donald trump... basically threatening the President right there.. you can see it's alive and well when Congress is immune from prosecution from anything or anyone....

itsmemuffins , 7 months ago

"I think in light of all of the things going on, and you know what I mean by that: the fake news, the Comeys of the world, all of the bad things that went on, it's called the swamp you know what I did," he asked. "A big favor. I caught the swamp. I caught them all. Let's see what happens. Nobody else could have done that but me. I caught all of this corruption that was going on and nobody else could have done it."

msciciel14therope , 1 month ago

there is no big secret that CIA is deeply involved in drug smuggling operations...i remember interview with ex marine colonel who said that he was indirectly involved in such operations in panama...

Vaclav Haval , 6 days ago

The Deep State (CIA, NSA, FBI, and Israeli Mossad) did 9/11.

Wilf Jones , 1 week ago

Super Geek Zuckerberg was made a CIA useful Idiot ... I mean agent , lol .

Chubs Fatboy , 2 weeks ago

Attempting to infiltrate News rooms😆😅😂 all those faces you see in the MSM are all working for Cia. In 1967 one of the 3 letter agencys bragged about having a reporter working in 1 of the 3 letter news channel!

Rue Porter , 1 day ago

Wow this was really good. It's funny you showed a clip from abc of kouriakow and it reminded me how much the news in america has been propagandized and just fake. I'm 38 and it's sad that these days the news is unpatriotic. Well most . Ty sky news Australia

peemaster Bjarne , 1 week ago

Why no mention of what facilitates the surveilance? Telecom infrastructure is a nations nerve system and the powergrid its bloodsystem. Who controls them? That is where you find the head of the deep state!

richard bello , 2 weeks ago

What people aren't aware of is that Facebook YouTube Twitter Instagram Google maps and Google search are all NSA CIA and DIA creations and CEO's are only highly paid operatives who are not the creators but the face of a product and what better way to collect all of your information is by you giving it to them

AussieMaleTuber , 7 months ago (edited)

More please? A subject for another installment regarding the Deep State could be Banking, Federal Reserves and Fiat currencies. Later, another video could be Russia's success at expelling the Deep State in 2000 after it took them over (for a 2nd time) in 1991. Be cognizant, the Deep State initially had for a short time from 1917 via 'it's' 'Bolshivics,' orchestrated the creation of the Soviet Union through the Bolshivic take over of Russia from it's independence minded and Soveriegn Czarist led Eastern Orthodox State. Now, President Trump is preventing a similar Deep State take-over by Intelligence agencies, Corporations and elected political thugs as bad as Leon Trotsky and V I Lennin were to the Russian Czar. The Soviets soon after their (1917) take-over went Rogue on the Deep State and therefore the Soviet Union was independent until The Deep State orchestrated it's downfall and anexation of it's substantial wealth and some territory (1991). More, more, more please Sky News, this video was great!

Trevor Pike , 2 months ago

Amazing, Sky News is the ONLY TV News Service in Australia Trying to deliver true news. Australia's ABC news are CIA Deep State Shills and propagandists - Sarah Ferguson Especially - see her totally CIA scripted Four Corners Report on the Russia Hoax. John Gantz IS a Deep State Operative Liar.

Michael Small , 1 month ago

Isnt it time to see TERM LIMITS in Co gress and to realign our school education to teach the real history of these unites states? End the control of Congress and watch the agencies fall in step with OUR Conatitution. No one should ever be allowed in Congress or any other elected position of trust if they are not a devout Constitutionalist. Anyone who takes the oath to see w the people and fails to so so should be charged with TREASON and removed immediately. Is there a DEEP STATE? Damn right there is and has been for many decades. Where is our sovereignty? Where is the wealth of a capitalist nation? Why so much poverty and welfare and why do communists and socialist get away with damaging our country, state or communities. Yes, there has been a deep state filled with criminals who all need to be charged, tried and executed for TREASON.

Barry Atkins , 7 months ago (edited)

The CIA and Australias Federal police have One main Job/activity to feed their Populations with Propaganda & Lies to give them their Thoughts & Opinions on Everything using their psyOps through MSM News & Programming...you prolly beLIEve this informative News Story as well. : (

price , 7 months ago

Sky news is owned by rupert Murdoch...the same guy that owns fox news. Nuff said😘

Marie Hurst , 6 days ago

These people denying a deep state with such straight faces are psychopaths. Unwittingly, or maybe not, Schumer made liars of them with his comment to Maddow

Debbie Kirby , 7 months ago

President Trump is correct. He knows exactly what's going on. The 3 letter agencies are up to no good and work against the fabric of our nation's founding fathers. It's despicable behavior. Just one example is John Brennan (CIA Director) and Barack Hussein Obama's Terror Tuesdays. Read all about it on the internet now before it's permanently removed. Thank you for creating this video.

James dow , 1 week ago

When was the last time we ever witnessed an American President openly abused continually attacked over manufactured news treated with absolutely no respect for him or the office his family unfairly attacked and misrepresented etc, etc, that's right never, which proves he threatens the existence of the deep state as discussed. He should declare Martial Law Hang the consequences and remove every single deep state player everywhere. Foreign influence? read Israel.

mary rosario , 5 days ago

People are so fixated on trumps outspoken Sometimes outrageous demeanor which in my opinion it's just being really honest and yes he can Be rude at times but when you look at the facts He's the only one that has gone against the deep state! those are the real devils dressed up in sheep's clothing! Wake up!

evan c , 2 weeks ago

You are missing the point. It goes further then intelligence agency working against the people. It's the ultra rich literally trillionaires like the rothchilds that control the cia etc. That is who trump is fighting. The globalists line gates soros etc.

[Jun 15, 2020] In the 20th Century approximately 30 world leaders were assassinated. I bet in most cases those prosecuted for the crime were little more than Oswald-like patsies. And this list doesn't even include government leaders killed in mysterious plane crashes.

Jun 15, 2020 | off-guardian.org

Charlotte Russe Jun 13, 2020 1:21 PM CONTROLLED OPPOSITION

In the 20th Century approximately 30 world leaders were assassinated. I bet in most cases those prosecuted for the crime were little more than Oswald-like patsies. And this list doesn't even include government leaders killed in mysterious plane crashes.

One such political figure was Senator Paul Wellstone who died in a highly suspicious 2002 plane crash. "Wellstone's death comes almost two years to the day after a similar plane crash killed another Democratic Senator locked in a tight election contest, and that was Missouri Governor Mel Carnahan, on October 16, 2000.

Wellstone was in a hotly contested reelection campaign, but polls showed he was beginning to pull ahead of Republican nominee Norm Coleman, the former mayor of St. Paul, in the wake of the vote in the Senate to authorize President Bush to wage war against Iraq.

The liberal Democrat was a well-publicized opponent of the war resolution, the only Senator in a tight race to vote against it. there are enormous financial stakes involved in control of the Senate. Republican control of the Senate would make it possible to push through new tax cuts for the wealthy and other perks for corporate America worth billions of dollars -- more than enough of an incentive to commit murder." The death of US Senator Paul Wellstone: accident or murder?

It would appear, politicians risk being murdered if they "genuinely" go against the grain remaining true to their beliefs and principles by deliberately using their power to jeopardize insidious ruling class lucrative schemes and scams. By the way, this is how you know ALL the nonstop "resistance" against the orange buffoon is just utter bullshit. If Trump was a actually a threat to the military/security/surveillance/corporate state he would have already been JFK'd or Olof Palme'd.

The worldwide gangster ruling class is just like any other criminal organization which regularly eliminates anyone who has the power to alter the status quo. The security state like common mobsters use extortion or murder to get their way. We all know about J Edgar Hooverr and his extortion files. Hoover maintained a special official and confidential file in his office. The "secret files," as they became widely known, guaranteed Hoover's longevity as Director of the FBI. In fact, today those intelligence agency "dirty files" are even more extensive given the sophisticated and heightened nature of surveillance. Funny, that gives the term "controlled opposition" a whole new meaning. Gezzah Potts Jun 13, 2020 1:57 PM Reply to Charlotte Russe You hit the nail on the head Charlotte. If Trump really was a genuine threat, they would've already got rid of him. It's all one giant charade.
A Punch and Judy Show for the masses.
Find it quite startling the divisiveness in the United States, and those that I often come across who fervently believe that Trump or Qanon will save the United States and also lock up Obama, the Clinton's, Soros, etc, etc. What can you say?
While reading your comment, four names popped into my head: Thomas Sankara, Patrice Lumumba, Maurice Bishop and Salvador Allende.
And we know what happened in Chile after Allende's death. It became the test tube guinea pig for Neoliberalism. 6 0 Reply Charlotte Ruse Jun 13, 2020 3:47 PM Reply to Gezzah Potts Yes it's all showbiz ..

[Jun 14, 2020] Jeane J. Kirkpatrick 30 Years Unheeded

Highly recommended!
The national security establishment does represent the actual government of dual "double government". And it is not unaccountable to, and unsupervised by, the elected branches of government. Instead it controls them and is able to stage palace coups to remove "unacceptable" Presidents like was the case with JFK, Nixon and Trump.
For them is are occupied country and then behave like real occuplers.
Notable quotes:
"... In Trumpian fashion, Kirkpatrick then goes on to warn Americans about the danger of an unaccountable "deep state" in foreign policy that is immune to popular pressures. ..."
"... She says that, no, "it has become more important than ever that the experts who conduct foreign policy on our behalf be subject to the direction of and control of the people." ..."
"... She points out that because America had for much of the twentieth century assumed global responsibilities, our foreign policy elites had developed "distinctive views" that are different from those of the electorate. ..."
"... foreign policy elites "grew accustomed to thinking of the United States as having boundless resources and purposes . . . which transcended the preferences of voters and apparent American interests . . . and eventually developed a globalist attitude." ..."
"... In support of Kirkpatrick's concern, Tufts professor Michael Glennon has more recently argued that the national security establishment has now become so "distinctive" in their separation from our constitutional processes that they represent one wing of a now "double government" that is not unaccountable to, and unsupervised by, the popular branches of government. The Russiagate investigations and the attempt to disable the Trump presidency, aided by many in the establishment, would appear to confirm Kirkpatrick's warning that foreign policy elites want no part of the electoral preferences of voting Americans. ..."
"... Kirkpatrick died in 2006 and had, like many neoconservatives, evolved from a Humphrey Democrat into a member of the GOP establishment. With William Bennett and Jack Kemp, in 1993 she cofounded a neoconservative group, Empower America, which took a very aggressive stance against militant Islam after the 9/11 attacks. However, she was quite ambivalent about the invasion of Iraq and was quoted in The Economist ..."
Jun 14, 2020 | nationalinterest.org

Kirkpatrick's essay begins by insisting that, because of world events since 1939, America has given to foreign affairs "an unnatural focus." Now in 1990, she says, the nation can turn its attention to domestic concerns that are more important because "a good society is defined not by its foreign policy but its internal qualities . . . by the relations among its citizens, the kind of character nurtured, and the quality of life lived." She says unabashedly that "there is no mystical American 'mission' or purposes to be 'found' independently of the U.S. Constitution and government."

One cannot fail to notice that this perspective is precisely the opposite of George W. Bush's in his second inauguration. According to Bush, America's post –Cold War purpose was to follow our "deepest beliefs" by acting to "support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture." For three decades neoconservative foreign policy has revolved around "mystical" beliefs about America's mission in the world that are unmoored from the actual Constitution.

In Trumpian fashion, Kirkpatrick then goes on to warn Americans about the danger of an unaccountable "deep state" in foreign policy that is immune to popular pressures. She rejects emphatically the views of some elitists who argue that foreign policy is a uniquely esoteric and specialized discipline and must be cushioned from populism. She says that, no, "it has become more important than ever that the experts who conduct foreign policy on our behalf be subject to the direction of and control of the people."

She points out that because America had for much of the twentieth century assumed global responsibilities, our foreign policy elites had developed "distinctive views" that are different from those of the electorate. Again, in Trumpian fashion, she argued that foreign policy elites "grew accustomed to thinking of the United States as having boundless resources and purposes . . . which transcended the preferences of voters and apparent American interests . . . and eventually developed a globalist attitude."

In support of Kirkpatrick's concern, Tufts professor Michael Glennon has more recently argued that the national security establishment has now become so "distinctive" in their separation from our constitutional processes that they represent one wing of a now "double government" that is not unaccountable to, and unsupervised by, the popular branches of government. The Russiagate investigations and the attempt to disable the Trump presidency, aided by many in the establishment, would appear to confirm Kirkpatrick's warning that foreign policy elites want no part of the electoral preferences of voting Americans.

Kirkpatrick concludes her essay with thoughts on "What should we do?" and "What we should not do." Remarkably, her first recommendation is to negotiate better trade deals. These deals should give the U.S. "fair access" to foreign markets while offering "foreign businesses no better than fair access to U.S. markets." Next, she considered the promotion of democracy around the world and, on this subject, she took the John Quincy Adams position : that "Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be." However, she insisted: "it is not within the United States' power to democratize the world."

When Kirkpatrick goes on to discuss America's post –Cold War alliances, she makes clear that she is advocating, quite simply, an America First foreign policy. Regarding the future of the NATO alliance, a sacrosanct pillar of the American foreign policy establishment, she argued that "the United States should not try to manage the balance of power in Europe." Likewise, we should be humble about what we can accomplish in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union: "Any notion that the United States can manage the changes in that huge, multinational, developing society is grandiose." Finally, with regard to Asia: "Our concern with Japan should above all be with its trading practices vis-à-vis the United States. We should not spend money protecting an affluent Japan, though a continuing alliance is entirely appropriate."

She famously concludes her essay by making the plea for the United States to become "a normal country in a normal time" and "to give up the dubious benefits of superpower status and become again an unusually successful, open American republic."

Kirkpatrick became Ronald Reagan's United Nations ambassador because her 1979 article in Commentary , "Dictatorships and Double Standards," caught the eye of the future president. In that article, she sensibly points out that authoritarian governments that are allies of the United States should not be kicked to the curb because they are not free and open democracies. The path to democracy is a long and perilous one, and nations without republican traditions cannot be expected to make the transition overnight. Regarding the world's oldest democracy, she remarked: "In Britain, the road from the Magna Carta to the Act of Settlement, to the great Reform Bills of 1832, 1867, and 1885, took seven centuries to traverse."

While at the time neoconservatives opportunistically embraced her for this position as a tactic to fight the Cold War, the current foreign policy establishment would consider Kirkpatrick's argument to be beyond the bounds of decent conversation, as it would lend itself to an accommodation with authoritarian Russia as a counterweight to totalitarian China.

Kirkpatrick died in 2006 and had, like many neoconservatives, evolved from a Humphrey Democrat into a member of the GOP establishment. With William Bennett and Jack Kemp, in 1993 she cofounded a neoconservative group, Empower America, which took a very aggressive stance against militant Islam after the 9/11 attacks. However, she was quite ambivalent about the invasion of Iraq and was quoted in The Economist as saying that George W. Bush was "a bit too interventionist for my taste" and that Bush's brand of moral imperialism is not "taken seriously anywhere outside a few places in Washington, DC."

The fact that Kirkpatrick's recommendations in her 1990 essay coincide with some of Donald Trump's positions in the 2016 campaign (if not with many of his actual actions as president) make her views, ipso facto, not serious. The foreign policy establishment gives something like pariah status to arguments that we should negotiate better trade deals, reconsider our Cold War alliances and, most especially, subject American foreign policy to popular preferences. If she were alive today and were making the arguments she made in 1990, then she would be an outcast. That a formidable intellectual like Kirkpatrick would be dismissed in such a fashion is a sign of how obtuse our foreign policy debate has become.

William S. Smith is Senior Research Fellow and Managing Director of the Center for the Study of Statesmanship at The Catholic University of America. His recent book, Democracy and Imperialism , is from the University of Michigan Press. He studied political philosophy under Professor Jeane Kirkpatrick as an undergraduate at Georgetown University.

[Jun 14, 2020] FBI Knew Steele's Russia Research Connected To Clinton, Dems From Earliest Interactions

Jun 14, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

"The FBI agent who first interviewed Steele about his anti-Trump research in London on July 5, 2016 was aware immediately of a connection to Clinton..." Notes and emails that have been kept so far from Senate investigators show the FBI knew from its earliest interactions with Christopher Steele in July 2016 that his Russia research project on Donald Trump was connected to Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party .

The information, so far mentioned only glancingly and in footnotes of a Justice Department report, could provide the Senate Judiciary Committee with the most powerful evidence yet to confront witnesses about why the bureau concealed the political origins of Steele's work from the FISA court.

" So far the bureau is slow-walking this stuff, " a source familiar with senators' frustrations told Just the News. "We need to see these sort of documents before we question key witnesses."

Chairman Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) is seeking a vote later this week to authorize subpoenas that would compel the Christopher Wray-led FBI to produce witnesses and outstanding documents for the committee's investigation of the Russia investigators.

The effort to acquire the original source materials began last December after DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz released his explosive report blaming the FBI for 17 mistakes, omissions and acts of misconduct in seeking a FISA warrant against Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

While the headlines since that report have mostly focused on FISA abuses, Senate investigators have also zeroed in on a handful of little-noticed passages in Horowitz's narrative that reference original FBI source documents showing what agents and supervisors knew about Steele, the former MI6 agent, and the firm that hired him, Fusion GPS.

It wasn't until late October 2017 that the public and Congress first learned that the law firm Perkins Coie, on behalf of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign, hired Glenn Simpson's Fusion GPS research firm to have Steele delve into Trump's Russia connections .

And FBI officials have been vague in their explanations about when they knew Steele's research was tied to Clinton and the DNC and why they did not explicitly inform the FISA court that the Steele dossier used to secure the warrant was funded by Trump's election opponent.

But one passage and two footnotes in Horowitz's report that have largely escaped public attention suggest the FBI agent who first interviewed Steele about his anti-Trump research in London on July 5, 2016 was aware immediately of a connection to Clinton and that a separate office of the FBI passed along information from an informant by Aug. 2, 2016 that Simpson's Fusion GPS was connected to the DNC.

For instance, the agent in London contacted an Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC) in the New York field office (NYFO) shortly after interviewing Steele and obtaining one of the anti-Trump memos that made up his dossier, according to information in Horowitz's report.

The agent sought advice July 13, 2016 on how to handle the sensitive election-year allegations from the supervisor in New York, where the FBI had already opened a probe of Page that would eventually be assumed by Washington headquarters.

"ASAC 1's notes from his July 13 call with Handling Agent 1 closely track the contents of Report 80, identify Simpson as a client of a law firm, and include the following: 'law firm works for the Republican party or Hillary and will use [the information described in Report 80] at some point,'" the Horowitz report stated. "ASAC 1 told us that he would not have made this notation if Handling Agent 1 had not stated it to him."

Footnote 223 in the report reveals a second line of evidence that came to the FBI from a confidential human source (CHS) suggesting the Steele-Simpson-Fusion project was tied to Democrats. That warning was immediately sent to Agent Peter Strzok, the case agent for the Crossfire Hurricane probe investigating whether Trump and Russia colluded to hijack the 2016 election.

"At approximately the same time that Handling Agent 1 was reporting information about Simpson to ASAC 1, an FBI agent from another FBI field office sent an email to his supervisor stating that he had been contacted by a former CHS who 'was contacted recently by a colleague who runs an investigative firm. The firm had been hired by two entities (the Democratic National Committee as well as another individual...not name[d]) to explore Donald J. Trump's longstanding ties to Russian entities.'"

"On or about August 2, 2016, this information was shared by a CD supervisor with the Section Chief of CD's Counterintelligence Analysis Section I (Intel Section Chief), who provided it that day to members of the Crossfire Hurricane team (then Section Chief Peter Strzok, SSA 1, and the Supervisory Intel Analyst,)" the footnote adds.

Senate investigators want to see the original emails and notes from these conversations as they plan to interrogate dozens of key witnesses in the Russia investigation about whether there was an intentional effort by he FBI to hide from the courts and Congress the flaws in their case, exculpatory evidence involving the Trump targets, and derogatory information about Steele's credibility.

In the end, Special Counsel Robert Mueller found no evidence that any Americans, including anyone associated with the Trump campaign, colluded with Russia to influence the election.

And evidence that has since emerged shows the FBI determined early on that Steele's dossier included debunked, uncorroborated information and possible Russian disinformation aimed at smearing Trump , but agents proceeded anyway with their investigation.

The FBI notes and emails from summer 2016 are consistent with recent testimony that Steele gave in a civil case in London , where he testified he told the bureau his research and the Fusion GPS project was connected to Clinton .

" I presumed it was the Clinton campaign, and Glenn Simpson had indicated that . But I was not aware of the technicality of it being the DNC that was actually the client of Perkins Coie," Steele testified in March under questioning from lawyers for Russian bankers suing over his research.

Steele confirmed during that testimony that his notes of a 2016 FBI meeting showed he told agents about the Clinton connection.

Congressional investigators have now pieced together at least five instances early in the Russia case where the FBI was warned of the political origins and motives of Steele's work but failed to fully inform the courts.

Instead, the FBI's FISA warrant application told the judge Steele was working for a person interested in possibly defeating Trump but without disclosing it was the opposition research firm specifically hired by Clinton and the DNC through their law firm to find dirt on Trump in Russia.

Senate investigators are trying to determine whether that omission was part of a larger, intentional campaign to mislead the FISA court and Congress in order to keep the Russia investigation going despite a lack of evidence supporting the collusion theory.

" Look, we've got to get to the bottom of this, to find out how they ended up with this dossier, how it was believed to be accurate, when did they know it was not accurate? " explained Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) one of the key members of the Judiciary Committee.

[Jun 12, 2020] Flynn Case 85 Lies, Contradictions, Oddities, Unusual Occurrences by Petr Svab

Highly recommended!
Jun 11, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Petr Svab via The Epoch Times,

The case of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn is inevitably heading toward its conclusion. While the presiding district judge, Emmet Sullivan , is trying to keep it going, there's only so much he can do, chiefly because there's nobody left to prosecute the case after the Department of Justice (DOJ) dropped it last month .

In the latest developments, the District of Columbia appeals court set a hearing in the case for tomorrow (June 12), while the DOJ's solicitor general himself, as well as five of his deputies, urged the court to order the lower-court judge to accept the case dismissal.

"I cannot overstate how big of a deal this is," commented appellate attorney John Reeves, former assistant Missouri attorney general, in a series of tweets on June 1 .

Personal involvement of the solicitor general "is highly unusual and rare," he said .

" Unusual " seems a fitting euphemism for the Flynn case, which has been filled with contradictions, falsehoods, apparent blunders, extraordinary moves, and strange coincidences.

The Epoch Times has so far counted 85 such instances.

Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency during the Obama administration and former national security adviser to President Donald Trump, pleaded guilty on Dec. 1, 2017, to one count of lying to FBI agents during a Jan. 24, 2017, interview.

The FBI officially opened an investigation on Flynn on Aug. 16, 2016, based on a suspicion that he "may wittingly or unwittingly be involved in activity on behalf of the Russian Federation which may constitute a federal crime or threat to the national security."

What activity? The case was opened under a broader investigation into whether the Trump 2016 presidential campaign conspired with Russia to steal emails from the Democratic National Committee and release them through Wikileaks.

Flynn was an adviser to the campaign at the time.

By its own admission, the FBI had little reason to suspect the campaign.

The bureau learned from the Australian government that its then-ambassador to the UK, Alexander Downer, spoke with Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos, who "suggested" that the campaign received "some kind of suggestion" that Russia could help it by anonymously releasing some information damaging to Trump's opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The FBI didn't know what Papadopoulos actually said or what he was talking about.

Officially, this information was used by the FBI to comb through its databases for information on people associated with the Trump campaign and open investigations on four individuals supposedly linked to Russia.

Because Flynn's paid speaking engagements in years past included some for Russian companies -- one for Kaspersky Lab and one for RT television in Moscow -- the FBI decided to open a counterintelligence investigation on the retired three-star general.

But the FBI seemed to have trouble getting its story straight.

1. Comey Contradiction

The FBI officially opened the four individual cases in mid-August 2016.

But former FBI Director James Comey testified to Congress that he was briefed already "at the end of July that the FBI had opened counterintelligence investigations of four individuals to see if there was a connection between any of those four and the Russian effort."

2. Unlikely Target

Suspecting a man with patriotic bona fides of Flynn's caliber of having colluded with Russia based on two speaking engagements seemed particularly unusual.

Flynn's command of military intelligence to aid American troops in combat has earned him great praise.

"Mike Flynn's impact on the nation's War on Terror probably trumps any other single person," wrote then-Brig. Gen. John Mulholland in Flynn's 2007 performance review .

Mulholland went as far as calling Flynn "easily the best intelligence professional of any service serving today."

Flynn was driven out of his post in 2014 after he repeatedly embarrassed President Barack Obama by insisting, contrary to the administration's official stance, that a resurgence of Islamic terrorism in the Middle East was imminent.

Two months after his resignation, the rise of ISIS proved him right.

3. A Name for the Spotlight

The Russia probe was titled "Crossfire Hurricane" (CH), and Flynn was given the code name "Crossfire Razor."

This was unusual, according to Marc Ruskin, a 27-year veteran of the FBI and an Epoch Times contributor.

Rank-and-file agents would never pick a name like this, he told The Epoch Times in a previous interview.

"They would mock it as being overly dramatic," he said.

4. Snooping During Briefing

The day after opening the Flynn case, the FBI participated in a strategic intelligence briefing given to Donald Trump and two of his advisers by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Because Flynn was to be present, the FBI took the extraordinary step of sending in supervisory special agent Joe Pientka to collect intel on Flynn for the investigation. Pientka was to assess Flynn's "overall mannerisms" and listen for "any kind of admission" that could be used by the bureau, the DOJ's inspector general (IG) said in a Dec. 9 report on the CH investigation ( pdf ).

The IG raised the question of whether snooping on officials the FBI is supposed to brief could have a "chilling effect" on any such intelligence briefings in the future.

5. Dossier Coincidence

The FBI directly targeted four Trump campaign aides, opening cases on three of them -- Papadopoulos, Carter Page, and Paul Manafort -- on Aug. 10, 2016. The IG never received an explanation for why the Flynn case was opened later. Incidentally, Page and Manafort had already been mentioned in the infamous Steele dossier since July 28, 2016. Flynn's name, however, was only mentioned in the dossier report dated Aug. 10, 2016.

The dossier, which drummed up unsubstantiated allegations of a Trump–Russia conspiracy, was being spread to the media, the FBI, the State Department, the DOJ, and Congress by operatives funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

The CH investigation team members at the FBI told the IG they only received the dossier in September 2016, but there are indications they may have been aware of it earlier .

6. Halper Coincidence

One of the CH case agents, Stephen Somma, happened to have a longstanding relationship with Stephan Halper, a Cambridge professor who was also a longtime political operative and FBI informant.

Somma and another agent met with Halper on Aug. 11, 2016, and learned that, in a stunning coincidence, Halper was already in contact with Page, had known Manafort for years, and "had been previously acquainted with Michael Flynn," the IG report said

The CH team "couldn't believe [their] luck," Somma told the IG.

7. Halper's Story

Halper was accused of spreading rumors, starting in late 2016, that Flynn had an affair with a Russian woman while visiting the UK in 2014 for a dinner hosted by the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar co-convened at the time by Halper.

An "established" FBI informant told the CH team that the woman jumped in a cab with Flynn after the dinner and joined him for a train ride to London ( pdf ).

The woman in question was Svetlana Lokhova, a Cambridge historian of Russian descent. She has denied the rumor, saying that she was picked up after the dinner by her husband .

She said Halper was the one spreading the rumor to the media and the FBI, even though he didn't actually attend the event. She unsuccessfully sued Halper for defamation in May 2019.

Somehow, Steele also became privy to the rumor and shared it with Adam Kramer , an aide to the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Kramer testified to Congress that he was in regular contact with Steele between Nov. 28, 2016, and early March 2017.

8. Unmasking

The names of Americans are normally masked -- that is, replaced with generic names -- in foreign intelligence reports. Many senior government officials have the authority to ask for names to be unmasked for various reasons, such as to understand the intelligence. There were dozens of unmasking requests for reports related to Flynn, between Nov. 8, 2016, and Jan. 31, 2017 ( pdf ). The number of unmasking requests has been described as alarming by some commentators, while others described it as routine.

9. Non-masking

There are also indications that Flynn's name was never masked in summaries or transcripts of his calls with then-Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak on Dec. 29, 2016, and in the following days. FBI leaders were distributing the documents to top Obama officials. Even President Barack Obama himself was briefed on them on or before Jan. 5, 2017.

10. Who Briefed Obama?

Comey testified to Congress that it was then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper who briefed Obama on the Flynn–Kislyak calls ( pdf ). Clapper, however, denied this to Congress.

11. 'Unusual'

Obama's national security adviser, Susan Rice, memorialized a Jan. 5, 2017, meeting with Obama, Comey, and then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates . Rice wrote in an email to herself that Obama asked Comey whether he should withhold any Russia-related information from the incoming administration and from Flynn in particular.

"Potentially," Comey replied, adding that "the level of communication" between Flynn and Kislyak was "unusual," she wrote . There's no indication Flynn was talking to Kislyak unusually often. He was at the time responsible for laying the groundwork for Trump's foreign relations as president and was frequently on the phone with foreign dignitaries.

12. Late Memo

Rice's memo itself is unusual. She emailed it to herself more than two weeks after the meeting took place, on the day of Trump's inauguration.

13. Strzok Intervention

On Jan. 4, the FBI was already in the process of closing Flynn's case. But the bureau's counterintelligence operations head at the time, Peter Strzok, scrambled to keep it open , noting that the "7th floor," meaning the FBI's top leadership, was involved.

14. McCabe–Comey Contradiction

Comey testified that he authorized the Flynn case "to be closed at the end of December, beginning of January."

But his then-deputy, Andrew McCabe, told Congress that they weren't in "the closing planning phase" at the time.

"I don't think a closure would have been soon," he said.

15. Shaky Theory

FBI documents and Comey's testimony indicate that the bureau kept the Flynn case open solely based on a legal theory that he may have violated the Logan Act, even though the DOJ made clear that such charges wouldn't pass muster in court -- nobody has ever been successfully prosecuted for a Logan Act violation and the government last tried in 1852.

The law prohibits private citizens from engaging in diplomacy on their own with countries the United States is in dispute with. Not only have questions been raised as to whether the law would pass today's constitutional scrutiny, which places greater emphasis on First Amendment protections, but also there's no indication the law was conceived to apply to a president-elect's incoming top adviser.

16. Call Leaks

In early January, information about Flynn's calls with Kislyak was leaked to then-Washington Post reporter Adam Entous. He said there was a discussion at the paper about what to do with the information, as it would have been expected of Flynn, given his position, to talk to Kislyak ( pdf ). In the end, the paper ran a column on Jan. 12 by David Ignatius speculating that Flynn may have violated the Logan Act if he discussed fresh sanctions imposed on Russia during the calls.

Obama imposed the sanctions on Russian entities, including its intelligence services, on Dec. 29, 2016. At the same time, he also expelled 35 Russian intelligence officers.

17. Denial

The calls "had nothing whatsoever to do with the sanctions," incoming Vice President Mike Pence told CBS News on Jan. 15, 2017, in an interview the network almost wholly dedicated to questions about Russia.

This wasn't completely true.

Kislyak did bring up the issue of sanctions during the call, though Flynn didn't engage him in a conversation on the topic.

Flynn raised the issue of the expulsions, which is technically a separate issue from sanctions, though both were announced at the same time. He asked for "cool heads to prevail" and for Russia to only respond reciprocally, as further escalation into a "tit for tat" could lead to the countries shutting down each other's embassies, complicating future diplomacy.

18. 'Blackmailable'

Yates said she wanted to inform Trump's White House about the Kislyak calls as Russia would know that what Pence said wasn't true and could thus blackmail Flynn with the information, according to an Aug. 15, 2017, FBI report from her interview with the Mueller team.

According to Ruskin, this was hardly a blackmail situation, which ordinarily involves serious compromising information, such as evidence of bribery or sexual misconduct.

Comey acknowledged to Congress in March 2017 that the idea that Flynn was compromised struck him "as a bit of a reach."

19. Comey Blocked Information

Despite issues with Yates's argument, informing the White House may have indeed cleared up the situation. However, Comey blocked it, saying it could have interfered with the investigation of Flynn -- despite that it appears there was nothing for the bureau to investigate. At that point, the DOJ already had disapproved of the Logan Act idea. In any case, the probe was supposed to be about Russian collusion. The bureau could have closed it and opened a new one on the Logan Act, if it indeed had had sufficient predication. But it never opened such an investigation, the DOJ noted in its motion to dismiss Flynn's case.

20. Another Comey–McCabe Contradiction

In the days before Jan. 24, 2017, top FBI officials were discussing plans to interview Flynn. Comey said the point of the interview was to find out why Flynn didn't tell Pence that sanctions were discussed during the call (even though Flynn wasn't actually the one talking about sanctions).

"My judgment was we could not close the investigation of Mr. Flynn without asking him what is the deal here. That was the purpose," Comey testified.

McCabe, however, told a different story when then-Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) asked him, "Was [Flynn] interviewed because the Vice President relied upon information from him in a national interview?"

"No. I don't remember that being a motivating factor behind the interview," McCabe said.

21. No Mention of Pence

During the interview, the agents didn't ask Flynn about what he did or didn't tell Pence -- an unusual approach if the point, as Comey said, was to find out why Flynn hadn't "been candid" with Pence. The FBI, in fact, had no idea what Flynn did or didn't tell Pence.

22. Slipped-In Warning

Agents regularly warn interviewees that lying to federal officers is a crime. Before the Flynn interview, however, McCabe's special counsel Lisa Page emailed another FBI lawyer asking how the warning should be given and whether there was a way "to just casually slip that in."

23. No Warning

In the end, the agents never gave Flynn any such warning.

24. 'Get Him to Lie Get Him Fired?'

The FBI officials agreed that the agents wouldn't show Flynn the transcripts of the calls. If he said something that diverged from them, they would ask again, slipping in some words from the transcript. If that didn't jog his memory, they were not to confront him about it.

On the day of the interview, then-FBI head of counterintelligence Bill Priestap wrote a note saying he told other officials to "rethink" the approach.

"What's our goal? Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?" he wrote, noting, "We regularly show subjects evidence."

Apparently, his concerns were ignored.

25. Discouraging Having a Lawyer Present

On the day of the interview, McCabe spoke with Flynn on the phone to ask him for the interview. McCabe said he told Flynn he wanted the interview done "as quickly, quietly, and discreetly as possible." If Flynn wanted anybody to sit in, such as one of the White House lawyers, the DOJ would have to be involved, McCabe told him.

According to Ruskin, that was "egregious" behavior akin to discouraging a subject of an investigation from having a lawyer present for an interview.

26. No White House Notice

An FBI interview of a president's national security adviser is a big deal. Normally, it would warrant a back-and-forth between the White House and the bureau on the scope, content, purpose, and other parameters. Most likely, multiple White House lawyers would sit in.

Comey, however, said in a public forum that he just sent the agents in, taking advantage of the fact that it was "early enough" -- only four days after the inauguration.

27. No Notice Given to DOJ

According to Yates, Comey didn't consult the DOJ about his intention to interview Flynn, even though the department would usually be involved in such decisions.

28. Not Quite a Denial From Flynn

After the interview, in which Strzok and supervisory special agent Pientka extensively questioned Flynn about his conversations with Kislyak, Comey said that Flynn denied talking to the ambassador about the sanctions. But the agents' notes indicate that though Flynn denied it at first, he seemed unsure when the agents asked again.

"Not really. I don't remember. It wasn't, 'Don't do anything,'" he said, according to the notes.

Flynn said in a Jan. 29 declaration to the court that he still doesn't remember talking to Kislyak about sanctions.

"I told the agents that 'tit-for-tat' is a phrase I use, which suggests that the topic of sanctions could have been raised," he said .

29. UN Vote Denial

Based on the agent's notes, Flynn did deny asking for Russia to delay a U.N. vote in Israeli settlements. One of the call transcripts indicates he in fact made such a request.

Flynn told the agents he was calling multiple countries regarding the vote, but it was more an exercise of how quickly he could get foreign officials on the phone since there was no way the transition team could convince enough countries to actually change the outcome. Indeed, the vote passed with only the United States abstaining.

30. No Indication of Deception

The agents came back with the impression "that Flynn was not lying or did not think he was lying," according to Strzok.

Comey seemed on the fence.

"I don't know. I think there is an argument to be made that he lied. It is a close one," he testified.

31. Flynn Knew They Knew

According to McCabe, Flynn expressed awareness before the interview that the FBI knew exactly what he said during the Kislyak calls.

"You listen to everything they [Russian representatives] say," Flynn told him, according to McCabe's notes from that day.

32. Belated Report

The FBI interview summary, form FD-302, is required to be completed within five days of the interview. Flynn's, however, took more than two weeks.

33. Rewritten 302

Strzok texted Page on Feb. 10, 2017, he was "trying to not completely rewrite" the 302 "so as to save [redacted] voice." The redacted name was most likely Pientka's.

34. Missing Original

Flynn was ultimately provided two draft versions of the 302 -- one from Feb. 10, 2016, and one from the day after. But based on Strzok's texts, there should have been at least two draft versions produced on Feb. 10, 2016, or before.

In fact, Judge Sullivan said in a Dec. 17, 2018, minute order that the 302 "was drafted immediately after Mr. Flynn's FBI interview." It's not clear what the judge was basing this assertion on or what happened to the early draft.

Flynn's current attorney, former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell , later said she'd found a witness who saw an earlier draft and that it said "that Flynn was honest with the agents and did not lie."

35. No Reinterview

It is common that when the FBI has questions after an interview about the candor of the subject, it would question the person again. But in this case, the FBI showed no interest in doing so.

36. Still Investigating What?

After the interview, Comey promptly agreed to Yates informing the White House about the call transcripts. Flynn was fired two weeks later. But, somehow, the investigation was still not over.

Comey said in his March 2, 2017, testimony that the bureau wasn't investigating any possible Logan Act violation by Flynn and wouldn't do so unless the DOJ directed it.

But he said the investigation was "obviously" still ongoing and "criminal in nature."

McCabe said that "even following the interview on the 24th, we had a lot of work left to do in that investigation."

By mid-February, the status of the probe wouldn't have "changed materially" in his belief, he said.

"Like we were pursuing phone records and toll records at that time," he said. "There were all kinds of really very basic foundational investigative activity that had to take place and we were committed to getting that done."

It's unclear what the point of the investigation was.

37. FARA Papers

Around Christmas 2016, Flynn found in the office of his defunct consultancy, Flynn Intel Group (FIG), a letter from the DOJ telling him he may need to file foreign lobbying disclosures under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

The DOJ's National Security Division (NSD) wanted to know about a job FIG did earlier that year for Turkish businessman Kamil Ekim Alptekin.

It should have been a routine procedure. Washington lobbyists commonly flunk FARA rules and the NSD usually just asks them to register retrospectively because FARA cases are difficult to prosecute. Flynn hired a team from Covington and Burling led by Robert Kelner, a "never-Trumper" and an expert on FARA, to prepare the paperwork.

This time, the NSD was unusually eager. Heather Hunt, then-FARA unit chief herself, was repeatedly prompting the lawyers to expeditiously file the papers.

"We've never seen her this engaged in any matter (ever)," Kelner noted in an email to his colleagues .

Even the DOJ's then-counterintelligence chief, David Laufman, got involved and personally questioned Covington on the FARA filings.

38. Comey Memo

Comey wrote in a personal memo that Trump told him in private in February 2017 that he hoped Comey could "let Flynn go." Trump denied saying that. Trump's lawyers have argued that the president didn't know at the time that Flynn was still under investigation .

Comey's leaking the content of this and other memos to the media served as a catalyst for then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointing former FBI head Robert Mueller as a special counsel to take over the CH probe.

39. Rosenstein's Scope Memo Still Alludes to Logan Act

Even though Comey said in March 2017 that the FBI wasn't investigating Flynn for a Logan Act violation, Mueller received in August 2017 a mandate from Rosenstein ( pdf ) to probe whether Flynn "committed a crime or crimes by engaging in conversations with Russian government officials during the period of the Trump transition." That appears to be an allusion to the Logan Act.

Rosenstein testified to Congress that he simply put in the scope of Mueller's mandate whatever the CH team was investigating at the time.

The scope memo also tasked Mueller with probing whether Flynn lied to the FBI during the interview, whether he failed to report foreign contacts or income on his national security disclosure forms, and whether the Turkey job by his firm meant that he "committed a crime or crimes by acting as an unregistered agent for the government of Turkey."

40. Lawyers Delay Informing Flynn?

By mid-August 2017, Covington learned that prosecutors were looking at Flynn's FARA filings. But the lawyers didn't inform Flynn until weeks later, according to his current lawyer, Powell.

41. Conflict of Interest

Convington faced a conflict of interest in Flynn's case, because it was in their interest to say any problems with the FARA papers were Flynn's fault, while it was in Flynn's interest to say the lawyers were responsible.

Covington and the Mueller team agreed the firm can continue to represent Flynn if they tell him about the conflict and he consents to it. Powell said the conflict was so serious bar rules required the lawyers to withdraw.

42. Lawyers Don't Take Responsibility

In Flynn's situation, it would have been the ethical thing to do for the lawyers to take responsibility for any problems with the FARA papers, according to Powell. But they didn't do that.

43. Lawyers Express Apprehension About Being Targeted Themselves

The Covington lawyers on several occasions expressed concern that Mueller may target them with a crime-fraud order, a measure that allows prosecutors to break through the attorney-client privilege if they get a judge to agree that the client was conferring with lawyers to further a crime or some misconduct. The lawyers were aware Mueller's team had already used the order against Manafort.

Facing a crime-fraud order would cause bad publicity for Covington, Powell noted. Leading Flynn into the plea allowed the firm to avoid it.

44. Perilous Interviews

In early November 2016, Mueller prosecutors, led by Brandon Van Grack, told Covington that Flynn was facing charges for lying to the FBI and lying on the FARA papers. They asked for Flynn's cooperation with the broader Russia probe, particularly regarding any communications he or other Trump people had with foreign officials.

Van Grack wanted Flynn to sit down for a series of interviews. He offered Flynn limited immunity, but acknowledged that Flynn could still be charged for lying during the interviews.

The lawyers noted that this could have been dangerous for Flynn, even if he was completely honest.

"To ask someone about meetings and calls during an incredibly busy period of his life as an evaluation of candor is not a particularly attractive option," Kelner told the prosecutors during a conference call ( pdf ).

Yet ultimately the Covington lawyers agreed to make Flynn available for the questioning.

45. Belated Consent

Covington only asked Flynn for consent with their conflict of interest in writing on Nov. 19, 2017, after Flynn had already been through two days of interviews with the prosecutors.

46. Wrong Standard

The consent request, sent via email, cited the wrong bar rule for handling of conflicts. The correct rule "creates a much lower threshold at which a lawyer must bow out," Powell said in a court filing.

47. Innocent but Guilty

The Covington lawyers repeatedly told the prosecutors that they didn't think Flynn was guilty of a felony. They were also told that Strzok and Pientka "saw no indication of deception" on Flynn's part and had the impression after the interview that he wasn't lying or didn't think he was lying. But the lawyers still convinced Flynn that he should plead guilty to the felony charge.

48. Threat to Son

According to Flynn's declaration, the Covington lawyers told him that if he didn't plead, the prosecutors would charge his son (who had a four-month-old baby at the time) with a FARA violation, because the son worked for Flynn's firm and was involved in the Turkey project. If he did plead, however, his son "would be left in peace," Flynn said.

The pressure campaign, it seems, was also reflected in media leaks.

"If the elder Flynn is willing to cooperate with investigators in order to help his son it could also change his own fate, potentially limiting any legal consequences," NBC News reported on Nov. 5, 2017, referring to "sources familiar with the investigation."

"To twist the father's arm with regard to his child is a pretty low thing to do," Ruskin commented.

49. 302 Not Shared

The prosecutors refused to share with Flynn the 302 from his January interview until shortly before he agreed to plead. Also, they only shared the final version of the report, which was significantly different from its previous drafts, Flynn later learned.

50. Strzok Texts Understatement

Shortly before Flynn signed his plea, the prosecutors disclosed to his lawyers that one of the agents who interviewed Flynn (Strzok) was being investigated by the IG for potential misconduct. They also disclosed that the agent expressed in electronic communications "a preference for one of the candidates for President."

This was far from covering the bombshell the Strzok texts actually were, Powell noted.

Strzok not only voiced preference for Clinton, but cursed at and repeatedly derided Trump. In one 2016 text, he argued that the FBI needed to take action akin to an "insurance policy" in case Trump won. Strzok later said he was referring to proceeding in the CH probe more aggressively out of a worry that Trump may interfere with it if elected.

51. Lawyers Never Told Flynn?

Flynn said the Convington lawyers never told him that the FBI agents didn't think he lied. Even after he specifically asked about the agents' impression, the lawyers didn't disclose the information and instead told him that "the agents stood by their statement."

"I then understood them to be telling me that the FBI agents believed that I had lied," Flynn said, explaining that had he known, he wouldn't have signed the plea.

52. Statement of Offense Inaccurate

As part of his statement of offense, Flynn affirmed that FIG's FARA papers contained three false statements and one omission. Yet, on all four points the statement of offense was inaccurate, Powell demonstrated ( pdf ).

"The prosecutors concocted the alleged 'false statements' by their own misrepresentations, deceit, and omissions," she said in a court filing ( pdf ).

The FARA papers were "substantially correct" and any deficiencies were the fault of Covington, she said.

53. Lawyers Knew

In an internal email three days before Flynn signed his plea, one of the Covington lawyers pointed out that some of the "false statements" attributed to Flynn in the statement of offense regarding the FARA filings were "contradicted by the caveats or qualifications in the filing."

It seems the lawyers failed to correct the issue, since the statement of offense remained inaccurate. They also never informed Flynn of the issue, according to Powell.

54. Judge Recusal

Flynn entered his plea on Dec. 1, 2017. Shortly after, the judge who accepted the plea, Rudolph Contreras, recused himself from the case. The apparent but undisclosed reason was likely his personal relationship with Strzok.

55. Strzok Texts Media Coincidence

While the IG had found Strzok's texts already in June 2017, their first disclosure in the media came from The Washington Post the day after Flynn entered his guilty plea. Powell noted how convenient the timing was for the prosecutors.

56. Side Deal

The prosecutors conveyed to Covington an "unofficial understanding" that they were "unlikely" to charge Flynn's son in light of Flynn's agreement to continue to cooperate with the Mueller probe, one of the lawyers said in an internal email.

Such an under-the-table deal is "unethical," Ruskin said.

57. Avoiding Giglio Disclosure

Another internal Covington email suggests the prosecutors intentionally kept the deal regarding Flynn's son unofficial to make future prosecutions easier.

"The government took pains not to give a promise to MTF [Michael T. Flynn] regarding Michael [Flynn] Jr., so as to limit how much of a 'benefit' it would have to disclose as part of its Giglio disclosures to any defendant against whom MTF may one day testify," the email reads.

"Giglio" refers to a 1972 Supreme Court opinion that requires prosecutors to disclose to the defense that a witness used by the prosecutors has been promised an escape from prosecution in exchange for cooperation.

58. Questionable Disclosures

After the case was assigned to Judge Sullivan, he entered an order for the DOJ to give Flynn all exculpatory information it had, as the judge does in all cases.

The prosecutors, however, weren't prompt in revealing the information. The Strzok texts, for instance, were only provided to Flynn after they were released publicly.

59. Business Partner Coincidence

One day before Flynn's sentencing hearing, his former business partner, Bijan Rafiekian, was charged with a failure to register as a foreign agent in relation to FIG's Turkey job.

Powell called it a "shot across the bow" which the Mueller team wanted to "leverage" against Flynn.

"Mr. Van Grack used the possibility of indicting Flynn in the Rafiekian case at the sentencing hearing to raise the specter of all the threats he had made to secure the plea a year earlier -- including the indictment of Mr. Flynn's son," she said in a court filing ( pdf ).

60. Judge Makes False Accusations, Backtracks

During a Dec. 18, 2018, sentencing hearing, Sullivan questioned the prosecutors about whether they considered charging Flynn with treason.

"Arguably, you sold your country out," he told Flynn, saying that he acted as an agent of Turkey while in the White House.

That was wrong on multiple levels. Not only does treason not apply to unregistered lobbying, but the Turkey job had virtually no impact on American interests. It prepared a plan to lobby for the extradition of an Islamic cleric, Fethullah Gülen, who lives in exile in the United States, and whom Ankara blamed for instigating a coup attempt in 2016. Almost none of the plan materialized. Most importantly, Flynn shuttered his firm shortly after the election to comply with Trump's promise of no lobbyists in his administration.

Sullivan corrected himself later in the hearing, but many media outlets still put his original remarks in headlines.

61. MSNBC Coincidence

While Sullivan's question about treason and his gaffe about the Turkey job seemed to come out of left field, they mirrored MSNBC talking points from days prior.

The day before Flynn's sentencing hearing, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow claimed Flynn and Rafiekian "disguised" the origins of payments for the Turkey job so they could "secretly work in the interest of a foreign country without anybody knowing it while they were also working high-level jobs in intelligence inside the U.S. government."

"Flynn really thought he could be a national security adviser, the national security adviser in the White House, and a secret foreign agent at the same time," Maddow said .

Three days before Flynn's sentencing hearing, Malcolm Nance, a counterterrorism commentator, said on MSNBC that Flynn "may have been one step away from treason" and "pulled back by cooperating" with Mueller.

62. Judge Fails to Satisfy Plea Rules

Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure state in Rule 11 that "before entering judgment on a guilty plea, the court must determine that there is a factual basis for the plea."

As such, Sullivan was required to check that Flynn's alleged lies to the FBI were "material," meaning relevant enough to potentially affect an FBI investigation.

But the judge acknowledged during the sentencing hearing that he hadn't done so.

"It probably won't surprise you that I had many, many, many more questions. such as, you know, how the government's investigation was impeded? What was the material impact of the criminality? Things like that," he said at the conclusion of the hearing.

There's no indication Sullivan has asked those questions since.

63. Unacceptable Plea

Not only could Sullivan not have accepted Flynn's plea before determining materiality, there's evidence he was in fact required to refuse it.

Rule 11 requires the court to "determine that the plea is voluntary and did not result from force, threats, or promises (other than promises in a plea agreement)."

In Flynn's case, there actually was a threat and a promise left out of the deal -- the "unofficial understanding" that his son was "unlikely" to be charged if Flynn cooperated.

64. Lawyers Insisted Flynn 'Stay on the Path'

Before the sentencing hearing, the Covington lawyers told Flynn to "stay on the path" and to refuse if Sullivan offered him to take his plea back, Flynn said in his court declaration.

"If the judge offers you a chance to withdraw your plea, he is giving you the rope to hang yourself. Don't do it," the lawyers said, according to Powell.

65. Unprepared

Flynn said the lawyers only prepared him for a "simple hearing" and not for the extended questioning Sullivan engaged in.

"I was not prepared for this court's plea colloquy, much less to decide, on the spot, whether I should withdraw my plea, consult with independent counsel, or continue to follow my existing lawyers' advice," he said.

In the end, he affirmed his plea during the hearing.

66. Prosecutors Asked for False Testimony?

Flynn was expected to testify against Rafiekian in 2019, but when the moment was to come, prosecutors asked him to say that he signed FIG's FARA papers knowing there were lies in them. Flynn, who had already fired Convington and hired Powell by that point, refused. He said he only acknowledged in hindsight that the FARA papers were inaccurate, but didn't know it at the time.

67. Prosecutors Knew?

Powell has argued that the prosecutors knew they were asking for a false testimony. She filed with the court a draft of Flynn's statement of offense, which shows that the words "FLYNN then and there knew" (pertaining to the FARA registration) were cut from the final version.

Moreover, Powell submitted emails that indicate the words were cut by the prosecutors themselves after the Covington lawyers raised some objections to the draft.

68. Retaliation?

Flynn's refusal to say what prosecutors wanted angered Van Grack, contemporaneous notes show ( pdf ). Shortly after, prosecutors tried to label Flynn as a co-conspirator in the Rafiekian case and put Flynn's son on the list of witnesses for the prosecution. According to Powell, this was retaliation for Flynn's refusal to lie.

69. Rafiekian Case Collapses

Prosecutors in the Rafiekian case tried to argue that anybody who does something political at the request of a foreign official and fails to disclose it to the DOJ is an "agent of a foreign government" and can be put in prison for up to 10 years.

The presiding judge, Anthony Trenga, rejected the theory, ruling that an "agent" -- as used in that context -- needs to have a tighter relationship with the foreign government, a relationship that includes "the power of the principal to give directions and the duty of the agent to obey those directions."

Trenga ultimately tossed the case for a lack of evidence .

70. No Exculpatory Evidence?

Starting in August, Powell started to bombard the prosecutors with demands for exculpatory evidence she was convinced the DOJ possessed. But the prosecutors repeatedly claimed the government already provided all it had and had no more.

The main issue was, Powell noted, that the DOJ had a very narrow view of what is exculpatory.

"If something appears on its face to be favorable to the defense the government will claim it was said 'with a wink and a nod,' and therefore it showed the defendant's guilt after all," she complained in an Aug. 30, 2019, filing ( pdf ).

As it later turned out, the FBI was sitting on a number of documents favorable to the defense.

71. Contradicting Notes

When Flynn finally obtained the hand-written notes Strzok and Pientka took during the interview, it turned out they didn't quite match the final 302.

The 302, for instance, says that Flynn remembered making four to five phone calls to Kislyak on Dec. 29, 2016. Both sets of notes indicate that Flynn didn't remember that.

Also, the 302 says that Flynn denied that Kislyak got back to him with the Russian response a few days later. There's no mention of a Russian response in the notes.

72. Notes Mixup

It took the prosecutors until November 2019 to find out and tell Flynn that the notes they said belonged to Strzok were actually Pientka's and vice versa.

73. No Date, Name

The notes mixup wasn't that easy to spot because neither set of notes was signed or dated, even though they should have been, according to Powell.

74. Harsher Sentence

Since his sentencing hearing, Flynn was expected to receive a light sentence, possibly probation. In January 2020, however, the prosecutors indicated that Flynn should be treated more harshly because he reneged on his promise to cooperate on the Rafiekian case.

This was part of the retaliation for Flynn's refusal to lie for the prosecutors, according to Powell.

Shortly after that, Flynn asked the court to let him withdraw his plea.

75. Hint at Perjury

In February 2020, prosecutors asked for Sullivan to give them access to Flynn's communications with Covington.

Any limitation the court puts on how the attorney-client information can be used shouldn't "preclude the government from prosecuting the defendant for perjury if any information that he provided to counsel were proof of perjury in this proceeding," they said.

It's not clear what specifically they were referring to.

76. Thousands More Documents

In April, Covington told Flynn they found thousands more documents related to his case that they failed to give to Powell due to "an unintentional miscommunication involving the firm's information technology personnel."

77. Van Grack Out

On May 7, 2020, Van Grack withdrew from Flynn's case as well as others. The reason is not clear.

The same day, the DOJ moved to withdraw the Flynn case.

78. Judge Delays

A government motion to withdraw a case usually marks the end of the case. The court still needs to accept the motion, but there's not much it can do, since there's nobody left to prosecute the case.

Sullivan, however, didn't accept it.

79. Appointing Amicus

On May 13, 2020, Sullivan appointed former federal Judge John Gleeson as an amicus curiae (friend of court) "to present arguments in opposition to the government's Motion to Dismiss" as well as to "address" whether the court should make the defense explain why "Flynn should not be held in criminal contempt for perjury."

This was an unusual move. Amici are normally only appointed in civil or higher court cases. Powell has said Sullivan doesn't have authority to do so.

80. Another Washington Post Coincidence

Just two days earlier, Gleeson co-authored an op-ed in The Washington Post where he accused the DOJ of "impropriety," "corruption," and "improper political influence" for dropping the Flynn case.

81. More Delays

On May 19, 2020, Sullivan issued a scheduling order that set an oral argument for July 16, when third parties invited by the judge would get a chance to voice their opinions. As such, the judge set to prolong the case for about two more months and possibly beyond.

Meanwhile, Flynn sent a petition to the District of Columbia appeals court, asking it to order Sullivan to accept the case dismissal .

82. Order for Response

In a rare move , the appeals court ordered Sullivan to respond to Flynn's petition within 10 days. Usually, the court would appoint an amicus curiae to argue the case on behalf of the judge. Sometimes, the court would invite the judge to respond. Ordering a response is "very rare," Reeves commented.

83. Sullivan Lawyers Up

In another unusual turn of events, Sullivan hired highly-connected D.C. attorney Beth Wilkinson to respond to the appeals court on his behalf.

Wilkinson has in the past represented major corporations such as Pfizer, Microsoft, and Phillip Morris, as well as Hillary Clinton aides during the FBI's investigation of Clinton's use of a private email server. She also assisted then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in preparing his 2018 defense against a sexual assault allegation.

Wilkinson is married to CNN analyst David Gregory, the former host of the NBC News' "Meet the Press."

84. DOJ Brings Big Guns

In another unusual move, the DOJ's Solicitor General and five of his deputies responded to the appeals court in support of Flynn's petition. The Solicitor General usually argues cases on behalf of the DOJ before the Supreme Court. His personal involvement in an appeals court petition "is highly unusual and rare," Reeves said.

85. Short Notice

On June 2, 2020, the appeals court set a hearing in the case on June 12 , giving unusually short notice, Reeves noted.

"For non-lawyers, a ten day notice for oral argument may seem like a long time, but it isn't. It's an increidibly [sic] short amount of time," he said, noting that a call for a hearing "shows that the DC Circuit is gravely concerned about this matter."

[Jun 12, 2020] Russia, Russia, Russia - Obama Apparatchiks Blame Moscow For America's Riots

Jun 12, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Russia, Russia, Russia - Obama Apparatchiks Blame Moscow For America's Riots by Tyler Durden Thu, 06/11/2020 - 22:45 Authored by Phillip Giraldi via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

If one ventures into the vast wasteland of American television it is possible to miss the truly ridiculous content that is promoted as news by the major networks. One particular feature of media-speak in the United States is the tendency of the professional reporting punditry to go seeking for someone to blame every time some development rattles the National Security plus Wall Street bubble that we all unfortunately live in. The talking heads have to such an extent sold the conclusion that China deliberately released a lethal virus to destroy western democracies that no one objects when Beijing is elevated from being a commercial competitor and political adversary to an enemy of the United States. One sometimes even sees that it is all a communist plot. Likewise, the riots taking place all across the U.S. are being milked for what it's worth by the predominantly liberal media, both to influence this year's election and to demonstrate how much the news oligarchs really love black people.

As is often the case, there are a number of inconsistencies in the narrative. If one looks at the numerous photos of the protests in many parts of the country, it is clear that most of the demonstrators are white, not black, which might suggest that even if there are significant pockets of racism in the United States there is also a strong condemnation of that fact by many white people. And this in a country that elected a black man president not once, but twice, and that black president had a cabinet that included a large number of African-Americans.

Also, to further obfuscate any understanding of what might be taking place, the media and chattering class is obsessed with finding white supremacists as instigators of at least some of the actual violence. It would be a convenient explanation for the Social Justice Warriors that proliferate in the media, though it is supported currently by little actual evidence that anyone is exploiting right-wing groups.

Simultaneously, some on the right, to include the president, are blaming legitimately dubbed domestic terrorist group Antifa , which is perhaps more plausible, though again evidence of organized instigation appears to be on the thin side. Still another source of the mayhem apparently consists of some folks getting all excited by the turmoil and breaking windows and tossing Molotov cocktails, as did two upper middle class attorneys in Brooklyn last week.

Nevertheless, the search goes on for a guilty party. Explaining the demonstrations and riots as the result of the horrible killing of a black man by police which has revulsed both black and white Americans would be too simple to satisfy the convoluted yearnings of the likes of Wolf Blitzer and Rachel Maddow.

Which brings us to Russia. How convenient is it to fall back on Russia which, together with the Chinese, is reputedly already reported to be working hard to subvert the November U.S. election. And what better way to do just that than to call on one of the empty-heads of the Barack Obama administration, whose foreign policy achievements included the destruction of a prosperous Libya and the killing of four American diplomats in Benghazi, the initiation of kinetic hostilities with Syria, the failure to achieve a reset with Russia and the assassinations of American citizens overseas without any due process. But Obama sure did talk nice and seem pleasant unlike the current occupant of the White House.

The predictable Wolf Blitzer had a recent interview with perhaps the emptiest head of all the empowered women who virtually ran the Obama White House. Susan Rice was U.N. Ambassador and later National Security Advisor under Barack Obama. Before that she was a Clinton appointee who served as Undersecretary of State for African Affairs. She is reportedly currently being considered as a possible running mate for Joe Biden as she has all the necessary qualifications being a woman and black.

While Ambassador and National Security Advisor, Rice had the reputation of being extremely abrasive . She ran into trouble when she failed to be convincing in support of the Obama administration exculpatory narrative regarding what went wrong in Benghazi when the four Americans, to include the U.S. Ambassador, were killed.

In her interview with Blitzer, Rice said:

"We have peaceful protesters focused on the very real pain and disparities that we're all wrestling with that have to be addressed, and then we have extremists who've come to try to hijack those protests and turn them into something very different. And they're probably also, I would bet based on my experience, I'm not reading the intelligence these days, but based on my experience this is right out of the Russian playbook as well. I would not be surprised to learn that they have fomented some of these extremists on both sides using social media. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that they are funding it in some way, shape, or form."

It should be noted that Rice, a devout Democrat apparatchik, produced no evidence whatsoever that the Russians were or have been involved in "fomenting" the reactions to the George Floyd demonstrations and riots beyond the fact that Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden all believe that Moscow is responsible for everything. Clinton in particular hopes that some day someone will actually believe her when she claims that she lost to Trump in 2016 due to Russia. Even Robert Mueller, he of the Russiagate Inquiry, could not come up with any real evidence suggesting that the relatively low intensity meddling in the election by the Kremlin had any real impact. Nor was there any suggestion that Moscow was actually colluding with the Trump campaign, nor with its appointees, to include National Security Advisor designate Michael Flynn.

Fortunately, no one took much notice of Rice based on her "experience," or her judgement insofar as she possesses that quality. Glenn Greenwald responded :

"This is fuxxing lunacy -- conspiratorial madness of the worst kind -- but it's delivered by a Serious Obama Official and a Respected Mainstream Newscaster so it's all fine This is Infowars-level junk. Should Twitter put a 'False' label on this? Or maybe a hammer and sickle emoji?"

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova accurately described the Rice performance as a "perfect example of barefaced propaganda." She wrote on her Facebook page "Are you trying to play the Russia card again? You've been playing too long – come back to reality" instead of using "dirty methods of information manipulation" despite "having absolutely no facts to prove [the] allegations go out and face your people, look them in the eye and try telling them that they are being controlled by the Russians through YouTube and Facebook. And I will sit back and watch 'American exceptionalism' in action."

It should be assumed that the Republicans will be coming up with their own candidate for "fomenting" the riots and demonstrations. It already includes Antifa, of course, but is likely to somehow also involve the Chinese, who will undoubtedly be seen as destroying American democracy through the double whammy of a plague and race riots. Speaking at the White House, National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien warned about foreign incitement , including not only the Chinese, but also Iran and even Zimbabwe. And, oh yes, Russia.

One thing is for sure, no matter who is ultimately held accountable, no one in the Congress or White House will be taking the blame for anything.

[Jun 11, 2020] The color revolution against Trump including Flynn entrapment was all directed by President Obama -- Senator Rand Paul

Jun 11, 2020 | www.youtube.com

Rand Paul on heated Senate exchange with Dr. Fauci - YouTube

Ginette Jonas , 3 weeks ago

Asking Obama even under oath is a waste of breath. We all know he is a liar.

Matt B , 3 weeks ago

Asking obama a question and expecting a truthful answer is like asking for ice water in hell. It's never gonna happen.

[Jun 11, 2020] Trumped-Up chnges of Flynn as this was one of the cornerstone of Russiagate

Jun 11, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

"Trumped-Up": Former Judge's Flynn Filing Another Example Of "Irregularity" In The Age Of Rage by Tyler Durden Thu, 06/11/2020 - 10:59 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Retired federal judge John Gleeson was recently appointed by U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan to argue against dismissal of the case against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and to advise him on whether the court should substitute its own charge of charge for Flynn for now claiming innocence.

I have been highly critical of Sullivan's orders and particularly the importation of third parties to make arguments that neither party supports in a criminal case.

https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.390.0_en.html#goog_1316842970

https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.390.0_en.html#goog_1769897594 NOW PLAYING

Flynn asks appeals court to toss criminal charges

Now Gleeson has filed a brief that confirms the worst fears that many of us had about his appointment. Gleeson assails what he called "a trumped-up accusation of government misconduct." The ultimate position advocated in Gleeson's arguments would be a nightmare for criminal defendants, criminal defense counsel and civil libertarians. Indeed, as discussed below, Gleeson was previously reversed as a judge for usurping the authority of prosecutors.

Gleeson actually makes the Red Queen in "Alice in Wonderland" look like an ACLU lawyer. After all she just called for "Sentence First–Verdict Afterward" Gleeson is dispensing with any need for verdict on perjury, just the sentence. However, since these arguments are viewed as inimical to the Trump Administration, many seem blind to the chilling implications .

In his 82-page filing Gleeson notably rejects the idea of a perjury charge, which I previously criticized as a dangerous and ridiculous suggestion despite the support from many legal analysts. He notes that such a move would be "irregular" and

"I respectfully suggest that the best response to Flynn's perjury is not to respond in kind. Ordering a defendant to show cause why he should not be held in contempt based on a perjurious effort to withdraw a guilty plea is not what judges typically do. To help restore confidence in the integrity of the judicial process, the Court should return regularity to that process."

This seems a carefully crafted way of saying that the many calls for a perjury charge are as out of line with prior cases as what these same critics allege was done by the Justice Department.

However, Gleeson is not striking an independent or principled position. Rather, he is suggesting that the Court simply treat Flynn as a perjurer, punish him as a perjurer, but not give him a trial as a perjurer. Thus, he is advocating that the court "should take Flynn's perjury into account in sentencing him on the offense to which he has already admitted guilty."

Thus, according to Gleeson, the Court should first sentence a defendant on a crime that the prosecutors no longer believe occurred in a case that prosecutors believe (and many of us have argued) was marred by their own misconduct. He would then punish the defendant further by treating his support for dismissal and claims of coercion as perjury. That according to former judge Gleeson is a return to "regularity." I have been a criminal defense attorney for decades and I have never even heard of anything like that. It is not "regular." It is ridiculous.

Gleeson himself came in for criticism in the filing by Flynn's counsel who note that the former judge appointed by Sullivan not only publicly advocated against Flynn's position but as a judge was chastised by the Second Circuit for misusing his position to grandstand in a case involving a deferred prosecution agreement. The defense cited HSBC Bank USA, N.A., 863 F.3d 125, 136 (2d Cir. 2017) where the Second Circuit reversed Gleeson for exaggerating his role in a way that "would be to turn the presumption of regularity on its head."

The similarities to the present case are notable, including arguments that Gleeson intruded upon prosecutorial discretion. The Second Circuit held:

"By sua sponte invoking its supervisory power at the outset of this case to oversee the government's entry into and implementation of the DPA, the district court impermissibly encroached on the Executive's constitutional mandate to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." U.S. Const. art. II, § 3. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, the Department of Justice is entitled to a presumption of regularity -- that is, a presumption that it is lawfully discharging its duties. Though that presumption can of course be rebutted in such a way that warrants judicial intervention, it cannot be preemptively discarded based on the mere theoretical possibility of misconduct. Absent unusual circumstances not present here, a district court's role vis-à-vis a DPA is limited to arraigning the defendant, granting a speedy trial waiver if the DPA does not represent an improper attempt to circumvent the speedy trial clock, and adjudicating motions or disputes as they arise."

The Court acknowledged that there may be cases warranting great judicial involvement. However, the court found that Gleeson had acted on his own presumptions and not evidence. It also reaffirmed that there is a presumption in favor of the prosecution that he ignored:

"The district court justified its concededly "novel" exercise of supervisory power in this context by observing that "it is easy to imagine circumstances in which a deferred prosecution agreement, or the implementation of such an agreement, so transgresses the bounds of lawfulness or propriety as to warrant judicial intervention to protect the integrity of the Court." HSBC Bank USA, N.A., 2013 WL 3306161, at *6. We agree that it is not difficult to imagine such circumstances. But the problem with this reasoning is that it runs headlong into the presumption of regularity that federal courts are obliged to ascribe to prosecutorial conduct and decisionmaking. That presumption is rooted in the principles that undergird our constitutional structure. In particular, "because the United States Attorneys are charged with taking care that the laws are faithfully executed, there is a `presumption of regularity support[ing] their prosecutorial decisions and, in the absence of clear evidence to the contrary, courts presume that they have properly discharged their official duties.'" United States v. Sanchez, 517 F.3d 651 , 671 (2d Cir. 2008) (alteration in original) (quoting United States v. Armstrong, 517 U.S. 456 , 464, 116 S.Ct. 1480, 134 L.Ed.2d 687 (1996)). In resting its exercise of supervisory authority on hypothesized scenarios of egregious misconduct, the district court turned this presumption on its head. See HSBC Bank USA, N.A., 2013 WL 3306161, at *6 ("[C]onsider a situation where the current monitor needs to be replaced. What if the replacement's only qualification for the position is that he or she is an intimate acquaintance of the prosecutor proposing the appointment?" (citation omitted)).

Rather than presume "in the absence of clear evidence to the contrary" that the prosecutors administering the DPA were "properly discharg[ing] their official duties," the district court invoked its supervisory power -- and encroached on the Executive's prerogative -- based on the mere theoretical possibility that the prosecutors might one day abdicate those duties. Sanchez, 517 F.3d at 671 (internal quotation mark omitted)."

Gleeson can now argue that he found the case that he did not establish as a judge. However, his brief is filled with sweeping presumptions against the motivations and analysis of the Justice Department, even though many outsiders agree with that analysis. The Flynn case is based on statements that even the FBI agents reportedly did not believe were intentional lies. Moreover, there is a clear basis to question the materiality element to the criminal charge. People can disagree reasonably on both points, but that is the point. The Justice Department has decided that it agrees that the case is flawed in line with the analysis of various experts. The court might not agree with that interpretation and many other experts may vehemently oppose it. However, it is a legitimate legal argument that cannot be substituted by the Court for its own preferences.

None of this seems to penetrate the analysis of Gleeson who shows the same aggrandizement of judicial authority that got him reversed as a judge. He argues for a court potentially sending someone to jail when the prosecutors no longer believe he is guilty of a crime and believe that he was the victim of bias and abuse.

Imagine what that would portend for future criminal defendants who want to argue coercion and abuse. Their counsel would have to warn them that they could be sent to prison for a longer period for perjury even if the prosecutors agree with them. Moreover, Gleeson believes that they should not even be afforded a trial as perjurers, just treated as perjurers.

That is being claimed in the name of "regularity." Unfortunately, such analysis has become all too regular in this age of rage.

Here is the filing: Gleeson filing

[Jun 08, 2020] Jordan to Rosenstein- Why are you keeping info from us

Jun 08, 2020 | www.youtube.com



Sandor Nelu
, 5 months ago

Rosenstein looks like a snake in front of an eagle.

Frank D. Long , 7 months ago

Rosenstein is a traitor and his wife is Crooked Hillary's lawyer.


Mitch Pickett
, 6 months ago

This guy is a weasel plain and simple. He knows something and is doing everything in his power to keep it a secret.


Tom Floor
, 1 year ago

Rosenstein is lying! This is what's pissing me off! If Rosenstein is a piece of work. Why didn't they try to follow the rules for the Clinton investigation and Trump Russian investigation! They pick and choose what they want to follow according to rules.

[Jun 06, 2020] New questions about Obama s interest in Clinton probe

Now "Horrible Lisa" re-surfaced in MSNBC. Not surprising one bit. This is a deep state retirement package...
Notable quotes:
"... Barack Obama wanted to 'know everything' the FBI was 'doing' according to newly released text messages between FBI lovers Peter Strzok and Lisa Page ..."
Feb 07, 2018 | www.youtube.com

Barack Obama wanted to 'know everything' the FBI was 'doing' according to newly released text messages between FBI lovers Peter Strzok and Lisa Page ; reaction and analysis on 'The Five.'

Rick Spiedel , 2 years ago

Slime, slime and more slime. Obama headed up the whole thing. Zero integrity there.

The leaders of the Democratic Party, Barrak Obama, Hillary Clinton, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Donna Brazile, Chuck Schummer, Nancy Pelosi, Adam Shiff and his sisters father-in-law George Soros.

Here is what this all boils down to. Hillary Clinton email to Donna Brazile, Oct., 17, 2016. "If that f*cking ba*tard wins, we're all going to hang from nooses! You better fix this sh*t!"

[Jun 06, 2020] One crisis too many -- Will the riots be Trump's undoing by Arnon Mishkin

Jun 06, 2020 | www.foxnews.com

But even among those who justified the unrest, there was a sense that it, particularly the video of looting and violence, could result in a sense of "white backlash" and play into President Trump's reelection effort. This is a president who used his inaugural address to promise to fight "American Carnage" and has successfully appealed to "white backlash" throughout his career.

The history of urban unrest – starting with the 1967-68 riots, but extending through 1992 and 2014 – was consistent with the belief that Trump could benefit politically. Indeed, the 1968 riots helped both George Wallace and Richard Nixon run on "law and order" platforms, the 1992 riots arguably helped lead to the 1994 "Super Predators" crime bill, and the 2014 protests clearly, in the end, benefited Trump politically.

Indeed, many assumed that the response would help Trump successfully benefit from the 2020 unrest. Among those was Trump himself, who came out strongly arguing for "law and order" –criticizing governors who were not dealing sufficiently harshly with protesters, sending the U.S. military into Washington, D.C., and suggesting he was going to send them into other cities as well.

But so far, it hasn't worked out politically as some expected. Trump's poll numbers continue to decline – Biden currently leads him by eight points in the RealClearPolitics average

[Jun 06, 2020] Lisa Page Hired By NBC And MSNBC As Legal Analyst (No, Not The Onion!) by Jonathan Turley

This is just the Deep State retirement package.
So another rabid neocon is hired by neocon MSM and instantly was interviewed by neocon Madcow, blaming Russia for the coup d'état against Trump that Obama administration with her help launched. Nothing new, nothing interesting.
Notable quotes:
"... Page testified that even by May 2017, they did not find such evidence that "it still existed in the scope of possibility that there would be literally nothing" to connect Trump and Russia. ..."
"... There was little reason to believe in this "insurance policy" given the absence of evidence. Yet, Page still viewed the effort led by Strzok as an indemnity in case of election. ..."
"... The Inspector General found that, soon after the first surveillance was ordered, FBI agents began to cast doubts on the veracity of the Steele document ..."
"... it was quickly established that no credible evidence existed to support the continuance of the investigation -- which Page called their "insurance policy." ..."
"... Page also left out her other emails including calling Trump foul names while praising Hillary Clinton and other opponents. Even if she were not involved in the ongoing controversy, her emails show her to be fervently opposed to both Trump and the Republicans. ..."
Jun 06, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Lisa Page, the former FBI lawyer who resigned in the midst of the Russian investigation scandal, has been hired a NBC and MSNBC as a legal analyst. The move continues a trend started by CNN in hiring Trump critics, including officials terminated for misconduct, to offer legal analysis on the Trump Administration. We have previously discussed the use by CNN of figures like Andrew McCabe to give legal analysis despite his being referred for possible criminal charges by the Inspector General for repeatedly lying to federal investigators. The media appears intent on fulfilling the narrative of President Trump that it is overly biased and hostile in its analysis. Indeed, it now appears a marketing plan that has subsumed the journalistic mission.

Page appeared with Rachel Maddow and began her work as the new legal analyst by discussing her own controversial work at the FBI. Page is still part of investigation by various committees and the investigation being conducted by U.S Attorney John Durham.

I have denounced President Trump for his repeated and often vicious references to Page's affair with fired FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok . There is no excuse for such personal abuse. I also do not view her emails as proof of her involvement in a deep-state conspiracy as opposed to clearly inappropriate and partisan communications for someone involved in the investigation. Indeed, Page did not appear a particularly significant figure in the investigation or even the FBI as a whole. She was primarily dragged into the controversy due to her relationship with Strzok.

However, Trump has legitimate reason to object (as he has) to this hiring as do those who expect analysis from experts without a personal stake in the ongoing investigations. It has long been an ethical rule in American journalism not to pay for interviews. Either NBC is paying for exclusive rights to Page in interviews like the one on Maddow's show or it is hiring an expert with a personal stake in these controversies to give legal analysis. Neither is a good option for a network that represented the gold standard in journalism with figures like John Chancellor, Edwin Newman, and Roger Mudd.

It is not that Page disagrees with the Administration on legal matters or these cases. It is the fact that she is personally involved in the ongoing stories and has shown intense and at times unhinged bias against Trump in communications with Strzok and others. She is the news story, or at least a significant part of it.

Andrew A. Weissmann has also been retained as a legal analyst by NBC and MSNBC. While Weissmann has been raised by Republicans as a lightening rod for his perceived partisan bias as a member of the Mueller team, he does not have the type of personal conflict or interest in these investigations. Weissmann is likely to be raised in the hearing over the next weeks into the Flynn case in terms of prosecutorial decisions. (It is worth noting that Fox hired Trey Gowdy at an analyst even though he would be commenting on matters that came before his committee in these investigations.) In terms of balance, however, the appearance of both Page and Weissmann giving analysis on the Administration's response to the protests is a bit jarring for some .

Page was an unknown attorney in the FBI before she was forced into the public eye due to her emails with Strzok. Her emails fueled the controversy over bias in the FBI. They were undeniably biased and strident including the now famous reference to the FBI investigation as "insurance" in case Trump was elected. In the email in August 2016, here's what Strzok wrote:

I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's office [Andrew McCabe is the FBI deputy director and married to a Democratic Virginia State Senate candidate] for that there's no way he gets elected -- but I'm afraid we can't take that risk. It's like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you're 40

What particularly concerns me is that Page has come up recently in new disclosures in the Flynn case . In newly released document is an email from former FBI lawyer Lisa Page to former FBI special agent Peter Strzok, who played the leadership role in targeting Flynn. In the email, Page suggests that Flynn could be set up by making a passing reference to a federal law that criminalizes lies to federal investigators. She suggested to Strzok that "it would be an easy way to just casually slip that in." So this effort was not about protecting national security or learning critical intelligence. As I have noted, the email reinforces other evidence that it was about bagging Flynn for the case in the legal version of a canned trophy hunt.

It appears that, on January 4, 2017, the FBI's Washington Field Office issued a "Closing Communication" indicating that the bureau was terminating "CROSSFIRE RAZOR" -- the newly disclosed codename for the investigation of Flynn. That is when Strzok intervened. The FBI had investigated Flynn and various databases and determined that "no derogatory information was identified in FBI holdings." Due to this conclusion, the Washington Field Office concluded that Flynn "was no longer a viable candidate as part of the larger CROSSFIRE HURRICANE umbrella case." On that same day, however, fired FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok instructed the FBI case manager handling CROSSFIRE RAZOR to keep the investigation open, telling him "Hey don't close RAZOR." The FBI official replied, "Okay." Strzok then confirmed again, "Still open right? And you're the case agent? Going to send you [REDACTED] for the file." The FBI official confirmed: "I have not closed it Still open." Strzok responded "Rgr. I couldn't raise [REDACTED] earlier. Pls keep it open for now."

Strzok also texted Page:

"Razor still open. :@ but serendipitously good, I guess. You want those chips and Oreos?" Page replied "Phew. But yeah that's amazing that he is still open. Good, I guess."

Strzok replied "Yeah, our utter incompetence actually helps us. 20% of the time, I'm guessing :)"

Page will be the focus of much of the upcoming inquiries both in Congress and the Justice Department as will CNN's legal analyst Andrew McCabe.

In her Maddow segment, Page attempts to defuse the "insurance policy" email as all part of her commitment to protecting the nation, not her repeatedly stated hatred for Trump. In what is now a signature for MSNBC, Maddow did not ask a single probative question but actually helped her frame the response. Even in echo journalistic circles, the echo between the two was deafening.

Page explained"

"It's an analogy. First of all, it's not my text, so I'm sort of interpreting what I believed he meant back three years ago, but we're using an analogy. We're talking about whether or not we should take certain investigative steps or not based on the likelihood that he's going to be president or not."

You have to keep in mind if President Trump doesn't become president, the national-security risk, if there is somebody in his campaign associated with Russia, plummets. You're not so worried about what Russia's doing vis-à-vis a member of his campaign if he's not president because you're not going to have access to classified information, you're not going to have access to sources and methods in our national-security apparatus. So, the 'insurance policy' was an analogy. It's like an insurance policy when you're 40. You don't expect to die when you're 40, yet you still have an insurance policy."

Maddow then decided to better frame the spin:

"So, don't just hope that he's not going to be elected and therefore not press forward with the investigation hoping, but rather press forward with the investigation just in case he does get in there."

Page simply responds " Exactly ."

Well, not exactly.

Page is leaving out that, as new documents show, there never was credible evidence of any Russian collusion. Recently, the Congress unsealed testimony from a long line of Obama officials who denied ever seeing such evidence, including some who publicly suggested that they had .

Indeed, Page testified that even by May 2017, they did not find such evidence that "it still existed in the scope of possibility that there would be literally nothing" to connect Trump and Russia.

There was little reason to believe in this "insurance policy" given the absence of evidence. Yet, Page still viewed the effort led by Strzok as an indemnity in case of election.

The Inspector General found that, soon after the first surveillance was ordered, FBI agents began to cast doubts on the veracity of the Steele document and suggested it might be disinformation from Russian intelligence. The IG said that, due to the relatively low standard required for a FISA application, he could not say that the original application was invalid but that it was quickly established that no credible evidence existed to support the continuance of the investigation -- which Page called their "insurance policy."

Page also left out her other emails including calling Trump foul names while praising Hillary Clinton and other opponents. Even if she were not involved in the ongoing controversy, her emails show her to be fervently opposed to both Trump and the Republicans.

Bias however has become the coin of the realm for some networks. Why have echo journalism when you can have an analyst simply repeat her position directly? For viewers who become irate at the appearance of opposing views ( as vividly demonstrated in the recent apology of the New York Times for publishing a conservative opinion column ), having a vehemently biased and personally invested analyst is reassuring. It is not like Page will suddenly blurt out a defense of Flynn or Trump or others in the Administration.

With Page, NBC has crossed the Rubicon and left its objectivity scattered on the far bank.

we_the_people, 11 minutes ago (Edited)

Nothing says professional journalism like hiring a dirty whore who was an active participant in a coup to overthrow a duly elected President!

The level of insanity is truly amazing!

Heroism, 14 minutes ago

The MSM gets more Orwellian by the day, and today is like tomorrow.

More proof that corruption and deceit pay, big time. Surely, at some point viewers and voters

will say, "Enough!" and hit these purveyors of lies where it hurts--in the ratings and pocketbooks. Meanwhile,

the people will just willingly suffer..............

[Jun 06, 2020] Somebody Cooked Up The Plot The Hunt For The Origins Of The Russia Collusion Narrative

Jun 06, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

"Somebody Cooked Up The Plot": The Hunt For The Origins Of The Russia Collusion Narrative by Tyler Durden Fri, 06/05/2020 - 22:40 Authored by John Solomon via JustTheNews.com,

Hollywood once gave us the Cold War thriller called "The Hunt for Red October ." And now the U.S. Senate and its Republican committee chairmen in Washington have launched a different sort of hunt made for the movies.

Armed with subpoenas, Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Ron Johnson, R-Wis., want to interrogate a slew of Obama-era intelligence and law enforcement officials hoping to identify who invented and sustained the bogus Russia collusion narrative that hampered Donald Trump's early presidency.

And while Graham and Johnson aren't exactly Sean Connery and Alec Baldwin, they and their GOP cohorts have a theory worthy of a Tom Clancy novel-turned-movie: The Russia collusion investigation was really a plot by an outgoing administration to thwart the new president.

"What we had was a very quiet insurrection that took place," Sen. Marsha Blackburn, the Tennessee Republican, told Just the News on Thursday as she described the theory of Senate investigators. "And there were probably dozens of people at DOJ and FBI that knew what was going on.

"But they hate Donald Trump so much that they were willing to work under the cloak of law and try to use that to shield them so that they could take an action on their disgust," she added. "They wanted to prohibit him from being president. And when he won, they wanted to render him ineffective at doing his job."

For much of the last two years, the exact theory that congressional Republicans held about the bungled, corrupt Russia probe -- where collusion between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin was ultimately disproven and FBI misconduct was confirmed -- was always evolving.

But after explosive testimony this week from former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who openly accused the FBI of keeping him in the dark about flaws, failures and exculpatory evidence in the case, the GOP believes it may prove the Russia case was a conspiracy to use the most powerful law enforcement and intelligence tools in America to harm Trump.

Two years of declassified memos are now in evidence that show:

  • The FBI was warned before it used Christopher Steele's dossier as evidence to target the Trump campaign with a FISA warrant that the former British spy might be the target of Russian disinformation, that he despised Trump and that he was being paid to help Hillary Clinton's campaign. But agents proceeded anyway.
  • The bureau was told by the CIA that its primary target, Trump adviser Carter Page, wasn't a Russian spy but rather a CIA asset. But it hid that evidence from the DOJ and courts, even falsifying a document to keep the secret.
  • The FBI opened a case on Trump adviser George Papadopoulos on the suspicion he might arrange Russian dirt on Hillary Clinton but quickly determined he didn't have the Russian contacts to pull it off. But the case kept going.
  • The FBI intercepted conversations between its informants and Papadopoulos and Page showing the two men made numerous statements of innocence, and kept that evidence from the DOJ and the courts.
  • The FBI investigated Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn for five months and concluded there was no derogatory evidence he committed a crime or posed an intelligence threat and recommended closing the case. But higher-ups overruled the decision and proceeded to interview Flynn.
  • The FBI and DOJ both knew by August 2017 there was no evidence of Trump-Russia collusion but allowed another 18 months of investigation to persist without announcing the president was innocent.

That is just a handful of the key evidentiary anchors of the storyline Republicans have developed. Now they want to know who helped carry out each of these acts.

"There are millions of Americans pretty upset about this," Graham said this week. "There are people on our side of the aisle who believe this investigation, Crossfire Hurricane, was one of the most corrupt, biased criminal investigations in the history of the FBI. And we'd like to see something done about it ."

Graham tried to take action to approve 50-plus subpoenas from the Senate Judiciary Committee to witnesses on Thursday but was forced to delay a week.

Johnson, meanwhile, successfully secured about three dozen subpoenas to get documents and interviews with key witnesses from his Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Evidence is growing, Johnson said, that there was not a "peaceful and cooperative" transition between the Obama and Trump administrations in 2017.

"The conduct we know that occurred during the transition should concern everyone and absolutely warrants further investigation," he said.

With Rosenstein's testimony now behind them, the senators have some lofty targets for interviews or testimony going forward, including fired FBI Director James Comey, his deputy Andrew McCabe, ex-CIA Director John Brennan, and the former chiefs of staff for President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.

Blackburn said during an interview with the John Solomon Reports podcast that the goal of the subpoenas and witnesses was simple: to identify and punish the cast of characters who sustained a Russia collusion narrative that was never supported by the evidence.

"Somebody cooked up the plot," she explained.

"Somebody gave the go-ahead to order, to implement it. Somebody did the dirty work and carried it out -- and probably a lot of somebodies. And what frustrates the American people is that nobody has been held accountable.

"Nobody has been indicted. Nobody has been charged, and they're all getting major book deals and are profiting by what is criminal activity, if you look at the statutes that are on the book, and if you say we're going to abide by the rule of law and be a nation of laws."

For Blackburn, identifying and punishing those responsible is essential for two goals: to deter anyone in the future from abusing the FBI and FISA process again and to ensure Americans there isn't a two-tiered system of justice in America.

"I think when you Google [Russia collusion] in future years, you're going to see a screenshot of this cast of characters that cooked this up, because it is the ultimate plot," Blackburn said.

[Jun 06, 2020] MSNBC hires controversial ex-FBI lawyer Lisa Page as legal analyst

Jun 06, 2020 | www.foxnews.com

MSNBC announced on Friday that it has hired former FBI lawyer Lisa Page as an NBC News and MSNBC national security and legal analyst.

On Friday night, President Trump blasted MSNBC's latest hiring decision.

"You must be kidding??? This is a total disgrace!" Trump tweeted.

Page made her debut as an MSNBC analyst during "Deadline: White House" alongside former Mueller probe prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, who appears to have been rehired by the network after they severed ties after it was announced he was hosting a Biden fundraiser, which was ultimately canceled.

Both Page and Weissmann offered legal analysis on the ongoing feud between President Trump and Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser over the presence of outside troops.

BROADCAST NETS SPEND OVER 700 MINUTES ON GEORGE FLOYD PROTESTS, 5 MINUTES ON RIOT DEATHS

Page is best known for her publicized text exchanges with her lover, ex-FBI agent Peter Strzok, which revealed extreme animosity towards Trump during the 2016 election and created the perception that their political views fueled the Russia investigation.

The texts that sounded the alarm for GOP lawmakers was Strzok's reference to an "insurance policy" that was discussed at Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe's office. Page denied that meant the FBI had plotted to remove Trump if he won the election.

Last December, Page broke her silence and made her television debut on MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show," where she was asked about the "insurance policy" text.

NY TIMES EDITOR BARI WEISS SAYS THERE'S A 'CIVIL WAR' WITHIN PAPER AMID TOM COTTON UPROAR

"It's an analogy," Page explained. "First of all, it's not my text, so I'm sort of interpreting what I believed he meant back three years ago, but we're using an analogy. We're talking about whether or not we should take certain investigative steps or not based on the likelihood that he's going to be president or not."

She continued, "You have to keep in mind ... if President Trump doesn't become president, the national-security risk, if there is somebody in his campaign associated with Russia, plummets. You're not so worried about what Russia's doing vis-à-vis a member of his campaign if he's not president because you're not going to have access to classified information, you're not going to have access to sources and methods in our national-security apparatus. So, the 'insurance policy' was an anology. It's like an insurance policy when you're 40. You don't expect to die when you're 40, yet you still have an insurance policy."

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow chimed in, "So, don't just hope that he's not going to be elected and therefore not press forward with the investigation hoping, but rather press forward with the investigation just in case he does get in there."

"Exactly," Page replied.

... ... ...

Fox News' Brian Flood contributed to this report.

[Jun 06, 2020] The Worse the Better Why Antifa Wants Trump to Win by James Pinkerton

Jun 04, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

many thoughtful observers on the right -- including Ross Douthat , Rod Dreher , and Dan McCarthy -- have pointed out that the current protesting and rioting is likely to help Donald Trump and the Republicans. That is, the ongoing violence, fomented by leftist elements, including Black Lives Matter and Antifa, could boomerang against Joe Biden and his Democrats.

However, the planted assumption here is that the vandals and looters want Joe Biden to win. And that's not so obvious. Indeed, maybe the truth is just the reverse.

To be sure, the protesters and looters all hate Donald Trump. And yet actions speak louder than words, and their actions on the street suggest a kind of anti-matter affection for the Bad Orange Man. That is, each act of violence obscures the memory of George Floyd, who died at the knee of a Minneapolis policeman, and raises the prospect of a national backlash against both peaceful protestors and violent looters, offering a ray of hope for Trump.

Indeed, Douthat quotes Princeton political scientist Omar Wasow, whose research shows that back in the 1960s, peaceful civil rights protests helped the Democrats, while violent protests (also known as riots) hurt the Democrats. In Wasow's words, "proximity to black-led nonviolent protests increased white Democratic vote-share whereas proximity to black-led violent protests caused substantively important declines." And that's how Republican Richard Nixon defeated Democrat Hubert Humphrey in 1968.

We might add that Humphrey was a lot like Biden. Both were gabby senators turned vice presidents, regarded as reliable liberals, not as hard-edged leftists.

So now we're starting to see where Biden, a pillar of the smug liberal establishment -- he once told a group of donors that if he's elected, "nothing would fundamentally change" -- veers away from the far-left ideologues amidst the mobs.

Let's let Andy Ngo –who has shed blood , literally, while chronicling bullyboy leftists -- define the ideology of Antifa and Black Lives Matter: "At its core, BLM is a revolutionary Marxist ideology. Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi and Patrisse Cullors, BLM's founders, are self-identified Marxists who make no secret of their worship of communist terrorists and fugitives, like Assata Shakur. They want the abolition of law enforcement and capitalism. They want regime change and the end of the rule of law. Antifa has partnered with Black Lives Matter, for now, to help accelerate the breakdown of society."

We can observe that by "regime change," these revolutionary leftists don't mean replacing Trump with Biden -- they mean replacing capitalism and the Constitution. In the meantime, if one looks at a Twitter feed identified by Ngo as an Antifa hub, It's Going Down , one sees plenty of anti-Trump rhetoric, along with general hard leftism, but nothing in support of Biden.

However, here's something interesting: The Biden campaign shows no small degree of support for the street radicals. As Reuters reported on May 30,

"At least 13 Biden campaign staff members posted on Twitter on Friday and Saturday that they made donations to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, which opposes the practice of cash bail, or making people pay to avoid pre-trial imprisonment. The group uses donations to pay bail fees in Minneapolis."

We might observe that these 13 employees posted their pro-rioter sympathies on Twitter; in other words, not only did they make no effort to hide their donations, but they also actively bragged about them.

It could be argued, of course, that these are just 13 vanguard employees out of a campaign staff that numbers in the hundreds, maybe even thousands. And yet as the Reuters piece adds, Team Biden is not practicing political distancing from its in-house radicals: "Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement to Reuters that the former vice president opposes the institution of cash bail as a 'modern day debtors prison.'"

When pressed by Reuters -- which is not exactly Fox News in its editorial stance -- the official spox for Middle Class Joe was unwilling to say more: "The campaign declined to answer questions on whether the donations were coordinated within the campaign, underscoring the politically thorny nature of the sometimes violent protests."

So we can see: The Biden campaign is trying to maintain its equipoise between liberals and mobs, even as the former is bleeding into the latter. Indeed, a look at Biden's Twitter feed shows the same port-side balancing act. On May 30, for instance, he tweeted , "If we are complacent, if we are silent, we are complicit in perpetuating these cycles of violence. None of us can turn away. We all have an obligation to speak out."

There's enough ambiguity here, as well as in his other tweets, to leave everyone parsing, and guessing, as to what, exactly, Biden is saying -- except, as he said on June 2, that he opposes the use of chokeholds to restrain violent suspects, and also opposes more equipment for the police. The only other thing we know for sure is that he hasn't tweeted an iota of specific sympathy for the people other than George Floyd who have died in the recent violence. One such is Patrick Underwood , an African American employee of the Federal Protective Service; he was shot and killed in Oakland, Calif. on May 29.

Yet while the Biden campaign attempts to keep its relationship with Antifa and its ilk fuzzy, other Democrats have made themselves clear. For instance, in 2018, then-Congressman Keith Ellison tweeted out a photograph of himself holding a copy of a book, Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, which the radical-chic types at The New Yorker described as "A how-to for would-be activists, and a record of advice from anti-Fascist organizers past and present." Ellison is now the attorney general for the state of Minnesota.

And on May 31, Ellison's son, Jeremiah, a Minneapolis city councilman, tweeted , "I hereby declare, officially, my support for ANTIFA."

Still, if the Democrats can't quite quit Antifa, most are smart enough to recognize the danger of being too closely associated with hooligans and radicals. Moreover, they need some theory of the case they wish to make, which is that they loudly support the protests, even as they mumble about the violence.

And Democrats have found their favored argument -- the one that conveniently takes them off the hook. Indeed, it's an argument they increasingly deploy to explain everything bad that happens: The Russians did it.

Thus on May 31, former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice said on CNN of the tumult, "In my experience, this is right out of the Russian playbook."

We might allow that it's possible, even probable, that the Russian government has been taking delight in this spate of violence in America. And it's similarly probable that the governments of China, Iran, and Venezuela, too, have been pleased, to say nothing of varying portions of the public in every country. And so sure, more than a few tweets and Facebook posts have probably resulted -- after all, stories ripping the U.S. were right there, for instance, on the front page of China's Global Times .

Still, it's ridiculous to think that hundreds of thousands -- maybe millions -- of Americans are taking their cues from a foreign power; we've got plenty of home-grown radicalism and anger.

Yet even so, the Democrats have persisted in their Russia-dunnit narrative, because it serves their political, and perhaps psychological, need -- the need to externalize criminal behavior. In other words, don't blame us for the killings and lootings -- blame Moscow.

Okay, so back to Antifa and Black Lives Matter. The left wing of the Democratic Party -- including elements within the Biden campaign -- might like them, but there's no evidence that they like Democrats back.

Indeed, if the violence keeps up, it will become obvious that the leftist radicals are not trying to help Biden. To put it another way, the rads would become the objective allies (a political science term connoting an ironic congruence of interest) of Trump.

To be sure, right now, Trump is running five or six points behind Biden in the RealClearPolitics polling average . And yet, just as Dreher, Douthat, and McCarthy suggest, if the violence continues and Trump goes firm while Biden stays mushy, that could change.

Indeed, as we think of genuine radicalism, we would do well to look beyond the parochial confines of American politics, Democrat vs. Republican. Instead, we might ponder the epic panorama of leftist history, which offers radicals so much more inspiration than historically centrist America.

For instance, we might look to Russia. But not to the Russia of Vladimir Putin , but rather, to the Russia of Vladimir Lenin .

In the early 20th century, Lenin's Bolsheviks, awaiting their revolutionary moment, operated according to a simple slogan: "The worse the better." That is, the enemy of Bolshevism was incremental reform, or progress of any kind; the reds wanted conditions to get so bad as to "justify" a communist revolution. And that's what Lenin and his comrades got in October 1917, when they seized power in the midst of the calamities of World War One.

Yes, of course, the communists made conditions worse, not better, for ordinary Russians. And yet things weren't worse for Lenin and his Bolsheviks -- they were now in power. So today, that's the sort of dream that inspires Antifa radicals.

To be sure, an America dominated by Antifa and Black Lives Matter is a distant prospect. But radicals figure that four more years of Trump in the White House will move the nation to even higher levels of chaos -- and thus move them closer to power.

With all that in prospect for radicals -- that is, the worse, the better -- the prospect of Joe Biden losing this year is a small price to pay. Actually, for them, it's no price at all.

In the meantime, for America, there is no better. Only worse.

[Jun 04, 2020] The Minneapolis Putsch by CJ Hopkins

Looks like the third stage of the Purple revolution against Trump, with Russiagate and Ukrainegate and two initial stages.
Notable quotes:
"... Things couldn't be going better for the Resistance if they had scripted it themselves. Actually, they did kind of script it themselves. Not the murder of poor George Floyd, of course. Racist police have been murdering Black people for as long as there have been racist police. No, the Resistance didn't manufacture racism. They just spent the majority of the last four years creating and promoting an official narrative which casts most Americans as "white supremacists" who literally elected Hitler president, and who want to turn the country into a racist dictatorship. ..."
"... According to this official narrative, which has been relentlessly disseminated by the corporate media, the neoliberal intelligentsia, the culture industry, and countless hysterical, Trump-hating loonies, the Russians put Donald Trump in office with those DNC emails they never hacked and some division-sowing Facebook ads that supposedly hypnotized Black Americans into refusing to come out and vote for Clinton. Putin purportedly ordered this personally, as part of his plot to "destroy democracy." ..."
"... The protesting and rioting that typically follows the murder of an unarmed Black person by the cops has mushroomed into " an international uprising " cheered on by the corporate media, corporations, and the liberal establishment, who don't normally tend to support such uprisings, but they've all had a sudden change of heart, or spiritual or political awakening, and are down for some serious property damage, and looting, and preventative self-defense, if that's what it takes to bring about justice, and to restore America to the peaceful, prosperous, non-white-supremacist paradise it was until the Russians put Donald Trump in office. ..."
"... America is still a racist country, but America is no more racist today than it was when Barack Obama was president. A lot of American police are brutal, but no more brutal than when Obama was president. America didn't radically change the day Donald Trump was sworn into office. All that has changed is the official narrative. And it will change back as soon as Trump is gone and the ruling classes have no further use for it. ..."
Jun 04, 2020 | consentfactory.org
underground bunker ." Opportunist social media pundits on both sides of the political spectrum are whipping people up into white-eyed frenzies. Americans are at each other's throats, divided by identity politics, consumed by rage, hatred, and fear.

Things couldn't be going better for the Resistance if they had scripted it themselves. Actually, they did kind of script it themselves. Not the murder of poor George Floyd, of course. Racist police have been murdering Black people for as long as there have been racist police. No, the Resistance didn't manufacture racism. They just spent the majority of the last four years creating and promoting an official narrative which casts most Americans as "white supremacists" who literally elected Hitler president, and who want to turn the country into a racist dictatorship.

According to this official narrative, which has been relentlessly disseminated by the corporate media, the neoliberal intelligentsia, the culture industry, and countless hysterical, Trump-hating loonies, the Russians put Donald Trump in office with those DNC emails they never hacked and some division-sowing Facebook ads that supposedly hypnotized Black Americans into refusing to come out and vote for Clinton. Putin purportedly ordered this personally, as part of his plot to "destroy democracy." The plan was always for President Hitler to embolden his white-supremacist followers into launching the "RaHoWa," or the "Boogaloo," after which Trump would declare martial law, dissolve the legislature, and pronounce himself Führer. Then they would start rounding up and murdering the Jews, and the Blacks, and Mexicans, and other minorities, according to this twisted liberal fantasy.

I've been covering the roll-out and dissemination of this official narrative since 2016, and have documented much of it in my essays , so I won't reiterate all that here. Let's just say, I'm not exaggerating, much. After four years of more or less constant conditioning, millions of Americans believe this fairy tale, despite the fact that there is absolutely zero evidence whatsoever to support it. Which is not exactly a mystery or anything. It would be rather surprising if they didn't believe it. We're talking about the most formidable official propaganda machine in the history of official propaganda machines.

And now the propaganda is paying off. The protesting and rioting that typically follows the murder of an unarmed Black person by the cops has mushroomed into " an international uprising " cheered on by the corporate media, corporations, and the liberal establishment, who don't normally tend to support such uprisings, but they've all had a sudden change of heart, or spiritual or political awakening, and are down for some serious property damage, and looting, and preventative self-defense, if that's what it takes to bring about justice, and to restore America to the peaceful, prosperous, non-white-supremacist paradise it was until the Russians put Donald Trump in office.

In any event, the Resistance media have now dropped their breathless coverage of the non-existent Corona-Holocaust to breathlessly cover the "revolution." The American police, who just last week were national heroes for risking their lives to beat up, arrest, and generally intimidate mask-less "lockdown violators" are now the fascist foot soldiers of the Trumpian Reich. The Nike corporation produced a commercial urging people to smash the windows of their Nike stores and steal their sneakers. Liberal journalists took to Twitter, calling on rioters to " burn that shit down! " until the rioters reached their gated community and started burning down their local Starbucks. Hollywood celebrities are masking up and going full-black bloc, and doing legal support . Chelsea Clinton is teaching children about David and the Racist Goliath . John Cusack's bicycle was attacked by the pigs . I haven't checked on Rob Reiner yet, but I assume he is assembling Molotov cocktails in the basement of a Resistance safe house somewhere in Hollywood Hills.

Look, I'm not saying the neoliberal Resistance orchestrated or staged these riots, or "denying the agency" of the folks in the streets. Whatever else is happening out there, a lot of very angry Black people are taking their frustration out on the cops, and on anyone and anything else that represents racism and injustice to them.

This happens in America from time to time. America is still a racist society. Most African-Americans are descended from slaves. Legal racial discrimination was not abolished until the 1960s, which isn't that long ago in historical terms. I was born in the segregated American South, with the segregated schools, and all the rest of it. I don't remember it -- I was born in 1961 -- but I do remember the years right after it. The South didn't magically change overnight in July of 1964. Nor did the North's variety of racism, which, yes, is subtler, but no less racist.

So I have no illusions about racism in America. But I'm not really talking about racism in America. I'm talking about how racism in America has been cynically instrumentalized, not by the Russians, but by the so-called Resistance, in order to delegitimize Trump and, more importantly, everyone who voted for him, as a bunch of white supremacists and racists.

Fomenting racial division has been the Resistance's strategy from the beginning. A quote attributed to Joseph Goebbels, "accuse the other side of that which you are guilty," is particularly apropos in this case. From the moment Trump won the Republican nomination, the corporate media and the rest of the Resistance have been telling us the man is literally Hitler, and that his plan is to foment racial hatred among his "white supremacist base," and eventually stage some "Reichstag" event, declare martial law and pronounce himself dictator. They've been telling us this story over and over, on television, in the liberal press, on social media, in books, movies, and everywhere else they could possibly tell it.

So, before you go out and join the "uprising," take a look at the headlines today, turn on CNN or MSNBC, and think about that for just a minute. I don't mean to spoil the party, but they've preparing you for this for the last four years.

Not you Black folks. I'm not talking to you. I wouldn't presume to tell you what to do. I'm talking to white folks like myself, who are cheering on the rioting and looting, and are coming out to "help" you with it, but who will be back home in their gated communities when the ashes have cooled, and the corporate media are gone, and the cops return to "police" your neighborhoods.

OK, and this is where I have to restate (for the benefit of my partisan readers) that I'm not a fan of Donald Trump, and that I think he's a narcissistic ass clown, and a glorified con man, and blah blah blah, because so many people have been so polarized by insane propaganda and mass hysteria that they can't even read or think anymore, and so just scan whatever articles they encounter to see whose "side" the author is on and then mindlessly celebrate or excoriate it.

If you're doing that, let me help you out whichever side you're on, I'm not on it.

I realize that's extremely difficult for a lot of folks to comprehend these days, which is part of the point I've been trying to make. I'll try again, as plainly as I can.

America is still a racist country, but America is no more racist today than it was when Barack Obama was president. A lot of American police are brutal, but no more brutal than when Obama was president. America didn't radically change the day Donald Trump was sworn into office. All that has changed is the official narrative. And it will change back as soon as Trump is gone and the ruling classes have no further use for it.

And that will be the end of the War on Populism , and we will switch back to the War on Terror, or maybe the Brave New Pathologized Normal or whatever Orwellian official narrative the folks at GloboCap have in store for us.

#

CJ Hopkins
June 1, 2020
Photo: Nike (George Floyd commercial)

[Jun 03, 2020] Mueller investigation was never about Trump colluding with Russia. It was always about Trump obstructing the investigation of the collusion with Russia that the investigation was not about

Highly recommended!
Apr 26, 2019 | off-guardian.org

In any event, the publication of the Mueller report has cleared things up for me. I get it now. The investigation was never about Trump colluding with Russia. It was always about Trump obstructing the investigation of the collusion with Russia that the investigation was not about. Mueller was never looking for collusion. It was not his job to look for collusion.

His job was to look for obstruction of his investigation of alleged obstruction of his investigation of non-collusion, which he found, and detailed at length in his report, and which qualifies as an impeachable offense.

... ... ...

In other words, his investigation was launched in order to investigate the obstruction of his investigation. And, on those terms, it was a huge success. The fact that it didn't prove "collusion" means nothing -- that's just a straw man argument that Trump and his Russian handlers make. The goal all along was to prove that Trump obstructed an investigation of his obstruction of that investigation, not that he was "colluding" with Putin, or any of the other paranoid nonsense that the corporate media were forced to report on, once an investigation into his obstruction of the investigation was launched.

[Jun 03, 2020] Not The Onion: NY Times Urges Trump To Establish Closer Ties With Moscow

Highly recommended!
Jul 23, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

2016 a Russia-Trump campaign collusion conspiracy was afoot and unfolding right before our eyes, we were told, as during his roll-out foreign policy speech at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., then candidate Trump said [ gasp! ]:

" Common sense says this cycle, this horrible cycle of hostility must end and ideally will end soon. Good for both countries. Some say the Russians won't be reasonable. I intend to find out."

NPR and others had breathlessly reported at the time, "Sergey Kislyak, then the Russian ambassador to the U.S., was sitting in the front row" [ more gasps! ].

This 'suspicious' "coincidence or something more?" event and of course the infamous Steele 'Dodgy Dossier' were followed by over two more years of the following connect-the-dots mere tiny sampling of unrestrained theorizing and avalanche of accusations...

Here's a very brief trip down memory lane:

2017, Politico: The Hidden History of Trump's First Trip to Moscow

2017, NYT: Trump's Russia Motives (where we were told: "President Trump certainly seems to have a strange case of Russophilia.")

2017, Business Insider: James Clapper: Putin is handling Trump like a Russian 'asset'

2017, USA Today: Donald Trump's ties to Russia go back 30 years

2018, NYT: Trump, Treasonous Traitor

2018, AP: Russia had 'Trump over a barrel'

2018, BBC: Russia: The 'cloud' over the Trump White House

2018, NYT: From the Start, Trump Has Muddied a Clear Message: Putin Interfered

2018, USA Today: " From Putin with love"

2019, WaPo: Here are 18 reasons Trump could be a Russian asset

2019, Vanity Fair: "The President Has Been Acting On Russia's Behalf": U.S. Officials Are Shocked By Trump's Asset-Like Behavior

2019, Wired: Trump Must Be A Russian Agent... (where we were told...ahem: " It would be rather embarrassing ... if Robert Mueller were to declare that the president isn't an agent of Russian intelligence." )

Embarrassing indeed.

"The walls are closing in!" - we were assured just about every 24 hours .

It's especially worth noting that a July 2018 New York Times op-ed argued that President Trump -- dubbed a "treasonous traitor" for meeting with Putin in Helsinki -- should "be directing all resources at his disposal to punish Russia."

Fast-forward to a July 2019 NY Times Editorial Board piece entitled "What's America's Winning Hand if Russia Plays the China Card?" How dizzying fast all of the above has been wiped from America's collective memory! Or at least the Times is engaged in hastily pushing it all down the memory hole Orwell-style in order to cover its own dastardly tracks which contributed in no small measure to non-stop national Russiagate hype and hysteria, with this astounding line:

President Trump is correct to try to establish a sounder relationship with Russia... -- Editorial Board, New York Times, 7-22-19

That's right, The Times' pundits have already pivoted to the new bogeyman while stating they agree with Trump on Russian relations :

"Given its economic, military and technological trajectory, together with its authoritarian model, China, not Russia , represents by far the greater challenge to American objectives over the long term . That means President Trump is correct to try to establish a sounder relationship with Russia and peel it away from China ."

[... Mueller who? ]

Remember how recently we were told PUTIN IS WEAPONIZING EVERYTHING! from space to deep-sea exploration to extreme climate temperatures to humor to racial tensions to even 'weaponized whales' ?

It's 2019, and we've now come full circle . This is The New York Times editorial board continuing their call for Trump to establish "sounder" ties and "cooperation" with Russia :

"Even during the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union often made progress in one facet of their relationship while they remained in conflict over other aspects. The United States and Russia could expand their cooperation in space . They could also continue to work closely in the Arctic And they could revive cooperation on arms control."

Could we imagine if a mere six months ago Trump himself had uttered these same words? Now the mainstream media apparently agrees that peace is better than war with Russia.

With 'Russiagate' now effectively dead, the NY Times' new criticism appears to be that Trump-Kremlin relations are not close enough , as Trump's "approach has been ham-handed " - the 'paper of record' now tells us.

Or imagine if Trump had called for peaceful existence with Russia almost four years ago? Oh wait...

" Common sense says this cycle, this horrible cycle of hostility must end and ideally will end soon. Good for both countries." -- Then candidate Trump on April 27, 2016

Cue ultra scary red Trump-Kremlin montage.

[Jun 03, 2020] Rule of law in Murrika is kaput

Highly recommended!
Jun 16, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

freedommusic , 23 minutes ago link

DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Agent Smith, you testified that the Russians hacked the DNC computers, is that correct?

FBI AGENT JOHN SMITH: That is correct.

DEF ATT: Upon what information did you base your testimony?

AGENT: Information found in reports analyzing the breach of the computers.

DEF ATT: So, the FBI prepared these reports?

AGENT: (cough) . (shift in seat) No, a cyber security contractor with the FBI.

DEF ATT: Pardon me, why would a contractor be preparing these reports? Do these contractors run the FBI laboratories where the server was examined?

AGENT: No.

DEF ATT: No? No what? These contractors don't run the FBI Laboratories?

AGENT: No. The laboratories are staffed by FBI personnel.

DEF ATT: Well I don't understand. Why would contractors be writing reports about computers that are forensically examined in FBI laboratories?

AGENT: Well, the servers were not examined in the FBI laboratory.

(silence)

DEF ATT: Oh, so the FBI examined the servers on site to determine who had hacked them and what was taken?

AGENT: Uh .. no.

DEF ATT: They didn't examine them on site?

AGENT: No.

DEF ATT: Well, where did they examine them?

AGENT: Well, uh .. the FBI did not examine them.

DEF ATT: What?

AGENT: The FBI did not directly examine the servers.

DEF ATT: Agent Smith, the FBI has presented to the Grand Jury and to this court and SWORN AS FACT that the Russians hacked the DNC computers. You are basing your SWORN testimony on a report given to you by a contractor, while the FBI has NEVER actually examined the computer hardware?

AGENT: That is correct.

DEF ATT: Agent Smith, who prepared the analysis reports that the FBI relied on to give this sworn testimony?

AGENT: Crowdstrike, Inc.

DEF ATT: So, which Crowdstrike employee gave you the report?

AGENT: We didn't receive the report directly from Crowdstrike.

DEF ATT: What?

AGENT: We did not receive the report directly from Crowdstrike.

DEF ATT: Well, where did you find this report?

AGENT: It was given to us by the people who hired Crowdstrike to examine and secure their computer network and hardware.

DEF ATT: Oh, so the report was given to you by the technical employees for the company that hired Crowdstrike to examine their servers?

AGENT: No.

DEF ATT: Well, who gave you the report?

AGENT: Legal counsel for the company that hired Crowdstrike.

DEF ATT: Why would legal counsel be the ones giving you the report?

AGENT: I don't know.

DEF ATT: Well, what company hired Crowdstrike?

AGENT: The Democratic National Committee.

DEF ATT: Wait a minute. Let me get this straight. You are giving SWORN testimony to this court that Russia hacked the servers of the Democratic National Committee. And you are basing that testimony on a report given to you by the LAWYERS for the Democratic National Committee. And you, the FBI, never actually saw or examined the computer servers?

AGENT: That is correct.

DEF ATT: Well, can you provide a copy of the technical report produced by Crowdstrike for the Democratic National Committee?

AGENT: No, I cannot.

DEF ATT: Well, can you go back to your office and get a copy of the report?

AGENT: No.

DEF ATT: Why? Are you locked out of your office?

AGENT: No.

DEF ATT: I don't understand. Why can you not provide a copy of this report?

AGENT: Because I do not have a copy of the report.

DEF ATT: Did you lose it?

AGENT: No.

DEF ATT: Why do you not have a copy of the report?

AGENT: Because we were never given a final copy of the report.

DEF ATT: Agent Smith, if you didn't get a copy of the report, upon what information are you basing your testimony?

AGENT: On a draft copy of the report.

DEF ATT: A draft copy?

AGENT: Yes.

DEF ATT: Was a final report ever delivered to the FBI?

AGENT: No.

DEF ATT: Agent Smith, did you get to read the entire report?

AGENT: No.

DEF ATT: Why not?

AGENT: Because large portions were redacted.

DEF ATT: Agent Smith, let me get this straight. The FBI is claiming that the Russians hacked the DNC servers. But the FBI never actually saw the computer hardware, nor examined it? Is that correct?

AGENT: That is correct.

DEF ATT: And the FBI never actually examined the log files or computer email or any aspect of the data from the servers? Is that correct?

AGENT: That is correct.

DEF ATT: And you are basing your testimony on the word of Counsel for the Democratic National Committee, the people who provided you with a REDACTED copy of a DRAFT report, not on the actual technical personnel who supposedly examined the servers?

AGENT: That is correct.

DEF ATT: Your honor, I have a few motions I would like to make at this time.

PRESIDING JUDGE: I'm sure you do, Counselor. (as he turns toward the prosecutors) And I feel like I am in a mood to grant them.

( source )

hooligan2009 , 14 minutes ago link

Brilliant! that sums it up nicely. of course, if the servers were not hacked and were instead "thumbnailed" that leads to a whole pile of other questions (including asking wiileaks for their source and about the murder of seth rich).

[Jun 03, 2020] Requiem to Russiagate: this was the largest and the most successful attempt to gaslight the whole US population ever attempted by CIA and Clinton wing of Dems by CJ Hopkins

Highly recommended!
Neoliberal MSM just “got it wrong,” again … exactly like was the case with those Iraqi WMDs ;-).
So many neocons and neolibs seem so disappointed to find out that the President is not a Russian asset that it looks they’d secretly wish be ruled by Putin :-).
But in reality there well might be a credible "Trump copllition with the foreign power". Only with a different foreign power. Looks like Trump traded American foreign policy for Zionist money, not Russian money. That means that "the best-Congress-that-AIPAC-money-can-buy" will never impeach him for that.
And BTW as long as Schiff remains the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee the witch hunt is not over. So the leash remains strong.
Notable quotes:
"... it appears that hundreds of millions of Americans have, once again, been woefully bamboozled . Weird, how this just keeps on happening. At this point, Americans have to be the most frequently woefully bamboozled people in the entire history of woeful bamboozlement. ..."
"... That's right, as I'm sure you're aware by now, it turns out President Donald Trump, a pompous former reality TV star who can barely string three sentences together without totally losing his train of thought and barking like an elephant seal, is not, in fact, a secret agent conspiring with the Russian intelligence services to destroy the fabric of Western democracy. ..."
"... Paranoid collusion-obsessives will continue to obsess about redactions and cover-ups , but the long and short of the matter is, there will be no perp walks for any of the Trumps. No treason tribunals. No televised hangings. No detachment of Secret Service agents marching Hillary into the White House. ..."
Apr 02, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by CJ Hopkins via The Unz Review,

So the Mueller report is finally in, and it appears that hundreds of millions of Americans have, once again, been woefully bamboozled . Weird, how this just keeps on happening. At this point, Americans have to be the most frequently woefully bamboozled people in the entire history of woeful bamboozlement.

If you didn't know better, you'd think we were all a bunch of hopelessly credulous imbeciles that you could con into believing almost anything, or that our brains had been bombarded with so much propaganda from the time we were born that we couldn't really even think anymore.

That's right, as I'm sure you're aware by now, it turns out President Donald Trump, a pompous former reality TV star who can barely string three sentences together without totally losing his train of thought and barking like an elephant seal, is not, in fact, a secret agent conspiring with the Russian intelligence services to destroy the fabric of Western democracy.

After two long years of bug-eyed hysteria, Inspector Mueller came up with squat. Zip. Zero. Nichts. Nada. Or, all right, he indicted a bunch of Russians that will never see the inside of a courtroom, and a few of Trump's professional sleazebags for lying and assorted other sleazebag activities (so I guess that was worth the $25 million of taxpayers' money that was spent on this circus).

Notwithstanding those historic accomplishments, the entire Mueller investigation now appears to have been another wild goose chase (like the "search" for those non-existent WMDs that we invaded and destabilized the Middle East and murdered hundreds of thousands of people pretending to conduct in 2003). Paranoid collusion-obsessives will continue to obsess about redactions and cover-ups , but the long and short of the matter is, there will be no perp walks for any of the Trumps. No treason tribunals. No televised hangings. No detachment of Secret Service agents marching Hillary into the White House.

The jig, as they say, is up.

But let's try to look on the bright side, shall we?

... ... ...

[Jun 03, 2020] RussiaGate for neoliberal Dems and MSM honchos is the way to avoid the necessity to look into the camera and say, I guess people hated us so much they were even willing to vote for Donald Trump

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Russiagate became a convenient replacement explanation absolving an incompetent political establishment for its complicity in what happened in 2016, and not just the failure to see it coming. ..."
"... Because of the immediate arrival of the collusion theory, neither Wolf Blitzer nor any politician ever had to look into the camera and say, "I guess people hated us so much they were even willing to vote for Donald Trump ..."
Mar 31, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

psychohistorian , Mar 30, 2019 7:51:28 PM | link

Here is an insightful read on Trump's (s)election and Russiagate that I think is not OT

Taibbi: On Russiagate and Our Refusal to Face Why Trump Won

The take away quote

" Russiagate became a convenient replacement explanation absolving an incompetent political establishment for its complicity in what happened in 2016, and not just the failure to see it coming.

Because of the immediate arrival of the collusion theory, neither Wolf Blitzer nor any politician ever had to look into the camera and say, "I guess people hated us so much they were even willing to vote for Donald Trump ."

As a peedupon all I can see is that the elite seem to be fighting amongst themselves or (IMO) providing cover for ongoing elite power/control efforts. It might not be about private/public finance in a bigger picture but I can't see anything else that makes sense

[Jun 03, 2020] The 10 Most Important Questions For Rod Rosenstein This Morning

Jun 03, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

The 10 Most Important Questions For Rod Rosenstein This Morning by Tyler Durden Wed, 06/03/2020 - 09:10 Authored by John Solomon via JustTheNews.com,

Two years ago, then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein chafed when asked whether congressional Republicans might have legitimate reason to suspect the factual underpinnings of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants that targeted Trump campaign adviser Carter Page in the Russia probe.

Seeming a bit perturbed, Rosenstein launched into a mini-lecture on how much care and work went into FISA applications at the FBI and Justice Department.

"There's a lot of talk about FISA applications. Many people I've seen talk about it seem not to recognize that a FISA application is actually a warrant, just like a search warrant. In order to get a FISA warrant, you need an affidavit signed by a career law enforcement officer who swears the information is true ... And if it is wrong, that person is going to face consequences," Rosenstein asserted.

"If we're going to accuse someone of wrongdoing, we have to have admissible evidence, credible witnesses, we have to prove our case in court. We have to affix our signature to the charging document," he added.

Rosenstein did affix his signature to the fourth and last FISA warrant against Page in 2017. And now in 2020, newly declassified evidence shows the FBI did not have the verified evidence or a credible witness in the form of Christopher Steele and his dossier to support the claims submitted to the FISA court as verified.

In fact, DOJ has withdrawn the very FISA application Rosenstein approved and signed after the department's internal watchdog found it included inaccurate, undocumented, and falsified evidence.

This morning (at 10amET), when he appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Rosenstein is likely to strike a humbler tone in the face of overwhelming evidence that the FBI-executed FISAs have been chronically flawed, including in the Russia case he supervised.

"Even the best law enforcement officers make mistakes, and some engage in willful misconduct," Rosenstein said in a statement issued ahead of his appearance. "Independent law enforcement investigations, judicial review and congressional oversight are important checks on the discretion of agents and prosecutors."

Republicans led by Chairman Lindsey Graham of South Carolina are likely to interrogate Rosenstein extensively as they try to determine whether the glaring FISA failures and the FBI's representations in the Russia probe were a case of misplaced trust or a deeper plot by unelected bureaucrats to unseat and/or thwart President Trump.

Here are the 10 most important questions those senators are likely to set out to answer:

  1. Did Rosenstein read the FISA warrant renewal he signed in summer 2017 against Page, review any evidence supporting it, or ask the FBI any questions about the case before affixing his signature?
  2. Does the former No. 2 DOJ official now believe the FISA was so flawed that it should never have been submitted to the court? Does he regret signing it?
  3. Given what he now knows about flaws with the Steele dossier and FBI probe, would Rosenstein have appointed Robert Mueller as the Russia Special Counsel if given a do-over?
  4. Did Rosenstein engage in a conversation with FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe in 2017 about wearing a wire on President Trump as part of a plot to remove the 45th president from office under the 25th Amendment?
  5. Who drafted and provided the supporting materials that Rosenstein used to create the scope of investigation memos that guided Mueller's probe?
  6. Does Rosenstein have any concerns about the conduct of fired FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe as he looks back on their tenure and in light of the new evidence that has surfaced?
  7. When did Rosenstein learn that the CIA had identified Page as one of its assets -- ruling out he was a Russian spy -- and that information in Steele's dossier used in the FISA warrant had been debunked or linked to Russian disinformation?
  8. Does Rosenstein believe the FISA court was intentionally misled, or can the glaring missteps be explained by bureaucratic bungling?
  9. What culpability does Rosenstein assign to himself for the failures in the Russia case he supervised, and what other people does he blame?
  10. Does the former deputy attorney general believe anyone in the Russia case should face criminal charges?

You can watch Rosenstein's 2018 statement here. https://youtu.be/Daxd1YsNEO0

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Daxd1YsNEO0

[Jun 03, 2020] Rosenstein Admits He Would Not Have Signed FISA Warrant If He Knew Of Exculpatory Evidence, Throws McCabe Under The Bus

Jun 03, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

by Tyler Durden Wed, 06/03/2020 - 11:10 Update (1115ET): It appears, as Jonathan Turley details in a Twitter thread below , that Rosenstein is throwing McCabe under the bus...

Rosenstein just testified that he would not have signed the warrant application in 2017 on Carter Page because of the misconduct of FBI agents and the lack of evidence.

He said he did not know that the Steele dossier was discredited by that time. He said McCabe particularly "was not candid ... or forthcoming."

Notably, we now know that the Flynn investigation found no criminal acts by December 2016 and now Rosenstein said he would have ended the investigation of Page which was the focus of the early justifications of the Russian investigation.

Rosenstein just said he did not know that investigators by the early January 2017 asked for Flynn to be removed from the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. He signed off on these warrants and applications but was never informed of those critical facts.

Rosenstein insists that the information in appointing Mueller was based on that incomplete information at the time. He admitted that by August 2017 when he signed off on the Mueller investigation there was no evidence at all of collusion with the Russians.

Sen. Feinstein did a good job framing the use (or non-use) of the Steele dossier but went off the rails by stressing that none of the prosecutions relied on the dossier. However, the fact is that there was never any prosecution of any Trump person for colluding or conspiring ...

...with the Russians. There was never any evidence of collusion with the Russian, a point reaffirmed by Rosenstein today. This hearing shows the value of oversight and the still unanswered questions in light of recently released material.

Grassley just said Rosenstein misled him and the public on the Flynn case. Rosenstein insisted that he did not know about the exculpatory evidence on Flynn and "that was news to me." Rosenstein also said that he supports Durham investigating the dossier matter.

* * *

Authored by Daniel Payne via JustTheNews.com,

Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that he would not have signed the renewal of the FISA warrant for Trump associate Carter Page if he had been aware of exculpatory information withheld from the FISA court.

Rosenstein was responding to a question from Sen. Lindsey Graham, who asked him:

"If you knew then what you knew now, would you have signed the warrant application?"

"No, I would not," Rosenstein said.

"And the reason you wouldn't have is because ... exculpatory information was withheld from the court?" Graham asked, to which Rosenstein responded:

"Among other reasons, yes."

Appearing before the committee on Wednesday for a hearing concerning the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane investigation, Rosenstein told senators that the Justice Department "must take remedial action" against any misconduct it uncovers within its ranks, a bracing statement made in reference to investigative reviews that found "significant errors" in official procedures related to the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane investigation.

Rosenstein in prepared remarks noted that internal investigations had revealed that the FBI "was not following the written protocols" in its execution of Crossfire Hurricane.

"Senators, whenever agents or prosecutors make serious mistakes or engage in misconduct, the Department of Justice must take remedial action. And if existing policies fall short, those policies need to be changed. Ensuring the integrity of governmental processes is essential to public confidence in the rule of law," he said.

[Jun 03, 2020] The Senate Should Focus On What The Flynn Transcripts Do Not Contain... Starting With A Crime

Jun 03, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

The Senate Should Focus On What The Flynn Transcripts Do Not Contain... Starting With A Crime by Tyler Durden Tue, 06/02/2020 - 22:45 Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Yesterday, the attorney hired by Judge Emmet Sullivan responded on his behalf to defend his controversial orders in the case to invite third parties to argue the merits of the motion to dismiss as well as raising his option to substitute his own criminal charge of perjury against Flynn. The Justice Department responded with a 45-page filing to a three-judge appeals court panel.

The attention will now focus on the appearance tomorrow of former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in the Senate. For me, the most pertinent question is why this investigation continued past December and seemed to become to a search for a crime rather than the investigation of any crime or collusion with Russia.

"Remember Ambassador, you're not talking to a diplomat, you're talking to a soldier."

When President Trump 's incoming national security adviser, Michael Flynn , said those words to then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, he also spoke to American intelligence agents listening in on the call. For three years, congressional Democrats have assured us Flynn's calls to Kislyak were so disturbing that they set off alarms in the closing days of the Obama administration.

They were right. The newly released transcripts of Flynn's calls are deeply disturbing -- not for their evidence of criminality or collusion but for the total absence of such evidence. The transcripts, declassified Friday, strongly support new investigations by both the Justice Department and by Congress, starting with next week's Senate testimony by former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

It turns out Flynn's calls are not just predictable but even commendable at points. When the Obama administration hit the Russians with sanctions just before leaving office, the incoming Trump administration sought to avoid a major conflict at the very start of its term. Flynn asked the Russian to focus on "common enemies" in order to seek cooperation in the Middle East. The calls covered a variety of issues, including the sanctions.

What was not discussed was any quid pro quo or anything untoward or unlawful. Flynn stated what was already known to be Trump policy in seeking a new path with Russia. Flynn did not offer to remove sanctions but, rather, encouraged the Russians to respond in a reciprocal, commensurate manner if they felt they had to respond.

The calls, and Flynn's identity, were leaked by as many as nine officials as the Obama administration left office -- a serious federal crime, given their classified status . The most chilling aspect of the transcripts, however, is the lack of anything chilling in the calls themselves. Flynn is direct with Kislyak in trying to tone down the rhetoric and avoid retaliatory moves. He told Kislyak, "l am a very practical guy, and it's about solutions. It's about very practical solutions that we're -- that we need to come up with here." Flynn said he understood the Russians might wish to retaliate for the Obama sanctions but encouraged them not to escalate the conflict just as the Trump administration took office.

Kislyak later spoke with Flynn again and confirmed that Moscow agreed to tone down the conflict in the practical approach laid out by Flynn. The media has focused on Flynn's later denial of discussing sanctions; the transcripts confirm he did indeed discuss sanctions. However, the Justice Department has not sought to dismiss criminal charges against him because he told the truth but because his statements did not meet a key element of materiality for the crime and were the result of troubling actions by high-ranking officials.

The real question is why the FBI continued to investigate Flynn in the absence of any crime or evidence of collusion. In December 2016, investigators had found no evidence of any crime by Flynn. They wanted to shut down the investigation; they were overruled by superiors, including FBI special agent Peter Strzok, Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and Director James Comey. Strzok told the investigators to keep the case alive, and McCabe is described as "cutting off" another high-ranking official who questioned the basis for continuing to investigate Flynn. All three officials were later fired, and all three were later found by career officials to have engaged in serious misconduct as part of the Russia investigation.

Recently disclosed information revealed that Comey and President Obama discussed using the Logan Act as a pretense for a criminal charge. The Logan Act criminalizes private negotiations with foreign governments; it is widely viewed as unconstitutional and has never been used successfully against any U.S. citizen since the earliest days of the Republic. Its use against the incoming national security adviser would have been absurd. Yet, that unconstitutional crime was the only crime Comey could come up with, long before there was a false statement by Flynn regarding his calls.

Not until February 2017 did Comey circumvent long-standing protocols and order an interview with Flynn. Comey later bragged that he "probably wouldn't have gotten away with it" in other administrations, but he sent "a couple guys over" to question Flynn, who was settling into his new office as national security adviser. We learned recently that Strzok discussed trying to get Flynn to give false or misleading information in that interview, to enable a criminal charge, and that FBI lawyer Lisa Page suggested agents "just casually slip" in a reference to the criminal provision for lying and then get Flynn to slip up on the details.

Flynn did slip up. While investigators said they were not convinced he intentionally lied, he gave a false statement. Later, special counsel Robert Mueller charged Flynn with that false statement, to pressure him into cooperating; Flynn fought the case into virtual bankruptcy but agreed to plead guilty when Mueller threatened to prosecute his son, too.

The newly released transcripts reveal the lack of a foundation for that charge. Courts have held that the materiality requirement for such a charge requires that misstatements be linked to the particular "subject of the investigation." The Justice Department found that the false statement in February 2017 was not material "to any viable counterintelligence investigation -- or any investigation, for that matter -- initiated by the FBI." In other words, by that time, these FBI officials had no crime under investigation but were, instead, looking for a crime. The question is: Why?

So the transcripts confirm there never was a scintilla of criminal conduct or evidence of collusion against Flynn before or during these calls. Indeed, there was no viable criminal investigation to speak of when Comey sent "a couple guys over" to entrap Flynn; they already had the transcripts and the knowledge that Flynn had done nothing wrong. Nevertheless, facing the release of these transcripts, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) bizarrely maintained that "Flynn posed a severe counterintelligence risk" because he could be blackmailed over his false statement.

Putting aside the lack of prior evidence of criminality, Schiff ignores that there were transcripts to prevent such blackmail. Indeed, in the interview, Flynn indicated he assumed there was a transcript, and leaked media reports indicated that various officials were familiar with the content of the calls. The key to blackmail would have been for the Russians to have information that others did not have.

Ironically, in his calls with Kislyak, Flynn expressly sought a more frank, honest relationship with Russia. He told Kislyak "we have to stop talking past each other on -- so that means that we have to understand exactly what it is that we want to try to achieve, okay?" That is a question that should now be directed at the FBI, to understand what it was trying to achieve by continuing an investigation long after it ran out of crimes to investigate.

[Jun 02, 2020] Bumerang returns?

Jun 02, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Kadath , Jun 1 2020 20:58 utc | 63

It would hardly surprise me if the regime change obsession has come home and now the US is "enjoying" all of the democracy building color revolutions they love so much. No matter how this end it will not end well for 99% of Americans

[Jun 02, 2020] Trump vs spring riots

Notable quotes:
"... All this race hatred, discrimination and societal engineering should have been over in the 60s and 70s , but the USG always needs to have an enemy . In fact it pays to have several , ask the Pentagon and the Law Enforcement Agencies, in regards to wages, benefits, kickbacks, cash theft, and pensions , these days. ..."
"... You want the Trump you voted for? You got him. A liar with all the integrity of a corona virus. You indirectly voted for Bibi too. Don't try to claim you didn't know for heavens sake. Kushners and Trumps are openly in Bibi's pocket. It was in plain sight and you voted accordingly. ..."
"... Trump was always a weak coward who believes in nothing, save the ego of Trump. Events have simply caught up to him. If the Republicans stick with this useless coward, not only are they committing suicide as a Party, they are dooming the nation as well. ..."
Jun 02, 2020 | www.unz.com

vot tak , says: Show Comment June 1, 2020 at 9:29 am GMT

Trump hid from protesters in UNDERGROUND BUNKER, claims NYT, triggering #BunkerBoy trend

https://www.rt.com/usa/490358-trump-underground-bunker-hashtag/

"Trump wants to portray himself as a strongman, authoritarian did he really go hide in a bunker from some 20 year old kids? real tough guy"

Actually likud quisling trump is an ideal poster boi for vdare "values".

Truth3 , says: Show Comment June 1, 2020 at 9:33 am GMT
Trump is a narcissistic windbag clown, that lied his way into Bill Clinton's Oral Office.

I know, personally, how evil he is.

Total JooStooge and he deserves nothing less than complete rejection by those he fooled honest law-abiding working Christian Americans.

Good riddance.

Of course Hillary is worse. Of course Biden is worse.

But until real Americans finally realize that we can't wait for a saviour, but have to save ourselves, Trump and his kind will continue to drag us deeper into the bog of Joogoo.

GMC , says: Show Comment June 1, 2020 at 9:37 am GMT
All this race hatred, discrimination and societal engineering should have been over in the 60s and 70s , but the USG always needs to have an enemy . In fact it pays to have several , ask the Pentagon and the Law Enforcement Agencies, in regards to wages, benefits, kickbacks, cash theft, and pensions , these days.

But the Owners knew, that keeping the populace fighting, is like money in the Banks { literally } so those folks breaking through for Peace in the 60s, had to be silenced, bought off, run off or assassinated. It's been one evil social game after another – and its more visible today , than it was 50 yrs ago- I won't get started on what or who put the nail in the coffin, with the 1965 Open, Unlimited, Unvetted Immigration changes.

Emily , says: Show Comment June 1, 2020 at 10:14 am GMT
You want the Trump you voted for? You got him. A liar with all the integrity of a corona virus. You indirectly voted for Bibi too. Don't try to claim you didn't know for heavens sake. Kushners and Trumps are openly in Bibi's pocket. It was in plain sight and you voted accordingly.

Where were all these voters weeping into their coffee when the primaries were held?. The best choice was Rand Paul – got nowhere – as all these now weeping cupcakes voted for Trump – a man with such an appalling record of honesty and integrity and an insult to any decent person.

You voted for Trump. And have voted for Hillary for years too. Probably the worlds biggest financial criminal and a war criminal without parallel even by US standards.. You also voted for Bush one and two. Obama twice. And one of the most corrupt and hideous candidates – Bill Clinton also Twice. And you imposed this roll of lies and dishonour onto the entire planet.

No wonder America and its people are being seen as depraved and stupid, lacking in simple understanding of international law and any decency and honour.
And now all set to vote for Biden are you? A rapist and vilely corrupt, outstandingly so in a bed of of corruption misnamed Washington.

Emily , says: Show Comment June 1, 2020 at 10:25 am GMT
@ebear

So you will vote for a man who has so far refused to arrest and put on trial the group of men and women who would appear to be guilty of sedition and treason against your country?

Wow!. Traitors going to walk – so it seems.. Vote for a man so devoid of respect for America, its people, its rule of law and its constitution. A band of absolute traitors to the state – laughing..

The day you see indictments of Comey, Brennan, McCabe and the rest of the nest of vipers – then consider your vote – but to vote for a man who refuses – so far and its now years – to take action against those guilty of trying to overthrow the governance of the United States – is not a man fit for the office of President. You need an outstanding third party candidate and the brains to vote for them

Dream on. Biden ot Trump – are you mad or just brainwashed psychos. Its makes Xi look good.

theMann , says: Show Comment June 1, 2020 at 10:29 am GMT

Trump was always a weak coward who believes in nothing, save the ego of Trump. Events have simply caught up to him. If the Republicans stick with this useless coward, not only are they committing suicide as a Party, they are dooming the nation as well.

Anonymous [661] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 1, 2020 at 10:53 am GMT
The current situation is nothing new. In '92 Mayor Bradley publicly announced no police would intervene in the LA riots because it was too dangerous–thereby guaranteeing widespread arson and looting. Same thing in Baltimore a few years ago, it's okay 'we just need to let the rioters blow off some steam'.

And why wasn't Antifa declared a terrorist organization three years ago? Why did they get a free pass all this time?

I guess nothing will happen until Netanyahu picks up the phone and tells Trump what to do.

Emslander , says: Show Comment June 1, 2020 at 11:38 am GMT
@Herald Don't believe for a second that Joe Biden is being helped by any of this. Trump is a weak blowhard, but naming Antifa a terrorist organization will be very important over the next three months.

Trump will win, but it'll be a vapid and lukewarm next four years of him trying to develop a "legacy" of sweetness and liberality. Someone will come along, then, who will make him look like a pussy.

Realist , says: Show Comment June 1, 2020 at 11:49 am GMT
@Really No Shit

Trump has one weakness that he can't overcome even if his life depended on it. the love of money which is the driving force behind his decisions and not the jingoistic hogwash about the love for America!

That weakness is one that is shared by those that rule this country. It is called avarice avarice for wealth and power. Trump is a minion of the Deep State. Today in spite of all the shit the stock is up in pre market trading. If the market were valued realistically it would have been down at least 30% from here before the recent bullshit.

Manfred Arcane , says: Show Comment June 1, 2020 at 12:06 pm GMT
@Anonymous Kirkpatrick was declaring Trump in freefall, a fool who abandoned his early promises, etc., as early as the 2016 Wisconsin primary. He has been writing variations on this theme for four years, and I don't know why anyone takes him seriously. Do I want Trump to declare martial law, round up every last BLM and Antifa member, and start telling everyone that Floyd got what was coming to him? Of course. Do I expect him to do it? Of course not. A lot of people don't seem able to understand that Trump is not playing to us, or to the blacks, when he tries to take the middle road when dealing with situations like this; he's playing to the enormous amount of middle-class suburban Boomers and Evangelicals out there, who unfortunately he can't get elected without, and who will never be willing to accept the truth about vibrancy and its effects. To them, black folks are still sacred objects, and they will freak out in large numbers if the President starts mouthing "white nationalist" rhetoric and having "protesters" gunned down in the streets. I love Trump and appreciate what he's been able to do, but he can't save people who aren't willing to be saved–and since that includes a majority of the "conservative" citizens, America is ultimately unsalvageable, regardless of what Trump does or doesn't do.
Norman , says: Show Comment June 1, 2020 at 4:08 pm GMT
@NDarwish No, you have it backwards. WE never gave up on Trump. Trump gave up on US. Filling the white house with the Tel Aviv mafia.

[Jun 02, 2020] Where Have You Gone, Donald Trump A Nation Turns Its Yearning Eyes To You by James Kirkpatrick

This riots in no way represent a danger to Trump other then in PR. They have zero organization and most rioters soon iether be arrested or gone home. In a way "Occupy Wall Street" was a more dangerous for the elite movement. This is just a nuisance.
As for elections on one side Trump again demonstrated upper incompetence and inability to act with some nuance, on t he other it discredited Democrats identity politics.
Notable quotes:
"... Live Updates, George Floyd Protests Continue ..."
"... Twitter changed its profile to honor Black Lives Matter amid George Floyd protests ..."
"... Business Insider, ..."
"... Looter shot dead by pawn shop owner,' during George Floyd riots ..."
"... Family identifies federal officer shot, killed in connection with George Floyd protest in Oakland ..."
"... Woman Found Dead Inside Car In North Minneapolis Amid 2 nd Of Looting ..."
"... , Fires, CBS Minnesota, ..."
"... Separate shootings leave 3 dead in Indianapolis overnight ..."
"... Attorney General William P. Barr's Statement on Riots and Domestic Terrorism ..."
"... , Department of Justice, ..."
"... Tim Walz Blames Riots On 'Outsiders,' Cartels And White Supremacists -- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Joy Reid Join in ..."
"... St. Paul police rebut social media theory that officer instigated Minneapolis unrest ..."
"... Right-Wing Conspiracists Pull From Old Playbook: Blame George Soros For Riots ..."
"... LA appeals for National Guard as looting spreads, ..."
"... George Floyd's brother says Trump 'kept pushing me off' during call ..."
"... Advantage Biden, with risks; Trump disapproval grows: POLL ..."
"... Bush Wins Points for Speech on L.A. Riots ..."
"... The Christian Science Monitor, ..."
"... When trump spoke at AIPAC before the 2016 election, I already wrote him off. I was 1000% on the money. ..."
"... Trump was always the Pied Piper, following Hillary's orders while leading foolish populists off the cliff. If you're still expecting anything else from him, you're deluded. ..."
"... A true opponent of Deepstate would have spent the first month firing and jailing thousands of bureaucrats. Trump didn't fire anyone at all. ..."
"... Trump is finished. Unfortunately, his opponents are just as corrupt and criminal. ..."
"... I see a lot of whites among the protesters. How much of that is anger over Floyd and how much is pent up rage over the senseless lockdowns I cant say. ..."
"... As in 2016, people will again vote Trump as a giant FU to the Left, which they'll perceive as having caused, if not instigated this crisis. Disaffected Trump supporters who might not have bothered this time, are rethinking that as we speak. At this point, a Trump landslide is a very real possibility. ..."
"... the unholy and fragile Democrat alliance that includes white-hating blacks, left-indoctrinated students, hysterical femmes, radical queers, antifa terrorists, disaffected POC, and white 'moderates' constitutes an arranged political marriage that will not endure ..."
"... On the other hand, Trump now gets to advocate for political stability, cultural continuity, and even physical safety. The unhinged, far-too-left looters now seen on TV are actually a Godsend for Trump. Watch him amass most of what's left of America's silent (white, middle class) majority on election-day. Regular folks will reemerge as a unified block in the wake of these despicable acts of lawlessness and greed. ..."
"... It would take more then a department store and a police precinct to make a point: "We want leadership, not profiteering", "Bust the bulb" add focus. Corporate headquarters, gated communities, the White House, Capitol Hill, Millionaire communities, airports, bridges, paralysing the hardware farms of Google, Facebook and Twitter, spreading to cities as London, Amsterdam, Paris, great opportunities there. "No borders, no castles". Disruption is a start and a means to an end. Explaining comes later. Only going that direction would cause any effects that last. ..."
May 31, 2020 | www.unz.com

President Donald Trump ran on a Law And Order platform in 2016 but he's currently presiding over the most widespread civil disorder of this generation. The obvious reality: these riots are simply an excuse for blacks to loot without fear of punishment. Without an immediate policy of ruthless coercion directed and executed by the federal government, most Americans will correctly assume that Trump is unwilling or incapable of defending their lives and property. If so, his re-election campaign is probably finished -- and America along with it.

Link Bookmark It's hard to overstate the extent of the violence, with riots, arson and looting in Scottsdale, Dallas, New York , Ferguson, St. Louis, Richmond and countless other cities [ Live Updates, George Floyd Protests Continue , by Tony Lee, Breitbart, May 30, 2020]. In Minneapolis, where the riots began, Mayor Jacob Frey blamed riots on " white supremacists ," an insane conspiracy theory which went completely unchecked by Twitter's "fact checkers." Twitter itself, showing utter contempt for President Trump's executive order alleging political bias, changed its profile to show solidarity with Black Lives Matter [ Twitter changed its profile to honor Black Lives Matter amid George Floyd protests , by Ellen Cranley, Business Insider, May 31, 2020].

President Trump had previously tweeted that " when the looting starts, the shooting starts " (a tweet censored by Twitter). However, while Minneapolis police were unable to prevent their own precinct headquarters from being burned down , they did have the time to arrest a man for allegedly shooting looters near his business [ ' Looter shot dead by pawn shop owner,' during George Floyd riots , by James Hockaday, Metro, May 28, 2020]. Unless President Trump demands pardons for all those who will be in a similar situation, such anarcho-tyranny will continue.

There have already been deaths, few of which attracted much attendance from the Narrative-promoting Main Stream Media . These include:

Federal Protective Service officer Dave Underwood, a black man whose life doesn't Matter to Black Lives Matter [ Family identifies federal officer shot, killed in connection with George Floyd protest in Oakland , by Dan Noyes and Lauren Martinez, ABC News, May 31, 2020]. A woman found dead in Milwaukee "trauma visible" on her body; some reports on social media suggest she was kidnapped before being murdered [ Woman Found Dead Inside Car In North Minneapolis Amid 2 nd Of Looting , Fires, CBS Minnesota, May 29, 2020] Three dead in Indianapolis, another city which has been ravaged by recent anti-police protests; none of the shootings involved police officers [ Separate shootings leave 3 dead in Indianapolis overnight , WISHTV8, May 31, 2020].

There were also countless beatings, including of a man holding an American flag in Portland and another who tried to help him , a man who allegedly tried to defend his business with a sword , and people at a shop in broad daylight .

It is useless to try to find all the examples, they are incalculable, as is the number of businesses destroyed or the amount of property damage.

President Trump said Sunday morning the government would declare Antifa a terrorist organization. Attorney General William Barr said violence "instigated and carried out by Antifa and other similar groups in connection with the rioting is domestic terrorism and will be treated accordingly" [ Attorney General William P. Barr's Statement on Riots and Domestic Terrorism , Department of Justice, May 31, 2020].

We'll know that this is serious if these Leftist networks, which raise money and operate openly, are arrested using the RICO statutes and other prosecutorial tools.

I have my doubts but also my hopes.

It is truly amazing is that Leftists have decided to believe that the rioting is being carried out by whites, or at least is directed by whites. Leftists, not just in Minnesota, think " white supremacists " are to blame [ Tim Walz Blames Riots On 'Outsiders,' Cartels And White Supremacists -- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Joy Reid Join in , by Virginia Kruta, Daily Caller, May 30, 2020]. Others think the police are instigating the violence with undercover officers [ St. Paul police rebut social media theory that officer instigated Minneapolis unrest , by John Shipley, Pioneer Press, May 29, 2020].

It's important to note that Leftists actually believe this. They believed in the Russia Hoax, didn't they?

Meanwhile, President Trump and conservatives' focus on white "Antifa" or George Soros makes a similar mistake [ Right-Wing Conspiracists Pull From Old Playbook: Blame George Soros For Riots , by Sergei Klebnikov, Forbes, May 30, 2020]. Much of this violence is simply blacks robbing and looting because they can , not because there is any political end beyond a vague fury at police and whites generally.

President Trump has avoided addressing the nation, reportedly because First Son-In-Law Jared Kushner thinks it will make things worse [ LA appeals for National Guard as looting spreads, by Ella Torres, William Mansell, and Christina Carrega, ABC News, May 31, 2020]. But, as with his handling of the coronavirus, Trump is suffering politically not because he is being too forceful, but because he is being too weak.

Trump called George Floyd's family, but the family is condemning him for it, not praising his compassion [ George Floyd's brother says Trump 'kept pushing me off' during call , by Martin Pengelly, The Guardian, May 31, 2020]. He now heavily trails Joe Biden in the polls and is once again falling into his signature trap: saying tough things that infuriate Leftists without backing up his words with action that rallies the Right [ Advantage Biden, with risks; Trump disapproval grows: POLL , by Gary Langer, ABC News, May 31, 2020].

During the Los Angeles Riots, even President George H.W. Bush eventually sent in the Marines and then addressed the nation, simultaneously displaying leadership and paternal concern for the American people [ Bush Wins Points for Speech on L.A. Riots , by Linda Feldmann, The Christian Science Monitor, May 4, 1992].

https://www.youtube.com/embed/KD_3NOIEk-0?feature=oembed

President Trump thus far is limited to vague tweets about "STRENGTH!' without much tangible proof of it.

Even worse, in the case of this "STRENGTH" tweet, Twitter once again instantly suspended the account of the person President Trump quote-tweeted.

The company knows the White House won't do anything. This situation is becoming increasingly humiliating not just for the president, but for his supporters.

During the 2016 campaign, Trump seemed to have remarkable luck, with extraordinary events breaking in his favor. In the run-up to this election, he hasn't had great luck, but he has had a series of crises that any competent nationalist politician could have easily exploited:

He had a foreign pandemic and huge public support for enacting at least a temporary immigration moratorium or more creative economic populist policies . Instead, he disastrously tried to downplay the pandemic to try to appease the stock market in the short term. He has Twitter revealing its bias to the entire world, giving him a sure-fire rationale for protecting the free speech of his supporters. This would dramatically ease his task of fighting the Main Stream Media/ Democrat cartel during the re-election campaign. However, the president has done nothing substantive, once again coming off as weak and feckless and leaving his supporters isolated. Now, he has nationwide riots and videos of businesses being burned to the ground, all being essentially cheered on by his MSM/Dem opponents. America is begging for a crackdown. Instead, President Trump is blaming Democratic state and local elected officials rather than taking action himself.

President Trump simply can't afford any more mistakes. America is burning. The nationalist that voters thought they were electing in 2016 needs to act.

If he doesn't, he can't be surprised if Leftists simply become more emboldened, and if demoralized patriots stay away from the polls.

This is President Trump's one last chance not to let his voters down. If he blows it, I think the 2020 campaign will be irredeemable -- and unlike Republicans, Democrats will have no problem in using government power to crush their political enemies once they are in the White House again.

James Kirkpatrick [ Email him |Tweet him @VDAREJamesK ] is a Beltway veteran and a refugee from Conservatism Inc. His latest book is Conservatism Inc.: The Battle for the American Right . Read VDARE.com Editor Peter Brimelow 's Preface here .


Anon [333] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 1, 2020 at 4:40 am GMT

Why doesn't Trump realize Jared is a viper at the heart of his family and administration? He absolutely needs to address the nation. Jared might be setting up another style of coup attempt.
Astuteobservor II , says: Show Comment June 1, 2020 at 4:43 am GMT
When trump spoke at AIPAC before the 2016 election, I already wrote him off. I was 1000% on the money.
polistra , says: Website Show Comment June 1, 2020 at 4:44 am GMT
You're four years late. Trump was always the Pied Piper, following Hillary's orders while leading foolish populists off the cliff. If you're still expecting anything else from him, you're deluded.

There's one small point of forgiveness for fools. Obama showed his Deepstate loyalty BEFORE the 2008 election, so there was no reason for any honest observer to vote for him. Trump didn't show his hand until just AFTER the 2016 election. After the first week it was amply clear that he had no intentions of "draining the swamp". A true opponent of Deepstate would have spent the first month firing and jailing thousands of bureaucrats. Trump didn't fire anyone at all.

Uncle J , says: Show Comment June 1, 2020 at 4:44 am GMT
Another white supremacist trash piece. You guys never learn. Trump is finished. Unfortunately, his opponents are just as corrupt and criminal. This country is doomed and it will not be able to redeem itself, and deserves what's coming to it. Especially, not with the moronic and insensitive example of articles, authors and a blind culture that is portrayed above.
Pft , says: Show Comment June 1, 2020 at 5:17 am GMT
I see a lot of whites among the protesters. How much of that is anger over Floyd and how much is pent up rage over the senseless lockdowns I cant say.

If you look back to last year Barr developed his precrime program, Trump pushed HARPA/SAFE HOME, bills for Domestic Terrorism were proposed, FBI issues memo that conspiracy theories (question official narratives) promote terrorism , etc. This all happening while Crimson Contagion exercises, Urban Outbreak Exercises and Event 201 simulation are happening. Coincidence?

The Rockefeller Lockstep Report in 2010 predicted pushback

After Lockdowns over the virus , conditions were ripe for an explosion that would allow the pre-crime/domestic terrorism agendas to get political support. Just needed a trigger and I think the Floyd killing was an operation intended to be that trigger. Push back begins. The protests gone violent with a convenient supply of bricks may be due to agent provocateurs. Contract tracing apps issued before the protests will certainly be put to good use. Contract tracers will be given another job.

Trump now declares antifa a Terrorist Group. Basically anyone opposed to fascism and authoritarianism can be suspected of being antifa and a terrorist. How convenient for fascists and authoritarians.

Trapped on Clown World , says: Show Comment June 1, 2020 at 5:20 am GMT
At this point people have to be considering the fact that Trump is more of a hindrance than a help. He appears to be nothing more than a lullaby used to put his supporters to sleep, secure in their delusions that they have a viable political future as long as they vote hard enough.

If it takes a president Stacy Abrams to wake them up, then why not now? In the extremely unlikely event that Trump pulls off another victory, what will be the purpose? He's clearly demonstrated that he is incapable of any action beyond nominating a SC justice and tweeting. 4 more years of having to listen to delusional MAGA people is too much to stomach for no payoff.

I'd rather have an obese gap toothed woman of color ordering the construction of all POC settlements in white neighboorhoods. Maybe then the MAGA folks would wake up. Of course it's more likely that they would start cheering Marco Rubio by claiming that he only wants to build 10 apartments per un-diverse town instead of 30.

I have America fatigue.

ebear , says: Show Comment June 1, 2020 at 6:16 am GMT
I'll preface this with I'm no fan of Donald Trump.

That said, I believe the soon-to-be-wrath of the people will fall mainly on state governors and city mayors rather than on Trump. Polls mean nothing these days. 2016 proved that one. What's right in front of many people today is that they've not only lost wages to CV-19, but now, just as they're gearing up to return, their workplace is gone -- either burned down, or indefinitely closed due to the riots and related damage to public infrastructure.

Meanwhile in flyover country, people look on in horror at what, rightly or wrongly, is associated in their minds with BLM and ANTIFA. That is to say The Left. Cartoonish, yes, but that's what they see.

As in 2016, people will again vote Trump as a giant FU to the Left, which they'll perceive as having caused, if not instigated this crisis. Disaffected Trump supporters who might not have bothered this time, are rethinking that as we speak. At this point, a Trump landslide is a very real possibility.

This is not the outcome I want -- that doesn't actually exist at this time -- but FWIW, it's the way I see it playing out. I know history doesn't always repeat, but this looks a lot like 1968 to me.

Franz , says: Show Comment June 1, 2020 at 7:29 am GMT
@Meena

Trump is hiding in a bunker . Hope he stays there for good.

Yes. It's why some of us stayed home in 2016. A choice between Hillary, a lifelong flake, and yet another third-rate actor. Did everyone forget that the other third-rate actor, Reagan, gave the country away?

It's fitting for Trump to tweet and hide. He has successfully updated hit and run.

green , says: Show Comment June 1, 2020 at 7:43 am GMT
Welcome back, James Kirkpatrick! Trump has disappointed, and he may be down in the polls, but he's not out.

This Mau Mau power grab (and the media's role in promoting it) is actually winning votes for Trump. The President represents the rule of law. Civilization. This is a winning ticket. And people are fed up with all the slick media favoritism. It's toxic.

Meanwhile, the unholy and fragile Democrat alliance that includes white-hating blacks, left-indoctrinated students, hysterical femmes, radical queers, antifa terrorists, disaffected POC, and white 'moderates' constitutes an arranged political marriage that will not endure . Most of these assorted malcontents have only one thing that unites them: hatred of Trump and his base. This is not a winning platform. Plus, sleepy Joe will have to repudiate all this liberal violence and looting if he's to maintain his (allegedly) leading position in the polls. BLM may not like this, nor will the uber-progressive wing of the Democrat party. Expect fireworks.

On the other hand, Trump now gets to advocate for political stability, cultural continuity, and even physical safety. The unhinged, far-too-left looters now seen on TV are actually a Godsend for Trump. Watch him amass most of what's left of America's silent (white, middle class) majority on election-day. Regular folks will reemerge as a unified block in the wake of these despicable acts of lawlessness and greed.

After Trump chews up sleepy Joe in the debates, watch this race flip into a Trump landslide. It happened for Nixon. Maybe then, Trump the two-term President will revisit the agenda that got him elected as a candidate in 2016. This final scenario might not be likely, but stranger things have happened.

Carlos22 , says: Show Comment June 1, 2020 at 7:45 am GMT
So what's the difference between this and the Rodney King riots?

They'll blow off some steam and will return back to their shitty little lives by the end of the week.

Commentator Mike , says: Show Comment June 1, 2020 at 7:57 am GMT
@Pft Even all this arson may be of benefit the business community. Weren't we reading endless comments how the lockdown has badly affected small businesses, many of which would go bankrupt due to lack of customers? Perhaps the best thing for them is to get burnt down so they can claim the insurance as many of them would probably have had to close shop anyway.
nietzsche1510 , says: Show Comment June 1, 2020 at 8:00 am GMT
@Anon show me one single pick of his admin. who ended up beneficial for him or his reelection: Jared is the personification of Netanyahu in the White House: clusterfuck nation will be his signature at the court of History.
anon [113] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 1, 2020 at 8:03 am GMT
@Pinche Perro This is the same guy who sat back and did nothing as Covid-19 approached American shores. You think he cares about you now?

Trump allegedly asked Fauci if officials could let coronavirus 'wash over' US

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/492390-wapo-trump-allegedly-asked-fauci-if-officials-could-let-coronavirus

nietzsche1510 , says: Show Comment June 1, 2020 at 8:12 am GMT
Minnesota is diverting the looming class war to racial rioting.
PetrOldSack , says: Show Comment June 1, 2020 at 8:54 am GMT

Where Have You Gone, Donald Trump? A Nation Turns Its Yearning Eyes to You
James Kirkpatrick • May 31, 2020

Out of context, the whole of the elites bulb is irrecoverable. The "bend" to turn it into politics, is going to be little of a patch, won´t last the next round.

The "ramble" in the streets is way exaggerated, nothing will come of it if all semi-organized groups that have ambitions do not add to the noise, and get some pertinent rusults: bargaining power. It is a dream opportunity to "vote" with one´s feet. Real disorder cannot be worse, when the asserted elites are morally corrupt and have no ethics.

It would take more then a department store and a police precinct to make a point: "We want leadership, not profiteering", "Bust the bulb" add focus. Corporate headquarters, gated communities, the White House, Capitol Hill, Millionaire communities, airports, bridges, paralysing the hardware farms of Google, Facebook and Twitter, spreading to cities as London, Amsterdam, Paris, great opportunities there. "No borders, no castles". Disruption is a start and a means to an end. Explaining comes later. Only going that direction would cause any effects that last.

These are few things that come to mind. When historically, "real" leaders can have a chance to re-assert and reorganize, effectively stump out the "rot at the top", there must be some serious rioting first.

There is not much of an alternative, and outside the US forces, Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, people up to dumps as Bangladesh, Libya, will gladly stomp the US obese backside.

These above are thoughts that come to mind, regarding a minor overblown bush-fire for now. The thing is a fizzle.

[Jun 02, 2020] Susan Rice Suggests Russians Fomented Floyd Protests, Violence Across U.S. Obama s former national security adviser offered no evidence for her bizarre claim by Barbara Boland

So one of key players of Russiagate gaslighting and Flynn entrapment trying the same dirty trick again. Nice...
Notable quotes:
"... "We have peaceful protesters focused on the very real pain and disparities that we're all wrestling with that have to be addressed, and then we have extremists who've come to try to hijack those protests and turn them into something very different. And they're probably also, I would bet based on my experience, I'm not reading the intelligence these days, but based on my experience this is right out of the Russian playbook as well." ..."
"... "I would not be surprised to learn that they have fomented some of these extremists on both sides using social media. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that they are funding it in some way, shape, or form." ..."
Jun 01, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

President Barack Obama's former national security adviser Susan Rice suggested without evidence that the Russians could be behind the violent demonstrations that have taken place across the U.S. following the death of George Floyd.

Speaking to CNN's Wolf Blitzer Sunday, Rice said:

"We have peaceful protesters focused on the very real pain and disparities that we're all wrestling with that have to be addressed, and then we have extremists who've come to try to hijack those protests and turn them into something very different. And they're probably also, I would bet based on my experience, I'm not reading the intelligence these days, but based on my experience this is right out of the Russian playbook as well."

"I would not be surprised to learn that they have fomented some of these extremists on both sides using social media. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that they are funding it in some way, shape, or form."

Rice admits she's not reading the intelligence anymore, so what makes her think the Russians are behind this?

She doesn't offer much more in the way of evidence for her assertion, other than that the Russians are the Democrats' always-present bogeyman, ever ready from behind their poorly translated social media posts to unleash mayhem upon the U.S.

Ever since the election of President Donald Trump, Democrats have blamed Russians for the outcome of the 2016 election.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller found evidence that Russian-linked accounts spent a small amount of money placing social media ads for the purpose of influencing the 2016 election, but there's nothing to suggest their efforts were successful. The Department of Justice abruptly dropped its prosecution of a Russian-based troll farm, days before trial. Mueller also did not find evidence that the Trump campaign conspired with Russia during the 2016 election.

Although the claims of Russian "collusion" in the 2016 election were eventually found to be nearly totally baseless, Rice's new narrative, that Russians support 2020's post-Floyd rioting, appears to be even more fact-threadbare.

Rice's claim drew criticism from across the political spectrum.

Eoin Higgens, a senior editor at Common Dreams, tweeted "you cannot make this sh– up. F -- - deranged" while former U.S. attorney Andrew McCarthy tweeted "there she goes again."

There's a reason Rice's claim was not taken seriously -- besides the lack of evidence for the Russian meddling narrative that has dominated the nation's political life since 2016, there's also the sheer ineptitude of the actual Russian trolling and ads themselves.

Just look at this ad the Russians funded from the 2016 election cycle for a taste of how convincing those Russians and their social media campaigns can be:


Feral Finster 19 hours ago

Predictable as a stopped clock.
Bureaucrat 19 hours ago • edited
I haven't seen condemnation across the political spectrum. There are a few hard-left progressives like Aaron Mate, Matt Taibbi, and Glenn Greenwald of course, but they have always hated the RussiaGate conspiracy. I won't be holding my breath for any of the #Resistance puppets castigate Rice. They can't, because #RussiaGate is foundational to their existence.
Connecticut Farmer Bureaucrat 2 hours ago
"...#RussiaGate is foundational to their existence."

It's the only hat rack that they have, otherwise they would be left with having to blame themselves for running the wrong horse in 2016.

Scroop Moth 18 hours ago
Y'all are really confusing me! During the civil rights marches, conservatives warned people that the "agitators" were Russian tools. Now, you say that's crazy talk!.

Rice asserts that civic agitation is ". . .right out of the Russian playbook. . ." Let's presume she's had a peek into the Russia playbook. Her statement can be falsified by the good fact checkers at this website!

Speaking for myself, I wouldn't be more surprised than Rice to learn that Russia is still in the outside agitator business. Just a suggestion, of course. Someone as patriotic as Rice really should check it out.

Connecticut Farmer Scroop Moth 2 hours ago
"Russia is still in the outside agitator business."

So is the United States (check out the Russian election of 1996). We're not as good as the Russians though.

Gerald Arcuri 17 hours ago
Why would anyone listen to what Susan Rice has to say about matters of national security?
Alex (the one that likes Ike) 17 hours ago
The saddest thing is that she's been too lazy to come up even with the most jury-rigged conspiracy theory as to why Russians would need it, despite the fact that emotional reaction-oriented rhetorical turds to... sculpture such a theory (albeit a very debunkable one) are floating on the surface. A most deplorable intellectual sloth. What to expect from neolibs/neocons, though? They're always like that. Say some folderol - and then go hiding in the kind Grandpa Bolton's venerable moustɑche.
Timothy Herring 16 hours ago
Wild speculation needs no evidence.
MPC Timothy Herring 15 hours ago
People like her are about to get their due, by being baselessly accused of being Chinese agents.
AdmBenson 13 hours ago
I don't know which idea is more laughable - Black Americans are so lacking in agency that they aren't even responsible for their own protests, or, the Russians are so diabolical that they can turn anyone and everyone into the Manchurian Candidate.

More likely, Susan Rice can't admit that her woke ideology has limitations. She needs a scapegoat so badly that she'll babble any nonsense to accuse one. Hard to believe she was once the National Security Adviser.

ZizaNiam 12 hours ago
I read on a libertarian oriented forum that the current protests are actually being done by the Chinese. Apparently, the Soviets (Russians) instigated the riots in the late 60s.
Slappyhappy 9 hours ago
Where are all the stars you ask" afterwards they will come out with concerts on TV, speeches big speeches that they real do care you hear me, PC BS they will look tragic this time, all the makeup in the world won;t hide their deception, arrogance, utter idiocy in White Towers.
JPH 4 hours ago
Transcripts of under oath statements before the House Intelligence committee revealed neither Susan Rice nor other Obama administration officials had any evidence of Russian meddling in 2016. Of course all proceeded with spreading baseless inuendo for years before and afterwards.

So if not under oath anything Susan Rice alleges is simply not worth listening to.

Miamijac 2 hours ago
civic agitation is ". . .right out of the Russian playbook. . ." Were they responsible for the Boston Tea Party too?
Wallstreet Panic 2 hours ago
Seems like so many presidents have been led into terrible foreign policy decisions by their Blob advisors...Obama by Susan Rice, Samantha Power, and Hillary; Dubya by Cheney and Rumsfield; Carter by Zbiggy, Ford and Nixon (both who should have known better) by Kissinger.
L RNY 2 hours ago
Susan Rice is more ignorant and has far lower intelligence than I ever suspected or she is playing politics and lying. The Russians have no motive. The Russians have no hand to play. The Chinese who have bribed a long list of democratic politicians have a very significant motive and a major hand to play in fomenting riots and race animosity...as a means to influence the November election away from Trump to Biden.

[Jun 01, 2020] More Evidence of the Fraud Against General Michael Flynn by Larry C Johnson

Highly recommended!
Looks like regular consultation between Russians and incoming administration to me. Also it was lame duck President who unilaterally decided to up his ante against Russians (criminally gaslighting the US public), expelled Russian diplomats to make the gaslighting more plausible, and seized Russian diplomatic property in violation of international norms. It was Obama who unleashed FBI dogs like Strzok and McCabe on Trump.
Russia later retaliated in a very modest way without seizing any US property, they just cut the level of the USA diplomatic personnel in Russia to the level of Russian personnel in the USA.
Notable quotes:
"... To summarize--a total of eight different calls between Kislyak and Flynn were recorded between December 22, 2016 and January 19, 2017. Five of the eight calls were initiated by Ambassador Kislyak -- Mike Flynn only called Kislyak three times and two of those were in response to calls from Kislyak, who requested a call back or left a message. ..."
Jun 01, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

More Evidence of the Fraud Against General Michael Flynn by Larry C Johnson

I never ceased to be amazed at the dishonesty and laziness of the media when it comes to reporting anything about Michael Flynn and the astonishing miscarriage of justice in bringing charges against him. The documents declassified and released by the DNI last Friday exonerate General Flynn and expose the FBI and the Mueller team as gargantuan liars. Even though Friday's release of the declassified summaries and transcripts was overshadowed quickly by rioting in Minnesota (you know, if it bleeds and burns it is the lede), the documents reveal General Flynn as the consummate professional keen on serving his country and the Russian Ambassador as disgusted by the petulance and arrogance of the Obama administration.

The declassified material released by newly installed Director for National Intelligence actually consists of two different sets of documents--First, there are five summaries of conversations for 22, 23, 29 (two on the 29th) December 2016 and 5 January. Second, there are the full transcripts of the conversations for December 23, December 29, December 31 in 2016 and January 12 and January 19, 2017.

To summarize--a total of eight different calls between Kislyak and Flynn were recorded between December 22, 2016 and January 19, 2017. Five of the eight calls were initiated by Ambassador Kislyak -- Mike Flynn only called Kislyak three times and two of those were in response to calls from Kislyak, who requested a call back or left a message.

Here are the specifics of those calls.

  • December 22, 2016--This call apparently was made by Michael Flynn to the Russians, responding to a request from President-elect Trump to ask Russia not to support the Egyptian UN Security Council resolution condemning Israel. (Note--Flynn make calls to most members of the UN Security Council).
  • December 23, 2016--Ambassador Kislyak calls Michael Flynn to report on his conversation with President Putin regarding the previous day's request. Michael Flynn emphasizes to Kislyak that the mutual goal is/should be stability in the Middle East. Flynn tells Kislyak, "We will not achieve stability in the Middle East without working with each other against this radical Islamist crowd." Kislyak remarks, "responding to your telephone call, and our conversations we will try to help to postpone the vote and to allow for consultations."
  • December 29, 2016--Kislyak calls Flynn and leaves a simple message, "need to talk."
  • December 29, 2016--Michael Flynn returns Kislyak's phone call. First, Kislyak wants to discuss the Middle East policy. The Russians want to convey to the President-elect that the Russians will not be supporting the American colleagues at the Security Council. Flynn says it is good. Second, the Russians are very interested with working with the President-elect's team to help the peace process in Syria. Thirdly, the Kremlin would like to . . . have a first conversation on January 21 rst between the presidents. Putin's idea is to congratulate Trump and discuss issues. . . . Flynn tells Kislyak: Do not allow this administration to box us in right now! . . . . depending on what actions the Obama Administrations takes over this current issue of the cyber stuff, . . . they're gonna dismiss some number of Russians out of the country, I understand all that . . . I know you have to have some sort of action, but to only make it reciprocal; don't go any further than you have to because I don't want us to get into something that have to escalate to tit-for-tat. . . . I really do not want us to get into the situation where we everybody goes back and forth and everybody had to be a tough guy here. We don't need that right now. We need cool heads to prevail. And we need to be very steady about what we are going to do because we have absolutely a common threat in the Middle East.
  • December 31, 2016--Russian Ambassador Kislyak calls General Flynn. Kislyak tells Flynn, "And I just wanted to tell you that we found that these actions [were] targeted not only against Russia, but also against the president elect. . . . and with all our rights to respond we have decided not to act now because, its because people are dissatisfied with the lost . . . elections and, and its very deplorable. . . . Flynn responds, "we are not going to agree on everything, you know that, but, but I think that we have a lot of things in common. A lot. And we have to figure out how, how to achieve those things, . . .and be smart about it and keep the temperature down globally, as well as not just here in the United States and also over in Russia.
  • January 5, 2017--Lt. General Mike FLYNN phones Ambassador Sergey KISLYAK to express his condolences on the death of GRU Director Igor SERGUN, who died unexpectedly today from unknown causes.
  • January 12, 2017--Mike Flynn returns Kislyak's phone call and discusses possible conference on Syria in Astana.
  • January 19, 2017--Kislyak leaves voicemail for Flynn, inquiring about scheduling of a phone call between Putin and Trump after the inauguration.

Alan , 30 May 2020 at 09:44 PM

This is also very interesting:

"Before General Flynn's voce message turns on, there is an open line, barely audible chat.
Someone asks Chernyshev, "Which agency are we talking about?" Chernyshev asks as to
confirm if he understands the question and responds in the same time: "Which Agency hackers
did the hacking? Believe me, Americans did hacked this all."

Petrel , 30 May 2020 at 10:56 PM
The full exchange between General Flynn and Ambassador Kislyak throws much light on the subsequent Sunday morning mis-speaking by the Vice-President Pence.

From the first telephone call, Flynn tells Kislyak that President-elect Trump will only be inaugurated 3-weeks hence. Therefore Trump in late-December cannot formally make foreign policy decisions immediately.

In a later exchange about Russia's proposed Astana Peace Conference to de-escalate ISIS activity In Syria, Flynn responds that Russia has Trump's backing to begin preparations with the Syrians, Turks et al. On his part, Flynn will begin pencilling-in who would be on a future US delegation.

It goes without saying that Vice President-elect Pence, during this period had a full-time job marshaling the Transition and may not have been in the loop on these tentative Russian peace initiatives. When asked on a Sunday morning talk show, Pence could correctly say President Trump had no "official communications" with the Kremlin. But to later trash & demand Flynn's dismissal for "lying to him" about the informal phone calls was inappropriate.

Pence could easily have told Americans that President-elect Trump was establishing informal relations, through multiple phone calls, with world leaders and he, Pence, was not party to all of them. No one in the fledgling Trump Administration was lying to him.

anon , 31 May 2020 at 12:25 AM
Hi Larry.why not tackle this knot from the Russian end.Russia has been fighting in Syria since jisr al shugour massacre in the groves.There naval base on the med was threatened and Gazprom stood to lose control of energy resources flowing out of the me too Europe.That has now been achieved.Not only that but Wagner group are in Libyan with Russian air support.From that point of view what was Flynn's role in this
Mathias Alexander , 31 May 2020 at 02:50 AM
" amazed at the dishonesty and laziness of the media". Dishonesty and laziness are the norm in the media.
English Outsider , 31 May 2020 at 06:06 AM

That was one superb summary.

I wonder sometimes whether the new administration, from Trump downwards, realised just what they were up against after that unexpected election victory.

h , 31 May 2020 at 12:02 PM
Time will tell but something tells me the release of the Kislyak-Flynn transcripts/FBI cuts is also related to Boente's forced resignation. Here's sundance's take - it's a long read btw - https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/05/30/boom-dana-boente-removed-fbi-chief-legal-counsel-forced-to-resign/

And yes, the hacking comment is fascinating on so many levels. It's just kinda left hanging out there all by itself, eh?

And a quick off-topic thank you to the Col for posting the Lara Logan clip. All efforts hunting for it yesterday failed. She nailed it.

JerseyJeffersonian , 31 May 2020 at 01:15 PM
English Outsider,

Yes, I think that evidence thus far revealed suggests that the sedition was far along, and this even before Trump's victory - an insurance policy, if you will, and way beyond any opposition research, as much of the "information", if not at root fabricated, was otherwise illegally gathered.

And immediate that election victory, things went into overdrive as the seditionists' panicked, doubling and tripling down on their illegal actions to frame a projected impeachment narrative as their next tactic. I hesitate to call it their next strategy, as it was too knee jerk to be characterized in that fashion.

So, no, I think that the new Trump administration had little idea of just how this transition of administration was, counter to most prior precedents, planned to be undermined with the full intent to invalidate the election of President Trump, and if possible, to overturn it .

This was sedition on multiple levels, crimes deliberately embarked upon to destroy the Constitution and the Republic by any means that these traitors deemed efficacious.

May they all rot in Hell.

blue peacock , 31 May 2020 at 04:48 PM
Petrel,

I believe Trump knew he was being spied on as Adm. Rogers informed him and thereafter he moved his transition organization away from Trump Tower.

In any case why did Trump throw Flynn under the bus? In hindsight that was a huge mistake. Another huge mistake in hindsight was not cleaning house at the DOJ, FBI and the intel agencies early. That allowed Rosenstein and Wray to get Mueller going and created the pretext of the investigation to bury all the incriminating evidence. Trump never declassified anything himself which he could have and broke open the plot. He then gave Barr all classification authority who sat on it for a year. Look how fast Ric Grenell declassified stuff. There was no "sources & methods" the usual false justification.

It is unconscionable how severely Flynn was screwed over. Why is Wray still there? How many of the plotter cohort still remain?

[Jun 01, 2020] More Evidence of the Fraud Against General Michael Flynn by Larry C Johnson

Highly recommended!
Looks like regular consultation between Russians and incoming administration to me. Also it was lame duck President who unilaterally decided to up his ante against Russians (criminally gaslighting the US public), expelled Russian diplomats to make the gaslighting more plausible, and seized Russian diplomatic property in violation of international norms. It was Obama who unleashed FBI dogs like Strzok and McCabe on Trump.
Russia later retaliated in a very modest way without seizing any US property, they just cut the level of the USA diplomatic personnel in Russia to the level of Russian personnel in the USA.
Jun 01, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

More Evidence of the Fraud Against General Michael Flynn by Larry C Johnson

I never ceased to be amazed at the dishonesty and laziness of the media when it comes to reporting anything about Michael Flynn and the astonishing miscarriage of justice in bringing charges against him. The documents declassified and released by the DNI last Friday exonerate General Flynn and expose the FBI and the Mueller team as gargantuan liars. Even though Friday's release of the declassified summaries and transcripts was overshadowed quickly by rioting in Minnesota (you know, if it bleeds and burns it is the lede), the documents reveal General Flynn as the consummate professional keen on serving his country and the Russian Ambassador as disgusted by the petulance and arrogance of the Obama administration.

The declassified material released by newly installed Director for National Intelligence actually consists of two different sets of documents--First, there are five summaries of conversations for 22, 23, 29 (two on the 29th) December 2016 and 5 January. Second, there are the full transcripts of the conversations for December 23, December 29, December 31 in 2016 and January 12 and January 19, 2017.

To summarize--a total of eight different calls between Kislyak and Flynn were recorded between December 22, 2016 and January 19, 2017. Five of the eight calls were initiated by Ambassador Kislyak -- Mike Flynn only called Kislyak three times and two of those were in response to calls from Kislyak, who requested a call back or left a message.

Here are the specifics of those calls.

  • December 22, 2016--This call apparently was made by Michael Flynn to the Russians, responding to a request from President-elect Trump to ask Russia not to support the Egyptian UN Security Council resolution condemning Israel. (Note--Flynn make calls to most members of the UN Security Council).
  • December 23, 2016--Ambassador Kislyak calls Michael Flynn to report on his conversation with President Putin regarding the previous day's request. Michael Flynn emphasizes to Kislyak that the mutual goal is/should be stability in the Middle East. Flynn tells Kislyak, "We will not achieve stability in the Middle East without working with each other against this radical Islamist crowd." Kislyak remarks, "responding to your telephone call, and our conversations we will try to help to postpone the vote and to allow for consultations."
  • December 29, 2016--Kislyak calls Flynn and leaves a simple message, "need to talk."
  • December 29, 2016--Michael Flynn returns Kislyak's phone call. First, Kislyak wants to discuss the Middle East policy. The Russians want to convey to the President-elect that the Russians will not be supporting the American colleagues at the Security Council. Flynn says it is good. Second, the Russians are very interested with working with the President-elect's team to help the peace process in Syria. Thirdly, the Kremlin would like to . . . have a first conversation on January 21 rst between the presidents. Putin's idea is to congratulate Trump and discuss issues. . . . Flynn tells Kislyak: Do not allow this administration to box us in right now! . . . . depending on what actions the Obama Administrations takes over this current issue of the cyber stuff, . . . they're gonna dismiss some number of Russians out of the country, I understand all that . . . I know you have to have some sort of action, but to only make it reciprocal; don't go any further than you have to because I don't want us to get into something that have to escalate to tit-for-tat. . . . I really do not want us to get into the situation where we everybody goes back and forth and everybody had to be a tough guy here. We don't need that right now. We need cool heads to prevail. And we need to be very steady about what we are going to do because we have absolutely a common threat in the Middle East.
  • December 31, 2016--Russian Ambassador Kislyak calls General Flynn. Kislyak tells Flynn, "And I just wanted to tell you that we found that these actions [were] targeted not only against Russia, but also against the president elect. . . . and with all our rights to respond we have decided not to act now because, its because people are dissatisfied with the lost . . . elections and, and its very deplorable. . . . Flynn responds, "we are not going to agree on everything, you know that, but, but I think that we have a lot of things in common. A lot. And we have to figure out how, how to achieve those things, . . .and be smart about it and keep the temperature down globally, as well as not just here in the United States and also over in Russia.
  • January 5, 2017--Lt. General Mike FLYNN phones Ambassador Sergey KISLYAK to express his condolences on the death of GRU Director Igor SERGUN, who died unexpectedly today from unknown causes.
  • January 12, 2017--Mike Flynn returns Kislyak's phone call and discusses possible conference on Syria in Astana.
  • January 19, 2017--Kislyak leaves voicemail for Flynn, inquiring about scheduling of a phone call between Putin and Trump after the inauguration.

Alan , 30 May 2020 at 09:44 PM

This is also very interesting:

"Before General Flynn's voce message turns on, there is an open line, barely audible chat.
Someone asks Chernyshev, "Which agency are we talking about?" Chernyshev asks as to
confirm if he understands the question and responds in the same time: "Which Agency hackers
did the hacking? Believe me, Americans did hacked this all."

Petrel , 30 May 2020 at 10:56 PM
The full exchange between General Flynn and Ambassador Kislyak throws much light on the subsequent Sunday morning mis-speaking by the Vice-President Pence.

From the first telephone call, Flynn tells Kislyak that President-elect Trump will only be inaugurated 3-weeks hence. Therefore Trump in late-December cannot formally make foreign policy decisions immediately.

In a later exchange about Russia's proposed Astana Peace Conference to de-escalate ISIS activity In Syria, Flynn responds that Russia has Trump's backing to begin preparations with the Syrians, Turks et al. On his part, Flynn will begin pencilling-in who would be on a future US delegation.

It goes without saying that Vice President-elect Pence, during this period had a full-time job marshaling the Transition and may not have been in the loop on these tentative Russian peace initiatives. When asked on a Sunday morning talk show, Pence could correctly say President Trump had no "official communications" with the Kremlin. But to later trash & demand Flynn's dismissal for "lying to him" about the informal phone calls was inappropriate.

Pence could easily have told Americans that President-elect Trump was establishing informal relations, through multiple phone calls, with world leaders and he, Pence, was not party to all of them. No one in the fledgling Trump Administration was lying to him.

anon , 31 May 2020 at 12:25 AM
Hi Larry.why not tackle this knot from the Russian end.Russia has been fighting in Syria since jisr al shugour massacre in the groves.There naval base on the med was threatened and Gazprom stood to lose control of energy resources flowing out of the me too Europe.That has now been achieved.Not only that but Wagner group are in Libyan with Russian air support.From that point of view what was Flynn's role in this
Mathias Alexander , 31 May 2020 at 02:50 AM
" amazed at the dishonesty and laziness of the media". Dishonesty and laziness are the norm in the media.
English Outsider , 31 May 2020 at 06:06 AM

That was one superb summary.

I wonder sometimes whether the new administration, from Trump downwards, realised just what they were up against after that unexpected election victory.

h , 31 May 2020 at 12:02 PM
Time will tell but something tells me the release of the Kislyak-Flynn transcripts/FBI cuts is also related to Boente's forced resignation. Here's sundance's take - it's a long read btw - https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/05/30/boom-dana-boente-removed-fbi-chief-legal-counsel-forced-to-resign/

And yes, the hacking comment is fascinating on so many levels. It's just kinda left hanging out there all by itself, eh?

And a quick off-topic thank you to the Col for posting the Lara Logan clip. All efforts hunting for it yesterday failed. She nailed it.

JerseyJeffersonian , 31 May 2020 at 01:15 PM
English Outsider,

Yes, I think that evidence thus far revealed suggests that the sedition was far along, and this even before Trump's victory - an insurance policy, if you will, and way beyond any opposition research, as much of the "information", if not at root fabricated, was otherwise illegally gathered.

And immediate that election victory, things went into overdrive as the seditionists' panicked, doubling and tripling down on their illegal actions to frame a projected impeachment narrative as their next tactic. I hesitate to call it their next strategy, as it was too knee jerk to be characterized in that fashion.

So, no, I think that the new Trump administration had little idea of just how this transition of administration was, counter to most prior precedents, planned to be undermined with the full intent to invalidate the election of President Trump, and if possible, to overturn it .

This was sedition on multiple levels, crimes deliberately embarked upon to destroy the Constitution and the Republic by any means that these traitors deemed efficacious.

May they all rot in Hell.

blue peacock , 31 May 2020 at 04:48 PM
Petrel,

I believe Trump knew he was being spied on as Adm. Rogers informed him and thereafter he moved his transition organization away from Trump Tower.

In any case why did Trump throw Flynn under the bus? In hindsight that was a huge mistake. Another huge mistake in hindsight was not cleaning house at the DOJ, FBI and the intel agencies early. That allowed Rosenstein and Wray to get Mueller going and created the pretext of the investigation to bury all the incriminating evidence. Trump never declassified anything himself which he could have and broke open the plot. He then gave Barr all classification authority who sat on it for a year. Look how fast Ric Grenell declassified stuff. There was no "sources & methods" the usual false justification.

It is unconscionable how severely Flynn was screwed over. Why is Wray still there? How many of the plotter cohort still remain?

[Jun 01, 2020] Documentary Evidence of the Fraud Against General Michael Flynn by Larry C Johnson

This is just another confirmation of the feeling that the USA political elite is not only split, but has been on the downward spiral for some time
May 30, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com
I never ceased to be amazed at the dishonesty and laziness of the media when it comes to reporting anything about Michael Flynn and the astonishing miscarriage of justice in bringing charges against him. The documents declassified and released by the DNI last Friday exonerate General Flynn and expose the FBI and the Mueller team as gargantuan liars. Even though Friday's release of the declassified summaries and transcripts was overshadowed quickly by rioting in Minnesota (you know, if it bleeds and burns it is the lede), the documents reveal General Flynn as the consummate professional keen on serving his country and the Russian Ambassador as disgusted by the petulance and arrogance of the Obama administration.

The declassified material released by newly installed Director for National Intelligence actually consists of two different sets of documents--First, there are five summaries of conversations for 22, 23, 29 (two on the 29th) December 2016 and 5 January. Second, there are the full transcripts of the conversations for December 23, December 29, December 31 in 2016 and January 12 and January 19, 2017.

To summarize--a total of eight different calls between Kislyak and Flynn were recorded between December 22, 2016 and January 19, 2017. Five of the eight calls were initiated by Ambassador Kislyak--Mike Flynn only called Kislyak three times and two of those were in response to calls from Kislyak, who requested a call back or left a message.

Here are the specifics of those calls.

December 22, 2016--This call apparently was made by Michael Flynn to the Russians, responding to a request from President-elect Trump to ask Russia to not support the Egyptian UN Security Council resolution condemning Israel. (Note--Flynn made calls to most members of the UN Security Council).

December 23, 2016--Ambassador Kislyak calls Michael Flynn to report on his conversation with President Putin regarding the previous day's request. Michael Flynn emphasizes to Kislyak that the mutual goal is/should be stability in the Middle East. Flynn tells Kislyak, "We will not achieve stability in the Middle East without working with each other against this radical Islamist crowd." Kislyak remarks, "responding to your telephone call, and our conversations we will try to help to postpone the vote and to allow for consultations."

December 29, 2016--Kislyak calls Flynn and leaves a simple message, "need to talk."

December 29, 2016--Michael Flynn returns Kislyak's phone call.

First, Kislyak wants to discuss the Middle East policy. The Russians want to convey to the President-elect that the Russians will not be supporting the American colleagues at the Security Council. Flynn says it is good.

Second, the Russians are very interesting with working with the President-elect's team to help the peace process in Syria.

Third, the Kremlin would like to . . . have a first conversation on January 21st between the presidents. Putin's idea is to congratulate Trump and discuss issues. . . . Flynn tells Kislyak: Do not allow this administration to box us in right now! . . . . depending on what actions the Obama Administrations takes over this current issue of the cyber stuff, . . . they're gonna dismiss some number of Russians out of the country, I understand all that . . . I know you have to have some sort of action, but to only make it reciprocal; don't go any further than you have to because I don't want us to get into something that have to escalate to tit-for-tat. . . . I really do not want us to get into the situation where we everybody goes back and forth and everybody had to be a tough guy here. We don't need that right now. We need cool heads to prevail. And we need to be very steady about what we are going to do because we have absolutely a common threat in the Middle East.

December 31, 2016--Russian Ambassador Kislyak calls General Flynn. Kislyak tells Flynn, "And I just wanted to tell you that we found that these actions [were] targeted not only against Russia, but also against the president elect. . . . and with all our rights to responds we have decided not to act now because, its because the Obama people are dissatisfied that they lost the elections and, and its very deplorable. . . . Flynn responded, "we are not going to agree on everything, you know that, but I think that we have a lot of things in common. A lot. And we have to figure out how to achieve those things, . . .and be smart about it and keep the temperature down globally, as well as not just here in the United States and also over in Russia.

January 5, 2017--Lt. General Mike FLYNN phones Ambassador Sergey KISLYAK to express his condolences on the death of GRU Director Igor SERGUN, who died unexpectedly today from unknown causes.

January 12, 2017--Mike Flynn returns Kislyak's phone call and discusses possible conference on Syria in Astana, Kazakstan.

January 19, 2017--Kislyak leaves voicemail for Flynn, inquiring about scheduling of a phone call between Putin and Trump after the inauguration.

Now, let us take a new look at the Mueller team's Statement of Offense . The Mueller team got a key fact wrong. According to the Statement of Offense:

b. On or about December 28, 2016, the Russian Ambassador contacted FLYNN.

Nope. The date was 29 December 2016. Screwing up a date is not an end-of-the-world mistake, but it is inexcusable nonetheless.

Let me remind you what Michael Flynn told FBI Agents Strzok and Pientka when they asked if he "might have asked Kislyak not to escalate the situation, to keep the Russian response reciprocal." Flynn said, according to the second draft of the FBI 302 recounting the conversation, "NOT REALLY, I DON'T REMEMBER."

You can read for yourself Flynn's entire exchange with Kislyak. It covered a variety of topics. It was not the only issue Flynn was dealing with as the incoming National Security Advisor. He had lots of conversations, not only with Kislyak, but with other diplomats from other countries. The fact that he did not precisely remember what he said to Kislyak should not be surprising.

The real question is why did the FBI withhold the transcript of this conversation? They could have said, "here is the transcript of your conversation with Ambassador Kislyak, is that an accurate account?" But they did not. I defy any of you to recall with 100% accuracy a conversation you had with someone almost a month earlier.

The most fascinating revelation from this transcripts is Ambassador Kislyak stating that Russia was aware of the Obama Administration's efforts to portray normal diplomatic contacts between Moscow and the Trump campaign as something nefarious and that Obama was targeting Trump. Kislyak said:

"And I just wanted to tell you that we found that these actions [were] targeted not only against Russia, but also against the president elect."

Kislyak and his bosses understood perfectly that the Obama team was attempting a silent coup and were willing to risk conflict with Russia in order to sell that lie. This is beyond outrageous on the part of Obama and his crew of white collared criminals. It is sedition. It is treason.

No honest person can read these transcripts without acknowledging that Flynn spoke as a diplomat intent on serving the interests of America. He was not engaged in treachery, as alleged by the corrupt Judge Emmett Sullivan. In fact, Flynn held his tongue with regard to the Obama crew. He could have trashed them and spoke ill of them. But he did not.

These transcripts show Flynn as a man of honor. A genuine professional. They also expose the fraud perpetrated on the American public by an FBI and Special Prosecutor intent on smearing Flynn as acting on behalf of the Russians. Michael Flynn did no such thing.


Alan , 30 May 2020 at 09:44 PM

This is also very interesting:

"Before General Flynn's voce message turns on, there is an open line, barely audible chat.
Someone asks Chernyshev, "Which agency are we talking about?" Chernyshev asks as to
confirm if he understands the question and responds in the same time: "Which Agency hackers
did the hacking? Believe me, Americans did hacked this all."

Petrel , 30 May 2020 at 10:56 PM
The full exchange between General Flynn and Ambassador Kislyak throws much light on the subsequent Sunday morning mis-speaking by the Vice-President Pence.

From the first telephone call, Flynn tells Kislyak that President-elect Trump will only be inaugurated 3-weeks hence. Therefore Trump in late-December cannot formally make foreign policy decisions immediately.

In a later exchange about Russia's proposed Astana Peace Conference to de-escalate ISIS activity In Syria, Flynn responds that Russia has Trump's backing to begin preparations with the Syrians, Turks et al. On his part, Flynn will begin pencilling-in who would be on a future US delegation.

It goes without saying that Vice President-elect Pence, during this period had a full-time job marshaling the Transition and may not have been in the loop on these tentative Russian peace initiatives. When asked on a Sunday morning talk show, Pence could correctly say President Trump had no "official communications" with the Kremlin. But to later trash & demand Flynn's dismissal for "lying to him" about the informal phone calls was inappropriate.

Pence could easily have told Americans that President-elect Trump was establishing informal relations, through multiple phone calls, with world leaders and he, Pence, was not party to all of them. No one in the fledgling Trump Administration was lying to him.

anon , 31 May 2020 at 12:25 AM
Hi Larry.why not tackle this knot from the Russian end.Russia has been fighting in Syria since jisr al shugour massacre in the groves.There naval base on the med was threatened and Gazprom stood to lose control of energy resources flowing out of the me too Europe.That has now been achieved.Not only that but Wagner group are in Libyan with Russian air support.From that point of view what was Flynn's role in this

[May 31, 2020] On the meaning of the term Russiagate

May 31, 2020 | angrybearblog.com
  1. likbez , May 31, 2020 2:03 am

    Anybody who uses the term "Russiagate" seriously and not to recognize the actual and serious Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election in support of Trump is not to be taken remotely seriously.

    Russiagate is a valid and IMHO very useful political discourse term which has two intersecting meanings:

    1. Obamagate : Attempt of a certain political forces around Clintons and Obama with the support of intelligence agencies to stage a "color revolution" against Trump, using there full control of MSM as air superiority factor. With the main goal is the return to "classic neoliberalism" (neoliberal globalization uber alles) mode

    Which Trump rejected during his election campaign painting him as a threat to certain powerful neoliberal forces which include but not limited to Silicon Valley moguls (note bad relations of Trump and Bezos), some part of Wall street financial oligarchy, and most MSMs honchos.

    2. Neo-McCarthyism campaign unleashed by Obama administration with the goal to whitewash Hillary fiasco and to preserve the current leadership of the Democratic Party.

    That led to complete deterioration of relations between the USA and Russia and increase of chances of military conflict between two. Add to this consistent attempts of Trump to make China an enemy and politicize the process of economic disengagement between the two countries and you understand the level of danger. .

    When a senior Russian official implicitly calls the USA a rogue state and Trump administration -- gangsters on international arena, that a very bad sign. See

    https://nationalinterest.org/feature/russian-deputy-foreign-minister-sergei-ryabkov-%E2%80%9Cwe-have-no-trust-no-confidence-whatsoever%E2%80%9D

    But then again, it may well be so that the current Republican administration will in effect become a line in history in which a considerable number of useful international instruments were abrogated and that America exited them in the anticipation that this approach would serve U.S. interests better. Having said that, I will never say or never suggest that it was for us -- at least in the mid-2010s -- better with the previous administration.

    It was under the previous Obama administration that endless rounds of sanctions were imposed upon Russia. That was continued under Trump. The pretext for that policy is totally rejected by Russia as an invalid and illegal one. The previous administration, weeks before it departed, stole Russian property that was protected by diplomatic immunity, and we are still deprived of this property by the Trump administration. We have sent 350 diplomatic notes to both the Obama and the Trump administrations demanding the return of this property, only to see an endless series of rejections. It is one of the most vivid and obvious examples of where we are in our relationship.

    There is no such thing as "which administration is better for Russia in the U.S.?" Both are bad, and this is our conclusion after more than a decade of talking to Washington on different topics.

    Heilbrunn: Given the dire situation you portray, do you believe that America has become a rogue state?

    Ryabkov: I wouldn't say so, that's not our conclusion. But the U.S. is clearly an entity that stands for itself, one that creates uncertainty for the world. America is a source of trouble for many international actors. They are trying to find ways to protect and defend themselves from this malign and malicious policy of America that many of the people around the world believe should come to an end, hopefully in the near future.

    What I can't understand is this stupid jingoism, kind of "cult of death" among the US neocons, who personally are utter chickenhawks, but still from their comfortable offices write dangerous warmongering nonsense. Without understanding possible longer term consequences.

    Of course, MIC money does not smell, but some enthusiasts in blogs do it even without proper remuneration

[May 31, 2020] Both exclusion of Russian diplomats and the political assassination of Gen. Flynn were parts of a plot to prevent the shifting from a pro-China/anti-Russia policy to a pro-Russia/China-as-actual-competitor policy under a DJT presidency.

May 31, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

NemesisCalling , May 31 2020 18:08 utc | 32

Another is the political assassination of Gen. Flynn. There was indeed a coordinated conspiracy to find a scapegoat to prevent the shifting from a pro-China/anti-Russia policy to a pro-Russia/China-as-actual-competitor policy under a DJT presidency.

If you think none of the above carry any weight and you could play a game of shuttlecock with them not caring which is brought forth, then you might think along Jackrabbit's lines that the DJT-phenomenon is complete bullshit.

I would argue that the line that DJT is some working-class hero is probably bullshit, but when it comes to two warring factions of elites fighting over the direction of America, the struggle right now is very real.

[May 31, 2020] Russiagate is a clash between the old-guard/money represented currently by Trump and allied with him anti-globalist nationalists, and, on the other side, garden-variety globalists and neolibs including the new-money represented by big-tech billionaires, investment banks, private equity, CIA, the State Department and a part of MIC as well as the dominant in Democratic party Clinton wing

Notable quotes:
"... What is happening now is the exact same thing as Hong Kong. In any given instance of mass revolt, you have two warring factions, usually funded at the top by diametrically opposed elites. ..."
"... In Hong Kong, it is pro-western, old-guard/money versus Chinese new-guard. ..."
"... Look at the degree of organization (or lack thereof) which was able to politically assassinate Gen. Flynn! You had the dem establishment and billionaires like the Clintons, Obama-faction sycophants all the way up to the top. ..."
May 31, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

NemesisCalling , May 31 2020 17:45 utc | 26

@ vk 23

You are completely wrong, of course. What is happening now is the exact same thing as Hong Kong. In any given instance of mass revolt, you have two warring factions, usually funded at the top by diametrically opposed elites.

In Hong Kong, it is pro-western, old-guard/money versus Chinese new-guard. In America, we have the old-guard/money represented currently by the DJT-phenomenon, meaning Anti-globalist nationalists, and, on the other side, you have new-money internationalists and neolibs represented by billionaires, big-tech, the democratic party and garden-variety globalists.

Look at the degree of organization (or lack thereof) which was able to politically assassinate Gen. Flynn! You had the dem establishment and billionaires like the Clintons, Obama-faction sycophants all the way up to the top.

You think that this event is entirely grassroots? Give me a f*cking break, vk. You are such a blatantly obvious Chinese shill, no doubt probably employed by globalist entities, that the fact you are unable to employ an effective and probable analysis on these current "protests" reaffirm to me exactly what you are and what you stand for.


Blue Dotterel , May 31 2020 17:55 utc | 27

@NemesisCalling | May 31 2020 17:45 utc | 26

You could also have the same oligarchs funding both sides in a divide and conquer strategy. This is a common strategy that has been used in Turkey among others in the runup to the 1980 coup. It was also used by the US and Israel in their funding of both sides in the Iran/Iraq war in the 80s.

In the former it was used to ramp up violence to justify a military coup. That is very probable here, except that martial law might be the objective. Similar to the Iran/Iraq, the stoking of violence between liberals and conservatives may simply be to wear them out for when the economy truly tanks to justify in the minds of the sheeple a greater oppression of demonstrations in future.

Abe , May 31 2020 18:05 utc | 30
US is becoming like Israel even more. Considering same people rule both countries, and same people train cops in both of them, is it surprising 99%-ers in US are becoming treated like Palestinians?

[May 30, 2020] More On "Obamagate!"

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... In any case it looks like Flynn helped to avoid "boxing in" the new administration after the expulsion of Russian diplomats by the lame duck President? . That does not help Trump one bit, because first of all he is incompetent, and secondly he was instantly cooped by neocons, but still ..."
"... The key question here is whether Obama administration has motives to set a trap for Flynn now can be answered positively. If this was an entrapment then this is clearly a criminal offense and Strzok, Comey and possibly Brennan and Clapper, are clearly in hot water. ..."
May 30, 2020 | angrybearblog.com

likbez , May 29, 2020 11:29 pm

The transcript of Flynn call to Ambassador Kislyak was declassified and released.

https://www.grassley.senate.gov/sites/default/files/2020-05-29%20ODNI%20to%20CEG%20RHJ%20%28Flynn%20Transcripts%29.pdf

One plausible hypothesis is that Obama administration decided to revenge Flynn maneuver to foil Obama last move -- the expulsion of Russian diplomats, which stated neo-McCarthyism campaign in the USA. He explicitly asked Russians not to retaliate and I would understand why Obama did not like this move.

In any case it looks like Flynn helped to avoid "boxing in" the new administration after the expulsion of Russian diplomats by the lame duck President? . That does not help Trump one bit, because first of all he is incompetent, and secondly he was instantly cooped by neocons, but still

The key question here is whether Obama administration has motives to set a trap for Flynn now can be answered positively. If this was an entrapment then this is clearly a criminal offense and Strzok, Comey and possibly Brennan and Clapper, are clearly in hot water.

See

https://mobile.twitter.com/ProfMJCleveland/status/1266483118099378176

[May 30, 2020] Obama possibly wanted a hot Russians confrontation incident to land on Trump Desk the same day Obama moved out and Trump moved in

Margot Cleveland ( @ProfMJCleveland ) "What Flynn didn't say is treason, but Obama saying he'll have more flexibility after the election is diplomacy. "
May 30, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Margot Cleveland @ProfMJCleveland
What Flynn didn't say is treason, but Obama saying he'll have more flexibility after the election is diplomacy.

Deap , 30 May 2020 at 01:51 AM

Some of the key parts of their conversation, with commentary, are in this Twitter thread from Margot Cleveland:
https://mobile.twitter.com/ProfMJCleveland/status/1266483118099378176

Posted by: Keith Harbaugh | 29 May 2020 at 09:06 PM

Scenario: Obama wanted a hot Russians confrontation incident to land on the Resolute Desk the same day Obama moved out and Trump moved in. But the Russians did not take Obama's bait after expelling the Russians for" election interference"..

Why not - something is up - snoop on Flynn to find out - is Trump cutting a side deal with Putin, and/or violating the Logan Act - gotcha either way, So Obama thinks. Which was never his strong suit.

Marc b. , 30 May 2020 at 10:59 AM
So Flynn is gone and who benefits? The Israelis got their capitol and the word 'occupied' decoupled from territories, which they didn't need Flynn for, and the common enemy policy against ISIS and Astana/Syria peace plan are both dead.

[May 30, 2020] I beg every American who cares about the truth and this country to read the transcript--THE TRANSCRIPT--of @GenFlynn calls with the Russian ambassador

May 30, 2020 | mobile.twitter.com
Margot Cleveland @ProfMJCleveland
THREAD: I'm angry. Beyond angry. I beg every American who cares about the truth and this country to read the transcript--THE TRANSCRIPT--of @GenFlynn calls with the Russian ambassador. Some points follow, but let me start with this out-take. /1 pic.twitter.com/rPMnFYDb60 2:34 PM - 29 May 2020 Twitter by: Margot Cleveland @ProfMJCleveland
Reply Retweet Like More
Margot Cleveland

Margot Cleveland @ProfMJCleveland

5h
Replying to @ProfMJCleveland 2/ Here is the link to the transcript. grassley.senate.gov/sites/default/

Margot Cleveland @ProfMJCleveland

5h
Replying to @ProfMJCleveland 2/ Here is the link to the transcript. grassley.senate.gov/sites/default/
View conversation · Reply Retweet Like

Margot Cleveland @ProfMJCleveland

Margot Cleveland 5h
Replying to @ProfMJCleveland 3/ That out-take tells you everything you need to know about why Obama had January 5 meeting to discuss withholding information with the Trump transition team and administration. Can't you just picture petty little Barack Obama "how dare General Flynn say I cannot "box" them in.

Margot Cleveland @ProfMJCleveland

5h
Replying to @ProfMJCleveland 3/ That out-take tells you everything you need to know about why Obama had January 5 meeting to discuss withholding information with the Trump transition team and administration. Can't you just picture petty little Barack Obama "how dare General Flynn say I cannot "box" them in.
View conversation · Reply Retweet Like

Margot Cleveland @ProfMJCleveland

Margot Cleveland 5h
Replying to @ProfMJCleveland 4/ And for all those who scream about diplomacy, my God, read the damn transcript. We want men like General Flynn leading diplomacy. pic.twitter.com/ksPQoePrUO

Margot Cleveland @ProfMJCleveland

5h
Replying to @ProfMJCleveland 4/ And for all those who scream about diplomacy, my God, read the damn transcript. We want men like General Flynn leading diplomacy. pic.twitter.com/ksPQoePrUO
View conversation · Reply Retweet Like

Margot Cleveland @ProfMJCleveland

Margot Cleveland 5h
Replying to @ProfMJCleveland 5/ And not just diplomacy but the fight against the common enemy--terrorists. pic.twitter.com/oDrv07EeP2

Margot Cleveland @ProfMJCleveland

5h
Replying to @ProfMJCleveland 5/ And not just diplomacy but the fight against the common enemy--terrorists. pic.twitter.com/oDrv07EeP2
View conversation · Reply Retweet Like

Margot Cleveland @ProfMJCleveland

Margot Cleveland 5h
Replying to @ProfMJCleveland 6/ Read the --- damn transcript! General Flynn did not interfere with the Obama administration. The Obama administration interfered with the Trump administration. pic.twitter.com/XVT4D1f1Ay

Margot Cleveland @ProfMJCleveland

5h
Replying to @ProfMJCleveland 6/ Read the --- damn transcript! General Flynn did not interfere with the Obama administration. The Obama administration interfered with the Trump administration. pic.twitter.com/XVT4D1f1Ay
View conversation · Reply Retweet Like

Margot Cleveland @ProfMJCleveland

Margot Cleveland 5h
Replying to @ProfMJCleveland 7/ Even Russia saw that! pic.twitter.com/iie01PUy8t

Margot Cleveland @ProfMJCleveland

5h
Replying to @ProfMJCleveland 7/ Even Russia saw that! pic.twitter.com/iie01PUy8t
View conversation · Reply Retweet Like

Margot Cleveland @ProfMJCleveland

Margot Cleveland 5h
Replying to @ProfMJCleveland 8/ The focus was on following Trump's inauguration. pic.twitter.com/94Kg69TRte

Margot Cleveland @ProfMJCleveland

5h
Replying to @ProfMJCleveland 8/ The focus was on following Trump's inauguration. pic.twitter.com/94Kg69TRte
View conversation · Reply Retweet Like

Margot Cleveland @ProfMJCleveland

Margot Cleveland 5h
Replying to @JoeBiden 9/9 This entire 3-year nightmare for General Flynn all arose because a petty little man named Barack Obama demanded revenge. And @JoeBiden was right by his side. END

Margot Cleveland @ProfMJCleveland

5h
Replying to @JoeBiden 9/9 This entire 3-year nightmare for General Flynn all arose because a petty little man named Barack Obama demanded revenge. And @JoeBiden was right by his side. END
View conversation · Reply Retweet Like

Harmless Patsy @Harmless_Patsy

Harmless Patsy 5h
Replying to @ProfMJCleveland @Cernovich @GenFlynn I'm shocked at how much the fake news is lying about the transcripts by "summarizing" them when what they're saying directly contradicts what the transcripts say. This is how these fake news people work. They tell you what the document says and hope you don't read it.

Harmless Patsy @Harmless_Patsy

5h
Replying to @ProfMJCleveland @Cernovich @GenFlynn I'm shocked at how much the fake news is lying about the transcripts by "summarizing" them when what they're saying directly contradicts what the transcripts say. This is how these fake news people work. They tell you what the document says and hope you don't read it.
View conversation · Reply Retweet Like

Theo West @theodwest

Theo West 5h
Replying to @Harmless_Patsy @ProfMJCleveland and 2 others That's why I don't watch them. I follow real journalists, lawyers and investigators who tweet the real documents and substantiate what they say.

Theo West @theodwest

5h
Replying to @Harmless_Patsy @ProfMJCleveland and 2 others That's why I don't watch them. I follow real journalists, lawyers and investigators who tweet the real documents and substantiate what they say.
View conversation · Reply Retweet Like

[May 30, 2020] 'Nothing Improper, And FBI Knew It' Flynn Transcripts Released

May 29, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) released the transcripts between then-incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and Russian Ambassador Sergei Kisliak, which revealed that Flynn asked Russia to take "reciprocal" against sanctions levied by the Obama administration over interference in the 2016 US election.

" I ask Russia to do is to not, if anything, I know you have to have some sort of action, to only make it reciprocal; don't go any further than you have to because I don't want us to get into something that have to escalate tit-for-tat," Flynn told Kisyak.

12/23/16 - Flynn relays his goals about the Russia/US relationship.

Flynn: "We will not achieve stability in the Middle East without working with each other against this radical Islamist crowd."

It was never about collusion. pic.twitter.com/xN3twZYa6H

-- Techno Fog (@Techno_Fog) May 29, 2020

Despite clear evidence to the contrary, Former FBI agent Peter Strzok used that conversation as a basis to continue his investigation into whether Flynn was a potential Russian agent, according to recently unsealed court documents. The agency used the call as leverage to try to get the retired general to admit to a violation of the Logan Act - an obscure old law nearly a quarter-century old which prohibits private citizens from interfering in diplomacy (which, as it turns out, is standard practice among members of transitioning administrations).

FBI agent Joe Pientka, who interviewed Flynn with agent Strzok, wrote in his interview notes that he did not believe Flynn was lying to them during the interview - while other recently unsealed notes revealed that the FBI considered a perjury trap against Flynn to " get him fired ."

If there was a preexisting improper relationship between the Trump campaign and Russia, @GenFlynn would never have needed an official call with Kislyak to prevent the disaster the Obama admin was creating.

It's common sense if you're an honest broker.

-- John 'Murder Hornet' Cardillo (@johncardillo) May 29, 2020

'Scandal beyond Measure': @TomFitton says transcripts of the Flynn – Kislyak calls further prove General Flynn's innocence and the deep state's deception. #AmericaFirst #MAGA #Dobbs pic.twitter.com/99qggR1uDp

-- Lou Dobbs (@LouDobbs) May 29, 2020

After the FBI's malfeasance came to light, the DOJ moved to drop the case against Flynn - which US District Judge Emmet Sullivan has refused to do - instead asking a retired federal judge, John Gleeson, to provide legal arguments as to whether Sullivan should hold Flynn in criminal contempt for pleading guilty to FBI agents - which he now says he did not do.

Following the release of the transcripts , Sen. Grassley said in a statement: "Lt. General Flynn, his legal team, the judge and the American people can now see with their own eyes – for the first time – that all of the innuendo about Lt. General Flynn this whole time was totally bunk. There was nothing improper about his call, and the FBI knew it. "

The transcripts show that Flynn was acting in his country's best interests, and his only crime was bruising the fragile ego of the Obama team and their pathetic foreign policy https://t.co/P3nuifreUI

-- Buck Sexton (@BuckSexton) May 29, 2020

Earlier Friday, DNI John Ratcliffe declassified the transcripts and released them to Congress. See below:

[May 29, 2020] Andrew Weisdman, the attack dog of Mueller investigation, fundraiser links Creepy Joe to Russiagate and Mueller

May 29, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

The Biden campaign has quietly canceled a fundraiser headlined by Andrew Weissman - former special counsel Robert Mueller's 'attack dog' lawyer who hand-picked the so-called '13 angry Democrats.'

Weissman, who attended Hillary Clinton's election night party in 2016, donated to Obama and the DNC, yet somehow conducted an unbiased investigation that turned up snake-eyes, was set to do a June 2 "fireside chat" with Biden , according to the WSJ , which notes that the fundraiser was pulled right after it was posted late last week - shortly after the Trump campaign began to latch onto it.

Yes, there's more value in keeping the lie going that the mueller special counsel hasn't already been established beyond any doubt as a fraudulent and deeply unethical partisan takedown scheme against Trump https://t.co/5wuFYpgggr https://t.co/mxaHomTaQO

-- Buck Sexton (@BuckSexton) May 29, 2020

Weissman - known as the "architect" of the case against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort - notably reached out to a Ukrainian oligarch for dirt on Trump and his team days after FBI agent Peter Strzok texted "There's no big there there" regarding the Trump investigation in exchange for 'resolving the Firtash case' in Chicago, in which he was charged in 2014 with corruption and bribery linked to a US aerospace deal.

According to investigative journalist John Solomon, Firtash turned down Weissman's offer because he didn't have credible information or evidence against Trump , Manafort, or anyone else.

[May 28, 2020] U.S. Declares a Vaccine War on the World

Notable quotes:
"... The failure of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) against COVID-19, with nearly four times the annual budget of the WHO, is visible to the world. The CDC failed to provide a successful test for SARS-CoV-2 in the critical months of February and March , while ignoring the WHO's successful test kits that were distributed to 120 countries. ..."
"... Trump has yet to hold his administration and the CDC responsible for this criminal bungling. This, more than any other failure , is the reason that the U.S. numbers for COVID-19 are now more than 1.5 million and about a third of all global infections. Contrast this with China, the first to face an unknown epidemic, stopping it at 82,000 infections, and the amazing results that countries such as Vietnam and South Korea have produced. ..."
"... Taiwan was the first to inform the WHO of human-to-human transmissions in December, but was completely ignored. ..."
"... "Just how evil does this situation become? Is the general leadership of the American political economy trying to be evil just for the fun of it?" ..."
"... And at what point does the general indifference to this state of affairs that still, incredibly, obtains, turn over into mass outrage and condemnation? Skrelli, Bayer, and all the rest are frelling evil. Extortion writ large, with easily preventable death and suffering. ..."
"... As you note it's about profits. One of the disturbing condemnations of the now fading American Century, which most USians remain contentedly oblivious to is that during their watch as global hegemon, the US, in what can be seen, in the best light, as bad faith, worked to undermine the democratic functionality of international cooperative organizations like the WHO, the UN, etc. ..."
"... The intention of granting copyrights and patents was noble, to provide a limited monopoly on an invention or literary work for a limited period. IP has been distorted and twisted, extended to insane time limits to protect works that for any common sense thinkers have already become public domain (see, e.g. the Happy Birthday song, Mickey Mouse or re-formulation of a drug that's gone out of patent). Software should have had its own IP regime but that ship has sailed (thanks Bill G.). ..."
May 28, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Donald Trump launched a new vaccine war in May, but not against the virus. It was against the world. The United States and the UK were the only two holdouts in the World Health Assembly from the declaration that vaccines and medicines for COVID-19 should be available as public goods , and not under exclusive patent rights. The United States explicitly disassociated itself from the patent pool call, talking instead of "the critical role that intellectual property plays" -- in other words, patents for vaccines and medicines. Having badly botched his COVID-19 response, Trump is trying to redeem his electoral fortunes in the November elections this year by promising an early vaccine. The 2020 version of Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan is shaping up to be, essentially, " vaccines for us" -- but the rest of the world will have to queue up and pay what big pharma asks, as they will hold the patents.

In contrast, all other countries agreed with the Costa Rican proposal in the World Health Assembly that there should be a patent pool for all COVID-19 vaccines and medicines. President Xi said that Chinese vaccines would be available as a public good , a view also shared by European Union leaders . Among the 10 candidate vaccines in Phase 1 and 2 of clinical trials, the Chinese have five, the United States has three, and the UK and Germany have one each.

Trump has given an ultimatum to the World Health Organization (WHO) with a permanent withdrawal of funds if it does not mend its ways in 30 days. In sharp contrast, in the World Health Assembly (the highest decision-making body of the WHO), almost all countries, including close allies of the United States, rallied behind the WHO. The failure of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) against COVID-19, with nearly four times the annual budget of the WHO, is visible to the world. The CDC failed to provide a successful test for SARS-CoV-2 in the critical months of February and March , while ignoring the WHO's successful test kits that were distributed to 120 countries.

Trump has yet to hold his administration and the CDC responsible for this criminal bungling. This, more than any other failure , is the reason that the U.S. numbers for COVID-19 are now more than 1.5 million and about a third of all global infections. Contrast this with China, the first to face an unknown epidemic, stopping it at 82,000 infections, and the amazing results that countries such as Vietnam and South Korea have produced.

One issue is now looming large over the COVID-19 pandemic. If we do not address the intellectual property rights issue in this pandemic, we are likely to see a repeat of the AIDS tragedy . People died for 10 years (1994-2004) as patented AIDS medicine was priced at $10,000 to $15,000 for a year's supply, far beyond their reach. Finally, patent laws in India allowed people to get AIDS medicine at less than a dollar a day , or $350 for a year's supply. Today, 80 percent of the world's AIDS medicine comes from India. For big pharma, profits trumped lives, and they will continue to do so, COVID or no COVID, unless we change the world.

Most countries have compulsory licensing provisions that will allow them to break patents in case of epidemics or health emergencies. Even the WTO, after a bitter fight, accepted in its Doha Declaration (2001) that countries, in a health emergency, have the right to allow any company to manufacture a patented drug without the patent holder's permission, and even import it from other countries.

Why is it, then, that countries are unable to break patents, even if there are provisions in their laws and in the TRIPS Agreement? The answer is their fear of U.S. sanctions against them. Every year, the U.S. Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) issues a Special 301 Report that it has used to threaten trade sanctions against any country that tries to compulsorily license any patented product. India figures prominently in this report year after year, for daring to issue a compulsory license in 2012 to Natco for nexavar, a cancer drug Bayer was selling for more than $65,000 a year . Marijn Dekkers, the CEO of Bayer, was quoted widely that this was "theft," and "We did not develop this medicine for Indians We developed it for Western patients who can afford it."

This leaves unanswered how many people even in the affluent West can afford a $65,000 bill for an illness. But there is no question that a bill of this magnitude is a death sentence for anybody but the super-rich in countries like India. Though a number of other drugs were under also consideration for compulsory licensing at that time, India has not exercised this provision again after receiving U.S. threats.

It is the fear that countries can break patents using their compulsory licensing powers that led to proposals for patent pooling. The argument was that since many of these diseases do not affect rich countries, big pharma should either let go of their patents to such patent pools, or philanthropic capital should fund the development of new drugs for this pool. Facing the pandemic of COVID-19, it is this idea of patent pooling that emerged in the recent World Health Assembly , WHA-73. All countries supported this proposal, barring the United States and its loyal camp follower, the UK . The United States also entered its disagreement on the final WHA resolution, being the lone objector to patent pooling of COVID-19 medicines and vaccines, noting "the critical role that intellectual property plays in incentivizing the development of new and improved health products."

While patent pooling is welcome if no other measure is available, it also makes it appear as if countries have no other recourse apart from the charity of big capital. What this hides, as charity always does, is that people and countries have legitimate rights even under TRIPS to break patents under conditions of an epidemic or a health emergency.

The United States, which screams murder if a compulsory license is issued by any country, has no such compunction when its own interests are threatened. During the anthrax scare in 2001, the U.S. Secretary of Health issued a threat to Bayer under "eminent domain for patents" for licensing the anthrax-treatment drug ciprofloxacin to other manufacturers. Bayer folded, and agreed to supply the quantity at a price that the U.S. government had set. And without a whimper. Yes, this is the same Bayer that considers India as a "thief" for issuing a compulsory license!

The vaccination for COVID-19 might need to be repeated each year, as we still do not know the duration of its protection. It is unlikely that a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 will provide a lifetime immunity like the smallpox vaccine. Unlike AIDS, where the patient numbers were smaller and were unfortunately stigmatized in different ways, COVID-19 is a visible threat for everyone. Any attempt to hold people and governments to ransom on COVID-19 vaccines or medicines could see the collapse of the entire patent edifice of TRIPS that big pharma backed by the United States and major EU countries have built. That is why the more clever in the capitalist world have moved toward a voluntary patent pool for potential COVID-19 medicines and vaccines. A voluntary patent pool means that companies or institutions holding patents on medicines -- such as remdesivir -- or vaccines would voluntarily hand them over to such a pool. The terms and conditions of such a handover, meaning at concessional rates, or for only for certain regions, are still not clear -- leading to criticism that a voluntary patent pool is not a substitute for declaring that all such medicines and vaccines should be declared global public goods during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Unlike clever capital, Trump's response to the COVID-19 vaccine is to thuggishly bully his way through. He believes that with the unlimited money that the United States is now willing to put into the vaccine efforts, it will either beat everybody else to the winning post, or buy the company that is successful . If this strategy succeeds, he can then use "his" COVID-19 vaccine as a new instrument of global power. It is the United States that will then decide which countries get the vaccine (and for how much), and which ones don't.

Trump does not believe in a rule-based global order , even if the rules are biased in favor of the rich. He is walking out of various arms control agreements and has crippled the WTO . He believes that the United States, as the biggest economy and the most powerful military power , should have the untrammeled right to dictate to all countries. Threats of bombing and invasions can be combined with illegal unilateral sanctions ; and the latest weapon in his imaginary arsenal is withholding vaccines.

Trump's little problem is that the days of the United States being a sole global hegemon passed decades ago. The United States has shown itself as a fumbling giant and its epidemic response shambolic . It has been unable to provide virus tests to its people in time, and failed to stop the epidemic through containment/mitigation measures, which a number of other countries have done.

China and the EU have already agreed that any vaccine developed by them will be regarded as a public good. Even without that, once a medicine or a vaccine is known to be successful, any country with a reasonable scientific infrastructure can replicate the medicine or the vaccine, and manufacture it locally. India in particular has one of the largest generic drug and vaccine manufacturing capacities in the world. What prevents India, or any country for that matter, from manufacturing COVID-19 vaccines or drugs once they are developed -- only the empty threat of a failed hegemon on breaking patents?


Noel Nospamington , May 28, 2020 at 4:19 am

Clearly the Trump and Johnson administrations are completely wrong in not supporting that all COVID vaccines and medications be declared as public goods. This is an unprecedented global threat requiring unprecedented global response.

But as a Canadian I have to reluctantly admit, there are legimate reasons to oppose the WHO. Trump like a broken clock can be correct twice a day, even if he is wrong the other 1438 times a day.

The worst offence is that the WHO (World Health Organisation) is suppose to represent the world, and yet it deliberately excludes Taiwan, which it a known part of the world with 24 million people.

Taiwan was the first to inform the WHO of human-to-human transmissions in December, but was completely ignored. And Taiwan has best handled its response to the pandemic.

Personally I think that all countries should stop supporting the WHO until it restores Taiwan's observer status it previous had until 2016. The only other reasonable option would be to create an alternative health organisation to the WHO which does not exclude any part of the world.

The WHO also has other failings, including corruption, exorbitant travel expenses, and an unqualified president beholden to the CCP. But these failings pale in comparison to Taiwan's exclusion, and hopefully the other failings can be fixed within the organisation.

Amfortas the hippie , May 28, 2020 at 7:49 am

"Just how evil does this situation become? Is the general leadership of the American political economy trying to be evil just for the fun of it?"

And at what point does the general indifference to this state of affairs that still, incredibly, obtains, turn over into mass outrage and condemnation?
Skrelli, Bayer, and all the rest are frelling evil. Extortion writ large, with easily preventable death and suffering.

it did NOT begin with trump.It's been there for most of my life. What will it take for ordinary people to get mad enough about it all to do something about it?

Even in this article, the unspoken assumption is that our hands are somehow tied that these corps have agency far beyond anyone else's but those corps can be seized, and exist only at the pleasure of governments in the places they pretend to exist in.

They are a human creation an Egregore, set tottering about as if it were willful and alive but even Lefties treat them as untouchable godlike entities "oh, well lets appeal to "Benevolent Capital, instead "

"Behold, I show you the last man. 'What is love? What is creation? What is longing? What is a star?' thus asks the last man, and blinks. The earth has become small, and on it hops the last man, who makes everything small. His race is as ineradicable as the flea; the last man lives longest. 'We have invented happiness,'say the last men, and they blink. They have left the regions where it was hard to live, for one needs warmth. One still loves one's neighbor and rubs against him, for one needs warmth

One still works, for work is a form of entertainment. But one is careful lest the entertainment be too harrowing. One no longer becomes poor or rich: both require too much exertion. Who still wants to rule? Who obey? Both require too much exertion.

No shepherd and one herd! Everybody wants the same, everybody is the same: whoever feels different goes voluntarily into a madhouse. 'Formerly, all the world was mad,' say the most refined, and they blink

One has one's little pleasure for the day and one's little pleasure for the night: but one has a regard for health. 'We have invented happiness,' say the last men, and they blink.""

-Zarathustra

mpalomar , May 28, 2020 at 8:50 am

As you note it's about profits. One of the disturbing condemnations of the now fading American Century, which most USians remain contentedly oblivious to is that during their watch as global hegemon, the US, in what can be seen, in the best light, as bad faith, worked to undermine the democratic functionality of international cooperative organizations like the WHO, the UN, etc.

Thus when emergencies arise such as international diplomatic crisis or pandemics, it is found these organisations have been rendered untrustworthy, corrupted and unreliable; unsuited to purpose. American exceptionalism?

VietnamVet , May 28, 2020 at 5:55 am

It is clear now that the USA will not fund a national public health system to fight the coronavirus epidemic. The only conclusion is the reason is to allow Pharmaceutical Corporations to make huge profits by marketing patented drugs and vaccines to treat the illness; if and when, they become available sometime in the future.

Due to incompetence, lack of money and bad messengering; the economic reopening of the USA could kill close to a million Americans. To Republicans and Libertarians, this is of no concern. Democrats may acknowledge the deaths but say they are unavoidable.

For the Elite keeping their wealth is more important than spending a portion to prevent the huge costs in lives and treasure that will come once the Wuhan Coronavirus is established across North America like the related common cold.

Alternate Delegate , May 28, 2020 at 6:32 am

This is a teachable moment on the immorality of all "intellectual property". I am pleased to see that so many countries – other than the US and the UK – can get together on the common decency of allowing everyone to live, and set that above the "justice" of paying off intellectual property assignees. But these countries still have some ways to go in understanding that this applies to all information. That the creation of information can never be a living – in contrast to a living based on the creation of essential goods and services, about which we are learning so much right now! – and that information can never be owned.

They do not yet fully comprehend that all claims to own and extract rent from information are in fact crimes against humanity.

But they will. A teachable, as I said, moment.

Bugs Bunny , May 28, 2020 at 7:05 am

The intention of granting copyrights and patents was noble, to provide a limited monopoly on an invention or literary work for a limited period. IP has been distorted and twisted, extended to insane time limits to protect works that for any common sense thinkers have already become public domain (see, e.g. the Happy Birthday song, Mickey Mouse or re-formulation of a drug that's gone out of patent). Software should have had its own IP regime but that ship has sailed (thanks Bill G.).

Either a giant reform is due or people will ignore the law and infringe the IP. Chinese companies do it with impunity. Maybe they're right to do so.

John Wright , May 28, 2020 at 9:59 am

It appears that the USA has some real competition in the intellectual property game.

Per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Intellectual_Property_Indicators

Patent applications for the top 20 offices, 2018
Rank Country Patent applications
1 China 1,542,002
2 U.S. 597,141
3 Japan 313,567
4 South Korea 209,992

If one sums up USA patent applications vs Asia (China, Japan, SK), it is USA 597K vs Asia 2066K.

So Asia is putting in patent applications, vs the USA, at a 3.46 multiple vs the USA.

It will be interesting to see if the USA attitude about the sanctity of intellectual property changes when important key patents are held by the rest of the world.

timbers , May 28, 2020 at 8:33 am

Teachable moments. This could get really interesting if China or a non US & associated puppets develops an effect Covid treatment first.

I will dream of something like this: China develops vaccine, offers it free to US on condition it reduce it's Dept of War & Aggression by 80% and honor all existing and recently existing arms control agreement, and withdraws it's Naval forces though out the world and confines them to the North Atlantic and California coast.

ProNewerDeal , May 28, 2020 at 8:55 am

I wonder if a geopolitically powerful nation/bloc of nations such as China/India/etc might announce that they disregard pharma IP, & announce that they will adhere to the economist Dr Dean Baker-type policy of open source pharma R&D/recipe publication, any private manufacturer may manufacture & sell the resultant pharma SKU. I am referring to any type of pharma or medical device (such as ventilators), not just a COVID-19 vaccine. I would guesstimate that the "soft power" & goodwill generated by such a policy would be extremely beneficial to those nation(s). Furthermore, the US if it tried to retaliate via sanctions or other threats would get a corresponding additional decrease in soft power.

Raj , May 28, 2020 at 9:37 am

To be honest, in some instances Indian govt practices on pharma are quite bad. It is extremely hard in some instances to recoup investments at prices they ask for.

[May 28, 2020] AG Barr Asks Kavanaugh-Connected US Attorney To Probe Obamagate 'Unmaskings'

May 28, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

US Attorney for West Texas John Bash has been asked by AG Bill Bar to review the Obama administration's 'unmasking' practices from before and after the 2016 presidential election, according Fox News , citing the DOJ.

Meanwhile, DOJ spokeswoman Kerri Kupec told Fox News ' "Hannity" on Wednesday that US Attorney John Durham is also looking into the "unmasking," but that Bash has been assigned to dig deeper .

"Unmasking inherently isn't wrong, but certainly, the frequency, the motivation and the reasoning behind unmasking can be problematic, and when you're looking at unmasking as part of a broader investigation-- like John Durham's investigation-- looking specifically at who was unmasking whom, can add a lot to our understanding about motivation and big picture events," said Kupec.

Unmasking is a tool frequently used during the course of intelligence work and occurs after U.S. citizens' conversations are incidentally picked up in conversations with foreign officials who are being monitored by the intelligence community. The U.S. citizens' identities are supposed to be protected if their participation is incidental and no wrongdoing is suspected. However, officials can determine the U.S. citizens' names through a process that is supposed to safeguard their rights . In the typical process, when officials are requesting the unmasking of an American, they do not necessarily know the identity of the person in advance.

Republicans became highly suspicious of the number of unmasking requests made by the Obama administration concerning Flynn, and have questioned whether other Trump associates were singled out. - Fox News

In short, Bash - a trusted operator within the Trump administration - will dig even deeper into the Obama administration's use of unmasking against its political opponents.

[May 28, 2020] These FBI Docs Put Barack Obama In The Middle Of The 'Obamagate' Narrative

Looks like Strzok and Page played larger role in Obamagate/Russiagate then it was assumed initially
Notable quotes:
"... Just 17 days before President Trump took office in January 2017, then-FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok texted bureau lawyer Lisa Page, his mistress, to express concern about sharing sensitive Russia probe evidence with the departing Obama White House. ..."
"... Strzok related Priestap's concerns about the potential the evidence would be politically weaponized if outgoing Director of National Intelligence James Clapper shared the intercept cuts with the White House and President Obama, a well-known Flynn critic. ..."
"... "He, like us, is concerned with over sharing," Strzok texted Page on Jan. 3, 2017, relating his conversation with Priestap. ..."
"... The investigators are trying to determine whether Obama's well-known disdain for Flynn, a career military intelligence officer, influenced the decision by the FBI leadership to reject its own agent's recommendation to shut down a probe of Flynn in January 2017 and instead pursue an interview where agents might catch him in a lie. ..."
"... "The evidence connecting President Obama to the Flynn operation is getting stronger," one investigator with direct knowledge told me. ..."
"... Former Whitewater Independent Counsel Robert Ray said Friday that the Flynn matter was at the very least a "political scandal of the highest order" and could involve criminal charges if evidence emerges that officials lied or withheld documents to cover up what happened. ..."
"... "I imagine there are people who are in the know who may well have knowingly withheld information from the court and from defense counsel in connection with the Michael Flynn prosecution," Ray told Fox News . ..."
"... April 2014: Flynn is forced out as the chief of DIA by Obama after clashing with the administration over the Syrian civil war, the rise of ISIS, and other policies. The Obama administration blames his management style for the departure. ..."
"... Jan. 3, 2017: Strzok and Page engage in the text messages about Obama's daily briefing and the concerns about giving the Flynn intercept cuts to the White House. ..."
"... Jan. 4, 2017: Lead agent in Flynn Crossfire Razor probe prepares closing memo recommending the case be shut down for lack of derogatory evidence. Strzok texts agent asking him to stop the closing memo because the "7th floor" leadership of the FBI is now involved. ..."
"... Jan. 5, 2017: Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates attends Russia briefing with Obama at the White House and is stunned to learn Obama already knows about the Flynn-Kislyak intercept . Then-FBI Director James Comey claims Clapper told the president, but Clapper has denied telling Obama. ..."
"... Investigators are trying to determine whether Obama asked for the Flynn intercept or it was offered to him and by whom. They also want to know how many times Comey and Obama talked about Flynn in December 2016 and January 2017. ..."
"... "We need to determine what motivated the FBI on Jan. 4, 2017 to overrule its own agent who believed Flynn was innocent and the probe should be closed," one investigator said. ..."
"... Obama weaponized everything he could, ..."
"... The idea that Obama was the center of anything is misdirection. The 'deep state,' as much as I loathe the term, is nothing but State clerks bent by their sense of self importance, venality in the adherence to 'rules,' and motivated by either their greed or their indignation that their status position is merely relative. ..."
"... The Flynn persecution is just the tip of the iceberg of corruption, illegal surveillance, perjury, money laundering, skimming and sedition. ..."
"... One can only imagine all the times Obama weaponized the intelligence agencies against his political opponents that will never be exposed ..."
"... John and Sarah Carter have knocked it out of the park since the Obama attempted coup started. ..."
"... In Watergate, the underlying crime was "Nixon spied on the Democrats". Everything else was just a question of who did what, and how much. ..."
"... How come there's never any mention of "London Collusion", as if UK interference in U.S. politics and society is quite alright -- even when it's highly detrimental? ..."
"... Brennan went over and met with MI-6 right about the time that Trump announced his candidacy. I think the whole Russia-Collusion thing was their idea and they put Brennan on to it. Set it all up for him, complete with a diagram so he wouldn't **** it up. That's what MI-6 does. ..."
"... MI-6, like Christopher Steele, hated Trump because they BADLY want World Government. Have been sabotaging Brexit for years. ..."
"... It's easier for me to imagine Obama as puppet than a ringleader. He always seemed to be a fake, manufactured sort of person. As if he was focus-group-tested and approved. ..."
May 28, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by John Solomon via JustTheNews.com,

Agents fretted sharing Flynn intel with departing Obama White House would become fodder for 'partisan axes to grind.'

Just 17 days before President Trump took office in January 2017, then-FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok texted bureau lawyer Lisa Page, his mistress, to express concern about sharing sensitive Russia probe evidence with the departing Obama White House.

Strzok had just engaged in a conversation with his boss, then-FBI Assistant Director William Priestap, about evidence from the investigation of incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, codenamed Crossfire Razor, or "CR" for short.

The evidence in question were so-called "tech cuts" from intercepted conversations between Flynn and Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, according to the texts and interviews with officials familiar with the conversations.

Strzok related Priestap's concerns about the potential the evidence would be politically weaponized if outgoing Director of National Intelligence James Clapper shared the intercept cuts with the White House and President Obama, a well-known Flynn critic.

"He, like us, is concerned with over sharing," Strzok texted Page on Jan. 3, 2017, relating his conversation with Priestap.

"Doesn't want Clapper giving CR cuts to WH. All political, just shows our hand and potentially makes enemies."

Page seemed less concerned, knowing that the FBI was set in three days to release its initial assessment of Russian interference in the U.S. election.

"Yeah, but keep in mind we were going to put that in the doc on Friday, with potentially larger distribution than just the DNI," Page texted back.

Strzok responded, "The question is should we, particularly to the entirety of the lame duck usic [U.S Intelligence Community] with partisan axes to grind."

That same day Strzok and Page also discussed in text messages a drama involving one of the Presidential Daily Briefings for Obama.

"Did you follow the drama of the PDB last week?" Strzok asked.

"Yup. Don't know how it ended though," Page responded.

"They didn't include any of it, and Bill [Priestap] didn't want to dissent," Strzok added.

"Wow, Bill should make sure [Deputy Director] Andy [McCabe] knows about that since he was consulted numerous times about whether to include the reporting," Page suggested.

You can see the text messages recovered from Strzok's phone here.

The text messages, which were never released to the public by the FBI but were provided to this reporter in September 2018, have taken on much more significance to both federal and congressional investigators in recent weeks as the Justice Department has requested that Flynn's conviction be thrown out and his charges of lying to the FBI about Kislyak dismissed.

U.S. Attorney Jeff Jensen of Missouri (special prosecutor for DOJ), the FBI inspection division, three Senate committees and House Republicans are all investigating the handling of Flynn's case and whether any crimes were committed or political influence exerted.

The investigators are trying to determine whether Obama's well-known disdain for Flynn, a career military intelligence officer, influenced the decision by the FBI leadership to reject its own agent's recommendation to shut down a probe of Flynn in January 2017 and instead pursue an interview where agents might catch him in a lie.

They also want to know whether the conversation about the PDB involved Flynn and "reporting" the FBI had gathered by early January 2017 showing the incoming national security adviser was neither a counterintelligence nor a criminal threat.

"The evidence connecting President Obama to the Flynn operation is getting stronger," one investigator with direct knowledge told me.

"The bureau knew it did not have evidence to justify that Flynn was either a criminal or counterintelligence threat and should have shut the case down. But the perception that Obama and his team would not be happy with that outcome may have driven the FBI to keep the probe open without justification and to pivot to an interview that left some agents worried involved entrapment or a perjury trap."

The investigator said more interviews will need to be done to determine exactly what role Obama's perception of Flynn played in the FBI's decision making.

Recently declassified evidence show a total of 39 outgoing Obama administration officials sought to unmask Flynn's name in intelligence interviews between Election Day 2016 and Inauguration Day 2017, signaling a keen interest in Flynn's overseas calls.

Former Whitewater Independent Counsel Robert Ray said Friday that the Flynn matter was at the very least a "political scandal of the highest order" and could involve criminal charges if evidence emerges that officials lied or withheld documents to cover up what happened.

"I imagine there are people who are in the know who may well have knowingly withheld information from the court and from defense counsel in connection with the Michael Flynn prosecution," Ray told Fox News .

"If it turns out that that can be proved, then there are going to be referrals and potential false statements, and/or perjury prosecutions to hold those, particularly those in positions of authority, accountable," he added.

Investigators have created the following timeline of key events through documents produced piecemeal by the FBI over two years:

  • April 2014: Flynn is forced out as the chief of DIA by Obama after clashing with the administration over the Syrian civil war, the rise of ISIS, and other policies. The Obama administration blames his management style for the departure.
  • July 31, 2016: FBI opens Crossfire Hurricane probe into possible ties between Trump campaign and Russia, focused on Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos. Flynn is not an initial target of that probe.
  • Aug. 15, 2016: Strzok and Page engage in their infamous text exchange about having an insurance policy just in case Trump should be elected. "I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's office -- that there's no way he gets elected -- but I'm afraid we can't take that risk. It's like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you're 40," one text reads.
  • Aug. 16, 2016: FBI opens a sub-case under the Crossfire Hurricane umbrella codenamed Crossfire Razor focused on whether Flynn was wittingly or unwittingly engaged in inappropriate Russian contact.
  • Aug. 17, 2016: FBI and DNI provide Trump and Flynn first briefing after winning the nomination, including on Russia. FBI slips in an agent posing as an assistant for the briefing to secretly get a read on Flynn for the new investigation, according to the Justice Department inspector general report on Russia case. "SSA 1 told us that the briefing provided him 'the opportunity to gain assessment and possibly some level of familiarity with [Flynn]. So, should we get to the point where we need to do a subject interview ... would have that to fall back on,'" the IG report said.
  • Sept, 2, 2016: While preparing a talking points memo for Obama ahead of a conversation with Russian leader Vladimir Putin involving Russian election interference, Page texts Strzok that Obama wants to be read-in on everything the FBI is doing on the Russia collusion case. "POTUS wants to know everything we're doing," Page texted.
  • Sept. 5, 2016: During an international summit in China, Obama meets face-to-face with Putin and tells him to "cut it out" with election meddling.
  • Nov. 10, 2016: Two days after Trump won the election, the president-elect meets with Obama at the White House and the outgoing president encourages the incoming president not to hire Flynn as an adviser.
  • Jan. 3, 2017: Strzok and Page engage in the text messages about Obama's daily briefing and the concerns about giving the Flynn intercept cuts to the White House.
  • Jan. 4, 2017: Lead agent in Flynn Crossfire Razor probe prepares closing memo recommending the case be shut down for lack of derogatory evidence. Strzok texts agent asking him to stop the closing memo because the "7th floor" leadership of the FBI is now involved.
  • Jan. 5, 2017: Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates attends Russia briefing with Obama at the White House and is stunned to learn Obama already knows about the Flynn-Kislyak intercept . Then-FBI Director James Comey claims Clapper told the president, but Clapper has denied telling Obama.
  • Jan. 5–23, 2017: FBI prepares to conduct an interview of Flynn. The discussions lead Priestap, the assistant director, to openly question in his handwritten notes whether the bureau was "playing games" and trying to get Flynn to lie so "we can prosecute him or get him fired."
  • Jan. 24, 2017: FBI conducts interview with Flynn.

Investigators are trying to determine whether Obama asked for the Flynn intercept or it was offered to him and by whom. They also want to know how many times Comey and Obama talked about Flynn in December 2016 and January 2017.

"We need to determine what motivated the FBI on Jan. 4, 2017 to overrule its own agent who believed Flynn was innocent and the probe should be closed," one investigator said.


arrowrod , 26 minutes ago

Grenell comes in for a month, releases a **** load of "secret poop", then is replaced.

President Trump should fire the head of the FBI and replace with Grenell. I know, too easy.

"Expletive deleted", (I'm looking for new cuss words) the FBI and DOJ appear to be a bunch of stumble bum hacks, yet continue to get away with murder.

Schiff, lied and lied, but had immunity, because anything said on the house floor is safe from prosecution. Yet, GOP congress critters didn't go on the house floor and read the transcript from the testimony of the various liars.

"Rebellion to tyranny is obedience to God."-ThomasJefferson , 3 hours ago

Obama weaponized everything he could, including race, gender, religion, truth, law enforcement, judiciary, news industry, intelligence community, international allies and foes.

The most corrupt administration in the history of the republic. The abuse of power is mind numbing.

Only one way to rectify the damage the Obama administration has done to the USA is to systematically undo every single thing they touched.

Decimus Lunius Luvenalis , 3 hours ago

The idea that Obama was the center of anything is misdirection. The 'deep state,' as much as I loathe the term, is nothing but State clerks bent by their sense of self importance, venality in the adherence to 'rules,' and motivated by either their greed or their indignation that their status position is merely relative.

Soloamber , 3 hours ago

The motive was to get Flynn fired and lay the ground work to impeach Trump . The problem is Flynn actually did nothing wrong but he was targeted , framed , and blackmailed into claiming he lied over nothing illegal .

They destroyed his reputation , they financially ruined him and once they did that the sleazy prosecutors ran like rabbits . The judge is so in the bag , he bullied Flynn with implied threats about treason . The Judge is going to get absolutely fragged . Delay delay delay but the jig is up .

DOJ says case dropped and the Judge wants to play prosecutor . The Judge should be investigated along with the other criminals who framed Flynn . Who is the judge tied to ? Gee I wonder .

Nature_Boy_Wooooo , 4 hours ago

"As long as I'm alive the Republican party won't let anything happen to you."

"Thanks John McCain!......now let's set the trap."

"Let's do it Barry."

THORAX , 4 hours ago

The Flynn persecution is just the tip of the iceberg of corruption, illegal surveillance, perjury, money laundering, skimming and sedition.

subgen , 4 hours ago

One can only imagine all the times Obama weaponized the intelligence agencies against his political opponents that will never be exposed

sborovay07 , 5 hours ago

John and Sarah Carter have knocked it out of the park since the Obama attempted coup started. CNN should give their fake Pulitzers too the two reporters who told the truth. It been like the tree that falls in the forest. However, once the arrests start more people will see the tree that fell. These treasonists need to pay for their crimes Bigly.

Omni Consumer Product , 4 hours ago

There's too much spookology here for a jury - much less the public - to decipher.

You need a smoking gun, like a tape of Obama saying "I want General Flynn assassinated because Orange Man Bad".

In Watergate, the underlying crime was "Nixon spied on the Democrats". Everything else was just a question of who did what, and how much.

That's what is need here to swell the mass of public opinion. Of course, leftwing true believers of "the Resistance" will never accept it, but that is what is needed to convince the significant minority of more centrist Americans who haven't made a final decision yet.

Lux , 5 hours ago

How come there's never any mention of "London Collusion", as if UK interference in U.S. politics and society is quite alright -- even when it's highly detrimental?

fackbankz , 5 hours ago

The Crown took us over in 1913. We're just the muscle.

Lord Raglan , 5 hours ago

Brennan went over and met with MI-6 right about the time that Trump announced his candidacy. I think the whole Russia-Collusion thing was their idea and they put Brennan on to it. Set it all up for him, complete with a diagram so he wouldn't **** it up. That's what MI-6 does.

MI-6, like Christopher Steele, hated Trump because they BADLY want World Government. Have been sabotaging Brexit for years.

Brennan's just not smart or creative enough to have figured out the Hoax on his own. He's certainly corrupt enough.

flashmansbroker , 4 hours ago

More likely, the Brits were asked to do a favor.

Steele Hammorhands , 5 hours ago

It's easier for me to imagine Obama as puppet than a ringleader. He always seemed to be a fake, manufactured sort of person. As if he was focus-group-tested and approved.

Side Note: Does anyone remember when Obama referred to himself as "the first US president from Kenya" and then laughed about it?

The First Sitting American President to Come From Kenya

[May 27, 2020] Brennan ears over Guccifer 2.0 mask -- CIA is the most probable origin of Gussifer 2.0

If DNC was hack not a leak, then NSA would have all information about the hack.
May 27, 2020 | consortiumnews.com

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j1qOs0dE4I


P. Michael Garber , May 26, 2020 at 22:21

I'm afraid it won't matter how thorough the alternative media debunking of Russiagate becomes – as long as mainstream media sticks to the story, the neoliberal majority will too, because it is like catnip to them, absolving responsibility for the defeat, casting Clinton as the victim of an evil foreign despot, and delegitimizing Trump. Truth is tossed to the wind by this freight train of powerful interests.

I have little hope Barr and Durham will indict anyone high level.

Ray twice mentioned something about Sanders getting hosed again in the 2020 primary. I thought it seemed weird how suddenly the primary was declared "over." If there is evidence of DNC shenanigans in 2020, that would be a very interesting and timely topic.

Mark McCarty , May 25, 2020 at 21:25

On June 12, Assange announces Wikileaks will soon be releasing "emails pertinent to Hillary". On June 14th, Crowdstrike announces: someone, probably the Russians, has hacked the DNC and taken a Trump opposition research document; the very next day, G2.0 makes his first public appearance and posts the DNC's Trump oppo research document, with "Russian fingerprints" intentionally implanted in its metadata. (We now know that he had actually acquired this from PODESTA's emails, where it appears as an attachment – oops!) Moreover, G2.0 announces that he was the source of the "emails pertinent to Hillary" – DNC emails – that Assange was planning to release.

This strongly suggests that the G2.0 persona was working in collusion with Crowdstrike to perpetrate the hoax that the GRU had hacked the DNC to provide their emails to Wikileaks. Consistent with this, multiple cyberanalyses point to G2.0 working at various points In the Eastern, Central, and Western US time zones. (A mere coincidence that the DNC is in the eastern zone, and that Crowdstrike has offices in the central and western zones?)

If Crowdstrike honestly believed that the DNC had been hacked by the GRU, would there have been any need for them to perpetrate this fraud?

It is therefore reasonable to suspect, as Ray McGovern has long postulated, that Crowdstrike may have FAKED a GRU hack, to slander Russia and Assange, while distracting attention from the content of the released emails.

As far as we know, the only "evidence" that Crowdstrike has for GRU being the perpetrator of the alleged hack is the presence of "Fancy Bear" malware on the DNC server. But as cyberanalysts Jeffrey Carr and George Eliason have pointed out, this software is also possessed by Ukrainian hackers working in concert with Russian traitors and the Atlantic Council – with which the founders of Crowdstrike are allied.

Here's a key question: When Assange announced the impending release of "emails pertinent to Hillary" on June 12, how did Crowdstrike and G2.0 immediately know he was referring to DNC emails? Many people – I, for example – suspected he was referring to her deleted Secretary of State emails.

Here's a reasonable hypothesis – Our intelligence agencies were monitoring all communications with Wikileaks. If so, they could have picked up the communications between SR and Wikileaks that Sy Hersh's FBI source described. They then alerted the DNC that their emails were about to leaked to Wikileaks. The DNC then contacted Crowdstrike, which arranged for a "Fancy Bear hack" of the DNC servers. Notably, cyberanalysts have determined that about 2/3 of the Fancy Bear malware found on the DNC servers had been compiled AFTER the date that Crowdstrike was brought in to "roust the hackers".

Of course, this elaborate hoax would have come to grief if the actual leaker had come forward. Which might have had something to do with the subsequent "botched robbery" in which SR was slain.

Tim , May 25, 2020 at 20:33

How does the murder of the DNC staffer fit in?

Linda Wood , May 26, 2020 at 23:00

DNC staffer Seth Rich was murdered on July 10, 2016, amid contoversy over who provided DNC emails to Wikileaks and over a pending lawsuit concerning voter suppression during the 2016 primaries. Wikileaks offered a $20,000 reward for information about his murder, leading some to believe he was their source for the DNC emails. He was reported to have been a potential witness in the voter suppression lawsuit filed the day after his death.

mockingbirdpaper (dot) com/content/local-activist-files-suit-access-exit-polling-data-dead-witness-blocks-path-truth

[May 27, 2020] Obama/Brennan duo via Peter Strzok initiated anti-Trump witch hunt starting #Obamagate. Republicans supported this witch hunt. Trey Gowdy proved to be one of them and as such is a part of Obamagate scandal by Thomas Farnan

Obama ears protrude above this whole revaval of McCarthysim. he should end like the senator McCarthy -- disgraced. And the damage caused by RussiaGate was already done and is irrevocable.
May 27, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
Trump's Keyboard Warriors Get The Story While The Legacy Media Ignores #Obamagate Zero Hedge

Submitted by Thomas Farnan

CrowdStrike – the forensic investigation firm hired by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to inspect its computer servers in 2016 – admitted to Congressional investigators as early as 2017 that it had no direct evidence of Russian hacking, recently declassified documents show.

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." This was a crucial revelation because the thousand ships of Russiagate launched upon the positive assertion that CrowdStrike had definitely proven a Russian hack. This sworn admission has been hidden from the public for over two years, and subsequent commentary has focused on that singular outrage.

The next deductive step, though, leads to an equally crucial point: Circumstantial evidence of Russian hacking is itself flimsy and collapses when not propped up by a claim of conclusive forensic testing.

THE COVER UP.

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 is 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.

There already existed in Washington brooding suspicion that Vladimir Putin was working to influence elections in the West. The DNC and the Clinton campaign set out to retrofit that supposition to explain the emails.

On January 16, 2016, a silk-stocking Washington D.C. think tank, The Atlantic Council (remember that name), had issued a dispatch under the banner headline: "US Intelligence Agencies to Investigate Russia's Infiltration of European Political Parties."

The lede was concise: "American intelligence agencies are to conduct a major investigation into how the Kremlin is infiltrating political parties in Europe, it can be revealed."

There followed a series of pull quotes from an article that appeared in the The Telegraph , including that "James Clapper, the US Director of National Intelligence" was investigating whether right wing political movements in Europe were sourced in "Russian meddling."

The dispatch spoke of "A dossier" that revealed "Russian influence operations" in Europe. This was the first time trippy words like "Russian meddling" and "dossier" would appear together in the American lexicon.

Most importantly, the piece revealed the Obama administration was spying on conservative European political parties. This means, almost necessarily under the Five Eyes Agreement , foreign agents were returning the favor and spying on the Trump campaign.

Blaming Russia would be a handy way to deal with the Podesta emails. The problem was the technologically impossibility of identifying the perpetrator in a phishing scheme. The only way to associate Putin with the emails was circumstantially. The DNC retained CrowdStrike to provide assistance.

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 CrowdStrike's chief technology officer and co-founder, Dmitri Alperovitch, who also happens to be a senior fellow at 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 national affiliation.

CrowdStrike would later test the computers and declare this 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 on the internet 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.

THE FRAME UP.

Knowing as we now do that CrowdStrike never corroborated a hack by forensic analysis, the reasonable inference is that somebody was trying to frame Russia. Most likely, the entities that spent three years falsely leading the world to believe that direct evidence of a hack existed – CrowdStrike and the DNC – were the ones involved in the frame-up.

Lending weight to this theory: at the same moment CrowdStrike was raising a false Russian flag, a different entity, Fusion GPS – also paid by the DNC – was inventing a phony dossier that ridiculously connected Trump to Russia.

Somehow, the ruse worked.

Rather than report the content of the incriminating emails, the watchdog press instead reported CrowdStrike's bad explanation: that Putin-did-it.

Incredibly, Trump was placed on the defensive for email leaks that showed his opponent fixing the primaries. His campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, was forced to resign because a fake ledger suddenly appeared out of Ukraine connecting him to Russia.

Trump protested by stating the obvious: the federal government has "no idea" who was behind the hacks. The FBI and CIA called him a liar, issuing a " Joint Statement " that cited Guccifer 2.0, suggesting 17 intelligence agencies agree that it was the Russians.

Hillary Clinton took advantage of this "intelligence assessment" in the October debate to portray Trump as Putin's stooge"

"We have 17, 17 intelligence agencies, civilian and military who have all concluded that these espionage attacks, these cyber-attacks, come from the highest levels of the Kremlin. And they are designed to influence our election. I find that deeply disturbing," said Clinton.

The media's fact checkers excoriated Trump for lying. This was the ultimate campaign dirty trick: a joint operation by the intelligence agencies and the media against a political candidate. It has since been learned that the "17 intelligence agencies" claptrap was always false . Those responsible for the exaggeration were James Clapper, James Comey and John Brennan.

Somehow, Trump won anyway.

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.

Perhaps most insidiously, the Obama administration played the phony Russian interference card during the transition to try to end Trump's presidency before it started. As I wrote in December 2017:

Michael Flynn was indicted for a conversation he had with the Russian ambassador on December 28, 2016, seven weeks after the election.

That was the day after the outgoing president expelled 35 Russian diplomats -- including gardeners and chauffeurs -- for interfering in the election. Yes, that really happened.

The Obama administration had wiretapped Flynn's conversation with the ambassador, hoping to find him saying something they could use to support their wild story about collusion.

The outrage, for some reason, is not that an outgoing administration was using wiretaps to listen in on a successor's transition. It is that Flynn might have signaled to the Russians that the Trump administration would have a different approach to foreign policy.

How dare Trump presume to tell an armed nuclear state to stand down because everyone in Washington was in a state of psychological denial that he was elected?

Let's establish one thing early here: It is okay for an incoming administration to communicate its foreign policy preferences during a transition even if they differ from the lame duck administration .

.If anything, Flynn was too reserved in his conversation with the Russian ambassador. He should have said, "President-elect Trump believes this Russian collusion thing is a fantasy and these sanctions will be lifted on his first day in office."

That would have been perfectly legal. It also happens to be what FBI Director Comey and the rest were hoping Flynn would do. They wanted to get a Trump official on tape making an accommodation to the Russians.

The accommodation would then be cited to suggest a quid pro quo that proved the nonexistent collusion. Instead, Flynn was uncharacteristically noncommittal in his conversation with the ambassador. Drat!

They did have a transcript of what he said, though. This is where the tin-pot dictator behavior of Comey is fully displayed. He invited Flynn to be interviewed by the FBI, supposedly about Russian collusion to steal the election.

If you're Flynn, you say, "Sure, I want to tell you 15 different ways that there was no collusion and when do you want to meet."

What Flynn did not know was that the purpose of the interview had nothing to do with the election. It would be a test pitting Flynn's memory against the transcript.

Think about that for a moment. Comey did not need to ask Flynn what was said in the conversation with the ambassador -- he had a transcript. The only reason to ask Flynn about it was to cross him up.

That is the politicization of the FBI. It is everything Trump supporters rail against when they implore him to drain the swamp. The inescapable conclusion is that the FBI set a trap for the incoming national security advisor to affect the foreign policy of the newly elected president.

Flynn made the mistake of not being altogether clear about what he had discussed with the ambassador. In his defense, he did not believe he was sitting there to tell the FBI how the Trump administration was dealing with Russia going forward. The conversation was supposed to be about the election.

He certainly did not think the FBI would unmask his comments in a FISA wiretap and compare them to his answers. That would be illegal.

Exhibit 5 to the DOJ's recent Motion to Dismiss the Flynn indictment confirms the Obama administration's bad faith in listening in on his conversation with the ambassador. The plotters admit , essentially, that they looked at the transcript to see whether Flynn said anything that caused Russia to stand-down. Had General Flynn promised to lift the sanctions, the Obama administration would have claimed it was the pro quo that went with the quid of Putin's interference.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/KeSHRR5bMr0

After Trump's inauguration, the FBI and Justice Department launched a special counsel investigation that accepted, as a given, CrowdStrike's dubious conclusion that Russia had interfered in the election. The only remaining question was whether Trump himself colluded in the interference. There followed a two-year inquiry that did massive political damage to Trump and the movement that put him in office.

Tucker Carlson rightly made Trey Gowdy squirm recently for Republican acquiescence in the shoddy underpinnings of the Russia hoax. It was not only Gowdy, though. Establishment politicians and pundits have been all too willing for years to wallow in fabricated Russian intrigue , at the expense of the Trump presidency.

This perfectly illustrates Republican perfidy: Gifted with undeserved victory in a generational realignment that they were dragged to kicking and screaming, they proceed to question its source and validity. Because if Trump was a product of KGB- esque intrigue, then Hillary was a victim of meddling. Trump was a hapless beneficiary. The deplorables were not only racist losers, they were also Putin's unwitting stooges.

As I first noted in December 2016, the Washington establishment deliberately set out to fan Russian anxiety to conduct war against the Trump administration. Perhaps it is time to admit that those of us chided as " crazies " who doubted Russian interference – including Trump himself – were right all along.

In the after-action assessment of what went wrong, it should be noted that non-insiders are the ones who have called this from the beginning, in places like here , here , here , here , and here . That is partly what the president means when he Tweets support for his " keyboard warriors ." As Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany pointed out on Friday, the White House press corps has completely missed the story.

Thank you to all of my great Keyboard Warriors. You are better, and far more brilliant, than anyone on Madison Avenue (Ad Agencies). There is nobody like you!

-- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 15, 2020

This scandal is huge, much bigger than Watergate, and compromising in its resolution is destructive. If Republicans continue to stupidly concede phony Russian intrigue , the plotters will say they were justified to investigate it.

The recent CrowdStrike testimony drop ended any chance at middle ground. This was a rank political operation and indicting a few FBI agents is not going to resolve anything.

CrowdStrike's circumstantial evidence that launched this probe is ridiculous. We'll soon know if the Durham investigation has the will to defy powerful insiders of both parties and say so.

[May 26, 2020] News Stories Avoid Naming Israel by Philip Giraldi

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... In reality, the part left out of the story is that the phone call to Kislyak on December 22, 2016, was made by Flynn at the direction of Jared Kushner, who in turn had been approached by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu had learned that the Obama Administrating was going to abstain on a United Nations vote condemning the Israeli settlements policy, meaning that for the first time in years a U.N. resolution critical of Israel would pass without drawing a U.S. veto. Kushner, acting for Netanyahu, asked Flynn to contact each delegate from the various countries on the Security Council to delay or kill the resolution. Flynn agreed to do so, which included a call to the Russians. Kislyak took the call but did not agree to veto Security Council Resolution 2334, which passed unanimously on December 23 rd . ..."
"... The phone call made at the request of Israel was neither benign nor ethical as the Barack Administration was still in power and managing the nation's foreign policy. At the time, son-in-law Jared Kushner was Trump's point man on the Middle East. He and his family have extensive ties both to Israel and to Netanyahu personally, to include Netanyahu's staying at the Kushner family home in New York. The Kushner Family Foundation has funded some of Israel's illegal settlements and also a number of conservative political groups in that country. Jared has served as a director of that foundation and it is reported that he failed to disclose the relationship when he filled out his background investigation sheet for a security clearance. All of which suggests that if you are looking for possible foreign government collusion with the incoming Trumpsters, look no further. ..."
"... And it should be observed that the Israelis were not exactly shy about their disapproval of Obama and their willingness to express their views to the incoming Trump. Kushner went far beyond merely disagreeing over an aspect of foreign policy as he was actively trying to clandestinely subvert and reverse a decision made by his own legally constituted government. His closeness to Netanyahu made him, in intelligence terms, a quite likely Israeli government agent of influence, even if he didn't quite see himself that way. ..."
"... Kushner's actions, as well as those of Flynn, would most certainly have been covered by the Logan Act of 1799, which bars private citizens from negotiating with foreign governments on behalf of the United States and also could be construed as a "conspiracy against the United States." But in spite of all that the investigation went after Flynn instead of Kushner. As Kushner is Jewish and certainly could be accused of dual loyalty in extremis , that part of the story obviously makes many in the U.S. Establishment and media uncomfortable, so it was and continues to be both ignored and expunged from the record as quickly as possible. ..."
May 26, 2020 | www.unz.com

There are two stories that seem to have been under-reported in the past couple of weeks. The first involves Michael Flynn's dealings with the Russian United Nations Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. And the second describes yet another bit of espionage conducted by a foreign country directed against the United States. Both stories involve the State of Israel.

The bigger story is, of course, the dismissal by Attorney General William Barr of the criminal charges against former National Security Advisor General Michael Flynn based on malfeasance by the FBI investigators. The curious aspect of the story as it is being related by the mainstream media is that it repeatedly refers to Flynn as having unauthorized contacts with the Russian Ambassador and then having lied about it. The implication is that there was something decidedly shady about Flynn talking to the Russians and that the Russians were up to something.

In reality, the part left out of the story is that the phone call to Kislyak on December 22, 2016, was made by Flynn at the direction of Jared Kushner, who in turn had been approached by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu had learned that the Obama Administrating was going to abstain on a United Nations vote condemning the Israeli settlements policy, meaning that for the first time in years a U.N. resolution critical of Israel would pass without drawing a U.S. veto. Kushner, acting for Netanyahu, asked Flynn to contact each delegate from the various countries on the Security Council to delay or kill the resolution. Flynn agreed to do so, which included a call to the Russians. Kislyak took the call but did not agree to veto Security Council Resolution 2334, which passed unanimously on December 23 rd .

In taking the phone calls from a soon-to-be senior American official who would within weeks be part of a new administration in Washington, the Russians did nothing wrong, but the media is acting like there was some kind of Kremlin conspiracy seeking to undermine U.S. democracy. It would not be inappropriate to have some conversations with an incoming government team and Kislyak also did nothing that might be regarded as particularly responsive to Team Trump overtures since he voted contrary to Flynn's request.

The phone call made at the request of Israel was neither benign nor ethical as the Barack Administration was still in power and managing the nation's foreign policy. At the time, son-in-law Jared Kushner was Trump's point man on the Middle East. He and his family have extensive ties both to Israel and to Netanyahu personally, to include Netanyahu's staying at the Kushner family home in New York. The Kushner Family Foundation has funded some of Israel's illegal settlements and also a number of conservative political groups in that country. Jared has served as a director of that foundation and it is reported that he failed to disclose the relationship when he filled out his background investigation sheet for a security clearance. All of which suggests that if you are looking for possible foreign government collusion with the incoming Trumpsters, look no further.

And it should be observed that the Israelis were not exactly shy about their disapproval of Obama and their willingness to express their views to the incoming Trump. Kushner went far beyond merely disagreeing over an aspect of foreign policy as he was actively trying to clandestinely subvert and reverse a decision made by his own legally constituted government. His closeness to Netanyahu made him, in intelligence terms, a quite likely Israeli government agent of influence, even if he didn't quite see himself that way.

Kushner's actions, as well as those of Flynn, would most certainly have been covered by the Logan Act of 1799, which bars private citizens from negotiating with foreign governments on behalf of the United States and also could be construed as a "conspiracy against the United States." But in spite of all that the investigation went after Flynn instead of Kushner. As Kushner is Jewish and certainly could be accused of dual loyalty in extremis , that part of the story obviously makes many in the U.S. Establishment and media uncomfortable, so it was and continues to be both ignored and expunged from the record as quickly as possible.

The second story , which has basically been made to disappear, relates to spying by Israel against critics in the United States. The revelation that Israel was again using its telecommunications skills to spy on foreigners came from an Oakland California federal court lawsuit initiated by Facebook (FB) against the Israeli surveillance technology company NSO Group. FB claimed that NSO has been using servers located in the United States to infect with spyware hundreds of smartphones being used by attorneys, journalists, human rights activists, critics of Israel and even of government officials. NSO allegedly used WhatsApp, a messaging app owned by FB, to hack into the phones and install malware that would enable the company to monitor what was going on with the devices. It did so by employing networks of remote servers located in California to enter the accounts.

NSO has inevitably claimed that they do indeed provide spyware, but that it is sold to clients who themselves operate it with the "advice and technical support to assist customers in setting up" but it also promotes its products as being "used to stop terrorism, curb violent crime, and save lives." It also asserts that its software cannot be used against U.S. phone numbers.

Facebook, which did its own extensive research into NSO activity, alleges that NSO rented a Los Angeles-based server from a U.S. company called QuadraNet that it then used to launch 720 hacks on smartphones and other devices. It further claims in the court filing that the company reverse-engineering WhatsApp, using an program that it developed to access WhatsApp's servers and deploy "its spyware against approximately 1,400 targets" before " covertly transmit[ting] malicious code through WhatsApp servers and inject[ing]" spyware into telephones without the knowledge of the owners."

The filing goes on to assert that the "Defendants had no authority to access WhatsApp's servers with an imposter program, manipulate network settings, and commandeer the servers to attack WhatsApp users. That invasion of WhatsApp's servers and users' devices constitutes unlawful computer hacking."

NSO, which is largely staffed by former (sic) Israeli intelligence officers, had previously been in the news for its proprietary spyware known as Pegasus, which "can gather information about a mobile phone's location, access its camera, microphone and internal hard drive, and covertly record emails, phone calls and text messages." Pegasus was reportedly used in the killing of Saudi dissident journalist Adnan Kashoggi in Istanbul last year and it has more recently been suggested as a resource for tracking coronavirus distance violators. Outside experts have accused the company of selling its technology and expertise to countries that have used it to spy on dissidents, journalists and other critics.

Israel routinely exploits the access provided by its telecommunications industry to spy on the host countries where those companies operate. The companies themselves report regularly back to Mossad contacts and the technology they provide routinely has a "backdoor" for secretly accessing the information accessible through the software. In fact, Israel conducts espionage and influence operations both directly and through proxies against the United States more aggressively than any other "friendly" country, which once upon a time included being able to tap into the "secure" White House phones used by Bill Clinton to speak with Monica Lewinsky.

Last September, it was revealed that the placement of technical surveillance devices by Israel in Washington D.C. was clearly intended to target cellphone communications to and from the Trump White House. As the president frequently chats with top aides and friends on non-secure phones, the operation sought to pick up conversations involving Trump with the expectation that the security-averse president would say things off the record that might be considered top secret.

A Politico report detailed how "miniature surveillance devices" referred to as "Stingrays" were used to imitate regular cell phone towers to fool phones being used nearby into providing information on their locations and identities. According to the article, the devices are referred to by technicians as "international mobile subscriber identity-catchers or IMSI-catchers, they also can capture the contents of calls and data use."

Over one year ago, government security agencies discovered the electronic footprints that indicated the presence of the surveillance devices near the White House. Forensic analysis involved dismantling the devices to let them "tell you a little about their history, where the parts and pieces come from, how old are they, who had access to them, and that will help get you to what the origins are." One source observed afterwards that "It was pretty clear that the Israelis were responsible."

So two significant stories currently making the rounds have been bowdlerized and disappeared to make the Israeli role in manipulating and spying against the United States go away. They are only two of many stories framed by a Zionist dominated media to control the narrative in a way favorable to the Jewish state. One would think that having a president of the United States who is the most pro-Israel ever, which is saying a great deal in and of itself, would be enough, but unfortunately when dealing with folks like Benjamin Netanyahu there can never be any restraint when dealing with the "useful idiots" in Washington.

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] .

[May 26, 2020] Saagar Enjeti EXPOSES Russiagate Liar's Dem Candidacy -- Evelyn Farkas

Fantastic interview. all Obama gang should be prosecuted for their attempt of coup d'état. Farkas behaviors looks like standard operating procecure for the neocon scum
That an effective but dirty trick on the part of this neocon prostitute Evelyn Farkas : "Putin want me to lose, send me some money"
May 26, 2020 | www.youtube.com

Steve Conrad , 1 week ago

Farkas is running primarily for the same reason that Andy mccabes wife ran - so she can pick up her payment from the dnc in the form of campaign contributions. It's money laundering

Clinton Flynn , 1 week ago

Farkas is so toxic her eyes are trying to escape.

Greg James , 1 week ago

Will Mika have her back on and ask Farkas why she lied to her, and made her look like a fool?

Haters WannaHate , 1 week ago

Calling Russia-gaters conspiracy theorists is an insult to conspiracy theorists.

J Rosa , 1 week ago

Call these Russian haters Xenophobic and see their denials.

None , 1 week ago (edited)

Boom 12:03 Yes Saagar, that's what I was hollering! This is far more insidious. There was NO ONE in power that believed birtherism whereas the entire National Security apparatus pushed this bogus coup on the President. The NSA, CIA, FBI, and media were all complicit. Do not let Krystal get away with a false equivalence. She is bullshitting. Chuck Schumer even threatened Trump on national television saying that the intelligence agencies have six ways til Sunday to take you down.

George Johnson , 1 week ago

Military Industrial Complex Media only propagandizes.

Rene Flores, Sr. , 1 week ago

Obamagate is no longer a conspiracy theory. If you still believe it is you need new news sources

Chris Opall , 1 week ago

"Full service economy". Krystal nailed it.

Brian Malone , 1 week ago (edited)

The bottom line is millions brainwashed Democrats believe her, so it is as good as the truth.

charlie brown , 1 week ago

"Panties on fire" Farkas's nose grew 8 inches on my screen. DNC and lame left media are serial fairy tale story tellers.

JD PartyHat , 1 week ago

obama is evil because of his pushing american imperialism.

Tim Brady , 1 week ago (edited)

I wish Farcas had spent a bit more time talking on MSNBC , I'm sure she would have coughed up more material. I would also like to see her texts and phone calls received after that a appearance, I'm sure some Obama people were pulling their hair out as she was spilling the whole scenario and called her immediately after.

M , 6 days ago

I think Saagar is fantastic. He's like a softcore version of Tucker Carlson.

Cynthia Johnson , 1 week ago

Russiagate was built on the willingness of a lot of people to believe the worst about Trump. That's it. Which honestly says more about the narrow-mindedness of Trump haters than it does about Trump himself. Whatever Trump is or isn't, and I'm no Trump supporter though I never got seduced into hating him, the one truth to come out of this is that his haters don't care about evidence, or the rule of law, or even common sense.

Hav G Reso HGR , 1 week ago

So if Farkas says she was raped, someone will say "believe all women". BS.

Michael , 1 week ago

If Russian interference was as de-stabilizing to our democracy as these people would have led us to believe, then, how de-stabilizing would carelessly weaponizing it potentially be? These people have no place in government or any form of public discourse. They are a malignancy.

[May 26, 2020] 24 May 2020 at 03:00 PM

May 26, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com
div Was Flynn a complete idiot or already ont he hook and in a position not to deny McCabe reuaest not to use lawer? @Jim
So you can only conceive of three reasons for a person to "lawyer up"?
How about this: A badged employee of the government wish to ask you a few question. Just to help in their investigation of something or another. So you go in to be interrogated. Your interrogator has 20 years of employment and has done several interrogations a week for those 20 years. It is your first time being interrogated.
A smart person asks for a lawyer immediately. You are the pine rider for the little sisters of the poor and the interrogator is Nolan Ryan. You are Rudy the waterboy and the interrogator is Dick Butkus. You are a mook a skell, just another low life.
As a general rule, you get yourself a lawyer first before you answer anything. This is something General Flynn knew and ignored.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE
But, But, BUT I am innocent, I have nothing to hide, it is a citizens duty to "help" legitimate authority, I dindunuffin innocence is irrelevant. All of us have our secrets and our private things and you can become a liar to legal authority quicker than you can imagine just by one wrong word, or one nervous twitch, or a simple hesitation, even an ambiguity in your wording of some innocuous answer to some "unimportant" question.
You can ask the Colonel how interrogation works he spent many years honing his art.

Keith Harbaugh , 24 May 2020 at 04:44 PM

For how an innocent person can be caught in a perjury trap, read Chapters 18 and 19, "The FBI Comes Calling" and "Investigated By Mueller, Harassed By Congress" of K.T. McFarland's book "Revolution".

It only costs $9.99 at Google Play Store and IMO, is well worth it for those two chapters alone. (Hope that endorsement for the book is okay in context.)

[May 26, 2020] The court of appeals orders that Judge Sullivan respond in 10 days about the motion to dismiss in the Michael Flynn case - Sic

May 26, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Terence Gore , 22 May 2020 at 11:55 PM

https://original.antiwar.com/Reese_Erlich/2020/05/21/michael-flynns-forgotten-turkish-connection/

"In 2019, a federal jury convicted Flynn's business associate, Bijan Kian, on two felonies: conspiracy to violate lobbying laws and failure to register as a foreign agent for Turkey. Flynn was scheduled to testify against Kian but changed his story at the last minute, causing problems for the prosecution. The judge later tossed the verdict, saying the prosecution didn't prove its case.

As part of an overall deal with federal prosecutors, Flynn was never charged in connection with his lobbying for Turkey. It seems unlikely that he ever will"

I don't know much about this aspect of the Flynn Saga

blue peacock , 23 May 2020 at 11:33 AM
Rob

The DC Circuit court wants Sullivan to explain himself. That will be instructive as to why he wants Gleeson to provide a third party opinion of why Flynn should be charged with perjury.

Terence

This is one aspect of Flynn that seems a bit shady but very much in line with how DC trades in influence peddling. Apparently he was paid by Turkey to use his influence and put together a media campaign to get Gulen extradited to Turkey.

Terence Gore , 23 May 2020 at 01:23 PM
Blue Peacock

I've been hearing both positive and negative on the Gulen movement for years but like many things I don't feel I have a good handle on it.

https://carnegieendowment.org/2014/02/04/g-len-movement-and-turkish-soft-power-pub-54430
mostly positive article on gulen

https://www.newsweek.com/cia-graham-fuller-arrest-turkey-erdogan-gulen-dugin-coup-2016-zarrab-728425
a nothing to see here article on graham fuller

https://www.businessinsider.com/mueller-michael-flynn-intel-group-fethullah-gulen-turkey-trump-russia-2017-11
Flynn's ties to an anti gulen documentary

https://www.voltairenet.org/article178524.html
a negative article on graham fuller

[May 26, 2020] Who Deserves Impeachment More - Trump Or Schiff

May 26, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

... ... ...

But now let's take a look at Schiff's sins and see how they compare. Back in 2017, he was the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and therefore the man Democrats counted on to lead the charge that Trump had colluded with the Kremlin in order to steal the election. He did so with gusto. Quoting from a dossier prepared by ex-British MI6 agent Christopher Steele, he regaled a March 2017 committee hearing with tales of how Russia bribed Trump adviser Carter Page by offering him a hefty slice of a Russian natural-gas company known as Rosneft and of how Russian agents boosted Trump's political fortunes by hacking Hillary Clinton's emails and passing them on to WikiLeaks . Conceivably, such acts could have been purely coincidental, Schiff acknowledged.

"But it is also possible," he went on, "maybe more than possible, that they are not coincidental, not disconnected, and not unrelated, and that the Russians used the same techniques to corrupt U.S. persons that they have employed in Europe and elsewhere. We simply don't know, not yet, and we owe it to the country to find out."

Hours later, he assured MSNBC that the evidence of collusion was "more than circumstantial." Nine months after that, he informed CNN's Jake Tapper that the case was no longer in doubt: "The Russians offered help, the campaign accepted help, the Russians gave help, and the president made full use of that help." In February 2018, he told reporters: "There is certainly an abundance of non-public information that we've gathered in the investigation. And I think some of that non-public evidence is evidence on the issue of collusion and some on the issue of obstruction."

The press lapped it up .

But now, thanks to the May 7 release of 57 transcripts of secret testimony – transcripts, by the way, that Schiff bottled up for months – we have a better idea of what such "non-public information" amounts to.

The answer: nothing.

A parade of high-level witnesses told the intelligence committee that either they didn't know about collusion or lacked evidence even to venture an opinion. Not one offered the contrary view that collusion was true.

"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," testified ex-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch told the committee that no one in the FBI or CIA had informed her that collusion had taken place. Sally Yates, acting attorney general during the Obama-Trump transition, was similarly noncommittal. So were Obama speechwriter Ben Rhodes and former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe. David Kramer, a prominent neocon who helped spread word of the Steele dossier in top intelligence circles, was downright apologetic: "I'm not in a position to really say one way or the other, sir. I'm sorry."

But rather than admit that the investigation had turned up nothing, Schiff lied that it had – not once but repeatedly.

Let that sink in for a moment. Collusion dominated the headlines from the moment Buzzfeed published the Steele dossier on Jan. 10, 2017, to the release of the Muller report on Apr. 18, 2019. That's more than two years, a period in which newspapers and TV were filled with Russia, Russia, Russia and little else. Thanks to the uproar, acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein secretly discussed using the Twenty-fifth Amendment to force Trump out of office, while an endless parade of newscasters and commentators assured viewers that the president's days were numbered because " the walls are closing in ."

Schiff's only response was to egg it on to greater and greater heights. Even when Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller issued his no-collusion verdict – "the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities," his report said – Schiff insisted that there was still "ample evidence of collusion in plain sight."

"I use that word very carefully," he said, "because I also distinguish time and time again between collusion, that is acts of corruption that may or may not be criminal, and proof of a criminal conspiracy. And that is a distinction that Bob Mueller made within the first few pages of his report. In fact, every act that I've pointed to as evidence of collusion has now been borne out by the report. "

So Trump colluded with the Kremlin, but in a non-criminal way? Even if Mueller got Schiff in a headlock and screamed in his ear, "No collusion, no collusion," the committee chairman would presumably reply: "See? He said it – collusion."

The man is an unscrupulous liar, in other words, someone who will say anything to gain attention and fatten his war chest, which is why contributions flowing to his re-election campaign have risen from under $1 million a year to $10.5 million since the Russia furor began. The man talks endlessly about the Constitution, patriotism, his father's heroic service in the military, and so on. But the only thing Adam Schiff really cares about is himself.

Trump's sins are manifold. But with unerring accuracy, Schiff managed to zero in on the one sin that didn't take place. Considering that the $391 million was destined for ultra-right military units whose members sport neo-Nazi regalia and SS symbols as they battle pro-Russian separatists in the eastern Ukraine, Schiff's crimes are just as bad, if not worse. Ladies and gentlemen, we give you the next candidate for impeachment, the congressman from Hollywood – Adam Schiff!

[May 24, 2020] Guccifer 2.0 was always John Brennan 1.0

Highly recommended!
Images deleted.
False flag operation by CIA or CrowdStrike as CIA constructor: CIA ears protrude above Gussifer 2.0 hat.
Notable quotes:
"... Guccifer 2.0 fabricated evidence to claim credit for hacking the DNC (using files that were really Podesta attachments) . ..."
"... Guccifer 2.0’s Russian breadcrumbs mostly came from deliberate processes & needless editing of documents . ..."
"... Guccifer 2.0’s Russian communications signals came from the persona choosing to use a proxy server in Moscow and choosing to use a Russian VPN service as end-points (and they used an email service that forwards the sender’s IP address, which made identifying that signal a relatively trivial task.) ..."
"... A considerable volume of evidence pointed at Guccifer 2.0’s activities being in American timezones (twice as many types of indicators were found pointing at Guccifer 2.0’s activities being in American timezones than anywhere else). ..."
"... The American timezones were incidental to other activities (eg. blogging , social media , emailing a journalist , archiving files , etc) and some of these were recorded independently by service providers. ..."
"... A couple of pieces of evidence with Russian indicators present had accompanying locale indicators that contradicted this which suggested the devices used hadn’t been properly set up for use in Russia (or Romania) but may have been suitable for other countries (including America) . ..."
"... On the same day that Guccifer 2.0 was plastering Russian breadcrumbs on documents through a deliberate process, choosing to use Russian-themed end-points and fabricating evidence to claim credit for hacking the DNC, the operation attributed itself to WikiLeaks. ..."
"... Guccifer 2.0 chose to use insecure communications to ask WikiLeaks to confirm receipt of “DNC emails” on July 6, 2016. Confirmation of this was not provided at that time but WikiLeaks did confirm receipt of a “1gb or so” archive on July 18, 2016. ..."
"... The alleged GRU officer we are told was part of an operation to deflect from Russian culpability suggested that Assange “may be connected with Russians”. ..."
"... Guccifer 2.0 fabricated evidence to claim credit for hacking the DNC, covered itself (and its files) in what were essentially a collection of “Made In Russia” labels through deliberate processes and decisions made by the persona, and, then, it attributed itself to WikiLeaks with a claim that was contradicted by subsequent communications between both parties. ..."
"... While we are expected to accept that Guccifer 2.0’s efforts between July 6 and July 18 were a sincere effort to get leaks to WikiLeaks, considering everything we now know about the persona, it seems fair to question whether Guccifer 2.0’s intentions towards WikiLeaks may have instead been malicious. ..."
"... Guccifer 2.0 was always John Brennan 1.0 ..."
"... Was Guccifer II part of the Stefan Halper organization that lured Papadopoulos and maliciously maligned others? ..."
"... I believe Guccifer 2.0 was created by the CIA to falsely pin blame on the Russians for info that Seth Rich gave to WikiLeaks. Read for yourself: http://g-2.space/ ..."
May 24, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Tim Leonard via ConsortiumNews.com,

Why would an alleged GRU officer - supposedly part of an operation to deflect Russian culpability - suggest that Assange “may be connected with Russians?”

In December, I reported on digital forensics evidence relating to Guccifer 2.0 and highlighted several key points about the mysterious persona that Special Counsel Robert Mueller claims was a front for Russian intelligence to leak Democratic Party emails to WikiLeaks:

On the same day that Guccifer 2.0 was plastering Russian breadcrumbs on documents through a deliberate process, choosing to use Russian-themed end-points and fabricating evidence to claim credit for hacking the DNC, the operation attributed itself to WikiLeaks.

This article questions what Guccifer 2.0’s intentions were in relation to WikiLeaks in the context of what has been discovered by independent researchers during the past three years.

Timing

On June 12, 2016, in an interview with ITV’s Robert Peston, Julian Assange confirmed that WikiLeaks had emails relating to Hillary Clinton that the organization intended to publish. This announcement was prior to any reported contact with Guccifer 2.0 (or with DCLeaks).

On June 14, 2016, an article was published in The Washington Post citing statements from two CrowdStrike executives alleging that Russian intelligence hacked the DNC and stole opposition research on Trump. It was apparent that the statements had been made in the 48 hours prior to publication as they referenced claims of kicking hackers off the DNC network on the weekend just passed (June 11-12, 2016).

On that same date, June 14, DCLeaks contacted WikiLeaks via Twitter DM and for some reason suggested that both parties coordinate their releases of leaks. (It doesn’t appear that WikiLeaks responded until September 2016).

On June 15, 2016, Guccifer 2.0 appeared for the first time. He fabricated evidence to claim credit for hacking the DNC (using material that wasn’t from the DNC), used a proxy in Moscow to carry out searches (for mostly English language terms including a grammatically incorrect and uncommon phrase that the persona would use in its first blog post) and used a Russian VPN service to share the fabricated evidence with reporters. All of this combined conveniently to provide false corroboration for several claims made by CrowdStrike executives that were published just one day earlier in The Washington Post.

[CrowdStrike President Shawn Henry testified under oath behind closed doors on Dec. 5, 2017 to the U.S. House intelligence committee that his company had no evidence that Russian actors removed anything from the DNC servers. This testimony was only released earlier this month.]

First Claim Versus First Contact

On the day it emerged, the Guccifer 2.0 operation stated that it had given material to WikiLeaks and asserted that the organization would publish that material soon:

By stating that WikiLeaks would “publish them soon” the Guccifer 2.0 operation implied that it had received confirmation of intent to publish.

However, the earliest recorded communication between Guccifer 2.0 and WikiLeaks didn’t occur until a week later (June 22, 2016) when WikiLeaks reached out to Guccifer 2.0 and suggested that the persona send any new material to them rather than doing what it was doing:

[Excerpt from Special Counsel Mueller’s report. Note: “stolen from the DNC” is an editorial insert by the special counsel.]

If WikiLeaks had already received material and confirmed intent to publish prior to this direct message, why would they then suggest what they did when they did? WikiLeaks says it had no prior contact with Guccifer 2.0 despite what Guccifer 2.0 had claimed.

Needing To Know What WikiLeaks Had

Fortunately, information that gives more insight into communications on June 22, 2016 was made available on April 29, 2020 via a release of the Roger Stone arrest warrant application.

Here is the full conversation on that date (according to the application):

@WikiLeaks: Do you have secure communications?

@WikiLeaks: Send any new material here for us to review and it will have a much higher impact than what you are doing. No other media will release the full material.

@GUCCIFER_2: what can u suggest for a secure connection? Soft, keys, etc? I’m ready to cooperate with you, but I need to know what’s in your archive 80gb? Are there only HRC emails? Or some other docs? Are there any DNC docs? If it’s not secret when you are going to release it?

@WikiLeaks: You can send us a message in a .txt file here [link redacted]

@GUCCIFER_2: do you have GPG?

Why would Guccifer 2.0 need to know what material WikiLeaks already had? Certainly, if it were anything Guccifer 2.0 had sent (or the GRU had sent) he wouldn’t have had reason to inquire.

The more complete DM details provided here also suggest that both parties had not yet established secure communications.

Further communications were reported to have taken place on June 24, 2016:

@GUCCIFER_2: How can we chat? Do u have jabber or something like that?

@WikiLeaks: Yes, we have everything. We’ve been busy celebrating Brexit. You can also email an encrypted message to [email protected]. They key is here.

and June 27, 2016:

@GUCCIFER_2: Hi, i’ve just sent you an email with a text message encrypted and an open key.

@WikiLeaks: Thanks.

@GUCCIFER_2: waiting for ur response. I send u some interesting piece.

Guccifer 2.0 said he needed to know what was in the 88GB ‘insurance’ archive that WikiLeaks had posted on June 16, 2016 and it’s clear that, at this stage, secure communications had not been established between both parties (which would seem to rule out the possibility of encrypted communications prior to June 15, 2016, making Guccifer 2.0’s initial claims about WikiLeaks even more doubtful).

Claims DCLeaks Is A Sub-Project Of WikiLeaks

On June 27, 2016, in an email chain to the Smoking Gun (exposing Guccifer 2.0 apparently being in the Central US timezone), Guccifer 2.0 claimed that DCLeaks was a “sub-project” of WikiLeaks.

There’s no evidence to support this. “Envoy le” is also a mistake as standard French emails read: “Envoye le.” Claims allegedly made by Guccifer 2.0 in a Twitter DM to DCLeaks on September 15, 2016 suggest that he knew this was nonsense:

There was no evidence of WikiLeaks mentioning this to Guccifer 2.0 nor any reason for why WikiLeaks couldn’t just send a DM to DCLeaks themselves if they had wanted to.

(It should also be noted that this Twitter DM activity between DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 is alleged by Mueller to be communications between officers within the same unit of the GRU, who, for some unknown reason, decided to use Twitter DMs to relay such information rather than just communicate face to face or securely via their own local network.)

Guccifer 2.0 lied about DCLeaks being a sub-project of WikiLeaks and then, over two months later, was seen trying to encourage DCLeaks to communicate with WikiLeaks by relaying an alleged request from WikiLeaks that there is no record of WikiLeaks ever making (and which WikiLeaks could have done themselves, directly, if they had wanted to).

The ‘About 1GB’ / ‘1Gb or So’ Archive

On July 4, 2016, Guccifer 2.0 contacted WikiLeaks:

@GUCCIFER_2: hi there, check up r email, waiting for reply.

This was followed up on July 6, 2016 with the following conversation:

@GUCCIFER_2: have you received my parcel?

@WikiLeaks: Not unless it was very recent. [we haven’ t checked in 24h].

@GUCCIFER_2: I sent it yesterday, an archive of about 1 gb. via [website link]. and check your email.

@WikiLeaks: Wil[l] check, thanks.

@GUCCIFER_2: let me know the results.

@WikiLeaks: Please don’t make anything you send to us public. It’s a lot of work to go through it and the impact is severely reduced if we are not the first to publish.

@GUCCIFER_2: agreed. How much time will it take?

@WikiLeaks: likely sometime today.

@GUCCIFER_2: will u announce a publication? and what about 3 docs sent u earlier?

@WikiLeaks: I don’t believe we received them. Nothing on ‘Brexit’ for example.

@GUCCIFER_2: wow. have you checked ur mail?

@WikiLeaks: At least not as of 4 days ago . . . . For security reasons mail cannot be checked for some hours.

@GUCCIFER_2: fuck, sent 4 docs on brexit on jun 29, an archive in gpg ur submission form is too fucking slow, spent the whole day uploading 1 gb.

@WikiLeaks: We can arrange servers 100x as fast. The speed restrictions are to anonymise the path. Just ask for custom fast upload point in an email.

@GUCCIFER_2: will u be able to check ur email?

@WikiLeaks: We’re best with very large data sets. e.g. 200gb. these prove themselves since they’re too big to fake.

@GUCCIFER_2: or shall I send brexit docs via submission once again?

@WikiLeaks: to be safe, send via [web link]

@GUCCIFER_2: can u confirm u received dnc emails?

@WikiLeaks: for security reasons we can’ t confirm what we’ve received here. e.g., in case your account has been taken over by us intelligence and is probing to see what we have.

@GUCCIFER_2: then send me an encrypted email.

@WikiLeaks: we can do that. but the security people are in another time zone so it will need to wait some hours.

@WikiLeaks: what do you think about the FBl’ s failure to charge? To our mind the clinton foundation investigation has always been the more serious. we would be very interested in all the emails/docs from there. She set up quite a lot of front companies. e.g in sweden.

@GUCCIFER_2: ok, i’ll be waiting for confirmation. as for investigation, they have everything settled, or else I don’t know how to explain that they found a hundred classified docs but fail to charge her.

@WikiLeaks: She’s too powerful to charge at least without something stronger. s far as we know, the investigation into the clinton foundation remains open e hear the FBI are unhappy with Loretta Lynch over meeting Bill, because he’s a target in that investigation.

@GUCCIFER_2: do you have any info about marcel lazar? There’ve been a lot of rumors of late.

@WikiLeaks: the death? [A] fake story.

@WikiLeaks: His 2013 screen shots of Max Blumenthal’s inbox prove that Hillary secretly deleted at least one email about Libya that was meant to be handed over to Congress. So we were very interested in his co-operation with the FBI.

@GUCCIFER_2: some dirty games behind the scenes believe Can you send me an email now?

@WikiLeaks: No; we have not been able to activate the people who handle it. Still trying.

@GUCCIFER_2: what about tor submission? [W]ill u receive a doc now?

@WikiLeaks: We will get everything sent on [weblink].” [A]s long as you see \”upload succseful\” at the end. [I]f you have anything hillary related we want it in the next tweo [sic] days prefable [sic] because the DNC is approaching and she will solidify bernie supporters behind her after.

@GUCCIFER_2: ok. I see.

@WikiLeaks: [W]e think the public interest is greatest now and in early october.

@GUCCIFER_2: do u think a lot of people will attend bernie fans rally in philly? Will it affect the dnc anyhow?

@WikiLeaks: bernie is trying to make his own faction leading up to the DNC. [S]o he can push for concessions (positions/policies) or, at the outside, if hillary has a stroke, is arrested etc, he can take over the nomination. [T]he question is this: can bemies supporters+staff keep their coherency until then (and after). [O]r will they dis[s]olve into hillary’ s camp? [P]resently many of them are looking to damage hilary [sic] inorder [sic] to increase their unity and bargaining power at the DNC. Doubt one rally is going to be that significant in the bigger scheme. [I]t seems many of them will vote for hillary just to prevent trump from winning.

@GUCCIFER_2: sent brexit docs successfully.

@WikiLeaks: :))).

@WikiLeaks: we think trump has only about a 25% chance of winning against hillary so conflict between bernie and hillary is interesting.

@GUCCIFER_2: so it is.

@WikiLeaks: also, it’ s important to consider what type of president hillary might be. If bernie and trump retain their groups past 2016 in significant number, then they are a restraining force on hillary.

[Note: This was over a week after the Brexit referendum had taken place, so this will not have had any impact on the results of that. It also doesn’t appear that WikiLeaks released any Brexit content around this time.]

On July 14, 2016, Guccifer 2.0 sent an email to WikiLeaks, this was covered in the Mueller report:

It should be noted that while the attachment sent was encrypted, the email wasn’t and both the email contents and name of the file were readable.

The persona then opted, once again, for insecure communications via Twitter DMs:

@GUCCIFER_2: ping. Check ur email. sent u a link to a big archive and a pass.

@WikiLeaks: great, thanks; can’t check until tomorrow though.

On July 17, 2016, the persona contacted WikiLeaks again:

@GUCCIFER_2: what bout now?

On July 18, 2016, WikiLeaks responded and more was discussed:

@WikiLeaks: have the 1 Gb or so archive.

@GUCCIFER_2: have u managed to extract the files?

@WikiLeaks: yes. turkey coup has delayed us a couple of days. [O]therwise all ready[.]

@GUCCIFER_2: so when r u about to make a release?

@WikiLeaks: this week. [D]o you have any bigger datasets? [D]id you get our fast transfer details?

@GUCCIFER_2: i’ll check it. did u send it via email?

@WikiLeaks: yes.

@GUCCIFER_2: to [web link]. [I] got nothing.

@WikiLeaks: check your other mail? this was over a week ago.

@GUCCIFER_2:oh, that one, yeah, [I] got it.

@WikiLeaks: great. [D]id it work?

@GUCCIFER_2:[I] haven’ t tried yet.

@WikiLeaks: Oh. We arranged that server just for that purpose. Nothing bigger?

@GUCCIFER_2: let’s move step by step, u have released nothing of what [I] sent u yet.

@WikiLeaks: How about you transfer it all to us encrypted. [T]hen when you are happy, you give us the decrypt key. [T]his way we can move much faster. (A]lso it is protective for you if we already have everything because then there is no point in trying to shut you up.

@GUCCIFER_2: ok, i’ll ponder it

Again, we see a reference to the file being approximately one gigabyte in size.

Guccifer 2.0’s “so when r u about to make a release?” seems to be a question about his files. However, it could have been inferred as generally relating to what WikiLeaks had or even material relating to the “Turkey Coup” that WikiLeaks had mentioned in the previous sentence and that were published by the following day (July 19, 2016).

The way this is reported in the Mueller report, though, prevented this potential ambiguity being known (by not citing the exact question that Guccifer 2.0 had asked and the context immediately preceding it.

Four days later, WikiLeaks published the DNC emails.

Later that same day, Guccifer 2.0 tweeted: “@wikileaks published #DNCHack docs I’d given them!!!”.

Guccifer 2.0 chose to use insecure communications to ask WikiLeaks to confirm receipt of “DNC emails” on July 6, 2016. Confirmation of this was not provided at that time but WikiLeaks did confirm receipt of a “1gb or so” archive on July 18, 2016.

Guccifer 2.0’s emails to WikiLeaks were also sent insecurely.

We cannot be certain that WikiLeaks statement about making a release was in relation to Guccifer 2.0’s material and there is even a possibility that this could have been in reference to the Erdogan leaks published by WikiLeaks on July 19, 2016.

Ulterior Motives?

While the above seems troubling there are a few points worth considering:

  • There is a considerable volume of evidence that contradicts the premise of Guccifer 2.0 being a GRU operation.
  • The persona lied about WikiLeaks and even stated that Assange “may be connected with Russians”.
  • Guccifer 2.0’s initial claim about sending WikiLeaks material (and that they would publish it soon) appears to have been made without justification and seems to be contradicted by subsequent communications from WikiLeaks.
  • If the archive was “about 1GB” (as Guccifer 2.0 describes it) then it would be too small to have been all of the DNC’s emails (as these, compressed, came to 1.8GB-2GB depending on compression method used, which, regardless, would be “about 2GB” not “about 1GB”). If we assume that these were DNC emails, where did the rest of them come from?
  • Assange has maintained that WikiLeaks didn’t publish the material that Guccifer 2.0 had sent to them. Of course, Assange could just be lying about that but there are some other possibilities to consider. If true, there is always a possibility that Guccifer 2.0 could have sent them material they had already received from another source or other emails from the DNC that they didn’t release (Guccifer 2.0 had access to a lot of content relating to the DNC and Democratic party and the persona also offered emails of Democratic staffers to Emma Best, a self-described journalist, activist and ex-hacker, the month after WikiLeaks published the DNC emails, which, logically, must have been different emails to still have any value at that point in time).
  • On July 6, 2016, the same day that Guccifer 2.0 was trying to get WikiLeaks to confirm receipt of DNC emails (and on which Guccifer 2.0 agreed not to publish material he had sent them), the persona posted a series of files to his blog that were exclusively DNC email attachments.
  • It doesn’t appear any further communications were reported between the parties following the July 18, 2016 communications despite Guccifer 2.0 tweeting on August 12, 2016: “I’ll send the major trove of the #DCCC materials and emails to #wikileaks keep following…” and, apparently, stating this to The Hill too.
  • As there are no further communications reported beyond this point it’s fair to question whether getting confirmation of receipt of the archive was the primary objective for Guccifer 2.0 here.
  • Even though WikiLeaks offered Guccifer 2.0 a fast server for large uploads, the persona later suggested he needed to find a resource for publishing a large amount of data.
  • Despite later claiming he would send (or had sent) DCCC content to WikiLeaks, WikiLeaks never published such content and there doesn’t appear to be any record of any attempt to send this material to WikiLeaks.
  • Digital forensics evidence places Guccifer 2.0 in the Eastern (US) timezone on July 6, 2016, the day on which he was trying to get WikiLeaks to confirm receipt of DNC emails.

Considering all of this and the fact Guccifer 2.0 effectively covered itself in “Made In Russia” labels (by plastering files in Russian metadata and choosing to use a Russian VPN service and a proxy in Moscow for it’s activities) on the same day it first attributed itself to WikiLeaks, it’s fair to suspect that Guccifer 2.0 had malicious intent towards WikiLeaks from the outset.

If this was the case, Guccifer 2.0 may have known about the DNC emails by June 30, 2016 as this is when the persona first started publishing attachments from those emails.

Seth Rich Mentioned By Both Parties

WikiLeaks Offers Reward

On August 9, 2016, WikiLeaks tweeted:

In an interview with Nieuwsuur that was posted the same day, Julian Assange explained that the reward was for a DNC staffer who he said had been “shot in the back, murdered”. When the interviewer suggested it was a robbery Assange disputed it and stated that there were no findings.

When the interviewer asked if Seth Rich was a source, Assange stated, “We don’t comment on who our sources are”.

When pressed to explain WikiLeaks actions, Assange stated that the reward was being offered because WikiLeaks‘ sources were concerned by the incident. He also stated that WikiLeaks were investigating.

Speculation and theories about Seth Rich being a source for WikiLeaks soon propagated to several sites and across social media.

Guccifer 2.0 Claims Seth Rich As His Source

On August 25, 2016, approximately three weeks after the reward was offered, Julian Assange was due to be interviewed on Fox News on the topic of Seth Rich.

On that same day, in a DM conversation with the actress Robbin Young, Guccifer 2.0 claimed that Seth was his source (despite previously claiming he obtained his material by hacking the DNC).

Why did Guccifer 2.0 feel the need to attribute itself to Seth at this time?

[Note: I am not advocating for any theory and am simply reporting on Guccifer 2.0’s effort to attribute itself to Seth Rich following the propagation of Rich-WikiLeaks association theories online.]

Special Counsel Claims

In Spring, 2019, Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who was named to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. general election, delivered his final report.

It claimed:

Guccifer 2.0 contradicted his own hacking claims to allege that Seth Rich was his source and did so on the same day that Julian Assange was due to be interviewed by Fox News (in relation to Seth Rich).

No communications between Guccifer 2.0 and Seth Rich have ever been reported.

Suggesting Assange Connected To Russians

In the same conversation Guccifer 2.0 had with Robbin Young where Rich’s name is mentioned (on August 25, 2016), the persona also provided a very interesting response to Young mentioning “Julian” (in reference to Julian Assange):

The alleged GRU officer we are told was part of an operation to deflect from Russian culpability suggested that Assange “may be connected with Russians”.

Guccifer 2.0’s Mentions of WikiLeaks and Assange

Guccifer 2.0 mentioned WikiLeaks or associated himself with their output on several occasions:

  1. June 15, 2016: claiming to have sent WikiLeaks material on his blog.
  2. June 27, 2016: when he claimed DCLeaks was a sub-project of WikiLeaks.
  3. July 13, 2016: Joe Uchill of The Hill reported that Guccifer 2.0 had contacted the publication and stated: “The press gradually forget about me, [W]ikileaks is playing for time and have some more docs.”
  4. July 22nd, 2016: claimed credit when WikiLeaks published the DNC leaks.
  5. August 12, 2016: It was reported in The Hill that Guccifer 2.0 had released material to the publication. They reported: “The documents released to The Hill are only the first section of a much larger cache. The bulk, the hacker said, will be released on WikiLeaks.”
  6. August 12, 2016: Tweeted that he would “send the major trove of the #DCCC materials and emails to #wikileaks“.
  7. September 15, 2016: telling DCLeaks that WikiLeaks wanted to get in contact with them.
  8. October 4, 2016: Congratulating WikiLeaks on their 10th anniversary via its blog. Also states: “Julian, you are really cool! Stay safe and sound!”. (This was the same day on which Guccifer 2.0 published his “Clinton Foundation” files that were clearly not from the Clinton Foundation.)
  9. October 17, 2016: via Twitter, stating “i’m here and ready for new releases. already changed my location thanks @wikileaks for a good job!”

Guccifer 2.0 also made some statements in response to WikiLeaks or Assange being mentioned:

  1. June 17, 2016: in response to The Smoking Gun asking if Assange would publish the same material it was publishing, Guccifer 2.0 stated: “I gave WikiLeaks the greater part of the files, but saved some for myself,”
  2. August 22, 2016: in response to Raphael Satter suggesting that Guccifer 2.0 send leaks to WikiLeaks, the persona stated: “I gave wikileaks a greater part of docs”.
  3. August 25, 2016: in response to Julian Assange’s name being mentioned in a conversation with Robbin Young, Guccifer 2.0 stated: “he may be connected with Russians”.
  4. October 18, 2016: a BBC reported asked Guccifer 2.0 if he was upset that WikiLeaks had “stole his thunder” and “do you still support Assange?”. Guccifer 2.0 responded: “i’m glad, together we’ll make America great again.”.

Guccifer 2.0 fabricated evidence to claim credit for hacking the DNC, covered itself (and its files) in what were essentially a collection of “Made In Russia” labels through deliberate processes and decisions made by the persona, and, then, it attributed itself to WikiLeaks with a claim that was contradicted by subsequent communications between both parties.

Guccifer 2.0 then went on to lie about WikiLeaks, contradicted its own hacking claims to attribute itself to Seth Rich and even alleged that Julian Assange “may be connected with Russians”.

While we are expected to accept that Guccifer 2.0’s efforts between July 6 and July 18 were a sincere effort to get leaks to WikiLeaks, considering everything we now know about the persona, it seems fair to question whether Guccifer 2.0’s intentions towards WikiLeaks may have instead been malicious.


xxx 2 minutes ago (Edited)

Everything involving the Russian hoax was set up by the Deep States around the world. Implicate, discredit and destroy all those like Rich, Assange, Flynn and those who knew the truth. Kill the messenger....literally.

xxx 10 minutes ago

here's what really happened:

an American hacker breached Podesta's gmail on March 13 2016 and then uploaded it to Wikileaks via Tor sometime between April and May.

the NSA and CIA have hacked into Wikileaks' Tor file server to watch for new leaks to stay ahead of them to prepare. they saw Podesta's emails leaked and launched a counter infowar operation.

Brennan's CIA created the Guccifer 2.0 persona, with phony Russian metadata artifacts, using digital forgery techniques seen in Vault7. Crowdstrike was already on the premises of DNC since 2015, with their overly expensive security scanner watching the DNC network. Crowdstrike had access to any DNC files they wanted. CIA, FBI and Crowdstrike colluded to create a fake leak of DNC docs through their Guccifer 2.0 cutout. they didn't leak any docs of high importance, which is why we never saw any smoking guns from DNC leaks or DCLeaks.

you have to remember, the whole point of this CIAFBINSA operation has nothing to do with Hillary or Trump or influencing the election. the point was to fabricate criminal evidence to use against Assange to finally arrest him and extradite him as well as smear Wikileaks ahead of the looming leak of Podesta's emails.

if CIAFBINSA can frame Assange and Wikileaks as being criminal hackers and/or Russian assets ahead of the Podesta leaks, then they can craft a narrative for the MSM to ignore or distrust most of the Podesta emails. and that is exactly what happened, such as when Chris Cuomo said on CNN that it was illegal for you to read Wikileaks, but not CNN, so you should let CNN tell you what to think about Wikileaks instead of looking at evidence yourself.

this explains why Guccifer 2.0 was so sloppy leaving a trail of Twitter DMs to incriminate himself and Assange along with him.

if this CIAFBINSA entrapment/frame operation ever leaks, it will guarantee the freedom of Assange.

xxx 11 minutes ago

According to Wikipedia, "Guccifer" is Marcel Lazar Lehel, a Rumanian born in 1972, but "Guccifer 2.0" is someone else entirely.

Is that so?

xxx 20 minutes ago (Edited)

The guy from Cyrptome always asserted Assange was some type of deep state puppet, that he was connected somehow. This wouldn't be news to me and its probably why he was scared as hell. The guy is as good as dead, like S. Hussein. Seth Rich was just a puppet that got caught in the wrong game. He was expendable obviously too because well he had a big mouth, he was expendable from the beginning. Somebody mapped this whole **** out, thats for sure.

xxx 28 minutes ago

I am sick and tired of these Deep State and CIA-linked operations trying to put a wrench in the prosecution of people who were engaged in a coup d'etat.

xxx 29 minutes ago

********

xxx 33 minutes ago

At this point what difference does it make? We are all convinced since 2016. It is not going to convince the TDS cases roaming the wilderness.

No arrests, no subpoenas, no warrants, no barging in at 3 am, no perp walks, no tv glare...

Pres. Trump is playing a very risky game. Arrest now, or regret later. And you won't have much time to regret.

The swamp is dark, smelly and deep,

And it has grudges to keep.

xxx 37 minutes ago

Meanwhile- Guccifer 1.0 is still?

- In prison?

- Released?

- 48 month sentence in 2016. Obv no good behavior.

Nice article. Brennan is the dolt he appears.

xxx 41 minutes ago

+1,000 on the investigative work and analyzing it.

Sadly, none of the guilty are in jail. Instead. Assange sits there rotting away.

xxx 44 minutes ago

Why would an alleged GRU officer - supposedly part of an operation to deflect Russian culpability - suggest that Assange "may be connected with Russians?"

Because the AXIS powers of the CIA, Brit secret police and Israeli secret police pay for the campaign to tie Assange to the Russians...

xxx 45 minutes ago

@realDonaldTrump

A lot of interest in this story about Psycho Joe Scarborough. So a young marathon runner just happened to faint in his office, hit her head on his desk, & die? I would think there is a lot more to this story than that? An affair? What about the so-called investigator? Read story!

xxx 45 minutes ago

Why make it harder than it is? Guccifer II = Crowdstrike

xxx 51 minutes ago

Guccifer 2.0 was always John Brennan 1.0

xxx 58 minutes ago (Edited)

Was Guccifer II part of the Stefan Halper organization that lured Papadopoulos and maliciously maligned others?

xxx 1 hour ago

"His name was Seth Rich." The unofficial motto of ZeroHedge...

xxx 1 hour ago

James Guccifer Clapper.

xxx 1 hour ago

Mossad. And their subsidiary CIA.

xxx 1 hour ago

Crowd Strike CEO'S admission under oath that they had no evidence the DNC was hacked by the Russians should make the Russian Hoax predicate abundantly clear.

Justice for Seth Rich!

xxx 1 hour ago

Any influence Assange had on the election was so small that it wouldn't move the needle either way. The real influence and election tampering in the US has always come from the scores of lobbyists and their massive donations that fund the candidates election runs coupled with the wildly inaccurate and agenda driven collusive effort by the MSM. Anyone pointing fingers at the Russians is beyond blind to the unparalleled influence and power these entities have on swaying American minds.

xxx 1 hour ago

ObamaGate.

xxx 1 hour ago (Edited)

Uugh ONCE AGAIN... 4chan already proved guccifer 2.0 was a larp, and the files were not "hacked", they were leaked by Seth Rich. The metadata from the guccifer files is different from the metadata that came from the seth rich files. The dumb fuckers thought they were smart by modifying the author name of the files to make it look like it came from a russian source. They were so ******* inept, they must have forgot (or not have known) to modify the unique 16 digit hex key assigned to the author of the files when they were created..... The ones that seth rich copied had the system administrators name (Warren Flood) as the author and the 16 digit hex key from both file sources were the same - the one assigned to warren flood.

Really sloppy larp!!!

xxx 1 hour ago

This link has all the detail to show Guccifer 2.0 was not Russia. I believe Guccifer 2.0 was created by the CIA to falsely pin blame on the Russians for info that Seth Rich gave to WikiLeaks. Read for yourself: http://g-2.space/

xxx 1 hour ago

This is what people are. Now the species has more power than it can control and that it knows what to do with.

What do you think the result will be?

As for these games of Secret - it's more game than anything truly significant. The significant exists in the bunkers, with the mobile units, in the submarines. Et. al.

But this is a game in which some of the players die - or wish they were dead.

xxx 1 hour ago

And.....?

Public figures and political parties warrant public scrutiny. And didn't his expose in their own words expose the democrats, the mass media, the bureaucracy to the corrupt frauds that they are?

xxx 1 hour ago

Other than the fact that they didn't steal the emails (unless you believe whistleblowers are thief's, one mans source is another mans thief, it's all about who's ox is being gored and you love "leaks" don't you? As long as they work in your favor. Stop with the piety.

xxx 15 minutes ago

That's not the story at all. Did you just read this article?

The democrats were super duper corrupt (before all of this).

They fucked around to ice Bernie out of the primary.

A young staffer Seth Rich knew it and didn't like it. He made the decision to leak the info to the most reputable org for leaks in the world Wikileaks.

IF the DNC had been playing fair, Seth Rich wouldn't have felt the need to leak.

So, the democrats did it to themselves.

And then they created Russiagate to cover it all up.

And murdered a young brave man ... as we know.

xxx 1 hour ago

Assange, another problem Trump failed to fix.

xxx 1 hour ago

Sounds like it came from the same source as the Trump dossier ... MI5.

[May 24, 2020] Wouldn't it be more useful to allocate $ 250,000 to save someone's lives instead of "Exposing Russian Health Disinformation"

$250K can buy a lot of masks, probably over million ;-)
May 24, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

moscowexile May 24, 2020 at 4:10 am

Have they nothing better to do than peddle their Russophobia?

Wouldn't it be more useful to allocate $ 250,000 to save someone's lives, @StateDept ? Instead of "Exposing Russian Health Disinformation"
➡️ https://t.co/Hv3CydUgBX

📸 Medical aid 🇷🇺✈️🇺🇸 in NYC and Moscow pic.twitter.com/BVFxDVJJAH

-- Russia in USA 🇷🇺 (@RusEmbUSA) May 23, 2020

[May 24, 2020] About Pompeo threat to cut Australia from the fives eyes intelligence flows

From MoA comment 57: "Warmongering shit bags endlessly flatulent about their moral superiority while threatening to nuke nations on the other side of the globe daily. ... the greatness of the US consists of how gullible its hyper-exploited populace has been to a long series of Donald Trumps who use the resources of the land and people for competitive violence against other nations. the world heaves a collective hallelujah that this bullshit is about to end. "
Notable quotes:
"... Lets reverse that point, shall we. There is a US spy base in Australia at a place called Pine Gap. Without it being operational the USA would lose its 3 dimensional vision across the planet. ..."
"... This Bannon/Trump bluster is weak as p!ss as 'sharing intelligence' is the cornerstone of the five eyes perversion that gives the USA some superiority in intelligence matters. So if sharing intelligence were withdrawn by the USA with Australia it would have meaningless consequences. ..."
"... Pompeo is blathering bullsh!t and he knows it and we all know it ..."
May 24, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

uncle tungsten , May 25 2020 0:44 utc | 56

vk #4
Pompeo Warns US May Stop Sharing Intelligence With Australia Over Victoria Inking Deal With China's BRI

The battle for Australia's soul has begun.

Lets reverse that point, shall we. There is a US spy base in Australia at a place called Pine Gap. Without it being operational the USA would lose its 3 dimensional vision across the planet.

This Bannon/Trump bluster is weak as p!ss as 'sharing intelligence' is the cornerstone of the five eyes perversion that gives the USA some superiority in intelligence matters. So if sharing intelligence were withdrawn by the USA with Australia it would have meaningless consequences.

On the other hand if Australia ceased its intelligence sharing and shut down all the data traffic out of Australia - the USA would go ballistic. Not that the Oz government would ever do such a thing being a craven water carrier for the new world order etc...

Pompeo is blathering bullsh!t and he knows it and we all know it. Odd that you would reiterate his brainless threat vk.

[May 24, 2020] FBI Document Reveals That Without Direct Israeli 'Intervention' Trump Would Have Lost 2016 Election

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The explicit reference to Jerusalem appears later in the same document , in the context of communication between Stone and his unnamed contact in the Israeli capital. "On or about August 12, 2016, [NAME REDACTED] messaged STONE, "Roger, hello from Jerusalem. Any progress? He is going to be defeated unless we intervene. We have critical intell. The key is in your hands! Back in the US next week. How is your Pneumonia? Thank you. STONE replied, "I am well. Matters complicated. Pondering. R" The "he" is an apparent reference to Trump. ..."
"... Referring to the Israeli mentions in a report on the documents late Tuesday, the US website Politico noted: "The newly revealed messages often raise more questions than answers. They show Stone in touch with seemingly high-ranking Israeli officials attempting to arrange meetings with Trump during the heat of the 2016 campaign." ..."
"... Of course, this story is seen as a positive development from the Israeli (and evangelical) perspective because a Trump presidency was an essential part fulfilling an aggressive Zionist "wish list" which included moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, annexing the Golan Heights and the West Bank, and perhaps a major move against Iran in the second term. ..."
"... This story also explains why the jewish-controlled press saturated the airwaves with fake stories of "Russian" intervention in the election -- and why we will be seeing similar non-stop stories of "Chinese" intervention in the upcoming 2020 election in November. ..."
"... And Netanyahu hasn't wasted a second of Trump's presidency in expanding Israel's power, territory and influence. As one Jewish media pundit claimed , Donald Trump has been " the greatest president for Jews and for Israel in the history of the world." Trump has even bragged that he is so popular among Israelis that they would elect him Prime Minister if he ran. ..."
May 24, 2020 | christiansfortruth.com

According to recently released FBI documents, Donald Trump's longtime confidant, Roger Stone, who was convicted last year in Robert Mueller's investigation into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign, was in contact with one or more apparently well-connected Israelis at the height of the 2016 US presidential campaign, one of whom warned Stone that Trump was "going to be defeated" unless Israel intervened in the election :

The exchange between Stone and this Jerusalem-based contact appears in FBI documents made public on Tuesday. The documents -- FBI affidavits submitted to obtain search warrants in the criminal investigation into Stone -- were released following a court case brought by The Associated Press and other media organizations.

A longtime adviser to Trump, Stone officially worked on the 2016 presidential campaign until August 2015, when he said he left and Trump said he was fired. However he continued to communicate with the campaign, according to Mueller's investigation.

The FBI material, which is heavily redacted, includes one explicit reference to Israel and one to Jerusalem, and a series of references to a minister, a cabinet minister, a "minister without portfolio in the cabinet dealing with issues concerning defense and foreign affairs," the PM, and the Prime Minister . In all these references the names and countries of the minister and prime minister are redacted.

Benjamin Netanyahu was Israel's prime minister in 2016 , and the Israeli government included a minister without portfolio, Tzachi Hanegbi, appointed in May with responsibility for defense and foreign affairs. One reference to the unnamed PM in the material reads as follows:

"On or about June 28, 2016, [NAME REDACTED] messaged STONE, "RETURNING TO DC AFTER URGENT CONSULTATIONS WITH PM IN ROME. MUST MEET WITH YOU WED. EVE AND WITH DJ TRUMP THURSDAY IN NYC."

Netanyahu made a state visit to Italy at the end of June 2016 .

The explicit reference to Israel appears early in the text of a May 2018 affidavit by an FBI agent in support of an application for a search warrant, and relates to communication between Stone and Jerome Corsi, an American author, commentator and conspiracy theorist. " On August 20, 2016, CORSI told STONE that they needed to meet with [NAME REDACTED] to determine "what if anything Israel plans to do in Oct," the affidavit states .

The explicit reference to Jerusalem appears later in the same document , in the context of communication between Stone and his unnamed contact in the Israeli capital. "On or about August 12, 2016, [NAME REDACTED] messaged STONE, "Roger, hello from Jerusalem. Any progress? He is going to be defeated unless we intervene. We have critical intell. The key is in your hands! Back in the US next week. How is your Pneumonia? Thank you. STONE replied, "I am well. Matters complicated. Pondering. R" The "he" is an apparent reference to Trump.

The redacted material features numerous references to an "October surprise," apparently relating to a document dump by Wikileaks' Julian Assange, intended to harm Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and salvage Trump's .

Referring to the Israeli mentions in a report on the documents late Tuesday, the US website Politico noted: "The newly revealed messages often raise more questions than answers. They show Stone in touch with seemingly high-ranking Israeli officials attempting to arrange meetings with Trump during the heat of the 2016 campaign."

Mueller's investigation identified significant contact during the 2016 campaign between Trump associates and Russians, but did not allege a criminal conspiracy to tip the outcome of the presidential election.

This story first appeared last month, at the height of the COVID-19 plandemic, which conveniently and not coincidentally allowed all the mainstream media in America to ignore it.

Of course, this story is seen as a positive development from the Israeli (and evangelical) perspective because a Trump presidency was an essential part fulfilling an aggressive Zionist "wish list" which included moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, annexing the Golan Heights and the West Bank, and perhaps a major move against Iran in the second term.

This story also explains why the jewish-controlled press saturated the airwaves with fake stories of "Russian" intervention in the election -- and why we will be seeing similar non-stop stories of "Chinese" intervention in the upcoming 2020 election in November.

We can only guess what further information about Israel's involvement in the election was redacted from this FBI document, but there can be little doubt that the orders to help Trump win came from the very top -- from Netanyahu himself.

And Netanyahu hasn't wasted a second of Trump's presidency in expanding Israel's power, territory and influence. As one Jewish media pundit claimed , Donald Trump has been " the greatest president for Jews and for Israel in the history of the world." Trump has even bragged that he is so popular among Israelis that they would elect him Prime Minister if he ran.

And even if the brain-dead American public found out about this Israeli intervention (i.e., "subversion of our democracy"), they would probably just shrug it off -- after all, Israel is our "most trusted friend and ally," goyim .

[May 24, 2020] Obamagate as the reaction of managerial class neoliberals on the crisis of neoliberalism

Highly recommended!
May 24, 2020 | angrybearblog.com

likbez , May 24, 2020 8:22 pm

While Flynn is a questionable figure with his Iran warmongering and the former tenure as a Turkey lobbyist, it is important to understand that in Kislyak call he mainly played the role of Israel lobbyist. This important fact was carefully swiped under the carpet by FBI honchos.

Only the second and less important part of the call (the request to Russia to postpone the reaction after the Obama expulsion of diplomats) was related to Russia. Not sure it was necessary: Russia probably understood that this was a provocation and would wait for the dust to settle in any case. Revenge is a dish that is better served cold. Later Russia used this as a pretext to equalize the number of US diplomats in Russia with the number of Russian diplomat in the USA which was a knockdown for any color revolution plans in this country: people with the knowledge of the country and connections to its neoliberal fifth column were sent packing.

But Russian neoliberal compradors were decimated earlier after EuroMaydan in Kiev, so this was actually a service to the USA allowing to save the USA same money (as Trump acknowledged)

Also strange how former chief of DIA fell victim of such a crude trap administered by a second, if nor third rate person -- Strzok. Looks like he was already on the hook and, as such, defenseless for his Turkey lobbing efforts. Which makes Comey-McCabe attempt to entrap him look like a shooing fish in the tank.

Note to managerial class neoliberals (PMC). Your Russiagate stance is to be expected and has nothing to do with virtue.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/05/22/why-russiagate-still-matters/

it was the urban and suburban PMC that gets its news from the establishment press -- the New York Times, Washington Post and NPR, that believed and supported the story.

[May 24, 2020] Guccifer 2.0's Hidden Agenda : looks like Gussifer 2.0 was a false flag operation designed to smear WikiLeaks and distract from the content of the stolen by Seth Rich or some other insider DNC emails

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... With the entirety of Russigate finally collapsing under the enormous weight and stench of its own BS, the picture that is beginning to emerge for me is one of an insider deep-state psy-op designed to cover for the crimes committed by the DNC, the Clinton Foundation and the 2016 Hillary campaign; kill for the foreseeable future any progressive threat to the neo-liberal world order; and take down a president that the bipartisan DC and corporate media elite fear and loathe. And why do they fear him? Because he is free to call them out on certain aspects of their criminality and corruption, and has. ..."
"... Hubris, cynicism and a basic belief in the stupidity of the US public all seem to have played a part in all this, enabled by a corporate media with a profit motive and a business model that depends on duping the masses. ..."
"... Anyone who still believes in democracy in the USA has his head in the sand (or someplace a lot smellier). ..."
"... The corruption in the USA is wide and deep and trump is NOT draining the swamp. ..."
"... A further point: the Mueller report insinuates that G2.0 had transferred the DNC emails to Wikileaks as of July 18th, and Wikileaks then published them on July 22nd. This is absurd for two reasons: There is no way in hell that Wikileaks could have processed the entire volume of those emails and attachments to insure their complete authenticity in 4 days. ..."
"... Indeed, when Crowdstrike's Shawn Henry had been chief of counterintelligence under Robert Mueller, he had tried to set Assange up by sending Wikileaks fraudulent material; fortunately, Wikileaks was too careful to take the bait. ..."
May 24, 2020 | consortiumnews.com

Daniel P , May 23, 2020 at 13:34

Fascinating, important and ultimately deeply disturbing. This is why I come to Consortium News.

With the entirety of Russigate finally collapsing under the enormous weight and stench of its own BS, the picture that is beginning to emerge for me is one of an insider deep-state psy-op designed to cover for the crimes committed by the DNC, the Clinton Foundation and the 2016 Hillary campaign; kill for the foreseeable future any progressive threat to the neo-liberal world order; and take down a president that the bipartisan DC and corporate media elite fear and loathe. And why do they fear him? Because he is free to call them out on certain aspects of their criminality and corruption, and has.

Hubris, cynicism and a basic belief in the stupidity of the US public all seem to have played a part in all this, enabled by a corporate media with a profit motive and a business model that depends on duping the masses.

Anonymous , May 22, 2020 at 12:01

These convos alone look like a script kiddie on IRC doing their low functioning version of sock puppetry. Didn't know anyone at all fell for that

Ash , May 22, 2020 at 17:21

Because smooth liars in expensive suits told them it was true in their authoritative TV voices? Sadly they don't even really need to try hard anymore, as people will evidently believe anything they're told.

Bob Herrschaft , May 22, 2020 at 12:00

The article goes a long way toward congealing evidence that Guccifer 2.0 was a shill meant to implicate Wikileaks in a Russian hack. The insinuation about Assange's Russian connection was over the top if Guccifer 2.0 was supposed to be a GRU agent and the mention of Seth Rich only contradicts his claims.

OlyaPola , May 22, 2020 at 10:40

Spectacles are popular.Although less popular, the framing and derivations of plausible belief are of more significance; hence the cloak of plausible denial over under-garments of plausible belief, in facilitation of revolutions of immersion in spectacles facilitating spectacles' popularity.

Some promoters of spectacles believe that the benefits of spectacles accrue solely to themselves, and when expectations appear to vary from outcomes, they resort to one-trick-ponyness illuminated by peering in the mirror.

Skip Scott , May 22, 2020 at 08:35

This is a great article. I think the most obvious conclusion is that Guccifer 2.0 was a creation to smear wikileaks and distract from the CONTENT of the DNC emails. The MSM spent the next 3 years obsessed by RussiaGate, and spent virtually no effort on the DNC and Hillary's collusion in subverting the Sander's campaign, among other crimes.

I think back to how many of my friends were obsessed with Rachel Madcow during this period, and how she and the rest of the MSM served the Empire with their propaganda campaign. Meanwhile, Julian is still in Belmarsh as the head of a "non-state hostile intelligence service," the Hillary camp still runs the DNC and successfully sabotaged Bernie yet again (along with Tulsi), and the public gets to choose between corporate sponsored warmonger from column A or B in 2020.

Anyone who still believes in democracy in the USA has his head in the sand (or someplace a lot smellier).

Guy , May 22, 2020 at 12:19

Totally agree .The corruption in the USA is wide and deep and trump is NOT draining the swamp.

Cal Lash , May 22, 2020 at 01:20

I take it the mentioned time zones are consistent with Langley.

treeinanotherlife , May 22, 2020 at 00:34

"Are there only HRC emails? Or some other docs? Are there any DNC docs?"

G2 is fishing to see if Wiki has DNC docs. Does not say "any DNC docs I sent you". And like most at time thought Assange's "related to hillary" phrase likely (hopefully for some) meant Hillary's missing private server emails. For certain G2 is not an FBI agent>s/he knows difference between HRC and DNC emails.

Thank you for fantastic work.

Mark McCarty , May 21, 2020 at 22:24

A further point: the Mueller report insinuates that G2.0 had transferred the DNC emails to Wikileaks as of July 18th, and Wikileaks then published them on July 22nd. This is absurd for two reasons: There is no way in hell that Wikileaks could have processed the entire volume of those emails and attachments to insure their complete authenticity in 4 days.

Indeed, it is reasonable to expect that Wikileaks had been processing those emails since at least June 12, when Assange announced their impending publication. (I recall waiting expectantly for a number of weeks as Wikileaks processed the Podesta emails.) Wikileaks was well aware that, if a single one of the DNC emails they released had been proved to have been fraudulent, their reputation would have been toast. Indeed, when Crowdstrike's Shawn Henry had been chief of counterintelligence under Robert Mueller, he had tried to set Assange up by sending Wikileaks fraudulent material; fortunately, Wikileaks was too careful to take the bait.

Secondly, it is inconceivable that a journalist as careful as Julian would, on June 12th, have announced the impending publication of documents he hadn't even seen yet. And of course there is no record of G2.0 having had any contact with Wikileaks prior to that date.

It is a great pleasure to see "Adam Carter"'s work at long last appear in such a distinguished venue as Consortium News. It does credit to them both.

Skip Edwards , May 22, 2020 at 12:33

How can we expect justice when there is no justification for what is being done by the US and British governments to Julian Assange!

[May 24, 2020] Shadow of coronavirus over the US Presedential elections

Did Trump really lost "Over 65" voting block? If so he is cooked.
May 24, 2020 | www.globaltimes.cn

"The American people are miserable amid the epidemic, and their president is an eccentric who does not care about the safety of ordinary people and is good at passing the buck," Li said.

Many analysts have noted the epidemic in the US might not end before the US election , and Trump's repeated emphasis on work resumption would not take off as long as the coronavirus enjoys freedom to spread.

... ... ...

Ni Feng, director of the institute of American studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, told the Global Times the death notice of COVID-19 victims on the New York Times' front page could "deal a fatal blow to Trump's re-election" as most of the names on the front page were elderly people, his potential voters.

The elderly are always conservative, and thus most are potentially Trump's voters, Ni opined.

The voter turnout of the elderly is also higher than young people, said Ni, noting Trump's behavior will make the firmest supporters change their mind, "facing the crisis of life."

[May 24, 2020] Just take a look at the progressive schooling of 'diplomats' who end up in American ambassadorial and consular posts. Where do they come from? The Heritage Institute, Legatum, the American Enterprise Institute, and various other America-Triumphant think tanks

May 24, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Mark Chapman May 24, 2020 at 9:17 am

Just take a look at the progressive schooling of 'diplomats' who end up in American ambassadorial and consular posts. Where do they come from? The Heritage Institute, Legatum, the American Enterprise Institute, and various other America-Triumphant think tanks. Look at Michael McFaul, and his absurd just-a-ole-homeboy-who-loves-Russia video he put out before taking up his official duties in Moscow. And he barely had the dust of New York off his shoes before he was huddling with the Russian opposition. I don't know why Russia even affects to be surprised by their attitudes.

[May 24, 2020] Did coronavirus cooked Trump, including the erosion of his support by evangelicals?

May 24, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Po litico says that some recent polls showing the president's support among his white Christian base is eroding has prompted Trump to call for churches to re-open. Excerpts:

The anxiety over Trump's standing with the Christian right surfaced after a pair of surveys by reputable outfits earlier this month found waning confidence in the administration's coronavirus response among key religious groups, with a staggering decline in the president's favorability among white evangelicals and white Catholics. Both are crucial constituencies that supported Trump by wide margins in 2016 and could sink his reelection prospects if their turnout shrinks this fall.

The polls paint a bleak picture for Trump, who has counted on broadening his religious support by at least a few percentage points to compensate for weakened appeal with women and suburban populations. One GOP official said the dip in the president's evangelical support also appeared in internal party polling, but disputed the notion that it had caused panic. Another person close to the campaign described an April survey by the Public Religion Research Institute, which showed a double-digit decline in Trump's favorability among white evangelicals (-11), white Catholics (-12) and white mainline protestants (-18) from the previous month, as "pretty concerning."

More:

Following the PRRI survey, which was conducted while Trump was a dominant presence at televised daily briefings by his administration's coronavirus task force, Pew Research Center released new data last week that showed a 7-point increase from April to May in white Catholics who disapprove of Trump's response to the Covid-19 crisis and a 6-point decline among white evangelicals who previously gave him positive marks.

The open-the-churches call from Trump today is just rhetorical. The president doesn't have the power to re-open them; state governments do. The president is trying to send a signal that he is on the side of churchgoers. Not sure that's going to do the trick. From Politico:

It's unlikely that critics of church closings alone are responsible for the decline in Trump's favorability among critical religious demographics. According to the Pew survey, 43 percent of white evangelicals and 52 percent of white Catholics think the current restrictions on public activity in their areas are appropriate versus 42 percent and 31 percent, respectively, who think fewer restrictions would be better. Greater shares of white evangelicals and white Catholics also said they are more afraid about their state governments lifting restrictions on public activity too soon than they are about leaving the restrictions in place for too long.

Read it all.

Maybe the truth is that conservative Christians may prefer Trump to Biden on issues that matter to them, but his handling of the global pandemic overrides everything else this year. No doubt that many Christian voters would vote Trump no matter how he performed on pandemic response. Andrew Sullivan writes today:

A year ago precisely, Trump's approval rating was, in FiveThirtyEight's poll of polls, 53.8 percent disapprove, 41.1 percent approve. This week, the spread was 53.1 percent disapprove and 43 percent approve. Almost identical. None of the events of the last year -- impeachment, plague, economic collapse -- have had anything but a trivial impact on public opinion.

Sullivan unspools a merciless reel of Trump's failures in the crisis -- really crushing stuff. TAC's Bob Merry wrote earlier this week that Trump will probably lose this fall because he has not been a very good president. Excerpt:

It is true also that Trump's knot of popular support–about 43 percent of the electorate, based on approval surveys–is remarkably solid, willing to accept just about anything he does or says so long as he continues to attack those dastardly elites.

But presidential elections also don't turn on any incumbent's base of support. Reelection requires that a president build upon that base and create a governing coalition by bringing in new converts through Oval Office achievement. Richard Nixon, a 43 percent president following the 1968 election, pulled to his party much of the George Wallace constituency, nearly 14 percent of the popular vote in 1968. The result was a reelection landslide. Similarly, following the 1980 election Ronald Reagan pulled to his banner the so-called Reagan Democrats, which contributed to his margin of victory in numerous congressional battles and in his own landslide reelection in 1984.

Or consider the case of Bill Clinton, like Nixon a 43 percent president after his 1992 victory against incumbent George H. W. Bush and upstart candidate Ross Perot, who garnered 19 percent of the popular vote. Clinton had his head handed to him in the 1994 midterm elections following a sub-par performance during his first two years in office. But after that he brilliantly calibrated his leadership to capture a significant portion of the Perot vote. Thus did he build on his base through performance in office and become a two-term president.

Trump has proved himself incapable of this kind of political calibration. He can't even talk to those Americans who might be receptive to his policies but haven't yet joined up. He talks only to his base.

This is true. If Trump gets bad news, he blames the messenger. He attacked Fox News today over a poll showing him behind Biden nationally -- as if reporting what their poll actually found was an act of disloyalty. As Sullivan writes,

Directly challenging him, even when his numbers are wrong, appears to erode Mr. Trump's trust, according to former officials, and ultimately he stops listening. In other words, the officials who tell him things he doesn't want to believe are soon sidelined or fired.

Again, everybody knows that there is a solid rock of immovable Trump voters -- I'm guessing that the 44 percent of Republicans who believe that Bill Gates wants to inject microchips into people with a coronavirus vaccine are part of that crowd -- but they are not enough to win Trump a second term. What about everybody else? Why are those Christian voters who had a favorable opinion of Trump now abandoning him? I'd say a lot of it has to do with exhaustion. The country is facing a crisis like none it has seen in a century. It is crashing the economy. We can re-open, but if people start getting sick again, everybody's going to stay home. These people who are normally inclined to Trump, but now going off of him -- they're going to make the difference between victory and defeat for the president. And they're worn out with all this instability, and the stupid, pointless drama.

I mean, look at this. Whatever you think of Jeff Sessions, he stood by Trump early, when few others in Washington did. But he made the mistake of putting duty to the law above personal loyalty to Trump. This is the kind of thing that once upon a time, conservatives thought worth supporting. Trump has never forgiven him for it. Sessions is running for his old Senate seat back -- and Trump is trying to keep him from getting it. Look:

. @realdonaldtrump Look, I know your anger, but recusal was required by law. I did my duty & you're damn fortunate I did. It protected the rule of law & resulted in your exoneration. Your personal feelings don't dictate who Alabama picks as their senator, the people of Alabama do. https://t.co/QQKHNAgmiE

-- Jeff Sessions (@jeffsessions) May 23, 2020

See what I mean? What is the point of doing this to Jeff Sessions, except spite? I mean, come on, Jeff Sessions? Really? There are a certain number of conservatives who are just fed up with crap like this, and can't stand the thought of four more years of it.

That's my guess -- but then, I'm talking about somebody like myself: never a fan of Trump, and genuinely frightened about what a Democrat in the White House would do, especially if the Dems take the Senate (which they will likely do if Trump loses in a landslide). But nobody knows what the future holds for the country in this pandemic, either in terms of public health or the economy. Can we risk four more years of this chaos and craziness and overall incompetence, especially not knowing what's ahead on the virus and the economy? Is that prospect scarier than a Democratic president and Democratic Senate naming and confirming judges?

Maybe. I did not imagine anything like this in January, but then, I didn't imagine that we would get to Memorial Day weekend with almost 100,000 Americans dead, and 40 million unemployed.

UPDATE: Reader Daniel (Not Larison)'s comment resonates with me:

This Pandemic, and the response to it, and the response of the public to the response, has left me utterly exhausted.

My Facebook feed is getting crammed with my conservative friend's fear-mongering about how (a) the virus is just a "cold", (b) the official death counts are greatly exaggerated (through wide-spread incompetence and fraud), (c) the left is using this crisis to destroy our freedoms, (d) masks are tyranny, (e) Trump's response has been perfect, (f) blue state governors want to gain power and destroy their economies just to make Trump look bad, and (g) the people who died would have died from something else any way. Sprinkled among these responses are things like the Gates microchip thing, 5g causes the virus, it's really Obama's fault, etc.

Sometimes they post some actual true information, like the errors of 4 states in double-counting positive test results or that congressional democrats did try to pack the COVID-19 relief bill with a wishlist of progressive causes. But mostly I see wild assertions and baseless accusations. Anyone who agrees with Trump is smart and can be trusted, anyone who disagrees with him is stupid and/or evil.

It truly is remarkable how even this kind of a crisis has been politicized. There is nearly a perfect correlation between COVID-19 skepticism and Trump support. Tens of thousands of health professionals and medical examiners committing fraud or incompetent by including COVID-19 as a cause of death? Certainly, if it makes Trump look bad. Dozens of other nations adopting similar policies to blue governors? Yeah, they're crashing their economies because they hate Trump, too.

It is utter madness. Rather than respecting genuine differences in opinion, rather than arguing with facts and data, we are responding with hatred, contempt, and raw emotion.

The left certainly is not above this–as we have seen in issues like transgenderism and Project 1619, the left certainly has engaged in this and continues to do so. I've lost count of how many liberal friends I've had to stop following on Facebook because of their utter contempt not just of Trump, but of anyone who would dare express support for him or his policies. And their cursing like sailors they wear like a badge of honor, as of it's a mark of liberation.

Weimar America, truly. We're facing a dual crisis of health and economic collapse that we hadn't seen in a century, and rather than rising to the occasion, many of us are just attacking each other. It reminds me of what Josephus wrote in "The Jewish War" about the Jews, under siege by Roman forces in an incredibly over packed Jerusalem, were busy killing each other rather than facing the enemies outside.

Perhaps I am just a pessimist. Certainly not all Americans are rigidly divided into Team Red and Team Blue–maybe not even the majority. But enough are for me to lose much of my hope for the future of this country.

Yet I know God is in control, and this could very well be a manifestation of his judgment on our wicked, wicked culture. Or even from a secular perspective, our culture has built such a toxic response to crisis that we cannot survive. Either way, without change, I cannot see us surviving as a unified nation and people (if we truly are any more) too far into the future.


William Anderson a day ago

Rod, there is one thing you left out of the article: Democrats have made it absolutely clear that they hate white evangelicals and their campaign rhetoric will be quite incendiary on any issues of Christianity and society. At best, they will tell evangelicals that they should be more like the so-called Religious Left (Sojourners, Natalie Bolz-Weber, etc.) and at worst, they will sound like Beto O'Rourke when he called for taxing churches that did not change their theology to welcome homosexuality and transgenderism.

Biden already has declared that transgender rights are "today's civil rights issue," and I expect him to double down on his commitment there. Furthermore, given his tendency to say outrageous things, you can bet he will be going right up to the line to where he declares the Bible to be hate speech, and he is going to outright threaten evangelicals. He will go radical on abortion rights and let it be known that churches that do not support open-ended abortions to the time of birth (paid for by taxpayers) are going to face the wrath of his administration.

Does anyone believe Biden will be silent on these issues or be anything but in-your-face incendiary? Now, Donald Trump will not respond very well, since Trump doesn't respond very well on anything and he almost surely will say and do things that will partially neutralize this advantage that Biden will drop into his lap. Nonetheless, Joe Biden will be absolutely clear that he hates evangelicals and means to do them harm if he is elected. Given that much of secular America feels the same way, it probably will get him votes on the left.

ReplyShare ›
Beowulf 21 hours ago
In political years, five months is like a few generations these days. Trump is not anyone's idea of an effective president but I think it is way too early to see how corona affects him. I suspect most of his supporters think this is a hoax anyway and the people really freaked out by corona weren't voting for Trump in the first place.

As to Trump's performance on corona, how is that going to be assessed? I'd assume by lives lost and economic damage. But corona has hit a lot of countries. If Trump's bumblings actually had an effect, how would we know except by comparison? In the good 'ol moneyball stats there is a
metric called "value over replacement player" (VORP) where you compare the performance your player in question to the performance you would get from the average replacement. Just because you are disappointed in the performance of your player doesn't mean you can expect to get much
better from replacing him. It could turn out he's close to the average.

So if we are looking at stats to assess Trump, we are gonna have to moneyball it. Which leader are we going to compare Trump to? Which country "did things right"? What's our baseline? Our average replacement player? I don't think any of us can say right now which countries did things right. It is too early, we don't know enough about corona and we don't know the ways in which the decisions of leaders have affected the outcome or failed to affect it. In terms of deaths per million, U.S. seems pretty average. Plenty of countries in Europe with leaders who "listen to experts" have far higher deaths per million at the moment. Belgium, Sweden, Netherlands, UK, Italy, France, Spain all look worse than us.

None of this is to attribute any real skill to Trump, but in a situation where there is no prospective
criteria by which to identify who has the wisdom to navigate the situation (only retrospective analysis of the data of countries that all tried different things) you might rather be lucky than good.

Heroic Fool 21 hours ago
I'm genuinely puzzled as to where you and Politico are coming to this conclusion based on the evidence presented. Looking at the data used in the article, it appears that Trump's approval rating among certain groups felt a bump around the time when the main COVID panic started, and then, a month later decreased to....where it was at the beginning of the year. His overall approval/disapproval rating is still more or less the same as it had been throughout his presidency, and more interestingly, Trump's approval among his "core base" has increased significantly compared to 2017, not to mention 2015.

The other key fact embedded in the data is that Trump's approval among certain groups was still considerably low during November 2016 , much lower than it is today for example. This speaks to the simple truth that the majority of people who vote for Trump aren't necessarily that fond of the man, but they still pulled the lever for him. Until there is hard evidence that the number of people who absolutely will not vote for Trump increases, we can't make any conclusions as to how more or less likely Trump's chances are in November.

One last item to note is that the worst cases by far occurred in heavily Democratic districts, and, as the reports explained, were the main areas where this loss of support among Christians was reported. On the one hand, it's very likely that these people, to be blunt, wouldn't have had much chance at pushing their districts to the Republican side anyway and thus their support is not nearly as important as those in swing states. On the other hand, to be a bit cheeky, given how poorly Democrat-run areas have fared in this crisis, why on earth would you want another Democrat in the highest executive office?

Megan S 20 hours ago
I thought we'd seen into Trump's soul over the past five years, but the way he's revealing himself now is astounding. The man is just unraveling, all his spitefulness and sociopathies bubbling to the surface. There's nothing left to him now but his impotent rage. Maybe the people who didn't want to see the truth of the man can't help but see now.
Siarlys Jenkins Megan S 3 hours ago
He's a failure, on a world stage, and his self-image is that he's a genius whose wise leadership will bring us all peace, contentment and prosperity. Naturally, he's throwing a temper tantrum and lashing out in all directions.
MacCheerful 20 hours ago
I think you underestimate the power of fear and self-delusion. Nearly all Republicans have been convinced that all Democrats are nearly satanic. For the next week conservative media will dwell relentlessly and obsessively on Biden's recent stupid statement while ignoring whatever additional nonsense comes out of the White House. (Did you know there's a recent study showing that widespread use of hydroxychloroquine (sp?) is probably bad? You wouldn't if you read conservative media) It's strange to live in a country where a substantial number of people can no longer see the good in other citizens, but here we are
Rod Dreher Moderator MacCheerful 6 hours ago
Do you not see that most Democrats regard Republicans in the same way? This has been documented.
MacCheerful Rod Dreher 6 hours ago
Oh absolutely. Speaking for myself only, I regard Republican leadership, people like Mitch McConnell, Pompeo, and of course our president as various mixtures of stupid and evil, and their more devoted followers as pretty close to the same. The people who vote Republican because they always vote Republican and don't pay much attention to politics, like members of my family, I regard simply as incurious, but as family I still love them.

But I still think Democrats are a lot more justified in their disdain, as implied by Kevin Drum in a recent post:

https://www.motherjones.com...

Did you know the candidate for the U.S. Senate in Oregon is a Q follower? And that when the National Review advised Republicans to abandon her the majority of the comments on the page retorted that Democrats are worse and more deluded and more crazy than Q?

Daniel (not Larrison) 15 hours ago
This Pandemic, and the response to it, and the response of the public to the response, has left me utterly exhausted.

My Facebook feed is getting crammed with my conservative friend's fear-mongering about how (a) the virus is just a "cold", (b) the official death counts are greatly exaggerated (through wide-spread incompetence and fraud), (c) the left is using this crisis to destroy our freedoms, (d) masks are tyranny, (e) Trump's response has been perfect, (f) blue state governors want to gain power and destroy their economies just to make Trump look bad, and (g) the people who died would have died from something else any way. Sprinkled among these responses are things like the Gates microchip thing, 5g causes the virus, it's really Obama's fault, etc.

Sometimes they post some actual true information, like the errors of 4 states in double-counting positive test results or that congressional democrats did try to pack the COVID-19 relief bill with a wishlist of progressive causes. But mostly I see wild assertions and baseless accusations. Anyone who agrees with Trump is smart and can be trusted, anyone who disagrees with him is stupid and/or evil.

It truly is remarkable how even this kind of a crisis has been politicized. There is nearly a perfect correlation between COVID-19 skepticism and Trump support. Tens of thousands of health professionals and medical examiners committing fraud or incompetent by including COVID-19 as a cause of death? Certainly, if it makes Trump look bad. Dozens of other nations adopting similar policies to blue governors? Yeah, they're crashing their economies because they hate Trump, too.

It is utter madness. Rather than respecting genuine differences in opinion, rather than arguing with facts and data, we are responding with hatred, contempt, and raw emotion.

The left certainly is not above this--as we have seen in issues like transgenderism and Project 1619, the left certainly has engaged in this and continues to do so. I've lost count of how many liberal friends I've had to stop following on Facebook because of their utter contempt not just of Trump, but of anyone who would dare express support for him or his policies. And their cursing like sailors they wear like a badge of honor, as of it's a mark of liberation.

Weimar America, truly. We're facing a dual crisis of health and economic collapse that we hadn't seen in a century, and rather than rising to the occasion, many of us are just attacking each other. It reminds me of what Josephus wrote in "The Jewish War" about the Jews, under siege by Roman forces in an incredibly over packed Jerusalem, were busy killing each other rather than facing the enemies outside.

Perhaps I am just a pessimist. Certainly not all Americans are rigidly divided into Team Red and Team Blue--maybe not even the majority. But enough are for me to lose much of my hope for the future of this country.

Yet I know God is in control, and this could very well be a manifestation of his judgment on our wicked, wicked culture. Or even from a secular perspective, our culture has built such a toxic response to crisis that we cannot survive. Either way, without change, I cannot see us surviving as a unified nation and people (if we truly are any more) too far into the future.

Kessler 14 hours ago
I think Trump entered oval office as a political tabula rasa. Republicans could have moulded him into anything policy-wise, since he lacked knowledge of washington insider on how to run things. So they did. Republicans turned him into a traditional, respectable republican corporatist stock market whisperer President(tm). I think Republicans deserve to lose because of their terrible policies and incompetence, though I don't see how democrats deserve to win, because of their terrible policies and incompetence. But then again, it's not like policies matter. As Cuomo demonstrates, all you need is good media coverage. It's frustrating, that Trump is likely going to lose, because his PR is worse, not because his policies have been terrible.
5Miriam9 Kessler 4 hours ago
Republicans didn't have to work too hard given how willfully ignorant Trump is. All he's ever been interested in doing is brandishing his brand and lining his pockets. There's nothing there but endless appetite and resentment. He has no policies save for self-aggrandizement.
David Naas 13 hours ago
Even out of office, he has been exposed to the addictive thrill of cheering crowds, and so he will not fade from the scene. Certain Progressivists are salivating at the prospect of hauling him and his associates through the courts, but that will not stop his rallies, and will only keep his name in lights for a long time.

The Democratic Party leadership - - or "Donorship" - - wants to return to their version of normal, getting rich(er) off globalism. The neocons want to get back to endless wars. And Trump's Troopers will be there, carrying their AR-15 clones to protests and occupying national park rest areas. It will be chaotic. One can easily foresee more "Ruby Ridge" scenarios in our collective future.

Shy of a nation-wide revival of religion or of the civil religion, it won't get better for a long time.

Those who liken this time to how WW1 changed the world forever are partly right. But they miss that the world is always changing forever. And yet it is always the same. Face it, the last half of the 20th Century was an unusually easy time for Americans. We are now moving into what the rest of the world, throughout history, considers normal.

[May 23, 2020] The irony of Brenana behaviour: the former CIA Director shouting every other day that the duly elected POTUS is treasonous and much be removed from office by any means necessary. The pot calling the kettle black

May 23, 2020 | www.unz.com

BL , says: Show Comment May 23, 2020 at 1:51 pm GMT

@Realist Quite right. I should have written that sentence differently in that by "like Brennan," I meant an individual allowed to rise by obtaining compromising information on everyone, most especially his intelligence colleagues.

Our system abhors such an arrogation of power or at least it used to. Not to put too fine a point on it but that's what happens when you construct a surveillance state and then turn it over to filth like Brennan.

This really isn't very complicated. It's utterly untenable in our great republic to have the former CIA Director shouting every other day that the duly elected POTUS is treasonous and much be removed from office by any means necessary.

It's impossible to overstate how serious this situation is when those who are needed on the side of our republic and legitimate constitutional authority are distracting with squeaks about Michael Ledeen's daughter no less.

I'm not laying this all at Brennan's door. Like Beria, his presence at the pinnacle of power was more symptom than cause. He's no evil genius which, when you think about it, makes the continued craven obedience to him by Democrats, RINO Republicans, Allied Media and, yes, most who were in the IC, that much more pathetic.

[May 23, 2020] 'Rhetorical hyperbole' and NOT FACT: Court rejects OAN suit over MSNBC host Rachel Maddow's claim about 'Russian propaganda'

Court defined Madcow as professional liar, not a news source
Notable quotes:
"... "the most obsequiously pro-Trump right wing news outlet in America" ..."
"... "really literally paid Russian propaganda." ..."
"... "the Kremlin's official propaganda outlet" ..."
"... "utterly and completely false. ..."
"... "has never been paid or received a penny from Russia or the Russian government," ..."
"... "news and opinions," ..."
"... "makes it more likely that a reasonable viewer would not conclude that the contested statement implies an assertion of objective fact." ..."
May 23, 2020 | www.rt.com
A US judge dismissed a defamation lawsuit by One America News Network against MSNBC over Rachel Maddow's claims that OAN was "literally" Russian propaganda, ruling that her segment was merely "an opinion" and "exaggeration." OAN sued the liberal talk show host and MSNBC for defamation, demanding over $10 million in damages, back in September 2019. The lawsuit was based on the July 22 episode of The Rachel Maddow Show, where Maddow launched a scathing broadside against the conservative television network, labeling it "the most obsequiously pro-Trump right wing news outlet in America" and "really literally paid Russian propaganda."

In the segment, Maddow cited a story by The Daily Beast's Kevin Poulsen about OAN's Kristian Rouz, who has previously contributed to Sputnik as a freelance author. Toeing the general US mainstream line on the Russian media, be it Sputnik or RT, Poulsen branded the Russian news agency "the Kremlin's official propaganda outlet" and said Rouz was once on its "payroll." Shortly after MSNBC's star talent peddled the claim, OAN rejected the allegations as "utterly and completely false. " The outlet, which is owned by the Herring Networks, a small California-based family company, said that it "has never been paid or received a penny from Russia or the Russian government," with its only funding coming from the Herring family.

In their bid to win the case, Maddow herself, MSNBC, Comcast Corporation and NBCUniversal Media did not address the accusation itself - namely, that her claim about OAN was false - but opted to invoke the First Amendment, insisting that the rant should be protected as free speech.

Siding with Maddow, the California district court defined Maddow's show as a mix of "news and opinions," concluding that the manner in which the progressive host blurted out the accusations "makes it more likely that a reasonable viewer would not conclude that the contested statement implies an assertion of objective fact." h

The court said that while Maddow "truthfully" related the story by the Daily Beast, the statement about OAN being funded by the Kremlin was her "opinion" and "exaggeration" of the said article.

While the legal trick helped Maddow to get off the hook without ever trying to defend her initial statement, conservative commentators on social media wasted no time in pointing out that dodging a payout to OAN literally meant admitting that Maddow was not, in fact, news.

  • Maddow won a lawsuit brought against her because the Judge found her show was "opinion," that is, her show isn't one that shares actual facts with viewers.https://t.co/T1bgdSfc0P — Essential Cernovich (@Cernovich) May 22, 2020Q
  • Just like Alex Jones’ defense in his divorce and custody proceedings: “I’m an entertainer”
  • Biden’s binder full of women (@Wallflowerface) May 22, 2020Q
  • So if she makes any statement(s) on air about being factual, then don’t we have an excellent appeal? — Mortimer Cinder Block (@LeonardPGoldst1) May 22, 2020Q

[May 23, 2020] "Obamagate" claims spark new round in internal US political warfare by Patrick Martin

May 23, 2020 | www.wsws.org

A second Senate panel, the Judiciary Committee, chaired by Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, is working on a similar timetable, with plans to issue a report before the November 3 presidential vote. It began Thursday to discuss subpoenas of former top Obama administration and national security officials, with a vote set for June 4 to give Graham broad subpoena power.

Graham has suggested he will call, among others, former FBI Director James Comey, his former deputy Andrew McCabe, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough. At least initially, Graham has downplayed calls by Trump for issuing subpoenas to Obama and Biden.

The initial focus of the Judiciary Committee will be the case of retired General Michael Flynn, who resigned in February 2017 as Trump's national security adviser and later pled guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with then-Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak.

Over the past month, the Flynn case has become the war cry of Trump and his ultra-right backers at Breitbart News, Fox News and among congressional Republicans. They claim that Flynn was the victim of a "perjury trap" set up by Comey at the instigation of Obama and Biden to disrupt the incoming Trump administration.

Attorney General William Barr intervened to quash the sentencing of Flynn on perjury charges, taking the unprecedented action of dropping prosecution on charges to which Flynn had twice pled guilty before a federal judge. That judge, Emmett Sullivan, is now considering whether to allow the dropping of the charges and has asked for outside groups to file friend-of-the-court pleadings on the question.

The Senate investigations accelerated after a Tuesday meeting between Trump and leading Senate Republicans, at which he demanded they "get tough" against the Democrats by issuing subpoenas and holding televised hearings during the summer.

On the same day, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell abandoned his previous reluctance to hold such hearings, declaring that the Obama administration had used "the awesome power of the federal government to pry into their political rivals."

"An American citizen's campaign for the American presidency was treated like a hostile foreign power by our own law enforcement," he said, "in part because a Democrat-led executive branch manipulated documents, hid contrary evidence, and made a DNC-funded dossier a launchpad for an investigation."

... ... ...

The fall election campaign sparked an internal conflict within the FBI between pro-Trump and pro-Clinton factions. On October 7, the "intelligence community" issued a warning that Russia was seeking to intervene in the election on behalf of Trump. Then, on October 29, Comey released his notorious letter to Congress announcing the reopening of the FBI's investigation into Clinton's use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state. This unprecedented action, in violation of Justice Department rules against interfering with an election, arguably tipped the outcome to Trump, given his narrow margins in industrial states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

After Trump's surprise election victory, the attention of the intelligence agencies and the Obama administration shifted to Flynn, Trump's top foreign policy aide and his choice to become White House national security adviser. Obama warned Trump against naming Flynn, who had been fired in 2014 as part of an internal conflict within the intelligence establishment, with Clapper and CIA Director John Brennan pressing for his dismissal.

On December 29, 2016, Obama imposed stiff diplomatic sanctions on the Russian government, expelling a large number of its representatives in the United States on the spurious grounds that he was "retaliating" for Russian interference in the US presidential election. In fact, there has never been any evidence that Russian actions consisted of anything more than purchasing a few Facebook ads, for less than $100,000, trivial in comparison to the $5 billion expended by the campaigns for Trump and Clinton.

Immediately after Obama's announcement of sanctions, Flynn called the Russian ambassador to the United States, Kislyak, to urge the Putin government not to respond in kind, assuring him that the incoming Trump administration would review the matter afresh. Such contacts are routine during any transition between outgoing and incoming US administrations, but Flynn apparently considered the content of the discussions to be politically embarrassing and lied about them when interviewed by FBI agents.

On January 5, 2017, Obama and his closest aides were briefed by the intelligence agencies on the anti-Russia investigation, on the eve of a similar briefing delivered to President-elect Trump in New York City. It appears that Obama was less enthusiastic about the targeting of Flynn than the security chiefs, including Clapper and Comey, and Flynn continued to receive full briefings from the outgoing national security adviser, Susan Rice.

On January 12, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, a regular conduit for the intelligence agencies, made public the December 29 Flynn-Kislyak phone call, touching off the chain of events that led to Flynn's firing a month later. It is perhaps ironic, in view of the current "Obamagate" campaign, that Ignatius voiced the then-common view in the "intelligence community" that Obama was dragging his feet on the anti-Russia campaign. His column was headlined, "Why Did Obama Dawdle on Russian Hacking?"

These apparently tactical differences led Comey to send FBI agents to the White House on January 24, 2017 to interview Flynn about his conversations with Kislyak without notifying the Department of Justice, in violation of the usual protocol, because Acting Attorney General Sally Yates reportedly shared Obama's concern that too direct an attack on Flynn and Trump might backfire.

Besides the various Senate investigations, the Department of Justice is conducting its own review of the origins of the Russia investigation, which led ultimately to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller. This review, headed by US Attorney John Durham, is expected to include testimony under oath from the same set of former Obama aides who are to be subpoenaed by the Senate.

[May 22, 2020] Time to Break up the FBI by William S. Smith

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... One could write a long history of FBI abuses and failures, from Latin America to Martin Luther King to Japanese internment. But just consider a handful of their more recent cases. ..."
"... But it was 9/11 that really sealed the FBI's ignominious track record. The lavishly funded agency charged with preventing terrorism somehow missed the attacks, despite their awareness of numerous Saudi nationals taking flying lessons around the country. Immediately after 9/11, the nation was gripped by the anthrax scare, and once again the FBI's inability to solve the case caused them to try to railroad an innocent man, Stephen Hatfill . ..."
"... With 9/11, the FBI also began targeting troubled Americans by handing them bomb materials, arresting them, and then holding a press conference to tell the country that they had prevented a major terrorist attack -- a fake attack that they themselves had planned. ..."
"... 9/11 also opened the floodgates to domestic surveillance and all the FISA abuses that most recently led to the prosecution of Michael Flynn. I am no fan of Flynn and his hawkish anti-Islamic views, but the way he was framed and then prosecuted really does shock the conscience. ..."
"... For the FBI, merely catching bad guys is too mundane. As one can tell from the sanctimonious James Comey, the culture at the Bureau holds grander aspirations. Comey's book is titled A Higher Loyalty , as if the FBI reports only to the Almighty. ..."
"... While the nation's elite colleges and tech companies are crawling with Chinese spies who are literally stealing our best ideas, the chief of the FBI's Counterintelligence Section, Peter Strzok, spent his days trying to frame junior aides in the Trump campaign. ..."
"... Some conservatives have called for FBI Director Christopher Wray to be fired. This would accomplish nothing, as the problem is not one man but an entire culture. ..."
"... One of the most amusing yet disturbing tends of the Trump era has been the increasingly strong embrace of the "intelligence community" (how I hate that term) by left liberals. ..."
"... It's tempting to wonder how many of them have even heard of COINTELPRO, but I suspect that most of them would be just fine if the FBI intervened to disrupt and destabilize the Marxist left in the unlikely event that it seemed to be gaining a significant political foothold. Can't have any nasty class politics disrupting their bourgeois identitarian parlor game! ..."
"... J. Edgar Hoover wrecked a lot of the good the FBI could have been right from the beginning, there needs to be a major cultural change over there and they need to be put back on track so that they serve us instead of themselves. ..."
"... Making sure crooks like Hoover and showboats like Comey never get put in charge would be a good start. ..."
"... Remember in "Three Days of the Condor," when Robert Redford reacts scornfully to Cliff Robertson's use of the term "community"? ..."
"... Collaboratus: Basically, working together. BULL, the individual IC Agencies can't work together internally, much less across agency boundaries. ..."
"... Virtus: a specific virtue in Ancient Rome. It carried connotations of valor, manliness, excellence, courage, character, and worth, perceived as masculine strengths. Again, BULL. The Feminazis and lgbtqxyz crowd have, pretty much snipped any balls and put them in a jar. Yes, gay pride is big in the IC. ..."
"... Fides: was the goddess of trust and bona fides in Roman paganism. She was one of the original virtues to be considered an actual religious divinity. Fides is everything that is required for "honour and credibility, from fidelity in marriage, to contractual arrangements, and the obligation soldiers owed to Rome". With respect to the IC, that last bears repeating" "Obligations Soldiers Owed To Rome." In the IC (Rome), Leadership and Management (LM) have no obligations to the 'soldiers'; so, of course, the soldiers respond in kind. ..."
"... Real underline issue is FBI has been politicized. Rather than be neutral and independent, top FBI leaders have aligned with politicians. While nominate FBI officials, presidents also select their own than someone is independent. ..."
"... Absolutely nothing new or rare was done to Flynn. The FBI used perfectly standard dirty tricks on him. ..."
"... It isn't just the FBI that uses dirty tactics. most police departments also use dirty tactics. ..."
"... As I see it the agency that needs to be broken up is the CIA. What they do is shameful and not American. They are and have always been heavily involved in other countries internal affairs. They are an evil organization. ..."
"... Absolutely phenomenal that an entire essay abusing the FBI could be written without once mentioning the man who actually made the Federal Bureau of Investigation into what it is (whatever that might be). But J Edgar Hoover is still sufficiently iconic a figure to many Conservatives that it would be counterproductive to assault him. Better someone like Comey. ..."
"... I did not know the FBI had the power to go back in time, otherwise how did they get Flynn to lie to VP Pence on Jan 14 when they didn't interview him until 1/24? Amazing how powerful they are! ..."
May 18, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Its constant abuses, of which Michael Flynn is only the latest, show what a failed Progressive Era institution it really is. Fittingly, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was founded by a grandnephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, Attorney General Charles J. Bonaparte, during the Progressive Era. Bonaparte was a Harvard-educated crusader. As the FBI's official history states, "Many progressives, including (Teddy) Roosevelt, believed that the federal government's guiding hand was necessary to foster justice in an industrial society."

Progressives viewed the Constitution as a malleable document, a take-it-or-leave-it kind of thing. The FBI inherited that mindset of civil liberties being optional. In their early years, with the passage of the Espionage and Sedition Acts during World War I, the FBI came into its own by launching a massive domestic surveillance campaign and prosecuting war dissenters. Thousands of Americans were arrested, prosecuted, and jailed simply for voicing opposition.

One could write a long history of FBI abuses and failures, from Latin America to Martin Luther King to Japanese internment. But just consider a handful of their more recent cases. The FBI needlessly killed women and children at Waco and Ruby Ridge. Anyone who has lived anywhere near Boston knows of the Bureau's staggering corruption during gangster Whitey Bulger's reign of terror. The abuses in Boston were so terrific that radio host Howie Carr declared that the FBI initials really stood for "Famous But Incompetent." And then there's Richard Jewell, the hero security guard who was almost railroaded by zealous FBI agents looking for a scalp after they failed to solve the Atlanta terrorist bombing.

But it was 9/11 that really sealed the FBI's ignominious track record. The lavishly funded agency charged with preventing terrorism somehow missed the attacks, despite their awareness of numerous Saudi nationals taking flying lessons around the country. Immediately after 9/11, the nation was gripped by the anthrax scare, and once again the FBI's inability to solve the case caused them to try to railroad an innocent man, Stephen Hatfill .

With 9/11, the FBI also began targeting troubled Americans by handing them bomb materials, arresting them, and then holding a press conference to tell the country that they had prevented a major terrorist attack -- a fake attack that they themselves had planned.

9/11 also opened the floodgates to domestic surveillance and all the FISA abuses that most recently led to the prosecution of Michael Flynn. I am no fan of Flynn and his hawkish anti-Islamic views, but the way he was framed and then prosecuted really does shock the conscience. After Jewell, Hatfill, Flynn, and so many others, it's time to ask whether the culture of the FBI has become similar to that of Stalin's secret police, i.e. "show me the man and I'll show you the crime."

I am no anti-law enforcement libertarian. In a previous career, I had the privilege to work with agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and they were some of the bravest people I have ever met. And while the DEA can be overly aggressive (just ask anyone who has been subjected to federal asset forfeiture), it is inconceivable that its agents would plot a coup d'état against the president of the United States. The DEA sees their job as catching drug criminals; they stay in their lane.

For the FBI, merely catching bad guys is too mundane. As one can tell from the sanctimonious James Comey, the culture at the Bureau holds grander aspirations. Comey's book is titled A Higher Loyalty , as if the FBI reports only to the Almighty.

They see themselves as progressive guardians of the American Way, intervening whenever and wherever they see democracy in danger. No healthy republic should have a national police force with this kind of culture. There are no doubt many brave and patriotic FBI agents, but there is also no doubt they have been very badly led.

This savior complex led them to aggressively pursue the Russiagate hoax. Their chasing of ghosts should make it clear that the FBI does not stay in their lane. While the nation's elite colleges and tech companies are crawling with Chinese spies who are literally stealing our best ideas, the chief of the FBI's Counterintelligence Section, Peter Strzok, spent his days trying to frame junior aides in the Trump campaign.

Some conservatives have called for FBI Director Christopher Wray to be fired. This would accomplish nothing, as the problem is not one man but an entire culture. One possible solution is to break up the FBI into four or five agencies, with one responsible for counterintelligence, one for counterterrorism, one for complex white-collar crime, one for cybercrimes, and so on. Smaller agencies with more distinctive missions would not see themselves as national saviors and could be held accountable for their effectiveness at very specific jobs. It would also allow federal agents to develop genuine expertise rather than, as the FBI regularly does, shifting agents constantly from terrorism cases to the war on drugs to cybercrime to whatever the political class's latest crime du jour might be.

Such a reform would not end every abuse of federal law enforcement, and all these agencies would need to be kept on a short leash for the sake of civil liberties. It would, however, diminish the ostentatious pretension of the current FBI that they are the existential guardians of the republic. In a republic, the people and their elected leaders are the protectors of their liberties. No one else.

William S. Smith is senior research fellow and managing director at the Center for the Study of Statesmanship at The Catholic University of America. His new book is Democracy and Imperialism: Irving Babbitt and Warlike Democracies (2019) .


Embarrassed 11 hours ago

One of the most amusing yet disturbing tends of the Trump era has been the increasingly strong embrace of the "intelligence community" (how I hate that term) by left liberals.

It's hard to believe it was only a decade ago when they were (correctly) deriding these exact same people for their manifold failures relating to the War on Terror, but then again left liberals at that time had not yet abandoned the pretense that they were something other than a PMC social club.

It's tempting to wonder how many of them have even heard of COINTELPRO, but I suspect that most of them would be just fine if the FBI intervened to disrupt and destabilize the Marxist left in the unlikely event that it seemed to be gaining a significant political foothold. Can't have any nasty class politics disrupting their bourgeois identitarian parlor game!

Megan S Embarrassed 6 hours ago
It's not the left liberals, it's the centrists and the neocons fleeing the Republican Party like rats. The left never liked the FBI, never trusted them, with good reason.

J. Edgar Hoover wrecked a lot of the good the FBI could have been right from the beginning, there needs to be a major cultural change over there and they need to be put back on track so that they serve us instead of themselves.

Making sure crooks like Hoover and showboats like Comey never get put in charge would be a good start.

FJR Atlanta Embarrassed 3 hours ago
Or put another way... One of the most amusing yet disturbing tends of the Trump era has been the increasingly strong disdain of the "intelligence community" (how I hate that term) by far right conservatives.

Let's just be honest with ourselves - we really don't want intelligence, or science, or oversight, unless it supports our team.

Gary Keith Chesterton Embarrassed 3 hours ago
Remember in "Three Days of the Condor," when Robert Redford reacts scornfully to Cliff Robertson's use of the term "community"?

Nowadays, it's actually an official or semi-official term. They even have their own logo, for crying out loud.

View Hide
TISO_AX2 Gary Keith Chesterton an hour ago
It represents just one more bureaucrat in the line to go and tell lies before congressional oversight committees. Thanks Bushies.
Linux Pauling Gary Keith Chesterton 29 minutes ago • edited
Some thoughts on the IC Motto:

1. Collaboratus: Basically, working together. BULL, the individual IC Agencies can't work together internally, much less across agency boundaries. This goes to guys like Mike Flynn (former director of DIA), his predecessors and successors, and their peers across the Intel(?) Community (that one kills me, too); the IC. Not to 'slight' anyone, but middle management is no better, and probably, worse; everyone has to protect their own 'little rice bowl' ya know.

2. Virtus: a specific virtue in Ancient Rome. It carried connotations of valor, manliness, excellence, courage, character, and worth, perceived as masculine strengths. Again, BULL. The Feminazis and lgbtqxyz crowd have, pretty much snipped any balls and put them in a jar. Yes, gay pride is big in the IC.

3. Fides: was the goddess of trust and bona fides in Roman paganism. She was one of the original virtues to be considered an actual religious divinity. Fides is everything that is required for "honour and credibility, from fidelity in marriage, to contractual arrangements, and the obligation soldiers owed to Rome". With respect to the IC, that last bears repeating" "Obligations Soldiers Owed To Rome." In the IC (Rome), Leadership and Management (LM) have no obligations to the 'soldiers'; so, of course, the soldiers respond in kind.

The ICs are dog eat dog; LM are looking out for themselves...Period. Actually doing 'the job' is pretty far down the TODO List. The vast majority of people in the 'trenches' are just trying to get through the day; like LM, doing the 'right thing' is no longer the first thought.

To make matters worse (if possible), MANY of those people in the trenches have almost no clue WTF they are doing. This is because management involuntarily reassigns people (SURPRISE!) to jobs for which they were not hired, have no qualifications, and, often, no interest in becoming qualified. Of course, they hang on hoping that 'black swan' will land and make everything right again.

We've had two major incidents (at least), in the last 20 years (9/11 and the Kung Flu) that are specific failures of the IC (IMO). The IC failed (fails?) because Collaboratus, Virtus, and Fides are just some words on a plaque; not goals for which to strive; lip service is a poor substitute.

Yeah, these yahoos are overdue for a good house cleaning as well.

Gary Keith Chesterton Linux Pauling 5 minutes ago
I work in Defense; and the problems there are identical.
Dodo 10 hours ago
Real underline issue is FBI has been politicized. Rather than be neutral and independent, top FBI leaders have aligned with politicians. While nominate FBI officials, presidents also select their own than someone is independent.

In order their men can do their "works", they also increased their authorities. Supposedly, FBI directors, once confirmed, will not change with president. In reality, we saw presidents to replace old ones with their own.

It is not break up or whatever "reform". As long as presidents (regardless whom) can choose their own, how can you expect FBI does its jobs stated by laws?

Amicus Brevis 8 hours ago • edited
It is amazing how far people will let their political hatreds take them. The FBI is actually more important for the services it provides police forces around America than it is for solving federal crimes.

The FBI have been using dirty practices on people for decades. Literally hundreds of people who are not criminals have written about this - several of them are former agents who left in good standing.

They practice some of them right out in the open, like leaking information about arrests to the press so that the press get to film their arrests - sometimes timing arrests to hit local primetime new. It even has a name - the prime time perp walk. Whether these people are convicted or not, those images follow them for the rest of their lives. Or announcing that a person is "a person of interest" to force cooperation, because they know that people hear "suspect" when they hear such announcements. They will then offer to announce that the person is no longer a person of interest in exchange for cooperation. It didn't deserve to be disbanded them.

Absolutely nothing new or rare was done to Flynn. The FBI used perfectly standard dirty tricks on him. But since he was a minion of Donald Trump, the FBI should have known that he was untouchable. That is their real wrongdoing here. But they didn't realize it, so they should be disbanded. It is just like some progressives call for the disbandment of ICE because it arrests illegal aliens.

This ignoramus reminds me of others of his kind who call for the disbandbandment of the UN because they don't like the behavior of its General Council, its human rights or the peace keeping agencies, completely oblivious of the critical services the dozens of non-political UN agencies provide to all countries, especially to very small or under developed ones. They call for the destruction of WHO because it kowtows to China no matter that a number of countries in the world would have access to zero advanced health services without it, and others who are less dependent, but find its services critical in maintaining healthy populations. They find it politically objectionable so get rid of it! I really hate how progressives throw around the words "entitled" and "privilege", but some people do behave that way.

jack Amicus Brevis 5 hours ago
It isn't just the FBI that uses dirty tactics. most police departments also use dirty tactics.
IanDakar jack an hour ago
You can't go without the police though and a lot of what goes there can be reformed. Stop treating them like an movie version of the military. Teach them to calm a situation instead of shooting first, and realize you can treat them like an important part of society without making them above the law.
jack 5 hours ago
As I see it the agency that needs to be broken up is the CIA. What they do is shameful and not American. They are and have always been heavily involved in other countries internal affairs. They are an evil organization.
IanDakar jack an hour ago
We don't have to pick one program to drop.

Add homeland security to it as well.

I'm a " good government beats a small badly run one" and not a friend to libertarian ideals but there's a lot of government that can get the heave ho.

Wally 5 hours ago
If conservatives are coming around to the idea that police corruption is a real thing, that would be great. Somehow, I tend to doubt that it extends much beyond a way to protect white collar and political corruption. I hope this is a turning point. The investigations into Clinton emails didn't seem to warrant a mention here. Oh well.
IanDakar Wally an hour ago
That whole email situation was worthless. Not to say whether there was or was not an issue but the investigation was nothing worthwhile and only resulted in complicating an already messy election. Whether you believe there was a crime or not there there was nothing good handled by that investigation.

Personally I'm more content with the Mueller investigation. Not the way everyone panicked over it on both sides but what Mueller actually did himself: came in, researched the situation, found out that while a good few people acted messy Trump himself wasn't doing more than Twitter talk (yes it's technically "not enough evidence to prosecute", but that is how we phrase "not guilty" technically: you prove guilt not innocence), stated that Trump keeps messing himself up (aka "why did you ask your staff to claim one reason for a firing then tell a different story on national TV idiot")..

Then ran for the hills as everyone screamed "impeach/witchhunt".

Though don't get me wrong: I'm not going to get on the way of any attempt to dismantle the FBI or any of those other systems. It's something I really wish "small government" actually meant.

FND 3 hours ago
And lets not forget that Russia warned the FBI about the Tsarnaev brothers. The FBI did a perfunctory investigation and dismissed the threat. They probably thought they were a couple of poor Chechen boys persecuted by those evil Russians.
Brasidas 3 hours ago
And while the DEA can be overly aggressive... it is inconceivable that its agents would plot a coup d'état against the president of the United States.

And it still is.

David Naas an hour ago
Absolutely phenomenal that an entire essay abusing the FBI could be written without once mentioning the man who actually made the Federal Bureau of Investigation into what it is (whatever that might be). But J Edgar Hoover is still sufficiently iconic a figure to many Conservatives that it would be counterproductive to assault him. Better someone like Comey.

But, this is part of a pattern of Trump and his loyal followers (no Conservatives they) assault on the Institutions. The FBI is insufficiently tamed by Billy Barr, so it must go. (Part of the deep state swamp. /s).

Actually, there are very sound reasons for keeping the FBI, and even more for reforming it. But since it was engaged in checking out Trump's minion, Flynn, it is bad, very bad, incredibly bad, and must go. OTOH, if Comey had bent the knee to Trump, the FBI would be the most tremendous force for good the country has ever seen.

But this essay must be seen as part of the background of attempted legitimization for whatever Trump tweetstormed today. Perhaps the critics are right, and "conservatism is dead". If so, it would be the proper thing to give it a decent burial and go on.

Because there is nothing about Donald John Trump which is the least Conservative, and it is sickening to see people I once presumed to be "principled" line up at the altar of Trumpism. You know he will not be satisfied until the country is renamed The United States of Trump.

Now, all you Trumpublicans and Trumpservatives go downvote because I decline to abandon Conservatism for Trumpworship,

Jim Hohman 9 minutes ago
I did not know the FBI had the power to go back in time, otherwise how did they get Flynn to lie to VP Pence on Jan 14 when they didn't interview him until 1/24? Amazing how powerful they are!

[May 22, 2020] Why Trump Will Likely Lose in November

Predictions are difficult, especially about the future. Who wll vote for Creepy Joe? that is the question. But it is true that many people who voted for trump in 2016 hoping for changes will not vote for him. Most will not vote at all. With his foreign policies and smug warmonger Pompeo at the State Department he lost all anti-war independents block. With COVID-19 fiasco he lost a large part of working class -- which was most severely hit by the lockdown as well as small business support.
Notable quotes:
"... Look at how Trump is getting killed among people that don't like either candidate. And how he's losing independents solidly. That's your danger zone, not the left. He won in 2016 in large part because he had those two in the bag. ..."
May 22, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Mitt Romney was treated by the mainstream media with derision and ridicule, portrayed as an out-of-touch plutocrat who babbled about binders full of women. They depicted him as "a wealthy 1950s sitcom dad who liked firing poor people. Trump will attacked in the same way

Donald Trump captured the presidency in 2016 in part because he perceived, alone among presidential contenders that year, that a chasm had opened up between the country's arrogant meritocratic elite and vast numbers of citizens who felt the elites had turned on them and were leading the country astray. But another factor was the perception of many voters that Barack Obama's second term had been a mild failure (following a mild first-term success; hence his 2012 reelection). Incumbent performance in office remains a potent factor in presidential elections.

And that's why Donald Trump likely will lose the presidency come November. His performance, thoroughly at variance from his blustery rhetoric, will have rendered him, in the eyes of a majority of Americans, ineligible for rehire. His is not the kind of record that normally leads to a two-term presidency or to party retention of the White House when the incumbent is not on the ballot. Viewed from this perspective, Trump looks like a goner.

Trump supporters will of course recoil at this prediction. In disbelief, they will point to the intensity of his followers and the fecklessness of his opposition. And it is true that former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic candidate, appears hapless as he hunkers down in his Delaware basement and projects himself with a certain halting awkwardness. But history tells us that voters focus far more on incumbent performance, which can be sharply defined, than on predictions of challenger performance, which are wispy at best.

It is true also that Trump's knot of popular support–about 43 percent of the electorate, based on approval surveys–is remarkably solid, willing to accept just about anything he does or says so long as he continues to attack those dastardly elites.

But presidential elections also don't turn on any incumbent's base of support. Reelection requires that a president build upon that base and create a governing coalition by bringing in new converts through Oval Office achievement.


engineerscotty David Naas 3 days ago

With Trump, I expect a "surprise" (and other various dirty tricks) here on out.

As I've noted before, the Burisma nonsense may end up backfiring. Not only did it get him impeached (even though he wasn't removed from office), but it may innoculate Biden from further such surprises--there will be a presumption, if anything scandalous comes from out of left field, that it might well be another attempt at rat-f***ing.

(And Biden has been equally fortunate in his accusers from the left; as the Tara Reade allegations seem to be falling apart. He's not entirely in the clear--the vagueness of the allegations prevent Biden from mounting an affirmative defense, such as an alibi, but right now he seems to be winning the credibility battle on that front).

Mother124 engineerscotty 2 days ago
The Tara Reade allegations aren't "falling apart." They're being smothered. They're either ignored, or dismissed with a "Biden says it never happened? Oh, OK....never mind" attitude.
Room_237 David Naas 2 days ago
A QAnnon crazy just won the Oregon GOP senate primary. Not only is Trump losing he is taking the entire GOP down with him. Either the GOP clears up the nuts or the nuts take over.
Mother124 PeteZilla 2 days ago
I agree. Trump has taken politics to a new low. When he's not on teleprompter, his "speeches" are more of a stand-up act where he exaggerates his accomplishments ("the best ever"..."record" everything) and lobs personal insults at his perceived enemies "loser,""incompetent," "the worst").

He has NO intention of expanding his base. He's happy to play to their adoration. And his cultists don't want him to "pivot and change." They cheer him on.

That this is what so many people in this country want from a president is appalling.

TISO_AX2 KeepAmericaGreat! 2 days ago
He proved that in '16. Rather, we did. We the people made it happen. DJT just happens to be the means by which we re-made the American political landscape. Leftist Democrats still haven't caught up.

They learned nothing from 2016 and after...nothing. They still cling to Washington establishment politics like a communist to The Party. Power in a handful of politicians is all that matters to them. They'll sooner or later see that the people are the source of our government.

MPC TISO_AX2 a day ago
TISO you seem like a pretty reasonable guy generally.

Look at how Trump is getting killed among people that don't like either candidate. And how he's losing independents solidly. That's your danger zone, not the left. He won in 2016 in large part because he had those two in the bag.

I'm in those groups and voted for him then - I won't repeat this year. He was a good statement to make in 2016 but for me that's now made. Personally he looks like a real idiot handling a crisis but I don't like his personality cult, I don't like his floppiness with the ruling elite, and I especially don't like his turning immigrants into the white male of the right. I hate idpol and he's just refined a right wing version of it.

My two cents. No doubt I'll be back to voting Republicans in 22 or 24.

Robert Bruce MPC 16 hours ago
Nice post!!!!!!! Trump is indeed losing the indie vote as well as a sliver of the true conservative vote. The guy is only a shade or two better than having a president Camacho from Idiocracy. Trump won both the GOP nomination and the general election because he was the only GOP candidate that said what the majority of GOP voters wanted to hear and was the only candidate that didn't come off as an Establishment clone. On top of that, Hilary was not a well liked candidate(either was Trump) as two thirds of GOP and Dem voters didn't like their candidate, but disliked the other just a bit more. It is sad that we are in the same situation in 2020, in which there really isn't a really good candidate to choose from
Robert Bruce TISO_AX2 16 hours ago
Guy was a moron for his famous line to a GOP crowd insinuating that half the people in the country were freeloaders. Not too far fetched of a statement, but absolutely a campaign killer. They indeed did depict him as a rather wealthy 1950's Mr Cleaver type that was a job killer, but that wasn't far off the mark either. The banking cartel had their boy in office already so there was no need for a change, thus the rather stale, boring, and easily targeted Romney was hung out to dry.
EboTebo PeteZilla 2 days ago
He's NOT stupid, but he's dumb, thick and most of all lazy, too lazy to stand up and do the right thing!
The_Anthropologist_Forensic Bryce David Sylvia 2 days ago • edited
He "defeated" the ISIS Caliphate? And here i was under the impression that Iran was a Shia country and Syria was mostly secular, while ISIS was a product of Salafist and Wahabist American allies like the Saudis?

This commenter epitomizes everything wrong with the Fox News cheerleading devotee. So consumed by the cult of Personality that is Trump and "owning the Libs" that they can't see they have gotten nothing from Trump. No immigration reform, no wall, no end to Middle East adventurism..... Just "tough tweets"

LETS LOOK AT THE FEW THINGS HE HAS DONE...He along with Kim Kardashian put forth the "First Step Act" freeing tens of thousands of mostly inner city felons; the situation in the Middle East exponentially worse "thanks" to his rhetoric, loose usage of missiles on countries WE ARE NOT at war with along with ASSASSINATING NATIONAL HEROES/MILITARY COMMANDERS of other sovereign nations we are not at war with; he passed a corporate tax cut, Trump has focussed on spreading LGBT values to Africa and abroad, and after attacking NAFTA for two decades passed "NAFTA 2.0", and has consistently made this country look even worse than it normally has over the past 40 years.

If Israel isn't your priority in regards to the embassy moves or if your not a corporate head benefiting from Trumps "we need more immigration than ever before" glut of cheap third world labor, then you should see him as an unmitigated disaster. Look beyond the Grifters like Charlie Kirk and Sean Hannity.

FND The_Anthropologist_Forensic 2 days ago
The ISIS caliphate was defeated. ISIS still exists. One cannot destroy an ideology on the battlefield. The caliphate was their "country" that they carved out of Syria. Virtually ALL of the rebels in Syria, even the non-ISIS ones are Sunni, not Shia. The Shia are on the side of the Syrian government. That includes Iran.
JonF311 FND 2 days ago
To be clear, the US did not defeat the "caliphate". That honor goes to Syria and its patron Russia. America was just the cheering section.
Blood Alcohol JonF311 2 days ago • edited
Iran was not mentioned for some reason!
Iranians were the first to recognize ISIL was an arm of Israel/UAE/US axis to destabilize not only Syria but any country that stood up to the axis. Then the Russian read the message on the wall and got involved.
Robert Bruce DukeofAnarchy . 16 hours ago
Of course they did. Any decent economic/business magazine/ web site/blog was saying as far back as last September that the FED was running out of "ammo" to forestall a collapse that was going to happen late this summer or early fall, then the virus hits to take the blame for the poor economy instead of where it belongs and that is with the Federal Reserve and co. Now we are hearing we are going to get QE to infinity and beyond, which basically means the globalists are tanking the dollar for probably a global digital currency sometime in the not too distant future.

[May 22, 2020] Michael Flynn's Forgotten Turkish Connection

No questions that Flynn was corrupt. And his handlers were Israel and Turkey, not Russia.
May 22, 2020 | original.antiwar.com

Before Russiagate, the former national security advisor was an operative for Turkey, tilting foreign policy against the Kurds.

by Reese Erlich Posted on May 22, 2020 May 21, 2020 Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn is best known for his connection to the Russiagate investigation. Lost in that hubbub, however, was Flynn's slimy role as a lobbyist for Turkey. A Turkish businessman paid Flynn $530,000 in 2016 to push pro-Turkey, anti-Kurd policies in hopes of influencing the Trump Administration.

The American public has mostly forgotten about Flynn's Turkey connections, says Steven A. Cook, senior fellow for Middle East and Africa Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C.

"There's more going on with Turkey than people may realize," Cook tells me.

Flynn's money-driven opportunism is just one example of the operations of Washington's foreign policy lobbyists. As a candidate, Donald Trump correctly criticized the Washington swamp, but as President, instead of draining it, he has shoveled in more muck.

I've dipped my toe into the swamp on occasion by attending conferences and press events populated by Washington's elite. I've rubbed elbows with the likes of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Believe me, these folks are just as evil in person as they appear on TV.

Washington swamp creatures are easily identified by their black pinstriped suits, wingtip oxfords, and red power ties. Two kinds of people attend these events: those in power and those hoping to seize it.

Washington is crawling with former diplomats, intelligence officers, and business executives eager to influence policy and make a buck. And so enters former army Lieutenant General Michael Thomas Flynn, poster boy for the military-industrial complex.

Flynn's checkered past

Flynn, who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, came to Washington during the Obama Administration as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. He was forced to resign for insubordination in 2014, whereupon he joined the Washington swamp by forming the Flynn Intel Group.

In 2016, Flynn hitched his wagon to candidate Donald Trump, giving a fiery speech at the Republican National Convention in which he echoed the call to "lock up" Hillary Clinton for her handling of State Department emails.

Behind the scenes, however, Flynn was engaged in offenses for which he could be locked up. The Flynn Intel Group signed a contract totaling $600,000 with a Turkish businessman who had close ties to authoritarian Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Erdoğan wanted Washington to extradite Fethullah Gulen, a political opponent living in Pennsylvania since 1999. Gulen is a rival political Islamist who had a falling out with Erdogan. The Turkish president accuses Gulen of organizing the unsuccessful July 2016 coup. At the time Flynn spoke favorably about the military trying to overthrow Erdogan. He also criticized Turkey for allowing terrorists to cross the border into Syria.

But after receiving the contract to help Turkey, he did a 180-degree turn and supported Erdogan's policies.

"Flynn believes whatever is good for Flynn is good for America," Kani Xulam, director of the American Kurdish Information Network, tells me. "The minute they put money in his bank account, he became pro-Turkey. That was the shocking part."

Kidnapping

In September 2016, Flynn arranged a meeting between former US officials and Turkish leaders, including the country's foreign minister, energy minister, and Erdogan's son-in-law.

Participants at the meeting talked about kidnapping Gulen and bringing him to Turkey. Former Central Intelligence Agency Director James Woolsey, who attended the meeting, said they discussed "a covert step in the dead of night to whisk this guy away."

In December, Flynn wrote an op-ed for the influential Washington publication The Hill in which he compared Gulen to both Osama bin Laden and Ayatollah Khomeini. According to analyst Cook, the op-ed could have been written in Ankara: "It was all Turkey's talking points."

Flynn didn't bother to tell The Hill editors that he was a paid lobbyist for Turkey.

Flynn became part of Trump's transition team after November 2016, and he used the position to push anti-Kurdish policies. At that time, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces were on the verge of taking control of the ISIS-controlled city of Raqqa, Syria. He told the Obama Administration not to provide arms to the SDF and implemented that policy when Trump came to power in 2017.

But Flynn's stint as National Security Advisor lasted for only three weeks. He was forced to resign after revelations of his phone call to the Russian ambassador. In March, Flynn registered as a foreign agent for Turkey.

In 2019, a federal jury convicted Flynn's business associate, Bijan Kian, on two felonies: conspiracy to violate lobbying laws and failure to register as a foreign agent for Turkey. Flynn was scheduled to testify against Kian but changed his story at the last minute, causing problems for the prosecution. The judge later tossed the verdict, saying the prosecution didn't prove its case.

As part of an overall deal with federal prosecutors, Flynn was never charged in connection with his lobbying for Turkey. It seems unlikely that he ever will.

Corrupt world

Flynn's activities are just one example of the corrupt world of foreign lobbying. Recently, The New York Times exposed how defense contractor Raytheon pressured the Trump Administration to sell sophisticated weapons to Saudi Arabia, which were then used to slaughter civilians in Yemen.

The Yemen war, which began in 2015, has killed an estimated 100,000 people and displaced 80 percent of the population. Saudi air bombardment of hospitals, schools, and other civilian targets helped create one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. US arms manufacturers such as Lockheed Martin and Raytheon have profited handsomely from the slaughter.

Until recently, Raytheon's vice president for government relations was a former career army officer named Mark Esper. Today Esper is Secretary of Defense.

Crawling into bed with lobbyists is bipartisan activity. The Obama Administration sold $10 billion in arms to Saudi Arabia and its allies. Trump has openly boasted that US arms sales provide corporate profits and jobs at home.

"Trump has been more forthcoming praising US relations with Saudis because they want to buy more weapons," Kurdish activist Xulam tells me. "He doesn't care what Saudis do with the weapons."

Analyst Cook says the entire system of foreign lobbying needs major reform. "It's a scandal that needs to be cleaned up," he says. "It's legalized foreign influence peddling."

Reese Erlich's nationally distributed column, Foreign Correspondent, appears every two weeks. Follow him on Twitter , @ReeseErlich; friend him on Facebook ; and visit his webpage .

[May 22, 2020] Wray's Review Of FBI's Flynn Probe Is The Fox Guarding The Hen House

May 22, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Wray's Review Of FBI's Flynn Probe "Is The Fox Guarding The Hen House" by Tyler Durden Fri, 05/22/2020 - 20:05 Authored by Sara Carter,

FBI Director Christopher Wray announced Friday that he has ordered the bureau to conduct an internal review of its handling of the probe into former national security adviser Michael Flynn , which has led to his years long battle in federal court.

It's like the fox guarding the hen house.

Wray's decision to investigate also comes late. The bureau's probe only comes after numerous revelations that former senior FBI officials and agents involved in Flynn's case allegedly engaged in misconduct to target the three star general, who became President Donald Trump's most trusted campaign advisor.

Despite all these revelations, Wray has promised that the bureau will examine whether any employees engaged in misconduct during the court of the investigation and "evaluate whether any improvements in FBI policies and procedures need to be made." Based on what we know, how can we trust an unbiased investigation from the very bureau that targeted Flynn.

Let me put it to you this way, over the past year Wray has failed to cooperate with congressional investigations. In fact, many Republican lawmakers have called him out publicly on the lack of cooperation saying, he cares more about protecting the bureaucracy than exposing and resolving the culture of corruption within the bureau.

Wray's Friday announcement, is in my opinion, a ruse to get lawmakers off his back.

How can we trust that Wray's internal investigation will expose what actually happened in the case of Flynn, or any of the other Trump campaign officials that were targeted by the former Obama administration's intelligence and law enforcement apparatus.

It's Wray's FBI that continues to battle all the Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act requests regarding the investigation into Flynn, along with any requests that would expose information on the Russia hoax investigation. One in particular, is the request to obtain all the text messages and emails sent and received by former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.

The FBI defended itself in its Friday announcement saying that in addition to its own internal review, it has already cooperated with other inquiries assigned by Attorney General William Barr. But still Wray has not approved subpoena's for employees and others that lawmakers want to interview behind closed doors in Congress.

The recent documented discoveries by the Department of Justice make it all the more imperative that an outside review of the FBI's handling of Flynn's case is required. Those documents, which shed light on the actions by the bureau against Flynn, led to the DOJ's decision to drop all charges against him. It was, after all, DOJ Attorney Jeffery Jensen who discovered the FBI documents regarding Flynn that have aided his defense attorney Sidney Powell in getting the truth out to they American people.

Powell, like me, doesn't believe an internal review is appropriate.

"Wow? And how is he going to investigate himself," she questioned in a Tweet. "And how could anyone trust it? FBI Director Wray opens internal review into how bureau handled Michael Flynn case."

WOW? And how is he going to investigate himself? And how could anyone trust it?
FBI Director Wray opens internal review into how bureau handled Michael Flynn case https://t.co/AeE0yL46W6 #FBICorruption #Clapper #Brennan #NSA #spying
Widespread illegal monitoring by #Obama admin

-- Sidney Powell 🇺🇸⭐⭐⭐ (@SidneyPowell1) May 22, 2020

Last week, this reporter published the growing divide between Congressional Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee and Wray. The lawmakers have accused Wray of failing to respond to numerous requests to speak with FBI Special Agent Joe Pientka, who along with former FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok, conducted the now infamous White House interview with Flynn on Jan. 24, 2017.

Further, the lawmakers have also requested to speak with the FBI's former head of the Counterintelligence Division , Bill Priestap, whose unsealed handwritten notes revealed the possible 'nefarious' motivations behind the FBI's investigation of Flynn.

"Michael Flynn was wronged by the FBI," said a senior Republican official last week, with direct knowledge of the Flynn investigation.

"Sadly Director Wray has shown little interest in getting to the bottom of what actually happened with the Flynn case. Wray's lackadaisical attitude is an embarrassment to the rank and file agents at the bureau, whose names have been dragged through the mud time and time again throughout the Russia-gate investigation. Wray needs to wake up and work with Congress. If he doesn't maybe it's time for him to go. "

Powell argued that Flynn had pleaded guilty because his former Special Counsel Robert Mueller, along with his prosecutors, threatened to target his son. Those prosecutors also coerced Flynn, whose finances were depleted by his previous defense team. Mueller's team got Flynn to plead guilty to lying to the FBI about a phone conversation he had with the former Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the presidential transition period. However, the agents who interviewed him did not believe he was lying.

Currently the DOJ's request to dismiss the case is now pending before federal Judge Emmet Sullivan. Sullivan has failed to grant the DOJ's request to dismiss the case and because of that Powell has filed a writ of mandamus to the U.S. D.C. Court of Appeals seeking the immediate removal of Sullivan, or to dismiss the prosecution as requested by the DOJ.

[May 22, 2020] System Update with Glenn Greenwald - The Murderous History and Deceitful Function of the CIA

May 22, 2020 | www.youtube.com

The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity The CIA’s Murderous Practices, Disinformation Campaigns, and Interference in

In the weeks before the 2016 presidential election, the most powerful former leaders of the Central Intelligence Agency did everything they could to elect Hillary Clinton and defeat Donald Trump. President Obama’s former acting CIA chief Michael Morrell published a full-throated endorsement of Clinton in the New York Times and claimed “Putin ha[s] recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation,” while George W. Bush’s post-9/11 CIA and NSA Chief, Gen. Michael Hayden, writing in the Washington Post, refrained from endorsing Clinton outright but echoed Morrell by accusing Trump of being a “useful fool, some naif, manipulated by Moscow” and sounding “a little bit the conspiratorial Marxist.” Meanwhile, the intelligence community under James Clapper and John Brennan fed morsels to both the Obama DOJ and the US media to suggest a Trump/Russia conspiracy and fuel what became the Russiagate investigation.

In his extraordinary election-advocating Op-Ed, Gen. Hayden, Bush/Cheney’s CIA Chief, candidly explained the reasons for the CIA’s antipathy for Trump: namely, the GOP candidate’s stated opposition to allowing CIA regime change efforts in Syria to expand as well as his opposition to arming Ukrainians with lethal weapons to fight Russia (supposedly “pro-Putin” positions which, we are now all supposed to forget, Obama largely shared).

As has been true since President Harry Truman’s creation of the CIA after World War II, interfering in other countries and dictating or changing their governments — through campaigns of mass murder, military coups, arming guerrilla groups, the abolition of democracy, systemic disinformation, and the imposition of savage despots — is regarded as a divine right, inherent to American exceptionalism. Anyone who questions that or, worse, opposes it and seeks to impede it (as the CIA perceived Trump was) is of suspect loyalties at best.

The CIA’s antipathy toward Trump continued after his election victory. The agency became the primary vector for anonymous, illegal leaks designed to depict Trump as a Kremlin agent and/or blackmail victim. It worked to ensure the leak of the Steele dossier that clouded at least the first two years of Trump’s presidency. It drove the scam Russiagate conspiracy theories. And before Trump was even inaugurated, open warfare erupted between the president-elect and the agency to the point where Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer explicitly warned Trump on the Rachel Maddow Show that he was risking full-on subversion of his presidency by the agency:

Democrats, early in Trump’s presidency, saw clearly that the CIA had become one of Trump’s most devoted enemies, and thus began viewing them as a valuable ally. Leading out-of-power Democratic foreign policy elites from the Obama administration and Clinton campaign joined forces not only with Bush/Cheney neocons but also former CIA officials to create new foreign policy advocacy groups designed to malign and undermine Trump and promote hawkish confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia. Meanwhile, other ex-CIA and Homeland Security officials, such as John Brennan and James Clapper, became beloved liberal celebrities by being hired by MSNBC and CNN to deliver liberal-pleasing anti-Trump messaging that, on a virtually daily basis, masqueraded as news.

Fair Use Excerpt. Read the rest here.


Arthur Davis , 1 day ago

All covered extensively in Killing Hope , U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, by William Blum

Timothy Lee , 22 hours ago

Oliver Stone's "The Untold History of the US" opened up my eyes to how shameful our history really is. The American Empire is no better then Great Britain, the very power this country was supposed to rise above.

Mehdi Hosseini , 1 day ago

When a system is fully controlled by the big corporation/money every action and move must serve it's master. Some are directly related to their immediate interest and some to prevent any future challenge to it.

Dennis Miller , 1 day ago

let's not forget the Dulles Brothers (CIA & State)

Joe Filter , 1 day ago

Such sad facts. 'Killing Hope' really does describe it.

Cygnus X-321 , 1 day ago

"...At CBS, we had been contacted by the CIA, as a matter of fact, by the time I became the head of the news and public affairs division in 1954 shifts had been established ... I was told about them and asked if I'd carry on with them...." -- Sid Mickelson, CBS News President 1954-61, describing Operation Mockingbird

Jorge Eduardo da Silva Tavares , 1 day ago

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, by John Perkins, was a NYTimes best-seller about the methods CIA use to dominate countries in Latin America and in Asia. John Perkins never was interviewed by Us Media.

[May 22, 2020] Sorting fact from fiction on Obamagate, Flynn investigations by Glenn Greenwald

FBI was converted into free floating secret police free to investigate anybody.
Notable quotes:
"... Well, there is the infamous Strzok-Page SMS where Page states that the WH wants to know everything. This occurred MONTHS before January 4, 2017. ..."
"... Mike Flynn was eyeballs deep in conflicts of interest between his business and his national security role. ..."
"... part of the call was to ask Russia to veto a vote which should also be drilled into as they had not taken office yet and actively undermined a sitting government ..."
"... The FBI asked about the call because they wanted to leak it without revealing they had intercepted the communications of a incoming National Security Advisor. The call might have been perfectly normal and legal but given the Russia hysteria of the time it was perfectly usable as a smear. ..."
"... So they went in and ambushed Flynn without a lawyer to either get him on the record and leak it or better yet lie about it. Flynn didn't know how depraved the Obama administration had become and didn't imagine they had unmasked him and also couldn't believe they would dare entrap him like some criminal by asking him about a call they already had intercepted. That was his mistake. ..."
"... Obama is an armed terrorist at the behest of the CIA for a proxy war in Libya (North Africa) and Syria ..."
May 22, 2020 | www.youtube.com

ilmaestro305 Hoch , 5 hours ago

Beria is supposed to have said to Stalin, "Show me the man and I'll show you the crime."

JB6789 , 4 hours ago (edited)

03: 45 - Well, there is the infamous Strzok-Page SMS where Page states that the WH wants to know everything. This occurred MONTHS before January 4, 2017.

JB6789 , 4 hours ago

Glenn Greenwald is always delivering a well-thought and well-researched view on so many important issues in this world. I may not share the same view on every issue with GG, but I make a reasonable effort to find his insights at every opportunity. He is an absolute pleasure to listen to, because he speaks with such clarity of thought and is clearly an exceptional lawyer. It may well be too much to ask for...but journalism could use 100 more Glenn Greenwald's.

2020 FDR New Deal Solution , 4 hours ago

I can't express how much respect I have for Glenn. The Hill and Glenn are some of the only people left in media that I actually trust.

Jared Allen , 2 hours ago

Rising is really drinking the kool aid on this one. So many facts about this case are being cherry picked to find a conspiracy. Mike Flynn was eyeballs deep in conflicts of interest between his business and his national security role.

Let's also not forget, he was fired by Trump because he lied to Mike Pence, not because the deep state railroaded him in some way.

... ... ...

Richw , 4 hours ago

Completely agree that this was criminal and should be explored fully but be objective and I heard about the story that part of the call was to ask Russia to veto a vote which should also be drilled into as they had not taken office yet and actively undermined a sitting government

ToldYouSo , 1 hour ago

Come on how can you beat around the bush so much?

The FBI asked about the call because they wanted to leak it without revealing they had intercepted the communications of a incoming National Security Advisor. The call might have been perfectly normal and legal but given the Russia hysteria of the time it was perfectly usable as a smear.

So they went in and ambushed Flynn without a lawyer to either get him on the record and leak it or better yet lie about it. Flynn didn't know how depraved the Obama administration had become and didn't imagine they had unmasked him and also couldn't believe they would dare entrap him like some criminal by asking him about a call they already had intercepted. That was his mistake.

Rogue Judas , 4 hours ago

Obama is an armed terrorist at the behest of the CIA for a proxy war in Libya (North Africa) and Syria.

[May 22, 2020] The CIA's Murderous Practices, Disinformation Campaigns, and Interference in Other Countries Shape the World Order and U.S. Politics by Glenn Greenwald

Notable quotes:
"... Democrats, early in Trump's presidency, saw clearly that the CIA had become one of Trump's most devoted enemies, and thus began viewing them as a valuable ally. Leading out-of-power Democratic foreign policy elites from the Obama administration and Clinton campaign joined forces not only with Bush/Cheney neocons but also former CIA officials to create new foreign policy advocacy groups designed to malign and undermine Trump and promote hawkish confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia. Meanwhile, other ex-CIA and Homeland Security officials, such as John Brennan and James Clapper, became beloved liberal celebrities by being hired by MSNBC and CNN to deliver liberal-pleasing anti-Trump messaging that, on a virtually daily basis, masqueraded as news . ..."
"... the current function ..."
May 22, 2020 | theintercept.com

In his extraordinary election-advocating op-ed, Hayden, Bush/Cheney's CIA chief, candidly explained the reasons for the CIA's antipathy for Trump: namely, the GOP candidate's stated opposition to allowing CIA regime change efforts in Syria to expand as well as his opposition to arming Ukrainians with lethal weapons to fight Russia (supposedly "pro-Putin" positions which, we are now all supposed to forget, Obama largely shared ). As has been true since President Harry Truman's creation of the CIA after World War II, interfering in other countries and dictating or changing their governments -- through campaigns of mass murder, military coups, arming guerrilla groups, the abolition of democracy, systemic disinformation, and the imposition of savage despots -- is regarded as a divine right, inherent to American exceptionalism. Anyone who questions that or, worse, opposes it and seeks to impede it (as the CIA perceived Trump was) is of suspect loyalties at best.

The CIA's antipathy toward Trump continued after his election victory. The agency became the primary vector for anonymous illegal leaks designed to depict Trump as a Kremlin agent and/or blackmail victim. It worked to ensure the leak of the Steele dossier that clouded at least the first two years of Trump's presidency. It drove the scam Russiagate conspiracy theories. And before Trump was even inaugurated, open warfare erupted between the president-elect and the agency to the point where Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer explicitly warned Trump on the Rachel Maddow Show that he was risking full-on subversion of his presidency by the agency:

This turned out to be one of the most prescient and important (and creepy) statements of the Trump presidency: from Chuck Schumer to Rachel Maddow - in early January, 2017, before Trump was even inaugurated: pic.twitter.com/TUaYkksILG

-- Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 8, 2019
Democrats, early in Trump's presidency, saw clearly that the CIA had become one of Trump's most devoted enemies, and thus began viewing them as a valuable ally. Leading out-of-power Democratic foreign policy elites from the Obama administration and Clinton campaign joined forces not only with Bush/Cheney neocons but also former CIA officials to create new foreign policy advocacy groups designed to malign and undermine Trump and promote hawkish confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia. Meanwhile, other ex-CIA and Homeland Security officials, such as John Brennan and James Clapper, became beloved liberal celebrities by being hired by MSNBC and CNN to deliver liberal-pleasing anti-Trump messaging that, on a virtually daily basis, masqueraded as news .

The all-consuming Russiagate narrative that dominated the first three years of Trump's presidency further served to elevate the CIA as a noble and admirable institution while whitewashing its grotesque history. Liberal conventional wisdom held that Russian Facebook ads, Twitter bots and the hacking and release of authentic, incriminating DNC emails was some sort of unprecedented, off-the-charts, out-of-the-ordinary crime-of-the-century attack, with several leading Democrats (including Hillary Clinton) actually comparing it to 9/11 and Pearl Harbor . The level of historical ignorance and/or jingostic American exceptionalism necessary to believe this is impossible to describe. Compared to what the CIA has done to dozens of other countries since the end of World War II, and what it continues to do , watching Americans cast Russian interference in the 2016 election through online bots and email hacking (even if one believes every claim made about it) as some sort of unique and unprecedented crime against democracy is staggering. Set against what the CIA has done and continues to do to "interfere" in the domestic affairs of other countries -- including Russia -- the 2016 election was, at most, par for the course for international affairs and, more accurately, a trivial and ordinary act in the context of CIA interference. This propaganda was sustainable because the recent history and the current function of the CIA has largely been suppressed. Thankfully, a just-released book by journalist Vincent Bevins -- who spent years as a foreign correspondent covering two countries still marred by brutal CIA interference: Brazil for the Los Angeles Times and Indonesia for the Washington Post -- provides one of the best, most informative and most illuminating histories yet of this agency and the way it has shaped the actual, rather than the propagandistic, U.S. role in the world.

Entitled "The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World," the book primarily documents the indescribably horrific campaigns of mass murder and genocide the CIA sponsored in Indonesia as an instrument for destroying a nonaligned movement of nations who would be loyal to neither Washington nor Moscow. Critically, Bevins documents how the chilling success of that morally grotesque campaign led to its being barely discussed in U.S. discourse, but then also serving as the foundation and model for clandestine CIA interference campaigns in multiple other countries from Guatemala, Chile, and Brazil to the Philippines, Vietnam, and Central America: the Jakarta Method.

Our newest episode of SYSTEM UPDATE, which debuts today at 2:00 p.m. on The Intercept's YouTube channel , is devoted to a discussion of why this history is so vital: not just for understanding the current international political order but also for distinguishing between fact and fiction in our contemporary political discourse. In addition to my own observations on this topic, I speak to Bevins about his book, about what the CIA really is and how it has shaped the world we still inhabit, and why a genuine understanding of both international and domestic politics is impossible without a clear grasp on this story.

[May 22, 2020] This doesn't look good for the Obama Alumni Association

May 22, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

UPDATE "The Railroading of Michael Flynn" [Eli Lake, Commentary ] ( Lake's bio ).

This, as did the Greenwald YouTube the other day, puts together a coherent Flynn narrative. Here is a snippet: "Compare Flynn's treatment to McCabe's. Flynn was humiliated and bankrupted for allegedly lying to Pence and FBI agents over a phone call that advanced U.S. interests.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department inspector general found in 2018 that McCabe "knowingly provided false information" in three separate interviews during an investigation into self-serving leaks published by the Wall Street Journal about an aborted investigation into the Clinton Foundation in 2016.

That report also found that McCabe admonished more junior FBI agents for the leaks that he himself had authorized. Today, McCabe is a contributor at CNN. His opinions are still taken seriously at places like the esteemed Lawfare website. He remains in the good graces of the Trump resistance." \

This doesn't look good for the Obama Alumni Association (which, horridly, is a real thing ).

[May 22, 2020] Flynn Targeted By Christopher Steele After FBI Offered To Pay Ex-Spook 'Significantly'

May 22, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

In the weeks leading up to the 2016 election, the FBI offered to pay former British spy Christopher Steele "significantly" for collecting intelligence on Michael Flynn, according to the Daily Caller 's Chuck Ross.

The FBI's proposal - made during an October 3, 2016 meeting in an unidentified European city, and virtually ignored by the press - has taken on new significance in light of recent documents exposing how the Obama administration targeted Flynn before and after president Trump's upset victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016.

The inspector general's report, released on Dec. 9, 2019, said that FBI agents offered to pay Steele "significantly" to collect intelligence from three separate "buckets" that the bureau was pursuing as part of Crossfire Hurricane , its counterintelligence probe of four Trump campaign associates.

One bucket was "Additional intelligence/reporting on specific, named individuals (such as [Carter Page] or [Flynn]) involved in facilitating the Trump campaign-Russian relationship," the IG report stated.

FBI agents also sought contact with "any individuals or sub sources" who Steele could provide to "serve as cooperating witnesses to assist in identifying persons involved in the Trump campaign-Russian relationship."

Steele at the time had provided the FBI with reports he compiled alleging that members of the Trump campaign had conspired with the Kremlin to influence the 2016 election. - Daily Caller

Of note, Steele was promoting a discredited rumor that Flynn had an extramarital affair with Svetlana Lokhova, a Russian-British academic who studied at the University of Cambridge. This rumor was amplified by the Wall Street Journal and The Guardian in March, 2017.

According to the Inspector General's report, the FBI gave Steele a "general overview" of their Crossfire Hurricane probe - including their efforts to surveil Trump campaign aides George Papadopoulos and Carter Page, along with Paul Manafort and Flynn. In fact - some FBI agents questioned whether the lead agent told Steel too much about the operation , according to the IG report.

Via the Daily Caller

In recent weeks, the release of two documents raise questions about potential links between the FBI's request of Steele and the Lokhova rumor .

One of the documents is a transcript of longtime John McCain associate David Kramer's interview with the House Intelligence Committee. Kramer testified on Dec. 17, 2017, that Steele told him in December 2016 that he suspected that Flynn had an extramarital affair with a Russian woman .

"There was one thing he mentioned to me that is not included here, and that is he believed that Mr. Flynn had an extramarital affair with a Russian woman in the U.K .," Kramer told lawmakers.

Kramer said that Steele conveyed that Flynn's alleged mistress was a "Russian woman" who "may have been a dual citizen."

An FBI memo dated Jan. 4, 2017, contained another allegation regarding Flynn and a mysterious Russian woman.

The memo, which was provided to Flynn's lawyers on April 30, said that an FBI confidential human source (CHS) told the bureau that they were present at an event that Flynn attended while he was still working in the U.S. intelligence community . - Daily Caller

Lokhova and Flynn have denied the rumors - with Lokhova's husband telling the Daily Caller News Foundation that he picked his wife up after the Cambridge dinner where an FBI informant said they 'left together in a cab.'

Meanwhile, a DIA official who was at the Cambridge event with Flynn also told the WSJ in March 2017 that there was nothing inappropriate going on between Flynn and Lokhova.

Read the rest of the report here .

[May 21, 2020] How Can Susan Rice Know What Obama and Comey Said if She Was Not Present by Larry C Johnson

May 21, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Here is the bottomline in a nutshell--Susan Rice has been caught red handed trying to construct a lie about what Barack Obama knew and did not know with respect to General Michael Flynn. She claimed to be present when Barack Obama discussed the Michael Flynn intercept but, according to Sally Yates, who was interviewed by the FBI, only Yates, Jim Comey and Barack Obama were present. This new revelation--made possible by the declassification of the Susan Rice email written in the last moments of the Obama Administration--actually bolsters Michael Flynn's contention that he was the victim of a political hit job designed to take out Donald Trump.

[May 21, 2020] Trump Is Exposing The Deep State Like No One Since JFK, Former CIA Spook by Greg Hunter

May 21, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Via Greg Hunter's USAWatchdog.com ,

With every new revelation about what President Trump calls "Obamagate," you see the curtain being torn down and revealing the corrupt players who were running America and attacking our Republic.

Former CIA Officer and counter-terrorism expert Kevin Shipp, who wrote a book about the Deep State called "From the Company of Shadows," says any hint that POTUS is a tool of the Deep State is preposterous.

Shipp explains, "That is absolutely ridiculous..."

" Donald Trump has confronted the Shadow Government and Deep State more than any other president in history, and that includes JFK. JFK did, of course, confront the Deep State and we saw what happened there.

There has been no other president that has had the guts to expose the Shadow Government and Deep State like Donald Trump has. What has the Deep State done? They have gone after him with a vengeance. Why would the Deep State attack their own with attacks to try to destroy him and his family if he wasn't threatening to expose the Deep State? No, he's not a Deep State president. He's not perfect. We all know that. There are members of his cabinet that we are concerned about with connections to some of the central banks. We all know that, but Donald Trump is not Deep State. He is splitting the Deep State wide open.

Look what DNI Rick Grenell just presented to the President. He authorized for release of names of all the unmaskers. Trump is exposing the Deep State, and, personally, I am proud of him because I have been waiting for this for 20 years for a president to come out and expose these things ."

On the virus crisis, Shipp says it's turned into a political weapon for the Left. Shipp contends, "They (Democrats) want to delay any solution to the Coronavirus until the election so they can keep the economy ruined and point the finger at Donald Trump..."

" That's one of the things they want to do. They also want mail-in ballots because that is one of the easiest ways to engage in election fraud. There is a report that just came out that people are getting mail-in ballots that already have the Democrat party checked on the box when they open it up, and they are not Democrats.

You better believe they are going to try to engage in voter fraud using mail-in ballots. There is no doubt about it because they are going to lose badly, and they know it. So, they have to do that. You bet."

The Democrats in the House are going to try, once again, to impeach President Trump for Russian collision. Recently released documents show it was a proven total hoax that they made up, and, yet, the Dems are going to try this again before the 2020 election. What's going on? Shipp says,

" This is the last gasp of Democrat Congressional tyrants trying one last time to remove this elected President. It's laughable...

What this is, is desperation on the part of Pelosi and Schumer. This is desperation on their part knowing that the whole thing was disproven and shot down by the evidence. If Trump gets elected a second time, you will see investigations into Congress, Senate, Obamagate and China. These people are desperate to keep that stuff from coming out.

You think President Trump is exposing them now? You wait until he gets elected a second time. That's why they are so terrified, and they are trying everything they can to keep him from being elected."

Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com as he goes One-on-One with CIA whistleblower Kevin Shipp.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/UjFew1RLzlc

To Donate to USAWatchdog.com Click Here...

Kevin Shipp's website is called FortheLoveofFreedom.net ...

[May 21, 2020] Press Conference "NEW FACTS OF INTERNATIONAL CORRUPTION AND EXTERNAL GOVERNANCE OF UKRAINE

May 21, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Curmudgeon , May 20 2020 18:42 utc | 25

Press Conference "NEW FACTS OF INTERNATIONAL CORRUPTION AND EXTERNAL GOVERNANCE OF UKRAINE"

English CC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaE9OZ89bnQ

[May 21, 2020] Grenell declassifies Susan Rice email sent on Inauguration Day

Some people are really angry ;-)
May 21, 2020 | thehill.com

RdLake LilLiMargeret 1927 13 hours ago

Obama & his band of corrupt, lying, manipulating, seditious, malevolent, lawless criminals, who are still running loose, back in the WH ... Above the law_ Perkins Coie Law Firm, Fusion GPS (Glenn Simpson) Christopher Steele, Stefan Harper, Josef Mifsud, Alexander Downer, Alexandra Chalupa, Robert Mueller, Andrew Weismann, Andrew McCabe, James Baker, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Bruce & Nellie Ohr, Joe Pientka, ... Obama, Biden, Crooked Hillary, Wingman Eric Holder, Tarmac Loretta Lynch, John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Valerie Jarrett, Susan Rice, Samantha Power, Sally Yates, section data-role="main" data-tracking-area="main"
Mabel Eagle V The Illegal Individ #1 4 hours ago
Obama was spying on Americans for 8 years while he was in office
dcard88 Guest a day ago
She warned the traitor in chief that Flynn was 'working with' our enemy
Mabel Guest a day ago • edited
It was all A LIE ( as in SLANDER) all made up by Obama...I hope Flynn sues that POS for everything his owns section data-role="main" data-tracking-area="main"
BuckeyeRLP netcoach a day ago
Attack the guy who asks the questions. I understand. It's hard to believe they were this dishonest to begin with. Covering it up after the fact with lame emails is so Nixonian. But then again, Rice has a history of lying about history. Remember the Sunday propaganda parade she ran regarding the Benghazi coverup. Squirrels do not give birth to eagles as they say. You are what your history says you are.
BuckeyeRLP dcard88 14 hours ago
You lying coward. They all spoke under oath at the Schiff clown show. So did Comey, Clapper and Brennan. They all said no collusion under oath . Flynn a decorated general was destroyed by career bureaucrats that only serve themselves. Obama encouraged it at the least. Directed it at its worst. Shameful. section data-role="main" data-tracking-area="main"
BuckeyeRLP netcoach a day ago
Yes you are sorry. Defending a coup by a bunch of unelected burecrats over politics. Get a better candidate and win an election. Maybe do a little party analysts on how you lost middle America that's what I am talking about. Partisan hacks like yourself are as introspective as a dung beatle. You do what you do in sh!t created by others and don't question why.

[May 20, 2020] MadCow in action

May 20, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

xxx 10 hours ago

Russia, Russia, Russia !!!!!!!!!!

Russia, Russia, Russia !!!!!!!!!!

Russia, Russia, Russia !!!!!!!!!!

Take Breath........

Russia, Russia, Russia !!!!!!!!!!!

xxx 10 hours ago

something is rotten in the Dutch kingdom.

usually fish rots from the head.

[May 20, 2020] Russiagate skunk Evelyn Farkas is emotionally exhausted by correct claims that she blatantly lied to Mika Brzezinski

Was it Crowdstrike that had shown her the forensics data? This McCarthyist dog just keeps lying and keeps digging. The Obama administration was as shameless as they were crooked.
"They all sound like kids that got caught raiding the cookie jar making up wild tales of innocence with cookie crumbs all over their faces."
Notable quotes:
"... Opening your eyes wider while speaking doesn't make you look more intense, credible, and believable... ..."
"... (((They))) are taught from birth to "lie to, cheat, rob, enslave, and kill, with impunity" all Americans they call "Goyim, a mindless herd of cattle, sub-human animals." ..."
"... Ah Evelyn, Evelyn! You're just an exposed resistance tool HRC campaign hack doubling downer unemployed TDS afflicted congress woman wannabe who has no shame no principals and no alibi. Lots of love and kisses to Bezos/WaPo for letting them share your pain with us. Here at the disinfo clearinghouse you couldn't get elected dog catcher. ..."
May 18, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

...Meanwhile, Poor Evelyn's campaign staff has become " emotionally exhausted " after her Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts have been "overwhelmed with a stream of vile, vulgar and sometimes violent messages" in response to the plethora of conservative outlets which have called her out for Russia malarkey.

There is evidence that Russian actors are contributing to these attacks. The same day that right-wing pundits began pumping accusations, newly created Russian Twitter accounts picked them up. Within a day, Russian " disinformation clearinghouses " posted versions of the story . Many of the Twitter accounts boosting attacks have posted in unison, a sign of inauthentic social media behavior.

We assume Zero Hedge is included in said ' disinformation clearinghouses ' Farkas fails to expound on.

She closes by defiantly claiming "I wasn't silenced in 2017, and I won't be silenced now."

No Evelyn, nobody is silencing you. You're being called out for your role in the perhaps the largest, most divisive hoax in US history - which was based on faulty intelligence that includes CrowdStrike admitting they had no proof of that Russia exfiltrated DNC emails, and Christopher Steele's absurd dossier based on his 'Russian sources.'


MrAToZ, 1 minute ago

What's with the bug eyes on these crooks?

Kurpak, 27 seconds ago

Opening your eyes wider while speaking doesn't make you look more intense, credible, and believable...

It makes you look ******* insane.

iAmerican10, 8 minutes ago (Edited)

(((They))) are taught from birth to "lie to, cheat, rob, enslave, and kill, with impunity" all Americans they call "Goyim, a mindless herd of cattle, sub-human animals."

... ... ...

otschelnik, 35 minutes ago

Ah Evelyn, Evelyn! You're just an exposed resistance tool HRC campaign hack doubling downer unemployed TDS afflicted congress woman wannabe who has no shame no principals and no alibi. Lots of love and kisses to Bezos/WaPo for letting them share your pain with us. Here at the disinfo clearinghouse you couldn't get elected dog catcher.

[May 20, 2020] Newly Revealed Texts Show Strzok, Page Altered Flynn Interview Notes

Highly recommended!
Yes it was a perjury trap. Typical fbi thug behavior
Apr 30, 2020 | www.newsmax.com

Yet another bombshell development emerged Thursday in the case of former National Security Adviser Gen. Michael Flynn: the release of additional exculpatory evidence FBI officials had withheld from the courts and the defense for three years.

Crucially, this includes evidence that the Bureau's official "302 report" filed by the lead agent who interviewed Flynn was edited multiple times, including by an official who never participated in the interview.

Thursday's revelations come on top of yesterday's disclosures indicating an apparent attempt by FBI officials to trap Flynn into committing a criminal offense during an interview.

The new revelation could prove even more significant: In addition to the apparently calculated effort to get Flynn to commit perjury or obstruction, top FBI figures, including FBI Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page, repeatedly altered the "302 report" that was filed after the Flynn interview.

That interview was conducted under highly unusual circumstances. Ordinarily, an FBI interview of a top West Wing official would be requested through the White House Counsel's office, and would be conducted in the presence of legal counsel representing the official being interviewed.

That did not occur in the case of the FBI's interview with Flynn, and Comey later stated that under "a more organized administration" he "probably wouldn't have gotten away with it."

Initially, when the lead FBI agent handling the case was asked whether Flynn lied during the interview, he stated that he did not believe so.

But over the coming days Strzok and Page would edit and revise the agent's 302 report repeatedly, according to a document providing text messages between FBI officials that the defense counsel finally received this week.

Prosecutors and investigators are required to turn over information that might tend to indicate a suspect's innocence to the defense counsel prior to trial and sentencing. Most legal analysts would consider the information withheld from Flynn's legal team potentially exculpatory.

An inside source familiar with efforts to defend Gen. Flynn tells Newsmax an unadulterated, original 302 document exists that was created by the lead agent from his notes of the interview with Flynn.

Jonathan Turley, the George Washington University law professor who testified before the House during President Trump's impeachment, wrote Thursday the decision to keep the case open occurred when "Special counsel Robert Mueller decided to bring the dubious charge."

In a column posted on TheHill.com on Thursday, Turley said the case against Flynn should be dismissed. "Justice demands a dismissal of his prosecution," he wrote.

At the time Flynn was being prosecuted, Mueller was seeking evidence the Trump campaign colluded with Russia in the 2016 campaign.

Critics say he was prosecuting Flynn to get him to turn state's witness against Trump, but the general never implicated him.

Mueller eventually determined there was no evidence of a Russian-collusion conspiracy. But by then Flynn, under intense financial pressure from the prosecution and buckling under the threat that his son could be drawn into a legal quagmire, had pled guilty to one count of lying to the FBI.

He has since requested to withdraw that plea, and he is awaiting sentencing.

President Trump weighed in on the controversial case Thursday morning tweeting, "What happened to General Michael Flynn, a war hero, should never be allowed to happen to a citizen of the United States again!"

Later the president told reporters he believes Flynn is "in the process of being exonerated."

Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik reacted strongly on Thursday to the news FBI officials to altered a 302 report and reopened the case when the initial analysis indicated no crime had been committed.

Kerik told Newsmax Thursday that if evidence or records had been unduly altered under his watch as police commissioner, he would have referred the matter to the district attorney for possible prosecution.

"They intentionally went back and doctored the original 302," he said. "That's because they were not looking for the truth.

"They were looking for a mechanism to trap Gen. Flynn, to prosecute him, to get him fired in order to go after the president. That was their motive, that was their agenda. It's absolutely clear at this point they were not looking for the truth."

Kerik added, "This was done at the highest levels of the FBI. At the most senior level of the FBI, they falsified records, they suppressed evidence.

"This is irresponsible, it's outrageous They used and abused their authority to deprive Gen. Flynn of his constitutional right to freedom," he said.

According to the source, as supported by text messages also obtained by Newsmax, Stzrok, who also participated in the Flynn interview, rewrote the 302 extensively -- although a text message from him stated he tried not to "completely re-write it so as to save [redacted] voice," presumably a reference to the lead agent who originally wrote it.

Stzrok then shared the document with a "pissed off" Page, who had not participated in the interview, and who revised it significantly again, according to the Newsmax source.

The objective of the interview was to probe whether Flynn had violated the Logan Act, an 18th-century statute that has never been used in any criminal conviction. The Act makes it a crime for a U.S. citizens to interfere with the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. Many legal scholars find the law to be unconstitutional.

The documents received by Newsmax indicate the case had virtually been closed – suggesting the lead agent was satisfied no crime had been committed -- prior to it being reopened by the direct intervention of Strzok and Page.

The documents, for example, show the probe of Flynn was about to be put to bed when the lead agent received a text from Strzok stating, "Hey, if you haven't closed [the case], don't do so yet."

Apparently, Page was pleasantly surprised to find the matter had not yet been closed.

On Feb. 10, 2017, Page texted Strzok, "This document pisses me off. You didn't even attempt to make this cogent and readable? This is lazy work on your part."

Strzok replied, "Lisa you didn't see it before my edits that went into what I sent you. I was 1) trying to completely re-write the thing so as to save [the lead agent's] voice and 2) get it out to you for general review and comment in anticipation of needing it soon."

Wednesday's revelation included notes of a meeting conducted a short time after the 2016 election between FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. The notes stated, "What is our goal? Truth and admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?"

The notes were written by then-FBI head of counterintelligence Bill Priestap.

[May 20, 2020] McGovern Turn Out The Lights, Russiagate Is Over by Ray McGovern

Highly recommended!
It is not. Forces behind Russiagate are intact and still have the same agenda. CrowdStrike was just a tool. As long as Full Spectrum Dominance dourine is alive, Russiagate will flourish in one form or another
Notable quotes:
"... The need for a scapegoat to blame for Hillary Clinton's snatching defeat out of the jaws victory also played a role; as did the need for the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank complex (MICIMATT) to keep front and center in the minds of Americans the alleged multifaceted threat coming from an "aggressive" Russia. (Recall that John McCain called the, now disproven , "Russian hacking" of the DNC emails an "act of war.") ..."
"... Though the corporate media is trying to bury it, the Russiagate narrative has in the past few weeks finally collapsed with the revelation that CrowdStrike had no evidence Russia took anything from the DNC servers and that the FBI set a perjury trap for Gen. Michael Flynn. There was already the previous government finding that there was no collusion between Trump and Russia and the indictment of a Russian troll farm that supposedly was destroying American democracy with $100,000 in Facebook ads was dropped after the St. Petersburg defendants sought discovery. ..."
"... Given the diffident attitude the Security State plotters adopted regarding hiding their tracks, Durham's challenge, with subpoena power, is not as formidable as were he, for example, investigating a Mafia family. ..."
"... Meanwhile, the corporate media have all been singing from the same sheet since Trump had the audacity a week ago to coin yet another "-gate" -- this time "Obamagate." Leading the apoplectic reaction in corporate media, Saturday's Washington Post offered a pot-calling-the-kettle-black pronouncement by its editorial board entitled "The absurd cynicism of 'Obamagate"? ..."
"... So if we dug in and found large payments from George Soros or Mrs Clinton to these 'journalists', what crime could they be accused of? No crimes, I don't think. ..."
"... There never was anything to Russiagate. It was always just politics. I knew that from the beginning. There was, however, a lot of something to the torture scandal. Obama said "We are not going to look back." And now Gina Haspel, one of the chief torturers, partly responsible for destroying the torture tapes, despite a court order to preserve them, is now head of the CIA. ..."
"... Drain the Swamp my ***. He's started by firing all the IG's? Trump "looking back," not forward. He could start by investigating Gina Haspel. ..."
"... For example, Foglesong argued that "a vital factor in the revival of the crusade in the 1970s was the need to expunge doubts about American virtue instilled by the Vietnam War, revelations about CIA covert actions, and the Watergate scandal." ..."
"... By tracing American representations of Russia over the last 130 years, Foglesong illuminated three of the strongest notions that have informed American attitudes toward Russia: (1) a messianic faith that America could inspire sweeping overnight transformation from autocracy to democracy; (2) a notion that despite historic differences, Russia and America are very much akin, so that Russia, more than any other country, is America's "dark double;" (3) an extreme antipathy to "evil" leaders who Americans blame for thwarting what they believe to be the natural triumph of the American mission. These expectations and emotions continue to effect how American journalists and politicians write and talk about Russia. "My hope," Foglesong concluded, "is that by seeing how these attitudes have distorted American views of Russia for more than a century, we may begin to be able to escape their grip." ..."
May 19, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Ray McGovern via ConsortiumNews.com,

Seldom mentioned among the motives behind the persistent drumming on alleged Russian interference was an over-arching need to help the Security State hide their tracks.

The need for a scapegoat to blame for Hillary Clinton's snatching defeat out of the jaws victory also played a role; as did the need for the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank complex (MICIMATT) to keep front and center in the minds of Americans the alleged multifaceted threat coming from an "aggressive" Russia. (Recall that John McCain called the, now disproven , "Russian hacking" of the DNC emails an "act of war.")

But that was then. This is now.

Though the corporate media is trying to bury it, the Russiagate narrative has in the past few weeks finally collapsed with the revelation that CrowdStrike had no evidence Russia took anything from the DNC servers and that the FBI set a perjury trap for Gen. Michael Flynn. There was already the previous government finding that there was no collusion between Trump and Russia and the indictment of a Russian troll farm that supposedly was destroying American democracy with $100,000 in Facebook ads was dropped after the St. Petersburg defendants sought discovery.

All that's left is to discover how this all happened.

Attorney General William Barr, and U.S. Attorney John Durham, whom Barr commissioned to investigate this whole sordid mess seem intent on getting to the bottom of it. The possibility that Trump will not chicken out this time, and rather will challenge the Security State looms large since he felt personally under attack.

Writing on the Wall

Given the diffident attitude the Security State plotters adopted regarding hiding their tracks, Durham's challenge, with subpoena power, is not as formidable as were he, for example, investigating a Mafia family.

Plus, former NSA Director Adm. Michael S. Rogers reportedly is cooperating. The handwriting is on the wall. It remains to be seen what kind of role in the scandal Barack Obama may have played.

But former directors James Comey, James Clapper, and John Brennan, captains of Obama's Security State, can take little solace from Barr's remarks Monday to a reporter who asked about Trump's recent claims that top officials of the Obama administration, including the former president had committed crimes. Barr replied:

"As to President Obama and Vice President Biden, whatever their level of involvement, based on the information I have today, I don't expect Mr. Durham's work will lead to a criminal investigation of either man. Our concerns over potential criminality is focused on others."

In a more ominous vein, Barr gratuitously added that law enforcement and intelligence officials were involved in "a false and utterly baseless Russian collusion narrative against the president. It was a grave injustice, and it was unprecedented in American history."

Meanwhile, the corporate media have all been singing from the same sheet since Trump had the audacity a week ago to coin yet another "-gate" -- this time "Obamagate." Leading the apoplectic reaction in corporate media, Saturday's Washington Post offered a pot-calling-the-kettle-black pronouncement by its editorial board entitled "The absurd cynicism of 'Obamagate"?

The outrage voiced by the Post called to mind disgraced FBI agent Peter Strzok's indignant response to criticism of the FBI by candidate Trump, in a Oct. 20, 2016 text exchange with FBI attorney Lisa Page:

Strzok: I am riled up. Trump is a f***ing idiot, is unable to provide a coherent answer.

Strzok -- I CAN'T PULL AWAY, WHAT THE F**K HAPPENED TO OUR COUNTRY

Page -- I don't know. But we'll get it back. We're America. We rock.

Strzok -- Donald just said "bad hombres"

Strzok -- Trump just said what the FBI did is disgraceful.

Less vitriolic, but incisive commentary came from widely respected author and lawyer Glenn Greenwald on May 14, four days after Trump coined "Obamagate": ( See "System Update with Glenn Greenwald -- The Sham Prosecution of Michael Flynn").

For a shorter, equally instructive video of Greenwald on the broader issue of Russia-gate, see this clip from a March 2019 Democracy Now! -sponsored debate he had with David Cay Johnston titled, "As Mueller Finds No Collusion, Did Press Overhype Russiagate? Glenn Greenwald vs. David Cay Johnston":

https://www.youtube.com/embed/qdYw6jk3TTA

(The entire debate is worth listening to). I found one of the comments below the Democracy Now! video as big as a bummer as the commentator did:

"I think this is one of the most depressing parts about the whole situation. In their dogmatic pushing for this false narrative, the Russiagaters might have guaranteed Trump a second term. They have done more damage to our democracy than Russia ever has done and will do ." (From "Clamity2007")

In any case, Johnston, undaunted by his embarrassment at the hands of Greenwald, is still at it, and so is the avuncular Frank Rich -- both of them some 20 years older than Greenwald and set in their evidence-impoverished, media-indoctrinated ways.

... ... ...


Uncle Frank, 40 seconds ago

So if we dug in and found large payments from George Soros or Mrs Clinton to these 'journalists', what crime could they be accused of? No crimes, I don't think.

But when journalists are revealed to be issuing paid-for propaganda/lies mixed with their own internal opinions, and their publisher allows it to be presented as if it were reporting rather than opinion, said writers, editors, and publishers are relegated to obscurity and derision.

Their work will never be taken seriously again by anyone who wasn't already brain-washed.

They don't get that, I guess.

QABubba, 47 minutes ago (Edited)

There never was anything to Russiagate. It was always just politics. I knew that from the beginning. There was, however, a lot of something to the torture scandal. Obama said "We are not going to look back." And now Gina Haspel, one of the chief torturers, partly responsible for destroying the torture tapes, despite a court order to preserve them, is now head of the CIA.

General Flynn was so involved with Turkey he should have been registered as a foreign agent.

And as I have said before, the real crime was laundering Russian Mafia/Heroin money through Deutsche Bank into New York real estate. It is curious that Turkey is also a huge transport spot for heroin into the EU. And France and other EU nations have a migrant population that lives off the drug trade.

Drain the Swamp my ***. He's started by firing all the IG's? Trump "looking back," not forward. He could start by investigating Gina Haspel.

1911A1, 55 minutes ago

Operation Mockingbird

The MSM disinformation campaign with consistent common talking points is not difficult to see with a little discernment. The bigger question is has this happened organically or is there a larger agency manipulating the public discourse?

Question_Mark, 43 minutes ago

4AM secure drop from Senior Executive Services ( SES ) is a threat to our democracy.

Our greatest responsibility is to serve our [insert name of community here] community.

1surrounded2, 1 hour ago

" It remains to be seen what kind of role in the scandal Barack Obama may have played. "

Come on, Ray, I know you are not that stupid, but you ARE that libtarded.

Obama's very obvious role in all of this: KINGPIN .

Moribundus, 3 hours ago

Amazon.com The American Mission and the 'Evil Empire' The Crusade for a Free Russia Since 1881 (8580000721935) Foglesong,

"By 1905," Foglesong stated, "this fundamental reorientation of American views of Russia had set up a historical pattern in which missionary zeal and messianic euphoria would be followed by disenchantment and embittered denunciation of Russia's evil and oppressive rulers." The first cycle, according to Foglesong, culminated in 1905, when the October Manifesto, perceived initially by Americans as a transformation to democracy, gave way to a violent socialist revolt. Foglesong observed similar cycles of euphoria to despair during the collapse of the tsarist government in 1917, during the partial religious revival of World War II, and during the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s

Crucial to Foglesong's analysis was how these cycles coincided with a contemporaneous need to deflect attention away from America's own blemishes and enhance America's claim to its global mission.

For example, Foglesong argued that "a vital factor in the revival of the crusade in the 1970s was the need to expunge doubts about American virtue instilled by the Vietnam War, revelations about CIA covert actions, and the Watergate scandal."

By tracing American representations of Russia over the last 130 years, Foglesong illuminated three of the strongest notions that have informed American attitudes toward Russia: (1) a messianic faith that America could inspire sweeping overnight transformation from autocracy to democracy; (2) a notion that despite historic differences, Russia and America are very much akin, so that Russia, more than any other country, is America's "dark double;" (3) an extreme antipathy to "evil" leaders who Americans blame for thwarting what they believe to be the natural triumph of the American mission. These expectations and emotions continue to effect how American journalists and politicians write and talk about Russia. "My hope," Foglesong concluded, "is that by seeing how these attitudes have distorted American views of Russia for more than a century, we may begin to be able to escape their grip."

Moribundus, 3 hours ago

America's imperialism rules: Never to admit a fault or wrong; never to accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time; blame that enemy for everything that goes wrong; take advantage of every opportunity to raise a political whirlwind.

Kidbuck, 5 hours ago

Trump hasn't engaged in a fight in his life. He's a sissy at heart wants to negotiate. He can't even do that right. He's caved on nearly every campaign promise he made. The only thing his administration fights for is their salary and their retirement. Hillary still waddles free and farts in his general direction.

ChaoKrungThep, 4 hours ago

Trump the Mafia punk, like his dad, and draft dodger like his German grand dad. Barr, old CIA asset from the Clinton-Mena coke smuggling op. This crappy crew is running their masters' game in front of the redneck rabble who are dumber than their mutts.

Save_America1st, 9 hours ago

Geez...how far behind can most of these assholes be after all these years????

For one...there was no "Russia-gate". It was all a hoax from the beginning, and anyone with a few functioning brain cells knew that from the start.

And as of about 3 years ago we have all known this as "Obamagate" for the most part...we all knew the corruption of the hoax totally led up to O-Scumbag.

And now as of the recent disclosures it is a total fact.

Haven't most of you been watching Dan Bongino for over 2 years now and haven't you read his books? Haven't you been reading Sarah Carter and John Soloman among others for nearly 3 years now???

Surely, you haven't been just sitting around sucking leftist media **** for over 3 years, right???????? I'm sure you haven't.

So why is this article even necessary on ZeroHedge?????

We already knew and have known the truth since before even the 2016 election. Drop it.

Posa, 9 hours ago

So funny. The 85 Year old "American century' is palpably disintegrating before our very eyes. In particular the Deep State permanent bureaucracy is completely untethered and facing what seems to be a Great Reckoning in the form of Barr- Durham. Cognitve Derangement prevails in the press and spills overto the body politic. The country teeters a slo-mo Civil War. Meanwhile, The dollar is disintegrating and we seem to face an economic abyss, the Terminal Depression. Real "last Days of Rome" stuff.

BaNNeD oN THe RuN, 5 hours ago (Edited)

The Israeli dual citizens like Adelson and Mercer bought the Presidency.

Mossad was the organization handling the mole Seth Rich.

Blaming Russia also worked for those 2 groups because it deflected attention away from (((them))).

Ray McGovern, being ex-intel, must know this to be true.

LetThemEatRand, 11 hours ago

Russiagate. The supposed target of said coup d'etat just Presided over the largest bailout of banks ever by a factor of five or more. Trump supporters are asleep for the bailout, Trump haters are asleep for the bailout. Let's fight about transgender bathrooms and Russiagate, shall we?

yojimbo, 8 hours ago

I glance at the MSM, so here is a Guardian article along strongly TDS lines https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/19/will-donald-trump-end-up-in-prison-arwa-mahdawi

It's projection again, implying Obama gate is fake, like Russiagate actually was.. Tough to even want to get through!

[May 20, 2020] Phone Calls Between Biden And Ukraine's Poroshenko Leaked; Details $1 Billion Quid Pro Quo To Fire Burisma Prosecutor Zero

Highly recommended!
May 20, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Phone Calls Between Biden And Ukraine's Poroshenko Leaked; Details $1 Billion "Quid Pro Quo" To Fire Burisma Prosecutor by Tyler Durden Wed, 05/20/2020 - 05:12 Leaked phone calls between Joe Biden and former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko explicitly detail the quid-pro-quo arrangement to fire former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Victor Shokin - who Poroshenko admits did nothing wrong - in exchange for $1 billion in US loan guarantees (which Biden openly bragged about in January, 2018 ).

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Q0_AqpdwqK4?start=3118

The calls were leaked by Ukrainian MP Andrii Derkach , who says the recordings of "voices similar to Poroshenko and Biden" were given to him by investigative journalists who claim Poroshenko made them.

Shokin was notably investigating Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company that hired Biden's son, Hunter, to sit on its board. Shokin had opened a case against Burisma's founder, Mykola Zlochevsky, who granted Burisma permits to drill for oil and gas in Ukraine while he was Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources. In January, 2019, Shokin stated in a deposition that there were five criminal cases against Zlochevesky, including money laundering, corruption, illegal funds transfers, and profiteering through shell corporations while he was a sitting minister.

Viktor Shokin

The leaked calls begin on December 3, 2015 , when former Secretary of State John Kerry starts laying out the case to fire Shokin - who he says "blocked the cleanup of the Prosecutor Generals' Office," and sated that Biden "is very concerned about it," to which Poroshenko replies that the newly reorganized prosecutor general's office (NABU) won't be able to pursue corruption charges, and that it may be difficult to fire Shokin without cause.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/EbmDLhJ43cU

Later in the leaked audio on February 18, 2016 - less than three months after the Kerry conversation - Poroshenko delivers some "positive news."

"Yesterday I met with General Prosecutor Shokin," says Poroshenko. And despite of the fact that we didn't have any corruption charges, we don't have any information about him doing something wrong, I specially asked him - no, it was day before yesterday - I specially asked him to resign. In, uh, as his, uh, position as a state person. And despite of the fact that he has a support in the power. And as a finish of my meeting with him, he promised to give me the statement on resignation. And one hour ago he bring me the written statement of his resignation . And this is my second step for keeping my promises. "

To which Biden replied: "I agree."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/EbmDLhJ43cU?start=246

Four weeks later on March 22, 2016, Biden says "Tell me that there is a new government and a new Prosecutor General. I am prepared to do a public signing of the commitment for the billion dollars. "

Poroshenko tells Biden that one of the leading candidates is the man who replaced Shokin, Yuriy Lutsenko who later said in a deposition that Hunter Biden and his business partners were receiving millions of dollars in compensation from Burisma.

Then, on May 13, 2016, Biden congratulates Poroshenko on "getting the new Prosecutor General," saying that it will be "critical for him to work quickly to repair the damage Shokin did."

" And I'm a man of my word ," Biden adds. "And now that the new Prosecutor General is in place, we're ready to move forward to signing that one billion dollar loan guarantee ."

Poroshenko thanks Biden for the support, and says that it was a "very tough challenge and a very difficult job."

Shokin, meanwhile, filed a criminal complaint against Biden in Kiev this February, in which he writes:

During the period 2014-2016, the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine was conducting a preliminary investigation into a series of serious crimes committed by the former Minister of Ecology of Ukraine Mykola Zlotchevsky and by the managers of the company "Burisma Holding Limited "(Cyprus), the board of directors of which included, among others, Hunter Biden, son of Joseph Biden, then vice-president of the United States of America.

The investigation into the above-mentioned crimes was carried out in strict accordance with Criminal Law and was under my personal control as the Prosecutor General of Ukraine.

Owing to my firm position on the above-mentioned cases regarding their prompt and objective investigation, which should have resulted in the arrest and the indictment of the guilty parties, Joseph Biden developed a firmly hostile attitude towards me which led him to express in private conversations with senior Ukrainian officials, as well as in his public speeches, a categorical request for my immediate dismissal from the post of Attorney General of Ukraine in exchange for the sum of US $ 1 billion in as a financial guarantee from the United States for the benefit of Ukraine.

* * *

And while we cannot verify the authenticity of the recordings with absolute certainty, we now have the audio revealing how the deed was orchestrated.

[May 20, 2020] The criminalization of foreign policy dissent by Branko Marceti

May 20, 2020 | jacobinmag.com

The crux of Russiagate is that it's a political scandal masquerading as a criminal one.

The interminable scandal has been back in the news this past week thanks to the Trump Department of Justice's decision to drop charges against Michael Flynn. Flynn was once briefly Trump's national security advisor before being fired and then charged with lying to the FBI over a phone conversation with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the presidential transition. Last Thursday , the House Intelligence Committee finally released fifty-seven transcripts of closed-door interviews it conducted with various key players in the saga over 2017 and 2018, covering Flynn's call with Kislyak and other matters.

Since the news dropped, every effort has been made to turn Flynn's absolution into the latest Trump outrage. Barack Obama himself weighed in, charging in a leaked phone call with supporters that "there is no precedent that anybody can find for someone who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free," and that the "rule of law is at risk."

Four years into this chaotic and reactionary presidency, there are more than enough legitimate Trump scandals to go around. But as with many things Russiagate, both the Flynn case and the release of the transcripts reflect far more poorly on the Obama administration, American's hallowed national security institutions, and the anti-Trump "Resistance."

Understanding why requires going all the way back to 2016 and the beginnings of the Flynn case. Flynn was a former intelligence official pushed out of the Obama administration over, among other things, his management style . Years later, he became a characteristically weird Trump guy: a heterodox foreign policy thinker who combined occasional opposition to endless war with conspiratorial Islamophobia, and became nationally known for flirting with the "alt-right" and chanting "Lock her up!" at the 2016 RNC.

Flynn's loyalty to Trump was rewarded that year when he was announced as the president-elect's national security advisor. At the same time, Flynn had, like many in Trump's orbit, been investigated by the FBI over whether he was Kremlin agent, and only further raised hackles after it was leaked that he had spoken to Kislyak the same day that Obama ordered sanctions and expelled thirty-five Russian embassy officials as retaliation for Russia's interference in that year's election.

Flynn was, at first, pushed out by Trump when it turned out he had caused Vice President Mike Pence to unwittingly lie about the contact. He was then later charged by Robert Mueller and his team in the course of the "collusion" probe with lying to the FBI (not, as Obama claimed, perjury), which at the time was cause for much speculation : it was the umpteenth "beginning of the end" of Trump's presidency but ultimately produced no new revelations about a Trump-Russia conspiracy. Now, he's been allowed to skip a maximum of five years in jail and walk away "scot-free," as Obama put it.

But through it all and since, details have trickled out that have made the entire saga far less clear-cut than those most invested in the "collusion" narrative would have the public believe. For one, despite all the innuendo around Flynn's Russian contacts and his sitting next to Putin at a dinner, investigators found nothing unseemly when looking into Flynn and had all but closed their investigation into him when the news about the Kislyak call broke.

Secondly, the charge Flynn was ultimately slapped with, lying to the FBI, now looks more like a case of entrapment. Recently released notes written by Bill Priestep , former FBI counterintelligence director, prior to interviewing Flynn about the Kislyak call suggest the Bureau was looking at the option to "get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired." In the notes, Priestep wrote that "I believe we should rethink this," that simply showing Flynn evidence so he could admit wrongdoing wasn't "going easy on him" and was routine FBI practice, and that "if we're seen as playing games, WH [White House] will be furious," so they should "protect our institution by not playing games."

What's more, contemporaneous notes show that the investigators themselves weren't sure Flynn had intentionally lied to them, and that Comey himself had said so in a March 2017 briefing, before claiming he had never said anything of the sort after being fired by Trump.

There were further improprieties in the investigation. Flynn has claimed, with some evidence , that the FBI pressured him to sit down for the interview without a lawyer. Additionally, two years ago, Comey himself admitted that he had violated protocol by sending investigators to interview Flynn without going through the White House counsel, calling it "something I probably wouldn't have done or maybe gotten away with in a more organized administration."

Things get worse when one goes through the Mueller team's interview notes for then-acting Attorney General Sally Yates and Mary McCord, another DoJ official and both Obama appointees. To the surprise of Yates -- who insisted the White House needed to be informed Flynn had misled them, given it put him in a potentially compromising position -- Comey repeatedly refused to notify the White House, and the FBI's reasons for not doing so "morphed" over the course of discussion. Yates and her team were then "flabbergasted," "dumbfounded," and "hit the roof" when they learned Comey had sent agents to interview Flynn without informing her, believing it should have been coordinated with the DoJ.

After this, Mueller's prosecutors coerced Flynn into pleading guilty by bankrupting him and threatening to go after his son , not unlike the treatment visited upon government whistleblowers under the Obama administration. Through it all, there was the fact that Flynn had never actually committed any underlying crime by talking to Kislyak -- not to mention the fact that Mueller himself debunked the entire Russiagate conspiracy theory -- making his false statements to the FBI technically criminal, but irrelevant.

The backdrop to all of this is the FBI's staggering misconduct in spying on the Trump campaign in 2016. As last year's report from the DoJ inspector general revealed , the Bureau repeatedly misrepresented or left out evidence, and even used outright false claims to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page, a businessman and sometime-CIA asset with ties to Russia who advocated for business-minded co-operation between the two countries.

In light of all of this, Russiagate looks less like a righteous crusade for truth and justice and more like the typical shenanigans for which the FBI and US government have long been known: prosecutorial overreach, entrapment, and the criminalization of foreign policy dissent. Trump's grotesqueries have has made it impossible for many liberals to acknowledge this fact. But the fact that the FBI's misconduct was aimed at a right-wing government this time should be no reason for Democrats to dismiss the magnitude of the scandal.

In fact, the Intelligence Committee transcripts reveal the extent to which it was ideological opposition to, or simply political disagreement with, the incoming administration over foreign policy that drove suspicion of a Trump-Russia conspiracy.

"Maybe I'm Biased"

Despite the insistence of anti-Trump media, "collusion" was never crime. Even former Obama officials alarmed by Trump's apparent closeness to the Kremlin acknowledged as such behind closed doors.

"Collusion is a word that's been used out in the public to refer to this investigation," McCord told the intelligence committee. "It's, of course, not a crime itself."

But you didn't need the testimony of Democratic officials to know this. If "colluding" with a foreign power to win an election was a crime, then it was one both Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney were guilty of in 2016 and 2012, respectively.

To defeat Trump in 2016, the Democratic Party teamed up with the Ukrainian government, which viewed a Clinton presidency -- with its controversial preference for sending weapons to Ukraine to fight Russia -- as most favorable to its interests. Though widely reported at the time , Ukraine's 2016 election meddling was retrospectively transformed into a made-up conspiracy theory when it became inconvenient to the Russiagate narrative. Meanwhile, the open support for Romney from a sitting Israel prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, just eight years ago, though controversial at the time , has similarly disappeared down a memory hole. That's not even to get into George W. Bush's closeness to a Saudi official heavily complicit in the September 11 terrorist attacks.

When all was said and done, Trump's run-in with the Kremlin hasn't come close to the level of intimacy and co-ordination with a foreign government seen in any of these examples.

No, Trump and his team's real crime was that they crossed the Washington foreign policy consensus and violated government norms, all in the service of attempting to improve relations with the wrong foreign government -- in this case, one deemed an official adversary. See this exchange between Rep. Francis Rooney (R-FL) and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, one of the former spy chiefs who has repeatedly claimed Trump was in the Kremlin's thrall on cable news (emphasis mine):

ROONEY: I mean, I guess the point is on the question is, is at what time is collusion collusion, and at what time is it just people that may have an affiliation with the campaign meeting or talking with, whether it be the Russian ambassador on somebody that's of Russian origin, and when should that be taken as something that rises to the level of an Intelligence Community concern?

CLAPPER: That's a great question, and I asked -- I really can't answer it other than the sort of visceral reaction to why all these meetings with the Russians . They are what I consider are an existential threat to this country, a country that is not interested in furthering our interests, certainly on cooperating with us. Maybe I'm biased. You know, I'm a Cold War warrior and all that , but -- so that was of concern to me.

At another point, Clapper -- who had earlier said that election interference is "almost genetic with" Russians, and that the 2016 interference had "viscerally affected me like nothing I've even experienced since I got in the intel business in 1963" -- recalled briefing the president-elect about the Kremlin's interference:

I would say it was a professional exchange. He got off on wouldn't it be great if we could get along with the Russians? I said, yeah, sure, if we found some convergence of our interests. But I'm in the 'trust but verify' camp when it comes to Russia. I mean, maybe I've just been around too long.

Or as Clapper put it at another point: "I have a very jaundiced view of dealing with the Russians."

Such thinking pervaded the mindset of other Obama officials. See Obama speechwriter and foreign policy advisor Ben Rhodes' reaction to the now-infamous Trump Tower meeting (emphasis mine):

l was absolutely shocked. I can tell you I worked on a presidential campaign in 2007-2008. I was one of the principal foreign policy staffers on that campaign. I would have no reason to ever meet with any Russians . The notion of, you know, David Plouffe, David Axelrod, and Valerie Jarrett meeting with the Russian Government would have been literally unthinkable in the context of our campaign. And the leadership of a campaign's time is their most precious commodity, and the fact that they felt it a worthy investment of time to sit down with representatives of the Russian government was absolutely astonishing to me , and went far beyond, frankly, any degree of interaction that I would have even guessed at.

Of course, much of the outrage over the Trump Tower meeting arose from the fact that the Trump campaign was trying to get dirt on their opponent from a foreign government (the same thing, incidentally, the Democratic Party actually did in 2016 with the Ukrainian government ). But quite apart from that, Rhodes here is scandalized specifically by the idea the campaign would simply sit down with representatives of the Russian government.

As Rhodes would later admit, he and other Obama campaign officials did communicate with foreign governments during the 2008 campaign and the transition, only they happened to be "a very small number of friendly governments to the United States." Rhodes tacitly acknowledges there's nothing inherently wrong with a campaign meeting with or communicating with a foreign government -- the issue for him is which foreign government , a fundamentally political question.

Here's Yates responding to a question from Rep. Denny Heck (D-WA) about whether "incoming administrations or people on their behalf never have contact with representatives of foreign governments" (emphasis mine):

YATES: No. I don't think that that was anybody's sense there, that you would never have any contact. I think what – as they described it to me, what seemed different about this was that he was having conversations with the Russians attempting to influence their conduct now during this administration, and that that would be unusual and troubling.

HECK: And –

YATES: And it also -- given that it was the Russians, there's sort of an extra concern there as well.

Or here's Obama's outgoing national security advisor recalling her conversations during the transition period with Flynn, the man set to replace her:

We did talk about Russia as an adversary, as a threat to NATO. But, frankly, we spent a lot more time talking about China in part because General Flynn's focus was on China as our principal overarching adversary. He had many questions and concerns about China. And when I elicited -- sought to elicit his perspective on Russia, he downplayed his assessment of Russia as a threat to the United States. He called it overblown. He said they're a declining power, they're demographically challenged, they're not really much of a threat, and then reemphasized the importance of China.

Flynn's factual points about Russia, by the way, are all objectively true . But as Rice went on to say, she "had seen enough at that point and heard enough to be a little bit sensitive to the question of the nature of General Flynn's engagements with the Russians," and so she declined to brief Flynn on Russia policy in the fullest detail, figuring he would be fully briefed once he officially took office.

Like Rhodes, Rice conceded that "it was normal, customary to have contacts with the governments of friendly countries" during a transition, as Obama's did with the "British, French, Germans, NATO allies, Asian allies."

"It was not normal," she said, "to have contacts with adversarial governments during a transition."

Rather than breaching any kind of legal standard, the common complaint among these officials was that Trump and his team had violated the norm or precept of "one government at a time": that even though the Trump administration was coming in, Obama and his team were still in the driver's seat, and it was inappropriate to step on their toes. Flynn's decision to do the opposite may have been unwise -- but was it really an acceptable basis for everything that followed?

It's clear that the chaos, dysfunction, and sheer weirdness of Trump's campaign and budding presidency contributed to deepening suspicion of him and his team. But it's also clear that this suspicion was more than a little animated by what was essentially a political disagreement over whether Russia is a US adversary, and if it should be treated as such via official policy.

Such a question might sound absurd to some ears. But outside the Beltway there are vast swaths of the US political spectrum where such foreign policy positions are contested: on relations with Iran and China, for instance, or the efficacy of the "war on terror" -- issues on which opposing views have often been deemed dangerous, suspect, or even treasonous by one side or another.

Rice herself declared at the end of her testimony, as she complained about Trump's praise for WikiLeaks, that "the rest of us, everybody in this room, knew that WikiLeaks was our adversary." Yet in 2010, when the Obama administration was aggressively going after this "adversary," the public was evenly split on whether Wikileaks had "served" or "harmed" the "public interest" -- with 57 percent of young people holding the former view. Just because Rice and the rest of the national security state viewed the organization as an adversary doesn't make it an objective fact.

And let's not forget the ongoing, total silence over the US government's decades-long friendly relationship with "allies" like Saudi Arabia, whose government officials were involved not in releasing embarrassing information about American policymakers, but a terrorist attack that killed thousands.

"A Debating Weapon Against the Opposition"

Whatever one thinks of the wisdom of Trump's ultimately aborted attempt to re-forge a friendly relationship with Russia, it's a foreign policy decision that a duly elected government is entitled to make. It therefore lays squarely in the political realm, not the legal one -- though national security officials and Democrats have tried their best to make it fit in the latter.

This is perhaps best symbolized by Comey and Obama's apparent goal of prosecuting Flynn under the Logan Act, a probably unconstitutional 221-year-old law enacted by the same repressive Congress that brought you the Alien and Sedition Acts, and which has never been used to successfully prosecute an American. As liberal legal scholar Detlev F. Vagts put it in in 1966, throughout its history, the Logan Act has been used as "a debating weapon against the opposition and as a threat against those out of power," a charge that remains just as true today , as attested by its invocation during the Bush and Obama years.

That the administration ultimately resorted to this antiquated law, which prohibits citizens from "correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government" over disagreements with the US, is a sign of how desperate it was to charge Flynn with anything in its waning days. That Flynn was no ordinary citizen but an official for an elected administration-in-waiting whose direct remit was foreign policy makes the threat even more absurd.

Unfortunately, this isn't the end of it. As others have pointed out , long before the Mueller report made clear a Trump-Russia conspiracy didn't actually exist, a number of Obama officials testified to the closed-door committee that they saw no actual evidence for this -- only hints that made them suspicious.

Yet that didn't stop those involved from using their public platforms to fan the flames of conspiracy against the Trump administration. Maybe most outrageous was former DNI Clapper, who despite testifying he'd seen no evidence of Trump-Russia collusion has repeatedly gone on CNN and charged that Trump could be a Russian asset. (Amusingly, for all of Obama's complaints that Flynn was allowed to get away with "perjury," it's Clapper who actually committed that particular crime, lying to Congress about the scope of government surveillance, which Obama's DoJ refused to lift a finger about despite demands from members of Congress).

Also deserving of special mention is Rep. Adam Schiff, the Democrat who more than any other pushed the "collusion" storyline, riding it to prominence and political donations . Schiff, long a conduit for military contractors , who entered Congress by fundraising record amounts off the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal , has spent years alleging a grand conspiracy between Trump and the Kremlin despite being told under oath by Obama officials hostile to Trump that they had seen no evidence of such a thing. Unsurprisingly, Schiff, the intelligence committee's chairman, long resisted the release of the transcripts.

Russiagate is therefore looking more and more like a familiar story: one of national security officials, driven by an unflinching belief in the righteousness of their cause and a suspicion of any foreign policy vision outside the narrow and militarist Washington consensus, leading a crusade against those whose views they viewed ran contrary to their own. As always, they turned fundamentally political disagreements into an issue of national security, resulting in the FBI violating norms and laws of its own, while running roughshod over the rights of American citizens.

It is too bad that, because the misconduct this time targeted the justifiably loathed figure of Trump, many observers are incapable of seeing this. The FBI's misconduct in the Trump-Russia investigation was "troubling, no question," writes Vox . "But they may not be unique to the Russia investigation, but rather endemic to the agency itself."

This is not a defense; it's a description of the very problem.

Why Should the Liberal Left Care?

For many on the liberal left, the Flynn case and the entire Russiagate saga elicits anything ranging from disinterest to outright cheer-leading. After all, why should anyone opposed to Trump, a lifelong criminal and dangerous reactionary, be bothered that the might of the United States' vast security state was, for once, turned against him?

The answer is that, as with all anti-civil liberties measures , these tactics are first legitimated by being turned on groups and individuals that are wholly unsympathetic, so they can later be used against less objectionable targets. Justifying prosecutorial misconduct and state overreach in one case where an outgoing administration and its allies targeted their political opponents over matters of policy sets a dangerous precedent for future victims, including a potential left-wing or even liberal administration.

Imagine, for instance, if Trump (or any other Republican administration) had spent years alarmingly tamping up tensions with an officially designated foreign adversary -- Iran or China, for instance. Imagine one of those governments then leaked unflattering but true information about Republican corruption and malfeasance in order to help their Democratic opponents win, and Trump retaliated with sanctions and other measures.

Imagine, too, that Democrats had publicly pledged to restore friendly relations with these powers during the campaign, and, upon winning the election, an official in the soon-to-be Democratic administration privately urged them not to overreact to Trump's retaliatory actions. Imagine, then, that the Trump administration unlawfully spied on members of the Democratic campaign, attempted to railroad that official on flimsy grounds, all while his allies continued hobbling the succeeding administration by alleging an unproven foreign conspiracy -- all because they thought reorienting relations with countries viewed as dangerous enemies by the Right was something inherently suspect and criminal.

Just as Democrats were right to demand Robert Mueller be allowed to carry out his inquiry, Republicans are absolutely correct to want an investigation of these abuses, even if they're driven by partisan motives -- partisan concerns, after all, have always played some role in the accounting of malfeasance in Washington, from Iran-Contra to the 9/11 Commission. And it's perfectly possible to be outraged at this entire saga without supporting Trump or treating the GOP as principled defenders of civil liberties -- indeed, the party is right now pushing a radical expansion of government surveillance powers that should worry us all.

It is particularly symbolic that in the midst of this imbroglio, the FBI just accidentally revealed the name of another Saudi embassy official complicit in the September 11 attacks, whose identity was long kept hidden by the US government as a "state secret" whose revelation could cause "significant harm to the national security." Collusion, foreign adversary, national security: in Washington, it's all in the eye of the beholder.

[May 20, 2020] Susan Rice Was Directed By Obama White House To Draft Inauguration Day Email To Herself

May 20, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

by Tyler Durden Wed, 05/20/2020 - 18:05 A 2017 Inauguration Day email that former national security adviser Susan Rice sent to herself documenting a January 5 Oval Office meeting discussing the case against her successor Michael Flynn was done so at the direction of White House counsel , according to Fox News . The meeting documented in Rice's memo included Obama, former VP Joe Biden and former FBI Director James Comey, who - according to Rice, "does have some concerns that incoming NSA Flynn is speaking frequently with Russian Ambassador Kislyak."

"Given the importance and sensitivity of the subject matter, and upon the advice of the White House Counsel's Office, Ambassador Rice created a permanent record of the discussion," Rice's attorney Kathryn Ruemmler wrote to senators in 2018. "Ambassador Rice memorialized the discussion on January 20, because that was the first opportunity she had to do so, given the particularly intense responsibilities of the National Security Advisor during the remaining days of the administration and transition."

Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell declassified the previously redacted section of Rice's email and Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., made it public on Tuesday.

That section says Comey suggested to Obama that the National Security Council [NSC] might not want to pass "sensitive information related to Russia" to incoming national security adviser Flynn.

The email pointed to what were apparently widespread concerns about Flynn's Russia contacts. Multiple sources confirmed to Fox News that what initially put Flynn on the radar was the number of interactions he had with senior Russian government officials in 2016, as laid out in various intelligence reports viewed by Obama White House officials. - Fox News

Damage control?

For those who aren't buying the given explanation for the email, 'Sundance' of The Conservative Treehouse has an interesting theory that it was written to cover up the fact that Obama knew all about the Flynn investigation .

2) The position of President Obama and Susan Rice is that the White House was unaware of any FBI investigation of Flynn (or the Trump campaign); nor did they have any involvement in directing it to take place.

-- TheLastRefuge (@TheLastRefuge2) May 20, 2020

4) When James Clapper walked directly into the White House with "intelligence cuts", from the FBI to share with President Obama, it's likely the legal team around Obama -specifically including Kathryn Reummler- went bananas.

-- TheLastRefuge (@TheLastRefuge2) May 20, 2020

6) Worse... if anyone should later question FBI Director Comey about it, Comey would say (honestly) he knew Obama was briefed on it because he provided a paper trail.

WH counsel Ruemmler would have immediately identified the White House exposure.

-- TheLastRefuge (@TheLastRefuge2) May 20, 2020

8) The problem at that point (post meeting) was the risk of it being Obama's word -vs- James Comey.

Comey had records, a paper trail, for his escape; the White House did not.

It's a he said/he said risk.

-- TheLastRefuge (@TheLastRefuge2) May 20, 2020

Addendum: The framework and purpose of the Rice 'memo to file' was obvious in the 2018 Rice/Ruemmler response to the Senate. pic.twitter.com/2IQxIyFwuK

-- TheLastRefuge (@TheLastRefuge2) May 20, 2020

page 2 pic.twitter.com/tJ5CyqGsPb

-- TheLastRefuge (@TheLastRefuge2) May 20, 2020

[May 20, 2020] COMEY urged probe into Flynn by misrepresenting Russian contacts, declassified memo shows

Looks like Comey was willing and active member of the Obama-Brennan gang plotting color revolution against Trump
Notable quotes:
"... incoming NSA Flynn is speaking frequently with Russian Ambassador Kislyak ..."
"... has no indication thus far that Flynn has passed classified information to Kislyak ..."
"... could be an issue ..."
"... The level of communication is unusual ..."
"... sensitive information related to Russia ..."
"... election interference. ..."
"... a briefing by [Intelligence Committee] leadership on Russian hacking during the 2016 Presidential election ..."
"... no derogatory information ..."
"... Russian collusion ..."
"... proceeding 'by the book' ..."
"... prosecute him or get him fired ..."
May 20, 2020 | www.rt.com
incoming NSA Flynn is speaking frequently with Russian Ambassador Kislyak " in a meeting documented in the January 2017 memo by National Security Advisor Susan Rice, the unredacted first page of which was obtained by CBS on Tuesday.

The FBI director admits he " has no indication thus far that Flynn has passed classified information to Kislyak ," and no real basis for his insistence that the probe must go on.

DEVELOPING: Declassified Rice email documenting WH meeting 1/5/2017 obtained @CBSNews pic.twitter.com/uA9V9oo4n4

-- Catherine Herridge (@CBS_Herridge) May 19, 2020

The only thing backing his hunch that the meetings between the general and the Russian diplomat " could be an issue "?

" The level of communication is unusual ," Comey tells Obama, according to Rice, hinting that the National Security Council should " potentially " avoid passing " sensitive information related to Russia " to Flynn.

The FBI director did not elaborate on what is supposed to be " unusual " about an incoming foreign policy official speaking with a Russian counterpart, especially in the midst of what was then a rapidly-unraveling diplomatic relationship between the two countries with Obama expelling 35 Russian diplomats and imposing sanctions over alleged-but-never-substantiated " election interference. " Given the circumstances, an absence of communication might have been more unusual. But the timing is certainly auspicious.

Rice, Flynn's predecessor who authored the memo, relates that the January 5 meeting followed " a briefing by [Intelligence Committee] leadership on Russian hacking during the 2016 Presidential election ."

The previous day, the FBI field office assigned with investigating Flynn attempted to close the case against him, called CROSSFIRE RAZOR, after having found " no derogatory information " to justify continued inclusion in the overarching CROSSFIRE HURRICANE probe (the " Russian collusion " investigation). They were blocked from doing so by Agent Peter Strzok, who added that the orders to keep the investigation going came from the " 7th floor " - i.e. agency leadership. The Flynn investigation had been underway since August, beginning the day after Strzok discussed an 'insurance policy' that was supposed to keep then-candidate Donald Trump out of office with Comey's deputy, Andrew McCabe. While Comey describes his probe of Flynn as " proceeding 'by the book' " after Obama repeatedly stresses he wants only a " by the book " investigation - both parties presumably hoping to avoid exactly the sequence of revelatory events that are currently unfolding - recently-unsealed documents from the case against Flynn indicate the general was entrapped, with the FBI's goal being to " prosecute him or get him fired " with an ambush-style interview.

They got both their wishes - after agents tricked him into sitting for questioning without a lawyer present, Flynn was accused of lying about his contacts with Kislyak, fired from his post in the White House, and subsequently pled guilty to lying to a federal agent.

The Department of Justice has dropped its charges against Flynn, citing gross misconduct and abuse of power at the FBI, which it claims had no basis for launching its investigation. However, US District Judge Emmet Sullivan has attempted to block the dismissal, appointing a retired judge as independent prosecutor to both argue against the Justice Department's move and pursue perjury charges against Flynn - essentially charging him with lying about lying.

On Tuesday, Flynn's attorney filed a writ of mandamus with the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, urging them to force Sullivan to step aside and allow the dismissal of the charges.

[May 20, 2020] How Can Susan Rice Know What Obama and Comey Said if She Was Not Present by Larry C Johnson

Notable quotes:
"... I guess Obama didn't think he could rely on Sally Yates to lie on his behalf but knew he could count on "Old Faithful" Susan Rice to do the job. If the MSM were fair they'd be mocking (at the very least) her overuse of the figure of speech "by the book". I hope someone throws that book at her and the rest of the cabal. ..."
"... BTW, I seem to recall reading a long time ago that Rice made a mess wherever she served. I could be mistaken though. ..."
"... Well if we can't get a "perfumed prince" in the docket, this deplorable will settle for a "perfumed princess. ..."
May 20, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

...This is nothing more than a lame, stupid attempt on the part of Susan Rice to create some plausible deniability for Barack Obama. She placed herself in a meeting that, according to Sally Yates, was limited to Obama, Comey and Yates. Rice puts the blame on Comey for talking about the Russians. The Sally Yates account told to FBI under the penalty of lying to the FBI, was quite clear that Obama initiated the discussion of Russia, Flynn and the sanctions.

Someone is lying. Susan Rice is a demonstrated liar and was not under oath when she wrote up her fabricated version of the 5 January meeting. Sally Yates, however, would face legal peril if she lied to the FBI agents who interviewed her. I believer Sally Yates provided the truthful account of what actually happened after Barack Obama asked everyone but Yates and Comey to leave the room.

Deap, 20 May 2020 at 12:49 AM

Did Barry ever wing anything on his own without his sidekicks Rce or Jarrett immediately by his side, ready to run cover for him later when necessary?

Rice's presence was probably so ubiquitous, it was not worthy of mention in later present party recollections. I would assume Barry could not speak in public without a teleprompter and not speak in private without his "wingman".

Why do we assume Valerie Jarrett is still living in the same house as the former POTUS? So when the phone rings and someone wants to know something about what Barry did while he was in office, ValJar the NightStalker can be ready with the answer.

My guess is Rice was attached at the hip whenever there was a chance Barry would open his mouth. Make the failure to mention Rice more an oversight rather than something ominous.

More troubling was Yates getting cut off by Lindsey Graham every time she tried to explain that Flynn had not been "unmasked" during her Senate testimony, per the video clip. What that just dismissive on Graham's part or inadvertent. Wild speculation, had McCain "leaked" the Flynn phone call to Wapo?

akaPatience , 20 May 2020 at 03:19 AM

I guess Obama didn't think he could rely on Sally Yates to lie on his behalf but knew he could count on "Old Faithful" Susan Rice to do the job. If the MSM were fair they'd be mocking (at the very least) her overuse of the figure of speech "by the book". I hope someone throws that book at her and the rest of the cabal.

BTW, I seem to recall reading a long time ago that Rice made a mess wherever she served. I could be mistaken though.

Has anyone else noticed that James Comey's been very quiet lately?

Morongobill , 20 May 2020 at 09:39 AM
Well if we can't get a "perfumed prince" in the docket, this deplorable will settle for a "perfumed princess. "

[May 20, 2020] This Was Some Shady Stuff Treasury Department Spied On Flynn, Manafort And Trump Family

Notable quotes:
"... The US Treasury Department was regularly spying on Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn , Paul Manafort Jr., senior staffers on the 2016 Trump campaign, members of the Trump family, and congressional lawmakers , according to The Tennessee Star 's Neil W. McCabe. ..."
"... The scheme allowed the perpetrators to circumvent classified avenues to surveil Americans. Once enough information had been gathered against a target, they would use a different type of search. ..."
"... In March 2017, the whistleblower filed a complaint with Acting Treasury Inspector General Richard K. Delmar, who never followed up on the matter despite acknowledging receipt of the complaint. Prior to that, she filed an August 2016 notification which was rejected as it didn't meet the requirements of a formal complaint. ..."
"... This surveillance program was run out of Treasury's Office of Intelligence Analysis , which was then under the leadership of S. Leslie Ireland ..."
"... The whistleblower said Treasury should never have been part of the unmasking of Flynn, because its surveillance operation was off-the-books. That is to say, the Justice Department never gave the required approval to the Treasury program, and so there were no guidelines, approvals nor reports that would be associated with a DOJ-sanctioned domestic surveillance operation. - The Tennessee Star ..."
May 20, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

The US Treasury Department was regularly spying on Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn , Paul Manafort Jr., senior staffers on the 2016 Trump campaign, members of the Trump family, and congressional lawmakers , according to The Tennessee Star 's Neil W. McCabe.

"I started seeing things that were not correct, so I did my own little investigation, because I wanted to make sure what I was seeing was correct," a former senior Treasury Department official and veteran of the intelligence community told McCabe. "You never want to draw attention to something if there is not anything there," she added.

The whistleblower said she only saw metadata, that is names and dates when the general's financial records were accessed. "I never saw what they saw."

By March 2016, the whistleblower said she and a colleague, who was detailed to Treasury from the intelligence community, became convinced that the surveillance of Flynn was not tied to legitimate criminal or national security concerns, but was straight-up political surveillance among other illegal activity occurring at Treasury.

"When I showed it to her, what she said, 'Oh, sh%t!' and I knew right then and there that I was right – this was some shady stuff," the whistleblower said.

"It wasn't just him," the whistleblower said. "They were targeting other U.S. citizens, as well." - The Tennessee Star

"Another thing they would do is take targeted names from a certain database – I cannot name, but you can guess – and they were going over to an unclassified database and they were running those names in the unclassified database," she added.

The scheme allowed the perpetrators to circumvent classified avenues to surveil Americans. Once enough information had been gathered against a target, they would use a different type of search.

In March 2017, the whistleblower filed a complaint with Acting Treasury Inspector General Richard K. Delmar, who never followed up on the matter despite acknowledging receipt of the complaint. Prior to that, she filed an August 2016 notification which was rejected as it didn't meet the requirements of a formal complaint.

In May 2017, she filed another complaint with the Office of Special Counsel.

This surveillance program was run out of Treasury's Office of Intelligence Analysis , which was then under the leadership of S. Leslie Ireland . Ireland came to OIA in 2010 after a long tenure at the Central Intelligence Agency and a one-year stint as Obama's daily in-person intelligence briefer .

The whistleblower said Treasury should never have been part of the unmasking of Flynn, because its surveillance operation was off-the-books. That is to say, the Justice Department never gave the required approval to the Treasury program, and so there were no guidelines, approvals nor reports that would be associated with a DOJ-sanctioned domestic surveillance operation. - The Tennessee Star

"Accessing this information without approved and signed attorney general guidelines would violate U.S. persons constitutional rights and civil liberties," said the whistleblower, adding "IC agencies have to adhere to Executive Order 12333, or as it is known in the community: E.O. 12-Triple-Three. Just because OIA does not have signed guidelines does not give them the power or right to operate as they want, if you want information on a U.S. person then work with the FBI on a Title III, if it is a U.S. person involved with a foreign entity then follow the correct process for a FISA, but without signed AG guidelines you cannot even get started ."

[May 19, 2020] America: "We demand an coronavirus origin investigation, but the investigators must agree on the outcome that we specify before they begin investigating!"

Highly recommended!
May 19, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

William Gruff , May 18 2020 15:40 utc | 13

America: "We demand an investigation, but the investigators must agree on the outcome that we specify before they begin investigating!"

Why not? It works for gas attacks, chemical weapons poisoning, and airliner shoot downs, so why not biological weapons attacks too?

[May 19, 2020] Russophobia in the Age of Donald Trump

Highly recommended!
Russiaphobia as a pathological reaction on the deep crisis of neoliberalism
Notable quotes:
"... The described lack of confidence was reflected in the exaggerated fear that Russia was capable of destroying the West's values. However, Russia and Putin were neither omnipresent nor threatening to destroy the United States' political system. ..."
"... Russia's basic motives remain defensive even when the Kremlin relies on assertive tactics. Russia's assertiveness, even in cyberspace, is of a reactive nature and is a response to US policies. ..."
"... Rather than fighting a full-scale information war with the West, Russia seeks to increase its status and strengthen its bargaining position in relations with the United States. 68 The Kremlin has been proposing to negotiate rules of cooperation in the cyber area since early in the twenty-first century. Motivated by an insistence on "cyber-sovereignty," Russia regularly proposes resolutions at the United Nations to prohibit "information aggression," In a 2011 letter to the United Nations General Assembly, Russia proposed an "International Code of Conduct for Information Security," stipulating that states subscribing to the code would pledge to "not use information and communications technologies and other information and communications networks to interfere with the internal affairs of other states or with the aim of undermining their political, economic and social stability." 69 ..."
"... Overall, what the Kremlin challenges is the United States' post–Cold War behavior that undermines Russia's status as a great power. Although Russia is not in a position to directly challenge the United States and the US-centered international order, the Kremlin hopes to gain external recognition as a great power by relying on low-cost methods and revealing the vulnerability of Western nations. Russia's capabilities and presence in global cyber and media space are limited, and the Kremlin is motivated by asymmetric deployment of its media, information, and cyber power. ..."
May 19, 2020 | www.oxfordscholarship.com
Chapter:
(p.81) 5 Russophobia in the Age of Donald Trump
Source:
The Dark Double
Author(s):
Andrei P. Tsygankov
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
DOI:10.1093/oso/9780190919337.003.0005

Abstract and Keywords

The chapter extends the argument about media and value conflict between Russia and the United States to the age of Donald Trump. The new value conflict is assessed as especially acute and exacerbated by the US partisan divide. The Russia issue became central because it reflected both political partisanship and the growing value division between Trump voters and the liberal establishment. In addition to explaining the new wave of American Russophobia, the chapter analyzes Russia's own role and motives. The media are likely to continue the ideological and largely negative coverage of Russia, especially if Washington and Moscow fail to develop a pragmatic form of cooperation.

Keywords: Russia, Trump, US elections, narrative of collusion, partisan divide

This chapter addresses the new development in the US media perception of the Russian threat following the election of Donald Trump as the United States' president. The election revealed that US national values could no longer be viewed as predominantly liberal and favoring the global promotion of democracy, as supported by Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. During and after the election, the liberal media sought to present Moscow as not only favoring Trump but being responsible for his election and even ruling on behalf of the Kremlin. Those committed to a liberal worldview led the way in criticizing Russia and Putin for assaulting liberal democratic values globally and inside the United States. This chapter argues that the Russia issue became so central in the new internal divide because it reflects both political partisanship and the growing division between the values of Trump voters and those of the liberal establishment. The domestic political struggle has exacerbated the divide. Russia's otherness, again, has highlighted values of "freedom," seeking to preserve the confidence of the liberal self. (p.82)

The Narrative of Trump's "Collusion" with Russia

During the US presidential election campaign, American media developed yet another perception of Russia as reflected in the narrative of Trump's collusion with the Kremlin. 1 Having originated in liberal media and building on the previous perceptions of neo-Soviet autocracy and foreign threat, the new perception of Russia was that of the enemy that won the war against the United States. By electing the Kremlin's favored candidate, America was defeated by Russia. As a CNN columnist wrote, "The Russians really are here, infiltrating every corner of the country, with the single goal of disrupting the American way of life." 2 The two assumptions behind the new media narrative were that Putin was an enemy and that Trump was compromised by Putin. The inevitable conclusion was that Trump could not be a patriot and potentially was a traitor prepared to act against US interests.

The new narrative was assisted by the fact that Trump presented a radically different perspective on Russia than Clinton and the US establishment. The American political class had been in agreement that Russia displayed an aggressive foreign policy seeking to destroy the US-centered international order. Influential politicians, both Republicans and Democrats, commonly referred to Russian president Putin as an extremely dangerous KGB spy with no soul. Instead, Trump saw Russia's international interests as not fundamentally different from America's. He advocated that the United States to find a way to align its policies and priorities in defeating terrorism in the Middle East -- a goal that Russia shared -- with the Kremlin's. Trump promised to form new alliances to "unite the civilized world against Radical Islamic Terrorism" and to eradicate it "completely from the face of the Earth." 3 He hinted that he was prepared to revisit the thorny issues of Western sanctions against (p.83) the Russian economy and the recognition of Crimea as a part of Russia. Trump never commented on Russia's political system but expressed his admiration for Putin's leadership and high level of domestic support. 4

Capitalizing on the difference between Trump's views and those of the Democratic Party nominee, Hillary Clinton, the liberal media referred to Trump as the Kremlin-compromised candidate. Commentators and columnists with the New York Times , such as Paul Krugman, referred to Trump as the "Siberian" candidate. 5 Commentators and pundits, including those with academic and political credentials, developed the theory that the United States was under attack. The former ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, wrote in the Washington Post that Russia had attacked "our sovereignty" and continued to "watch us do nothing" because of the partisan divide. He compared the Kremlin's actions with Pearl Harbor or 9/11 and warned that Russia was likely to perform repeat assaults in 2018 and 2020. 6 The historian Timothy Snyder went further, comparing the election of Trump to a loss of war, which Snyder said was the basic aim of the enemy. Writing in the New York Daily News , he asserted, "We no longer need to wonder what it would be like to lose a war on our own territory. We just lost one to Russia, and the consequence was the election of Donald Trump." 7

The election of Trump prompted the liberal media to discuss Russia-related fears. The leading theory was that Trump would now compromise America's interests and rule the country on behalf of Putin. Thomas Friedman of the New York Times called for actions against Russia and praised "patriotic" Republican senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham for being tough on Trump. 8 MSNBC host Rachel Maddow asked whether Trump was actually under Putin's control. Citing Trump's views and his associates' travel to Moscow, she told viewers, "We are also starting to see (p.84) what may be signs of continuing [Russian] influence in our country, not just during the campaign but during the administration -- basically, signs of what could be a continuing operation." 9 Another New York Times columnist, Nicholas Kristof, published a column titled "There's a Smell of Treason in the Air," arguing that the FBI's investigation of the Trump presidential campaign's collusion "with a foreign power so as to win an election" was an investigation of whether such collusion "would amount to treason." 10 Responding to Trump's statement that his phone was tapped during the election campaign, the Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum tweeted that "Trump's insane 'GCHQ tapped my phone' theory came from . . . Moscow." McFaul and many others then endorsed and retweeted the message. 11

To many within the US media, Trump's lack of interest in promoting global institutions and his publicly expressed doubts that the Kremlin was behind cyberattacks on the Democratic National Committee (DNC) served to exacerbate the problem. Several intelligence leaks to the press and investigations by Congress and the FBI contributed to the image of a president who was not motivated by US interests. The US intelligence report on Russia's alleged hacking of the US electoral system released on January 8, 2017, served to consolidate the image of Russia as an enemy. Leaks to the press have continued throughout Trump's presidency. Someone in the administration informed the press that Trump called Putin to congratulate him on his victory in elections on March 18, 2018, despite Trump's advisers' warning against making such a call. 12

In the meantime, investigations of Trump's alleged "collusion" with Russia were failing to produce substantive evidence. Facts that some associates of Trump sought to meet or met with members of Russia's government did not lead to evidence of sustained contacts or collaboration. It was not proven that the Kremlin's "black dossier" on Trump compiled by British intelligence officer (p.85) Christopher Steele and leaked to CNN was truthful. Russian activity on American social networks such as Facebook and Twitter was not found to be conclusive in determining outcomes of the elections. 13 In February 2018, a year after launching investigation, Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted thirteen Russian nationals for allegedly interfering in the US 2016 presidential elections, yet their connection to Putin or Trump was not established. On March 12, 2018, Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Richard Burr stated that he had not yet seen any evidence of collusion. 14 Representative Mike Conaway, the Republican leading the Russia investigation, announced the end of the committee's probe of Russian meddling in the election. 15

Trump was also not acting toward Russia in the way the US media expected. His views largely reflected those of the military and national security establishment and disappointed some of his supporters. 16 The US National Security Strategy and new Defense Strategy presented Russia as a leading security threat, alongside China, Iran, and North Korea. The president made it clear that he wanted to engage in tough bargaining with Russia by insisting on American terms. 17 Instead of improving ties with Russia, let alone acting on behalf of the Kremlin, Trump contributed to new crises in bilateral relations that had to do with the two sides' principally different perceptions. While the Kremlin expected Washington to normalize relations, the United States assumed Russia's weakness and expected it to comply with Washington's priorities regarding the Middle East, Ukraine, and Afghanistan and nuclear and cyber issues. 18 Trump also authorized the largest expulsion of Russian diplomats in US history and ordered several missile strikes against Assad's Russia-supported positions in Syria, each time provoking a crisis in relations with Moscow. Even Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, whom Rachel Maddow suspected of being appointed on Putin's advice to "weaken" the State Department and "bleed out" (p.86) the FBI, 19 was replaced by John Bolton. The latter's foreign policy reputation was that of a hawk, including on Russia. 20

Responding to these developments, the media focused on fears of being attacked by the Kremlin and on Trump not doing enough to protect the country. These fears went beyond the alleged cyber interference in the US presidential elections and included infiltration of American media and social networks and attacks on congressional elections and the country's most sensitive infrastructure, such as electric grids, water-processing plants, banking networks, and transportation facilities. In order to prevent such developments, media commentators and editorial writers recommended additional pressures on the Kremlin and counteroffensive operations. 21 One commentator recommended, as the best defense from Russia's plans to interfere with another election in the United States, launching a cyberattack on Russia's own presidential elections in March 2018, to "disrupt the stability of Vladimir Putin's regime." 22 A New York Times editorial summarized the mood by challenging President Trump to confront Russia further: "If Mr. Trump isn't Mr. Putin's lackey, it's past time for him to prove it." 23 The burden of proof was now on Trump's shoulders.

Opposition to the "Collusion" Narrative

In contrast to highly critical views of Russia in the dominant media, conservative, libertarian, and progressive sources offered different assessments. Initially, opposition to the collusion narrative came from the alternative media, yet gradually -- in response to scant evidence of Trump's collusion -- it incorporated voices within the mainstream.

The conservative media did not support the view that Russia "stole" elections and presented Trump as a patriot who wanted to make America great rather than develop "cozy" relationships with (p.87) the Kremlin. Writing in the American Interest , Walter Russell Mead argued that Trump aimed to demonstrate the United States' superiority by capitalizing on its military and technological advantages. He did not sound like a Russian mole. Challenging the liberal media, the author called for "an intellectually solvent and emotionally stable press" and wrote that "if President Trump really is a Putin pawn, his foreign policy will start looking much more like Barack Obama's." 24 Instead of viewing Trump as compromised by the Kremlin, sources such Breitbart and Fox News attributed the blame to the deep state, "the complex of bureaucrats, technocrats, and plutocrats," including the intelligence agencies, that seeks to "derail, or at least to de-legitimize, the Trump presidency" by engaging in accusations and smear campaigns. 25

Echoing Trump's own views, some conservatives expressed their admiration for Putin as a dynamic leader superior to Obama. In particular, they praised Putin for his ability to defend Russia's "traditional values" and great-power status. 26 Neoconservative and paleoconservative publications like the National Review , the Weekly Standard, Human Events Online , and others critiqued Obama's "feckless foreign policy," characterized by "fruitless accommodationism," contrasting it with Putin's skilled and calculative geopolitical "game of chess." 27 A Washington Post / ABC News poll revealed that among Republicans, 75% approved of Trump's approach on Russia relative; 40% of all respondents approved. 28 This did not mean that conservatives and Republicans were "infiltrated" by the Kremlin. Mutual Russian and American conservative influences were limited and nonstructured. 29 The approval of Putin as a leader by American conservatives meant that they shared a certain commonality of ideas and were equally critical of liberal media and globalization. 30

Progressive and libertarian media also did not support the narrative of collusion. Gary Leupp at CounterPunch found the (p.88) narrative to be serving the purpose of reviving and even intensifying "Cold War-era Russophobia," with Russia being an "adversary" "only in that it opposes the expansion of NATO, especially to include Ukraine and Georgia." 31 Justin Raimondo at Antiwar.com questioned the narrative by pointing to Russia's bellicose rhetoric in response to Trump's actions. 32 Glenn Greenwald and Zaid Jilani at Intercept reminded readers that, overall, Trump proved to be far more confrontational toward Russia than Obama, thereby endangering America. 33 In particular Trump severed diplomatic ties with Russia, armed Ukraine, appointed anti-Russia hawks, such as ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, National Security Advisor John Bolton, and Secretary of State Michal Pompeo to key foreign policy positions, antagonized Russia's Iranian allies, and imposed tough sanctions against Russian business with ties to the Kremlin. 34

The dominant liberal media ignored opposing perspectives or presented them as compromised by Russia. For instance, in amplifying the view that Putin "stole" the elections, the Washington Post sought to discredit alternative sources of news and commentaries as infiltrated by the Kremlin's propaganda. On November 24, 2016, the newspaper published an interview with the executive director of a new website, PropOrNot, who preferred to remain anonymous, and claimed that the Russian government circulated pro-Trump articles before the election. Without providing evidence on explaining its methodology, the group identified more than two hundred websites that published or echoed Russian propaganda, including WikiLeaks and the Drudge Report , left-wing websites such as CounterPunch, Truthout, Black Agenda Report, Truthdig , and Naked Capitalism , as well as libertarian venues such as Antiwar.com and the Ron Paul Institute. 35 Another mainstream liberal outlet, CNN, warned the American people to be vigilant against the Kremlin's alleged efforts to spread propaganda: "Enormous numbers of (p.89) Americans are not only failing to fight back, they are also unwitting collaborators -- reading, retweeting, sharing and reacting to Russian propaganda and provocations every day." 36

However, voices of dissent were now heard even in the mainstream media. Masha Gessen of the New Yorker said that Trump's tweet about Robert Mueller's indictments and Moscow's "laughing its ass off" was "unusually (perhaps accidentally) accurate." 37 She pointed out that Russians of all ideological convictions "are remarkably united in finding the American obsession with Russian meddling to be ridiculous." 38 The editor of the influential Politico , Blake Hounshell, confessed that he was a Russiagate skeptic because even though "Trump was all too happy to collude with Putin," Mueller's team never found a "smoking gun." 39 In reviewing the book on Russia's role in the 2016 election Russian Roulette , veteran New York Times reporter Steven Lee Myers noted that the Kremlin's meddling "simply exploited the vulgarity already plaguing American political campaigns" and that the veracity of many accusations remained unclear. 40

Explaining Russophobia

The high-intensity Russophobia within the American media, overblown even by the standards of previous threat narratives, could no longer be explained by differences in national values or by bilateral tensions. The new fear of Russia also reflected domestic political polarization and growing national unease over America's identity and future direction.

The narrative of collusion in the media was symptomatic of America's declining confidence in its own values. Until the intervention in Iraq in 2004, optimism and a sense of confidence prevailed in American social attitudes, having survived even the terrorist attack on the United States on September 11, 2001. The (p.90) country's economy was growing and its position in the world was not challenged. However, the disastrous war in Iraq, the global financial crisis of 2008, and Russia's intervention in Georgia in August 2008 changed that. US leadership could no longer inspire the same respect, and a growing number of countries viewed it as a threat to world peace. 41 Internally, the United States was increasingly divided. Following presidential elections in November 2016, 77% of Americans perceived their country as "greatly divided on the most important values." 42 The value divide had been expressed in partisanship and political polarization long before the 2016 presidential elections. 43 The Russia issue deepened this divide. According to a poll taken in October 2017, 63% of Democrats, but just 38% of Republicans, viewed "Russia's power and influence" as a major threat to the well-being of the United States. 44

During the US 2016 presidential elections, Russia emerged as a convenient way to accentuate differences between Democratic and Republican candidates, which in previous elections were never as pronounced or defining. The new elections deepened the partisan divide because of extreme differences between the two main candidates, particularly on Russia. Donald Trump positioned himself as a radical populist promising to transform US foreign policy and "drain the swamp" in Washington. His position on Russia seemed unusual because, by election time, the Kremlin had challenged the United States' position in the world by annexing Crimea, supporting Ukrainian separatism, and possibly hacking the DNC site.

The Russian issue assisted Clinton in stressing her differences from Trump. Soon after it became known that DNC servers were hacked, she embraced the view that Russia was behind the cyberattacks. She accused Russia of "trying to wreak havoc" in the United States and threatened retaliation. 45 In his turn, Trump used Russia to challenge Clinton's commitment to national security (p.91) and ability to serve as commander in chief. In particular, he drew public attention to the FBI investigation into Clinton's use of a private server for professional correspondence, and even noted sarcastically that the Russians should find thirty thousand missing emails belonging to her. The latter was interpreted by many in liberal media and political circles as a sign of Trump's being unpatriotic. 46 Clinton capitalized on this interpretation. She referred to the issue of hacking as the most important one throughout the campaign and challenged Trump to agree with assessments of intelligence agencies that cyberattacks were ordered by the Kremlin. She questioned Trump's commitments to US national security and accused him of being a "puppet" for President Putin. 47 Following Trump's victory, Clinton told donors that her loss should be partly attributed to Putin and the election hacks directed by him. 48

Clinton's arguments fitted with the overall narrative embraced by the mainstream media since roughly 2005 characterizing Russia as abusive and aggressive. Clinton viewed Russia as an oppressive autocratic power that was aggressive abroad to compensate for domestic weaknesses. Previously, in her book Hard Choices , then-secretary of state Clinton described Putin as "thin-skinned and autocratic, resenting criticism and eventually cracking down on dissent and debate." 49 This view was shared by President Obama, who publicly referred to Russia as a "regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors not out of strength but out of weakness." 50 During the election's campaign, Clinton argued that the United States should challenge Russia by imposing a no-fly zone in Syria with the objective of removing Assad from power, strengthening sanctions against the Russian economy, and providing lethal weapons to Ukraine in order to contain the potential threat of Russia's military invasion.

Following the elections, the partisan divide deepened, with liberal establishment attacking the "unpatriotic" Trump. Having (p.92) lost the election, Clinton partly attributed Trump's victory to the role of Russia and advocated an investigation into Trump's ties to Russia. In February 2017 the Clinton-influenced Center for American Progress brought on a former State Department official to run a new Moscow Project. 51 As acknowledged by the New Yorker , members of the Clinton inner circle believed that the Obama administration deliberately downplayed DNC hacking by the Kremlin. "We understand the bind they were in," one of Clinton's senior advisers said. "But what if Barack Obama had gone to the Oval Office, or the East Room of the White House, and said, 'I'm speaking to you tonight to inform you that the United States is under attack . . .' A large majority of Americans would have sat up and taken notice . . . it is bewildering -- it is baffling -- it is hard to make sense of why this was not a five-alarm fire in the White House." 52

In addition to Clinton, many other members of the Washington establishment, including some Republicans, spread the narrative of Russia "attacking" America. Republican politicians who viewed Clinton's defeat and the hacking attacks in military terms included those of chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee John McCain, who stated, "When you attack a country, it's an act of war," 53 and former vice president Dick Cheney, who called Russia's alleged interference in the US election "a very serious effort made by Mr. Putin" that "in some quarters that would be considered an act of war." 54 A number of Democrats also engaged in the rhetoric of war, likening the Russian "attack," as Senator Ben Cardin did, to a "political Pearl Harbor." 55

Rumors and leaks, possibly by members of US intelligence agencies, 56 and activities of liberal groups that sought to discredit Trump contributed to the Russophobia. In addition to the DNC hacking accusations, many fears of Russia in the media were based on the assumption that contacts, let alone cooperation with the (p.93) Kremlin, was unpatriotic and implied potentially "compromising" behavior: praise of Putin as a leader, possible business dealings with Russian "oligarchs," and meetings with Russian officials such Ambassador Sergei Kislyak. 57

There were therefore two sides to the Russia story in the US liberal media -- rational and emotional. The rational side had to do with calculations by Clinton-affiliated circles and anti-Russian groups pooling their resources to undermine Trump and his plans to improve relations with Russia. Among others, these resources included dominance within the liberal media and leaks by the intelligence community. The emotional side was revealed by the liberal elites' values and ability to promote fears of Russia within the US political class and the general public. Popular emotions of fear and frustration with Russia already existed in the public space due to the old Cold War memories, as well as disturbing post–Cold War developments that included wars in Chechnya, Georgia, and Ukraine. In part because of these memories, factions such as those associated with Clinton were successful in evoking in the public liberal mind what historian Richard Hofstadter called the "paranoid style" or "the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy." 58 Mobilized by liberal media to pressure Trump, these emotions became an independent factor in the political struggle inside Washington. The public display of fear and frustration with Russia and Trump could only be sustained by a constant supply of new "suspicious" developments and intense discussion by the media.

Russia's Role and Motives

Russia's "attacking" America and Trump's "colluding" with the Kremlin remained poorly substantiated. Taken together, the DNC hacking, Trump's and Putin's mutual praise, and Trump associates' (p.94) contacts with Russian officials implied Kremlin infiltration of the United States' internal politics. Yet viewed separately, each was questionable and unproven. Some of these points could have also been made about Hillary Clinton, who had ties to Russian -- not to mention Saudi Arabian -- business circles and Ukrainian politicians. 59 Political views cannot be counted as evidence. Contacts with Russian officials could have been legitimate exchanges of views about two countries' interests and potential cooperation. Even the CIA- and the FBI-endorsed conclusion that Russia attacked the DNC servers was questioned by some observers on the grounds that forensic evidence was lacking and that it relied too much on findings by one cybersecurity company. 60 In general, discussion of Russia in the US media lacked nuances and a sense of proportion. As Jesse Walker, an editor at Reason magazine and author of The United States of Paranoia , pointed out,

There's a difference between thinking that Moscow may have hacked the Democratic National Committee and thinking that Moscow actually hacked the election, between thinking the president may have Russian conflicts of interest and thinking he's a Russian puppet . . . when someone like the New York Times columnist Paul Krugman declares that Putin "installed" Donald Trump as president, he's moving out of the realm of plausible plots and into the world of fantasy. Similarly, Clinton's warning that Trump could be Putin's "puppet" leaped from an imaginable idea, that Putin wanted to help her rival, to the much more dubious notion that Putin thought he could control the impulsive Trump. (Trump barely seems capable of controlling himself.) 61

The loose and politically tendentious nature of discussions, circulation of questionable leaks and dossiers complied by unidentified (p.95) individuals, and lack of serious evidence led a number of observers to conclude that the Russia story was more about stopping Trump than about Russia. The Russian scandal was symptomatic of the poisonous state of bilateral relations that Democrats exploited for the purpose of derailing Trump. US-Russia relations became a hostage of partisan domestic politics. As one liberal and tough critic of Putin wrote, Democratic lawmakers' rhetoric of war in connection with the 2016 elections "places Republicans -- who often characterize themselves as more hawkish on Russia and defense -- in a bind as they try to defend to the new administration's strategy towards Moscow." 62 Another observer noted that Russiagate performed "a critical function for Trump's political foes," allowing "them to oppose Trump while obscuring key areas where they either share his priorities or have no viable alternative." 63

The described lack of confidence was reflected in the exaggerated fear that Russia was capable of destroying the West's values. However, Russia and Putin were neither omnipresent nor threatening to destroy the United States' political system. A number of analysts, such as Mark Schrad, identified fears of Russia as "increasingly hysterical fantasies" and argued that Russia was not a global menace. 64 If the Kremlin was indeed behind the cyberattacks, it was not for the reasons commonly broached. Rather than trying to subvert the US system, it sought to defend its own system against what it perceived as a US policy of changing regimes and meddling in Russia's internal affairs. The United States has a long history of covert activities in foreign countries. 65 Washington's establishment has never followed the advice given by prominent American statesmen such as George Kennan to let Russians "be Russians" and "work out their internal problems in their own manner." 66 Instead, the United States assumes that America defines the rules and boundaries of proper behavior in international politics, while others must simply follow the rules.

(p.96) Russia's basic motives remain defensive even when the Kremlin relies on assertive tactics. Russia's assertiveness, even in cyberspace, is of a reactive nature and is a response to US policies. Experts observe that Russia's conception of cyber and other informational power serves the overall purpose of protecting national sovereignty from encroachments by the United States. 67 Rather than fighting a full-scale information war with the West, Russia seeks to increase its status and strengthen its bargaining position in relations with the United States. 68 The Kremlin has been proposing to negotiate rules of cooperation in the cyber area since early in the twenty-first century. Motivated by an insistence on "cyber-sovereignty," Russia regularly proposes resolutions at the United Nations to prohibit "information aggression," In a 2011 letter to the United Nations General Assembly, Russia proposed an "International Code of Conduct for Information Security," stipulating that states subscribing to the code would pledge to "not use information and communications technologies and other information and communications networks to interfere with the internal affairs of other states or with the aim of undermining their political, economic and social stability." 69

Overall, what the Kremlin challenges is the United States' post–Cold War behavior that undermines Russia's status as a great power. Although Russia is not in a position to directly challenge the United States and the US-centered international order, the Kremlin hopes to gain external recognition as a great power by relying on low-cost methods and revealing the vulnerability of Western nations. Russia's capabilities and presence in global cyber and media space are limited, and the Kremlin is motivated by asymmetric deployment of its media, information, and cyber power.

[May 19, 2020] New Documents From the Sham Prosecution of Gen. Michael Flynn Also Reveal Broad Corruption in the Russiagate Investigations by Glenn Greenwald

This is about intelligence agencies becaming a powerful by shadow political force, much like STASI. This not about corruption per se, but about perusing of political goals by dirty means. So it is closer to sedition then to corruption.
Notable quotes:
"... there was no valid reason for the FBI to have interrogated Flynn about his conversations with Kislyak in the first place. There is nothing remotely untoward or unusual -- let alone criminal -- about an incoming senior national security official, three weeks away from taking over, reaching out to a counterpart in a foreign government to try to tamp down tensions. As the Washington Post put it , "it would not be uncommon for incoming administrations to interface with foreign governments with whom they will soon have to work." ..."
"... there was also massive corruption on the part of the investigators themselves, exploiting and abusing their vast and invasive investigative and prosecutorial powers for ideological goals, political subterfuge, election manipulation, and personal vendettas ..."
"... To begin with, cable and other news outlets that employed former Obama-era intelligence operatives, generals, and prosecutors to disseminate every Russiagate conspiracy theory they could find -- virtually always without any dissent or even questioning -- have barely acknowledged these explosive new documents. ..."
"... But the most critical reason to delve deeply into this case is that it reveals one the most dangerous abuses of power a democracy can suffer: The powers of the CIA, FBI, and NSA were blatantly and repeatedly abused to manipulate election outcomes and achieve political advantage. ..."
"... Flynn is a right-wing, hawkish general whose views on the so-called war on terror are ones utterly anathema to my own beliefs. That does not make his prosecution justified. One's views of Flynn personally or his politics (or those of the Trump administration generally) should have absolutely no bearing on one's assessment of the justifiability of what the U.S. government did to him here -- any more than one has to like the political views of the detainees at Guantanamo to find their treatment abusive and illegal , or any more than one has to agree with the views of people who are being censured in order to defend their right of free expression . ..."
"... As the journalist Aaron Maté demonstrated when he brilliantly challenged The Guardian's Luke Harding about his bestselling book claiming to prove collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia -- one of the few times a Russiagate conspiracy advocate was forced to confront a knowledgeable critic -- those claims often cannot survive even minimal critical scrutiny. That's why media outlets have insulated these conspiracy theory advocates, as well as their audiences, from any dissent or even critical questioning. ..."
May 14, 2020 | theintercept.com
Gen. Michael Flynn, President Obama's former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and President Donald Trump's former national security adviser, pleaded guilty on December 1, 2017, to a single count of lying to the FBI about two conversations he had with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak while Flynn served as a Trump transition team official (Flynn was never charged for any matters relating to his relationship with the Turkish government). As part of the plea deal, special counsel Robert Mueller recommended no jail time for Flynn , and the plea agreement also seemingly put an end to threats from the Mueller team to prosecute Flynn's son.

Last Thursday, the Justice Department filed a motion seeking to dismiss the prosecution of Flynn based, in part, on newly discovered documents revealing that the conduct of the FBI, under the leadership of Director James Comey and his now-disgraced Deputy Andrew McCabe (who himself was forced to leave the Bureau after being caught lying to agents ), was improper and motivated by corrupt objectives. That motion prompted histrionic howls of outrage from the same political officials and their media allies who have spent the last three years pushing maximalist Russiagate conspiracy theories.

But the prosecution of Flynn -- for allegedly lying to the FBI when he denied in a January 24 interrogation that he had discussed with Kislyak on December 29 the new sanctions and expulsions imposed on Russia by the Obama administration -- was always odd for a number of reasons. To begin with, the FBI agents who questioned Flynn said afterward that they did not believe he was lying (as CNN reported in February 2017: "the FBI interviewers believed Flynn was cooperative and provided truthful answers. Although Flynn didn't remember all of what he talked about, they don't believe he was intentionally misleading them, the officials say"). For that reason, CNN said, "the FBI is not expected to pursue any charges against" him.

More importantly, there was no valid reason for the FBI to have interrogated Flynn about his conversations with Kislyak in the first place. There is nothing remotely untoward or unusual -- let alone criminal -- about an incoming senior national security official, three weeks away from taking over, reaching out to a counterpart in a foreign government to try to tamp down tensions. As the Washington Post put it , "it would not be uncommon for incoming administrations to interface with foreign governments with whom they will soon have to work." What newly released documents over the last month reveal is what has been generally evident for the last three years: The powers of the security state agencies -- particularly the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, and the DOJ -- were systematically abused as part of the 2016 election and then afterward for political rather than legal ends.

While there was obviously deceit and corruption on the part of some Trump officials in lying to Russiagate investigators and otherwise engaging in depressingly common D.C. lobbyist corruption , there was also massive corruption on the part of the investigators themselves, exploiting and abusing their vast and invasive investigative and prosecutorial powers for ideological goals, political subterfuge, election manipulation, and personal vendettas . The former category (corruption by Trump officials) has received a tidal wave of endless media attention, while the latter (corruption and abuse of power by those investigating them) has received almost none.

For numerous reasons, it is vital to fully examine with as much clarity as possible the abuse of power that drove the prosecution of Flynn. To begin with, cable and other news outlets that employed former Obama-era intelligence operatives, generals, and prosecutors to disseminate every Russiagate conspiracy theory they could find -- virtually always without any dissent or even questioning -- have barely acknowledged these explosive new documents.

More disturbingly, liberals and Democrats -- as part of their movement toward venerating these security state agencies -- have completely jettisoned long-standing, core principles about the criminal justice system, including questioning whether lying to the FBI should be a crime at all and recognizing that innocent people are often forced to plead guilty -- in order to justify both the Flynn prosecution and the broader Mueller probe.

But the most critical reason to delve deeply into this case is that it reveals one the most dangerous abuses of power a democracy can suffer: The powers of the CIA, FBI, and NSA were blatantly and repeatedly abused to manipulate election outcomes and achieve political advantage. In other words, we know now that these agencies did exactly what Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer warned they would do to Trump when he appeared on Rachel Maddow's MSNBC program shortly before Trump's inauguration:

This turned out to be one of the most prescient and important (and creepy) statements of the Trump presidency: from Chuck Schumer to Rachel Maddow - in early January, 2017, before Trump was even inaugurated: pic.twitter.com/TUaYkksILG

-- Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 8, 2019
Because U.S. politics is now discussed far more as tests of tribal loyalty ("Whose side are you on?") than actual ideological or even political beliefs ("Which policies do you favor or oppose?"), it is very difficult to persuade people to separate their personal or political views of Flynn ("Do you like him or not?") from the question of whether the U.S. government abused its power in gravely dangerous ways to prosecute him.

Flynn is a right-wing, hawkish general whose views on the so-called war on terror are ones utterly anathema to my own beliefs. That does not make his prosecution justified. One's views of Flynn personally or his politics (or those of the Trump administration generally) should have absolutely no bearing on one's assessment of the justifiability of what the U.S. government did to him here -- any more than one has to like the political views of the detainees at Guantanamo to find their treatment abusive and illegal , or any more than one has to agree with the views of people who are being censured in order to defend their right of free expression .

The ability to distinguish between ideological questions from evidentiary questions is vital for rational discourse to be possible, yet has been all but eliminated at the altar of tribal fealty. That is why evidentiary questions completely devoid of ideological belief -- such as whether one found the Russiagate conspiracy theories supported by convincing evidence -- have been treated not as evidentiary matters but as tribal ones: to be affiliated with the left (an ideological characterization), one must affirm belief in those conspiracy theories even if one does not find the evidence in support of them actually compelling. The conflation of ideological and evidentiary questions, and the substitution of substantive political debates with tests of tribal loyalty, are indescribably corrosive to our public discourse.

As a result, whether one is now deemed on the right or left has almost nothing to do with actual political beliefs about policy questions and everything to do with one's willingness to serve the interests of one team or another. With the warped formula in place, U.S. politics has been depoliticized , stripped of any meaningful ideological debates in lieu of mindless team loyalty oaths on non-ideological questions.

Our newest SYSTEM UPDATE episode, debuting today, is devoted to enabling as clear and objective an examination as possible of the abuses that drove the Flynn prosecution -- including these critical, newly declassified documents -- as well the broader Russiagate investigations of which it was a part. These abuses have received far too little attention from the vast majority of the U.S. media that simply excludes any questioning or dissent of their prevailing narratives about all of these matters.

Notably, we invited several of the cable stars and security state agents who have been pushing these conspiracy theories for years to appear on the program for a civil discussion, but none were willing to do so -- because they are so accustomed to being able to spout these theories on MSNBC, CNN, and in newspapers without ever being meaningfully challenged. Regardless of one's views on these scandals, it is unhealthy in the extreme for any media to insulate themselves from a diversity of views.

As the journalist Aaron Maté demonstrated when he brilliantly challenged The Guardian's Luke Harding about his bestselling book claiming to prove collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia -- one of the few times a Russiagate conspiracy advocate was forced to confront a knowledgeable critic -- those claims often cannot survive even minimal critical scrutiny. That's why media outlets have insulated these conspiracy theory advocates, as well as their audiences, from any dissent or even critical questioning.

Today's SYSTEM UPDATE episode, which we believe provides the most comprehensive examination to date of these new documents relating to the Flynn prosecution and how this case relates to the broader Russiagate investigative abuses, can be viewed above or on The Intercept's YouTube channel .

[May 19, 2020] NYT Critique of Ronan Farrow Describes Pathology of "Resistance Journalism"

This is about control of MSM by intelligence agencies, not so much about corruption of individual journalists. Journalist became like in the USSR "Soldiers of the Party" -- well paid propagandist of particular, supplied to them talking points.
Notable quotes:
"... encouraged and incentivized ..."
"... for each segment ..."
May 19, 2020 | theintercept.com

What is particularly valuable about Smith's article is its perfect description of a media sickness borne of the Trump era that is rapidly corroding journalistic integrity and justifiably destroying trust in news outlets. Smith aptly dubs this pathology "resistance journalism," by which he means that journalists are now not only free, but encouraged and incentivized , to say or publish anything they want, no matter how reckless and fact-free, provided their target is someone sufficiently disliked in mainstream liberal media venues and/or on social media:

[Farrow's] work, though, reveals the weakness of a kind of resistance journalism that has thrived in the age of Donald Trump: That if reporters swim ably along with the tides of social media and produce damaging reporting about public figures most disliked by the loudest voices, the old rules of fairness and open-mindedness can seem more like impediments than essential journalistic imperatives.

That can be a dangerous approach, particularly in a moment when the idea of truth and a shared set of facts is under assault.

In assailing Farrow for peddling unproven conspiracy theories, Smith argues that such journalistic practices are particularly dangerous in an era where conspiracy theories are increasingly commonplace. Yet unlike most journalists with a mainstream platform, Smith emphasizes that conspiracy theories are commonly used not only by Trump and his movement (conspiracy theories which are quickly debunked by most of the mainstream media), but are also commonly deployed by Trump's enemies, whose reliance on conspiracy theories is virtually never denounced by journalists because mainstream news outlets themselves play a key role in peddling them:

We are living in an era of conspiracies and dangerous untruths -- many pushed by President Trump, but others hyped by his enemies -- that have lured ordinary Americans into passionately believing wild and unfounded theories and fiercely rejecting evidence to the contrary. The best reporting tries to capture the most attainable version of the truth, with clarity and humility about what we don't know. Instead, Mr. Farrow told us what we wanted to believe about the way power works, and now, it seems, he and his publicity team are not even pretending to know if it's true.

Ever since Donald Trump was elected , and one could argue even in the months leading up to his election, journalistic standards have been consciously jettisoned when it comes to reporting on public figures who, in Smith's words, are "most disliked by the loudest voices," particularly when such reporting "swim[s] ably along with the tides of social media." Put another way: As long the targets of one's conspiracy theories and attacks are regarded as villains by the guardians of mainstream liberal social media circles, journalists reap endless career rewards for publishing unvetted and unproven -- even false -- attacks on such people, while never suffering any negative consequences when their stories are exposed as shabby frauds.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/OOhRRr6c1wA?autoplay=0&rel=0&enablejsapi=1&origin=https%3A%2F%2Ftheintercept.com&widgetid=1 infiltrated and taken over the U.S. government through sexual and financial blackmail leverage over Trump and used it to dictate U.S. policy; Trump officials conspired with the Kremlin to interfere in the 2016 election; Russia was attacking the U.S. by hacking its electricity grid , recruiting journalists to serve as clandestine Kremlin messengers , and plotting to cut off heat to Americans in winter. Mainstream media debacles -- all in service of promoting the same set of conspiracy theories against Trump -- are literally too numerous to count, requiring one to select the worst offenses as illustrative .

Glenn Beck 2009 + Maddow 2019 is the greatest crossover event in history pic.twitter.com/D1NElGBq3U

-- Adam H. Johnson (@adamjohnsonNYC) January 31, 2019
In March of last year, Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi -- writing under the headline "It's official: Russiagate is this generation's WMD" -- compared the prevailing media climate since 2016 to that which prevailed in 2002 and 2003 regarding the invasion of Iraq and the so-called war on terror: little to no dissent permitted, skeptics of media-endorsed orthodoxies shunned and excluded, and worst of all, the very journalists who were most wrong in peddling false conspiracy theories were exactly those who ended up most rewarded on the ground that even though they spread falsehoods, they did so for the right cause.

Under that warped rubric -- in which spreading falsehoods is commendable as long as it was done to harm the evildoers -- the New Yorker's Jeffrey Goldberg, one of the most damaging endorsers of false conspiracy theories about Iraq , rose to become editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, while two of the most deceitful Bush-era neocons, Bush/Cheney speechwriter David Frum and supreme propagandist Bill Kristol, have reprised their role as leading propagandists and conspiracy theorists -- only this time aimed against the GOP president instead of on his behalf -- and thus have become beloved liberal media icons. The communications director for both the Bush/Cheney campaign and its White House, Nicole Wallace, is one of the most popular liberal cable hosts from her MSNBC perch.

Join Our Newsletter Original reporting. Fearless journalism. Delivered to you. I'm in Exactly the same journalism-destroying dynamic is driving the post-Russiagate media landscape. There is literally no accountability for the journalists and news outlets that spread falsehoods in their pages, on their airwaves, and through their viral social media postings. The Washington Post's media columnist Erik Wemple has been one of the very few journalists devoted to holding these myth-peddlers accountable -- recounting how one of the most reckless Russigate conspiracy maximialists, Natasha Bertrand, became an overnight social media and journalism star by peddling discredited conspiratorial trash (she was notably hired by Jeffrey Goldberg to cover Russigate for The Atlantic); MSNBC's Rachel Maddow spent three years hyping conspiratorial junk with no need even to retract any of it; and Mother Jones' David Corn played a crucial, decisively un-journalistic role in mainstreaming the lies of the Steele dossier all with zero effect on his journalistic status, other than to enrich him through a predictably bestselling book that peddled those unhinged conspiracies further.

Wemple's post-Russiagate series has established him as a commendable, often-lone voice trying -- with futility -- to bring some accountability to U.S. journalism for the systemic media failures of the past three years. The reason that's futile is exactly what Smith described in his column on Farrow: In "resistance journalism," facts and truth are completely dispensable -- indeed, dispensing with them is rewarded -- provided "reporters swim ably along with the tides of social media and produce damaging reporting about public figures most disliked by the loudest voices."

That describes perfectly the journalists who were defined, and enriched, by years of Russiagate deceit masquerading as reporting. By far the easiest path to career success over the last three years -- booming ratings, lucrative book sales, exploding social media followings, career rehabilitation even for the most discredited D.C. operatives -- was to feed establishment liberals an endless diet of fearmongering and inflammatory conspiracies about Drumpf and his White House. Whether it was true or supported by basic journalistic standards was completely irrelevant. Responsible reporting was simply was not a metric used to assess its worth.

It was one thing for activists, charlatans, and con artists to exploit fears of Trump for material gain: that, by definition, is what such people do. But it was another thing entirely for journalists to succumb to all the low-hanging career rewards available to them by throwing all journalistic standards into the trash bin in exchange for a star turn as a #Resistance icon. That , as Smith aptly describes, is what "Resistance Journalism" is, and it's hard to identify anything more toxic to our public discourse.

Perhaps the single most shameful and journalism-destroying episode in all of this -- an obviously difficult title to bestow -- was when a national security blogger, Marcy Wheeler, violated long-standing norms and ethical standards of journalism by announcing in 2018 that she had voluntarily turned in her own source to the FBI, claiming she did so because her still-unnamed source "had played a significant role in the Russian election attack on the US" and because her life was endangered by her brave decision to stop being a blogger and become an armchair cop by pleading with the FBI and the Mueller team to let her work with them. In her blog post announcing what she did, she claimed she was going public with her treachery because her life was in danger, and this way everyone would know the real reason if "someone releases stolen information about me or knocks me off tomorrow."

To say that Wheeler's actions are a grotesque violation of journalistic ethics is to radically understate the case. Journalists are expected to protect their sources' identities from the FBI even if they receive a subpoena and a court order compelling its disclosure; we're expected to go to prison before we comply with FBI attempts to uncover our source's identity. But here, the FBI did not try to compel Wheeler to tell them anything; they displayed no interest in her as she desperately tried to chase them down.

By all appearances, Wheeler had to beg the FBI to pay attention to her because they treated her like the sort of unstable, unhinged, unwell, delusional obsessive who, believing they have uncovered some intricate conspiracy, relentlessly harass and bombard journalists with their bizarre theories until they finally prattle to themselves for all of eternity in the spam filter of our email inboxes. The claim that she was in possession of some sort of explosive and damning information that would blow the Mueller investigation wide open was laughable. In her post, she claimed she "always planned to disclose this when this person's role was publicly revealed," but to date -- almost two years later -- she has never revealed "this person's" identity because, from all appearances, the Mueller report never relied on Wheeler's intrepid reporting or her supposedly red-hot secrets.

Like so many other Russiagate obsessives who turned into social media and MSNBC/CNN #Resistance stars, Wheeler was living a wild, self-serving fantasy, a Cold War Tom Clancy suspense film that she invented in her head and then cast herself as the heroine: a crusading investigative dot-connecter uncovering dangerous, hidden conspiracies perpetrated by dangerous, hidden Cold War-style villains (Putin) to the point where her own life was endangered by her bravery. It was a sad joke, a depressing spectacle of psycho-drama, but one that could have had grave consequences for the person she voluntarily ratted out to the FBI. Whatever else is true, this episode inflicted grave damage on American journalism by having mainstream, Russia-obsessed journalists not denounce her for her egregious violation of journalistic ethics but celebrate her for turning journalism on its head.

Why? Because, as Smith said in his Farrow article, she was "swim[ing] ably along with the tides of social media and produc[ing] damaging reporting about public figures most disliked by the loudest voices" and thus "the old rules of fairness and open-mindedness [were] more like impediments than essential journalistic imperatives." Margaret Sullivan, the former New York Times public editor and now the Washington Post's otherwise reliably commendable media reporter, celebrated Wheeler's bizarre behavior under the headline: "A journalist's conscience leads her to reveal her source to the FBI."

Despite acknowledging that "in their reporting, journalists talk to criminals all the time and don't turn them in" and that "it's pretty much an inviolable rule of journalism: Protect your sources," Sullivan heralded Wheeler's ethically repugnant and journalism-eroding violation of those principles. "It's not hard to see that her decision was a careful and principled one," Sullivan proclaimed.

She even endorsed Wheeler's cringe-inducing, self-glorifying claims about her life being endangered by invoking long-standard Cold War clichés about the treachery of the Russkies ("Overly dramatic? Not really. The Russians do have a penchant for disposing of people they find threatening."). The English language is insufficient to convey the madness required to believe that the Kremlin wanted to kill Marcy Wheeler because her blogging was getting Too Close to The Truth, but in the fevered swamps of resistance journalism, literally no claim was too unhinged to be embraced provided that it fed the social media #Resistance masses.

Sullivan's article quoted no critics of Wheeler's incredibly controversial behavior -- no need to: She was on the right side of social media reaction. And Sullivan never bothered to return to wonder why her prediction -- "Wheeler hasn't named the source publicly, though his name may soon be known to all who are following the Mueller investigation" -- never materialized. Both CNN and, incredibly, the Columbia Journalism Review published similarly sympathetic accounts of Wheeler's desperate attempts to turn over her source to the FBI and then cosplay as though she were some sort of insider in the Mueller investigation. The most menacing attribute of what Smith calls "Resistance Journalism" is that it permits and tolerates no dissent and questioning: perhaps the single most destructive path journalism can take. It has been well-documented that MSNBC and CNN spent three years peddling all sorts of ultimately discredited Russiagate conspiracy theories by excluding from their airwaves anyone who dissented from or even questioned those conspiracies. Instead, they relied upon an increasingly homogenized army of former security state agents from the CIA, FBI, and NSA to propound, in unison, all sorts of claims about Trump and Russia that turned out to be false, and peppered their panels of "analysts" with journalists whose career skyrocketed exclusively by pushing maximalist Russiagate claims, often by relying on the same intelligence officials these cable outlets sat them next to.

That NBC & MSNBC hired as a "news analyst" John Brennan - who ran the CIA when the Trump/Russia investigation began & was a key player in the news he was shaping as a paid colleague of their reporters - is a huge ethical breach. And it produced this: pic.twitter.com/nPlaq5YVxf

-- Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 2, 2019
This trend -- whereby diversity of opinion and dissent from orthodoxies are excluded from media discourse -- is worsening rapidly due to two major factors. The first is that cable news programs are constructed to feed their audiences only self-affirming narratives that vindicate partisan loyalties. One liberal cable host told me that they receive ratings not for each show but for each segment , and they can see the ratings drop off -- the remotes clicking away -- if they put on the air anyone who criticizes the party to which that outlet is devoted (Democrats in the case of MSNBC and CNN, the GOP in the case of Fox).

But there's another more recent and probably more dissent-quashing development: the disappearance of media jobs. Mass layoffs were already common in online journalism and local newspapers prior to the coronavirus pandemic , and have now turned into an industrywide massacre . With young journalists watching jobs disappearing en masse, the last thing they are going to want to do is question or challenge prevailing orthodoxies within their news outlet or, using Smith's "Resistance Journalism" formulation, to "swim against the tides of social media" or question the evidence amassed against those "most disliked by the loudest voices."

Affirming those orthodoxies can be career-promoting, while questioning them can be job-destroying. Consider the powerful incentives journalists face in an industry where jobs are disappearing so rapidly one can barely keep count. During Russiagate, I often heard from young journalists at large media outlets who expressed varying degrees of support for and agreement with the skepticism which I and a handful of other journalists were expressing, but they felt constrained to do so themselves, for good reason. They watched the reprisals and shunning doled out even to journalists with a long record of journalistic accomplishments and job security for the crime of Russiagate skepticism, such as Taibbi (similar to the way MSNBC fired Phil Donahue in 2002 for opposing the invasion of Iraq), and they know journalists with less stature and security than Taibbi could not risk incurring that collective wrath.

All professions and institutions suffer when a herd, groupthink mentality and the banning of dissent prevail. But few activities are corroded from such a pathology more than journalism is, which has as its core function skepticism and questioning of pieties. Journalism quickly transforms into a sickly, limp version of itself when it itself wages war on the virtues of dissent and airing a wide range of perspectives.

I do not know how valid are Smith's critiques of Farrow's journalism. But what I know for certain is that Smith's broader diagnosis of "Resistance Journalism" is dead-on, and the harms it is causing are deep and enduring. When journalists know they will thrive by affirming pleasing falsehoods, and suffer when they insist on unpopular truths, journalism not only loses its societal value but becomes just another instrument for societal manipulation, deceit, and coercion.

[May 19, 2020] Beyond BuzzFeed: The 10 Worst, Most Embarrassing U.S. Media Failures on the Trump-Russia Story by Glenn Greenwald

Images removed
Those are far from failures, those were successful disinformation/propaganda operations conducted with a certain goal -- remove Trump -- which demonstrate the level of intelligence agencies control of the MSM. In other words those are parts of a bigger intelligence operation -- the color revolution against Trump led most probably by Obama and Brennan.
Now we know that Obama played an important role in Russiagate media hysteria and, most porbably, in planning and executing the operation to entrap Flynn.
Notable quotes:
"... They are listed in reverse order, as measured by the magnitude of the embarrassment, the hysteria they generated on social media and cable news, the level of journalistic recklessness that produced them, and the amount of damage and danger they caused ..."
"... Note that all of these "errors" go only in one direction: namely, exaggerating the grave threat posed by Moscow and the Trump circle's connection to it. It's inevitable that media outlets will make mistakes on complex stories. If that's being done in good faith, one would expect the errors would be roughly 50/50 in terms of the agenda served by the false stories. That is most definitely not the case here. Just as was true in 2002 and 2003, when the media clearly wanted to exaggerate the threat posed by Saddam Hussein and thus all of its "errors" went in that direction, virtually all of its major "errors" in this story are devoted to the same agenda and script: ..."
"... Crowdstrike, the firm hired by the DNC, claimed they had evidence that Russia hacked Ukrainian artillery apps; they then retracted it . ..."
"... The U.S. media and Democrats spent six months claiming that all "17 intelligence agencies" agreed Russia was behind the hacks; the NYT finally retracted that in June, 2017: "The assessment was made by four intelligence agencies -- the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency. The assessment was not approved by all 17 organizations in the American intelligence community." ..."
"... Widespread government and media claims that accused Russian agent Maria Butina offered "sex for favors" were totally false (and scurrilous). ..."
Jan 20, 2019 | theintercept.com
BuzzFeed was once notorious for traffic-generating "listicles," but has since become an impressive outlet for deep investigative journalism under editor-in-chief Ben Smith. That outlet was prominently in the news this week thanks to its "bombshell" story about President Trump and Michael Cohen: a story that, like so many others of its kind, blew up in its face , this time when the typically mute Robert Mueller's office took the extremely rare step to label its key claims "inaccurate."

But in homage to BuzzFeed's past viral glory, following are the top ten worst media failures in two-plus-years of Trump/Russia reporting. They are listed in reverse order, as measured by the magnitude of the embarrassment, the hysteria they generated on social media and cable news, the level of journalistic recklessness that produced them, and the amount of damage and danger they caused. This list was extremely difficult to compile in part because news outlets (particularly CNN and MSNBC) often delete from the internet the video segments of their most embarrassing moments. Even more challenging was the fact that the number of worthy nominees is so large that highly meritorious entrees had to be excluded, but are acknowledged at the end with (dis)honorable mention status.

Note that all of these "errors" go only in one direction: namely, exaggerating the grave threat posed by Moscow and the Trump circle's connection to it. It's inevitable that media outlets will make mistakes on complex stories. If that's being done in good faith, one would expect the errors would be roughly 50/50 in terms of the agenda served by the false stories. That is most definitely not the case here. Just as was true in 2002 and 2003, when the media clearly wanted to exaggerate the threat posed by Saddam Hussein and thus all of its "errors" went in that direction, virtually all of its major "errors" in this story are devoted to the same agenda and script:

10. RT Hacked Into and Took Over C-SPAN (Fortune)

On June 12, 2017, Fortune claimed that RT had hacked into and taken over C-SPAN and that C-SPAN "confirmed" it had been hacked. The whole story was false:

C-SPAN Confirms It Was Briefly Hacked by Russian News Site https://t.co/NUFD662FMz pic.twitter.com/POstGFzvNE

-- Fortune Tech (@FortuneTech) January 12, 2017

Kremlin-funded Russian news network RT interrupted C-SPAN's online feed for about ten minutes Thursday afternoon https://t.co/Z25LqoCW2H

-- New York Magazine (@NYMag) January 12, 2017

Holy shit. Russia state propaganda (RT) "hacked" into C-SPAN feed and took over for a good 40 seconds today? In middle of live broadcast. https://t.co/pwWYFoDGDU

-- Isaac Saul (@Ike_Saul) January 12, 2017

RT America ominously takes over C-SPAN feed for ten minutes @tommyxtopher reviews today's events for #shareblue https://t.co/uiiU5awSMs

-- Leah McElrath (@leahmcelrath) January 12, 2017

After investigation, C-SPAN has concluded that the RT interruption was not the result of a hack, but rather routing error.

-- ErikWemple (@ErikWemple) January 18, 2017
9. Russian Hackers Invaded the U.S. Electricity Grid to Deny Vermonters Heat During the Winter (WashPost)

On December 30, 2016, the Washington Post reported that "Russian hackers penetrated the U.S. electricity grid through a utility in Vermont," causing predictable outrage and panic, along with threats from U.S. political leaders. But then they kept diluting the story with editor's notes – to admit that the malware was found on a laptop not connected to the U.S. electric grid at all – until finally acknowledging, days later, that the whole story was false, since the malware had nothing to do with Russia or with the U.S. electric grid:

Breaking: Russian hackers penetrated U.S. electricity grid through a utility in Vermont https://t.co/LED11lL7ej

-- The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) December 31, 2016

NEW: "One of the world's leading thugs, [Putin] has been attempting to hack our electric grid," says VT Gov. Shumlin https://t.co/YgdtT4JrlX pic.twitter.com/AU0ZQjT3aO

-- ABC News (@ABC) December 31, 2016

https://www.youtube.com/embed/9ktNVW_TblI?autoplay=0&rel=0&enablejsapi=1&origin=https%3A%2F%2Ftheintercept.com&widgetid=1

Washington Post retracts story about Russian hack at Vermont utility https://t.co/JX9l0926Uj via @nypost

-- Kerry Picket (@KerryPicket) January 1, 2017
8. A New, Deranged, Anonymous Group Declares Mainstream Political Sites on the Left and Right to be Russian Propaganda Outlets and WashPost Touts its Report to Claim Massive Kremlin Infiltration of the Internet (WashPost)

On November 24, 2016, the Washington Post published one of the most inflammatory, sensationalistic stories to date about Russian infiltration into U.S. politics using social media, accusing "more than 200 websites" of being "routine peddlers of Russian propaganda during the election season, with combined audiences of at least 15 million Americans." It added: "stories planted or promoted by the disinformation campaign [on Facebook] were viewed more than 213 million times."

Unfortunately for the paper, those statistics were provided by a new, anonymous group that reached these conclusions by classifying long-time, well-known sites – from the Drudge Report to Clinton-critical left-wing websites such as Truthout, Black Agenda Report, Truthdig, and Naked Capitalism, as well as libertarian venues such as Antiwar.com and the Ron Paul Institute. – as "Russian propaganda outlets," producing one of the longest Editor's Note in memory appended to the top of the article (but not until two weeks later , long after the story was mindlessly spread all throughout the media ecosystem):

Russian propaganda effort helped spread fake news during election, say independent researchers https://t.co/3ETVXWw16Q

-- Marty Baron (@PostBaron) November 25, 2016

Just want to note I hadn't heard of Propornot before the WP piece and never gave permission to them to call Bellingcat "allies" https://t.co/jQKnWzjrBR

-- Eliot Higgins (@EliotHiggins) November 25, 2016

Marty, I would like to more about PropOrNot, "experts" cited in the article. Their website provides little in the way of ID. https://t.co/ZiK8pKzUwx

-- Jack Shafer (@jackshafer) November 25, 2016
7. Trump Aide Anthony Scaramucci is Involved in a Russian Hedge Fund Under Senate Investigation (CNN)

On June 22, 2017, CNN reported that Trump aide Anthony Scaramucci was involved with the Russian Direct Investment Fund, under Senate investigation. He was not. CNN retracted the story and forced the three reporters who published it to leave the network. 6. Russia Attacked U.S. "Diplomats" (i.e. Spies) at the Cuban Embassy Using a Super-Sophisticated Sonic Microwave Weapon (NBC/MSNBC/CIA)

On September 11, 2017, NBC News and MSNBC spread all over its airwaves a claim from its notorious CIA puppet Ken Dilanian that Russia was behind a series of dastardly attacks on U.S. personnel at the Embassy in Cuba using a sonic or microwave weapon so sophisticated and cunning that Pentagon and CIA scientists had no idea what to make of it.

But then teams of neurologists began calling into doubt that these personnel had suffered any brain injuries at all – that instead they appear to have experienced collective psychosomatic symptoms – and then biologists published findings that the "strange sounds" the U.S. "diplomats" reported hearing were identical to those emitted by a common Caribbean male cricket during mating season.

An @NBCNews exclusive: After more than a year of mystery, Russia is the main suspect in the sonic attacks that sickened 26 U.S. diplomats and intelligence officials in Cuba. @MitchellReports has the latest. pic.twitter.com/NEI9PJ9CpD

-- TODAY (@TODAYshow) September 11, 2018

Wow >> U.S. has signals intelligence linking the sonic attacks on Americans in Cuba and China to *Russia* https://t.co/FbNla0vu9W

-- Andrew Desiderio (@desiderioDC) September 11, 2018

Following NBC report about sonic attacks, @SenCoryGardner renews calls for declaring Russia a state sponsor of terror https://t.co/wrnubfecom

-- Niels Lesniewski (@nielslesniewski) September 11, 2018

5. Trump Created a Secret Internet Server to Covertly Communicate with a Russian Bank (Slate)

Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank. pic.twitter.com/8f8n9xMzUU

-- Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) November 1, 2016

It's time for Trump to answer serious questions about his ties to Russia. https://t.co/D8oSmyVAR4 pic.twitter.com/07dRyEmPjX

-- Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) October 31, 2016
4. Paul Manafort Visited Julian Assange Three Times in the Ecuadorian Embassy and Nobody Noticed (Guardian/Luke Harding)

On November 27, 2018, the Guardian published a major "bombshell" that Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort had somehow managed to sneak inside one of the world's most surveilled buildings, the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, and visit Julian Assange on three different occasions. Cable and online commentators exploded.

Seven weeks later, no other media outlet has confirmed this ; no video or photographic evidence has emerged; the Guardian refuses to answer any questions; its leading editors have virtually gone into hiding; other media outlets have expressed serious doubts about its veracity; and an Ecuadorian official who worked at the embassy has called the story a complete fake:

Paul Manafort held secret talks with Julian Assange inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and visited around the time he joined Trump's campaign, the Guardian has been told. https://t.co/Fc2BVmXipk

-- Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 27, 2018

The sourcing on this is a bit thin, or at least obscured. But it's the ultimate Whoa If True. It's...ballgame if true.

-- Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) November 27, 2018

https://www.youtube.com/embed/4A2cuuRK2NU?autoplay=0&rel=0&enablejsapi=1&origin=https%3A%2F%2Ftheintercept.com&widgetid=7

The Guardian reports that Paul Manafort visited Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, the same month that Manafort joined Donald Trump's presidential campaign in 2016, a meeting that could carry vast implications for the Russia investigation https://t.co/pYawnv4MHH

-- Los Angeles Times (@latimes) November 27, 2018
3. CNN Explicitly Lied About Lanny Davis Being Its Source – For a Story Whose Substance Was Also False: Cohen Would Testify that Trump Knew in Advance About the Trump Tower Meeting (CNN)

On July 27, 2018, CNN published a blockbuster story : that Michael Cohen was prepared to tell Robert Mueller that President Trump knew in advanced about the Trump Tower meeting. There were, however, two problems with this story: first, CNN got caught blatantly lying when its reporters claimed that "contacted by CNN, one of Cohen's attorneys, Lanny Davis, declined to comment" (in fact, Davis was one of CNN's key sources, if not its only source, for this story), and second, numerous other outlets retracted the story after the source, Davis, admitted it was a lie. CNN, however, to this date has refused to do either: 2. Robert Mueller Possesses Internal Emails and Witness Interviews Proving Trump Directed Cohen to Lie to Congress (BuzzFeed)

BREAKING: President Trump personally directed his longtime attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow in order to obscure his involvement. https://t.co/BEoMKiDypn

-- BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) January 18, 2019

BOOM! https://t.co/QDkUMaEa7M pic.twitter.com/9kcZZ8m1gt

-- Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) January 18, 2019

The allegation that the President of the United States may have suborned perjury before our committee in an effort to curtail the investigation and cover up his business dealings with Russia is among the most serious to date. We will do what's necessary to find out if it's true. https://t.co/GljBAFqOjh

-- Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) January 18, 2019

If the @BuzzFeed story is true, President Trump must resign or be impeached.

-- Joaquin Castro (@JoaquinCastrotx) January 18, 2019

Listen, if Mueller does have multiple sources confirming Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress, then we need to know this ASAP. Mueller shouldn't end his inquiry, but it's about time for him to show Congress his cards before it's too late for us to act. https://t.co/ekG5VSBS8G

-- Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) January 18, 2019

UPDATE: A spokesperson for the special counsel is disputing BuzzFeed News' report. https://t.co/BEoMKiDypn pic.twitter.com/GWWfGtyhaE

-- BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) January 19, 2019

To those trying to parse the Mueller statement: it's a straight-up denial. Maybe Buzzfeed can prove they are right, maybe Mueller can prove them wrong. But it's an emphatic denial https://t.co/EI1J7XLCJe

-- Devlin Barrett (@DevlinBarrett) January 19, 2019

. @Isikoff : "There were red flags about the BuzzFeed story from the get-go." Notes it was inconsistent with Cohen's guilty plea when he said he made false statements about Trump Tower to Congress to be "consistent" with Trump, not at his direction. pic.twitter.com/tgDg6SNPpG

-- David Rutz (@DavidRutz) January 19, 2019

We at The Post also had riffs on the story our reporters hadn't confirmed. One noted Fox downplayed it; another said it "if true, looks to be the most damning to date for Trump." The industry needs to think deeply on how to cover others' reporting we can't confirm independently. https://t.co/afzG5B8LAP

-- Matt Zapotosky (@mattzap) January 19, 2019

Washington Post says Mueller's denial of BuzzFeed News article is aimed at the full story: "Mueller's denial, according to people familiar with the matter, aims to make clear that none of those statements in the story are accurate."
https://t.co/ene0yqe1mK

-- andrew kaczynski (@KFILE) January 19, 2019

If you're one of the people tempted to believe the self-evidently laughable claim that there's something "vague" or unclear about Mueller's statement, or that it just seeks to quibble with a few semantic trivialities, read this @WashPost story about this https://t.co/0io99LyATS pic.twitter.com/ca1TwPR3Og

-- Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 19, 2019

You can spend hours parsing the Carr statement, but given how unusual it is for any DOJ office to issue this sort of on the record denial, let alone this office, suspect it means the story's core contention that they have evidence Trump told Cohen to lie is fundamentally wrong.

-- Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) January 19, 2019

New York Times throws a bit of cold water on BuzzFeed's explosive -- and now seriously challenged -- report that Trump instructed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress: https://t.co/9N7MiHs7et pic.twitter.com/7FJFT9D8fW

-- ErikWemple (@ErikWemple) January 19, 2019

I can't speak to Buzzfeed's sourcing, but, for what it's worth, I declined to run with parts of the narrative they conveyed based on a source central to the story repeatedly disputing the idea that Trump directly issued orders of that kind.

-- Ronan Farrow (@RonanFarrow) January 19, 2019

FWIW in all our reporting I haven't found any in the Trump Org that have met with or been interviewed by Mueller. https://t.co/U4eV1MZc8p

-- John Santucci (@Santucci) January 18, 2019
1. Donald Trump Jr. Was Offered Advanced Access to the WikiLeaks Email Archive (CNN/MSNBC)

The morning of December 9, 2017, launched one of the most humiliating spectacles in the history of the U.S. media. With a tone so grave and bombastic that it is impossible to overstate, CNN went on the air and announced a major exclusive: Donald Trump, Jr. was offered by email advanced access to the trove of DNC and Podesta emails published by WikiLeaks – meaning before those emails were made public. Within an hour, MSNBC's Ken Dilanian, using a tone somehow even more unhinged, purported to have "independently confirmed" this mammoth, blockbuster scoop, which, they said, would have been the smoking gun showing collusion between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks over the hacked emails (while the YouTube clips have been removed, you can still watch one of the amazing MSNBC videos here ).

There was, alas, just one small problem with this massive, blockbuster story: it was totally and completely false. The email which Trump, Jr. received that directed him to the WikiLeaks archive was sent after WikiLeaks published it online for the whole world to see, not before. Rather than some super secretive operative giving Trump, Jr. advanced access, as both CNN and MSNBC told the public for hours they had confirmed, it was instead just some totally pedestrian message from a random member of the public suggesting Trump, Jr. review documents the whole world was already talking about. All of the anonymous sources CNN and MSNBC cited somehow all got the date of the email wrong.

To date, when asked how they both could have gotten such a massive story so completely wrong in the same way, both CNN and MSNBC have adopted the posture of the CIA by maintaining complete silence and refusing to explain how it could possibly be that all of their "multiple, independent sources" got the date wrong on the email in the same way, to be as incriminating – and false – as possible. Nor, needless to say, will they identify their sources who, in concert, fed them such inflammatory and utterly false information.

Sadly, CNN and MSNBC have deleted most traces of the most humiliating videos from the internet, including demanding that YouTube remove copies. But enough survives to document just what a monumental, horrifying, and utterly inexcusable debacle this was. Particularly amazing is the clip of the CNN reporter (see below) having to admit the error for the first time, as he awkwardly struggles to pretend that it's not the massive, horrific debacle that it so obviously is:

Knowingly soliciting or receiving anything of value from a foreign national for campaign purposes violates the Federal Election Campaign Act. If it's worth over $2,000 then penalties include fines & IMPRISONMENT. @DonaldJTrumpJr may be in bigly trouble. #FridayFeeling https://t.co/dRz6Ph17Er

-- Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) December 8, 2017

boom https://t.co/9RPPltRq8k pic.twitter.com/eyYHkOMEPi

-- Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) December 8, 2017

CNN is leading the way in bashing BuzzFeed but it's worth remembering CNN had a humiliation at least as big & bad: when they yelled that Trump Jr. had advanced access to the WL archive (!): all based on a wrong date. They removed all the segments from YouTube, but this remains: pic.twitter.com/0jiA50aIku

-- Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 19, 2019

Dishonorable Mention:

  • ABC News' Brian Ross is fired for reporting Trump told Flynn to make contact with Russians when he was still a candidate; in fact, Trump did that after he won.
  • The New York Times claimed Manafort provided polling data to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, a person "close to the Kremlin"; in fact, he provided them to Ukrainians, not Russians.
  • Crowdstrike, the firm hired by the DNC, claimed they had evidence that Russia hacked Ukrainian artillery apps; they then retracted it .
  • Bloomberg and the WSJ reported Mueller subpoenaed Deustche Bank for Trump's financial records; the NYT said that never happened .
  • Rachel Maddow devoted 20 minutes at the start of her show to very melodramatically claiming a highly sophisticated party tried to trick her by sending her a fake Top Secret document modeled after the one published by the Intercept, and said it could only have come from the U.S. Government (or the Intercept) since the person obtained the document before it was published by us and thus must have had special access to it; in fact, Maddow and NBC completely misread the metadata on the document ; the fake sent to Maddow was created after we published the document, and was sent to her by a random member of the public who took the document from the Intercept's site and doctored it to see if she'd fall for an obvious scam. Maddow's entire timeline, on which her whole melodramatic conspiracy theory rested, was fictitious.
  • The U.S. media and Democrats spent six months claiming that all "17 intelligence agencies" agreed Russia was behind the hacks; the NYT finally retracted that in June, 2017: "The assessment was made by four intelligence agencies -- the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency. The assessment was not approved by all 17 organizations in the American intelligence community."
  • AP claimed on February 2, 2018, that the Free Beacon commissioned the Steele Dossier; they thereafter acknowledged that was false and noted, instead: "Though the former spy, Christopher Steele, was hired by a firm that was initially funded by the Washington Free Beacon, he did not begin work on the project until after Democratic groups had begun funding it."
  • The national media have offered multiple, conflicting accounts of how and why the FBI investigation into Trump/Russia began.
  • Widespread government and media claims that accused Russian agent Maria Butina offered "sex for favors" were totally false (and scurrilous).
  • After a Russian regional jet crashed on February 11, 2018, shortly after it took off from Moscow, killing all 71 people aboard, Harvard Law Professor and frequent MSNBC contributor Laurence Tribe strongly implied Putin purposely caused the plane to go down in order to murder Sergei Millian, a person vaguely linked to George Papadopoulos and Jared Kushner; in fact, Millian was not on the plane nor, to date, has anyone claimed they had any evidence that Putin ordered his own country's civilian passenger jet brought down.

[May 19, 2020] The leak of the Kislyak call to the press was designed to sabotage Flynn and the Trump administration

From comments to the podcast: "Attempting to damage and/or remove a sitting US President with a political and legal hoax, from within, is a seditious attack against the United States of America."
May 19, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Podcast Right Now Episode 2, The Russiagate Hoax, with Svetlana Lokhova and Chuck Ross The American Conservative

Starting at minute 20 interview of Svetlana and Chuck makes the point that leak of the call to the press was to sabotage Flynn and the Trump administration. The PTB knew very early on that Flynn was not a Russian asset.

[May 18, 2020] About Evelyn Farkas political activity

May 18, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Dr Anon 36 minutes ago

Another woman who should be at home taking care of her husband, home and children.

mtumba, 29 minutes ago

What the **** do you have against husbands and children?

rockstone, 44 minutes ago

She closes by defiantly claiming "I wasn't silenced in 2017, and I won't be silenced now."

By all means Evelyn, keep talking. Especially after your lawyers tell you to shut up.

[May 18, 2020] FBI under Comey as an uncontrolled political police operating without any oversight from Justice Department

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... "Did [ FBI Director James B. Comey] seek permission from you to do the formal opening of the counterintelligence investigation?" Rep. Adam B. Schiff, California Democrat, asked the former attorney general. ..."
"... "No, and he ordinarily would not have had to do that," Ms. Lynch answered. "lt would not have come to the attorney general for that." ..."
"... Mr. Schiff, a fierce defender of the FBI in the Russia probe, seemed taken aback. "Even in the case where you're talking about a campaign for president?" he asked. ..."
"... "I can't recall if it was discussed or not," Ms. Lynch said. "I just don't have a recollection of that in the meetings that I had with him." ..."
"... "Yates was very frustrated in the call with Comey," said the FBI interview report, known as a 302. "She felt a decision to conduct an interview of Flynn should have been coordinated with [the Department of Justice ]." ..."
"... Ms. Yates told the FBI that the interview was "problematic" because the White House counsel should have been notified. ..."
"... During his book tour, Mr. Comey bragged that he sent the two agents without such notification by taking advantage of the White House's formative stage. He said he "wouldn't have gotten away with it" in a more seasoned White House. ..."
"... Other evidence of an FBI on autopilot: The Justice Department inspector general's report on how the bureau probed the Trump campaign revealed more than a dozen instances of FBI personnel submitting false information in wiretap applications and withholding exculpatory evidence. For example, agents evaded Justice Department scrutiny by not telling their warrant overseer that witnesses had cast doubt on the reliability of the Steele dossier. ..."
May 18, 2020 | www.washingtontimes.com

Newly released documents show FBI agents operated on autopilot in 2016 and 2017 while targeting President Trump and his campaign with little or no Justice Department guidance for such a momentous investigation.

Loretta E. Lynch, President Obama's attorney general, said she never knew the FBI was placing wiretaps on a Trump campaign volunteer or using the dossier claims of former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele to put the entire Trump world under suspicion. Mr. Steele was handled by Fusion GPS and paid with funds from the Democratic Party and the Hillary Clinton campaign.

"I don't have a recollection of briefings on Fusion GPS or Mr. Steele ," Ms. Lynch told the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in October 2017. "I don't have any information on that, and I don't have a recollection being briefed on that."

Under pressure from acting Director of National Intelligence Richard A. Grenell, the committee last week released transcripts of her testimony and that of more than 50 other witnesses in 2017 and 2018, when Republicans controlled the Trump- Russia investigation.

Ms. Lynch also testified that she had no knowledge the FBI had taken the profound step of opening an investigation, led by agent Peter Strzok, into the Trump campaign on July 31, 2016.

"Did [ FBI Director James B. Comey] seek permission from you to do the formal opening of the counterintelligence investigation?" Rep. Adam B. Schiff, California Democrat, asked the former attorney general.

"No, and he ordinarily would not have had to do that," Ms. Lynch answered. "lt would not have come to the attorney general for that."

Mr. Schiff, a fierce defender of the FBI in the Russia probe, seemed taken aback. "Even in the case where you're talking about a campaign for president?" he asked.

"I can't recall if it was discussed or not," Ms. Lynch said. "I just don't have a recollection of that in the meetings that I had with him."

Attorney General William P. Barr has changed the rules. He announced that the attorney general now must approve any FBI decision to investigate a presidential campaign.

Ms. Lynch's testimony adds to the picture of an insular, and sometimes misbehaving, FBI as its agents searched for evidence that the Trump campaign conspired with the Kremlin to interfere in the 2016 election to damage Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton .

In documents filed by the Justice Department last week, then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates expressed dismay that Mr. Comey would dispatch two agents, including Mr. Strzok, on Jan. 24, 2017, to interview incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn at the White House.

Ms. Yates, interviewed by FBI agents assigned to the Robert Mueller special counsel probe, said Mr. Comey notified her only after the fact.

"Yates was very frustrated in the call with Comey," said the FBI interview report, known as a 302. "She felt a decision to conduct an interview of Flynn should have been coordinated with [the Department of Justice ]."

Ms. Yates told the FBI that the interview was "problematic" because the White House counsel should have been notified.

During his book tour, Mr. Comey bragged that he sent the two agents without such notification by taking advantage of the White House's formative stage. He said he "wouldn't have gotten away with it" in a more seasoned White House.

Mr. Barr filed court papers asking U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan to dismiss the Flynn case and his guilty plea to lying to Mr. Strzok about phone calls with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Mr. Strzok and other FBI personnel planned the Flynn interview as a near ambush with a goal of prompting him to lie and getting fired, according to new court filings.

Other evidence of an FBI on autopilot: The Justice Department inspector general's report on how the bureau probed the Trump campaign revealed more than a dozen instances of FBI personnel submitting false information in wiretap applications and withholding exculpatory evidence. For example, agents evaded Justice Department scrutiny by not telling their warrant overseer that witnesses had cast doubt on the reliability of the Steele dossier.

The far-fetched dossier was the one essential piece of evidence required to obtain four surveillance warrants on campaign volunteer Carter Page, according to Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz. The Mueller and Horowitz reports have discredited the dossier's dozen conspiracy claims against the president and his allies.

A who's who of Trump- Russia

Mr. Schiff, now chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence , had held on to the declassified transcripts for more than a year. Under pressure from Republicans and Mr. Grenell, he released the 6,000 pages on the hectic day Mr. Barr moved to end the Flynn prosecution.

The closed-door testimony included witnesses such as Mr. Obama's national security adviser, a United Nations ambassador, the nation's top spy and the FBI deputy director. There were also Clinton campaign chieftains and lawyers.

The transcripts' most often-produced headline: Obama investigators never saw evidence of Trump conspiracy between the time the probe was opened until they left office in mid-January 2017.

"I never saw any direct empirical evidence that the Trump campaign or someone in it was plotting/conspiring with the Russians to meddle with the election," former Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper told the committee .

Mr. Clapper is a paid CNN analyst who has implied repeatedly and without evidence that Mr. Trump is a Russian spy and a traitor. The Mueller report contained no evidence that Mr. Trump is a Russian agent or election conspirator.

Mr. Schiff told the country repeatedly that he had seen evidence of Trump collusion that went beyond circumstantial. Mr. Mueller did not.

Mr. Schiff was a big public supporter of Mr. Steele 's dossier, which relied on a Moscow main source and was fed by deliberate Kremlin disinformation against Mr. Trump, according to the Horowitz report.

Trump Tower

One of Mr. Schiff's pieces of evidence of a conspiracy "in plain sight" is the meeting Donald Trump Jr. took with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya on June 9, 2016.

The connections are complicated but, simply put, a Russian friend of the Trumps' said she might have dirt on Mrs. Clinton . At the time, Ms. Veselnitskaya was in New York representing a rich Russian accused by the Justice Department of money laundering. To investigate, she hired Fusion GPS -- the same firm that retained Mr. Steele to damage the Trump campaign.

The meeting was brief and seemed to be a ruse to enable Ms. Veselnitskaya to pitch an end to Obama-era economic sanctions that hurt her client. Attending were campaign adviser Paul Manafort, Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner and Anatoli Samochornov. Mr. Samochornov is a dual citizen of Russia and the U.S. who serves as an interpreter to several clients, including Ms. Veselnitskaya and the State Department.

Mr. Samochornov was the Russian lawyer's interpreter that day. His recitation of events basically backs the versions given by the Trump associates, according to a transcript of his November 2017 committee testimony.

The meeting lasted about 20 minutes. Ms. Veselnitskaya briefly talked about possible illegal campaign contributions to Mrs. Clinton . Manafort, busy on his cellphone, remarked that the contributions would not be illegal. Mr. Kushner left after a few minutes.

Then, Rinat Akhmetshin, a lobbyist, made the case for ditching sanctions. He linked that to a move by Russian President Vladimir Putin to end a ban on Americans adopting Russian children.

Mr. Trump Jr. said that issue would be addressed if his father was elected. In the end, the Trump administration put more sanctions on Moscow's political and business operators.

"I've never heard anything about the elections being mentioned at that meeting at all or in any subsequent discussions with Ms. Veselnitskaya," Mr. Samochornov testified.

No mask

One of the first things Rep. Devin Nunes, California Republican, did to earn the animus of Democrats and the liberal media was to visit the Trump White House to learn about "unmaskings" by Obama appointees.

The National Security Agency, by practice, obscures the names of any Americans caught up in the intercept of foreign communications. Flynn was unmasked in the top-secret transcript of his Kislyak call so officials reading it would know who was on the line.

In reading intelligence reports, if government officials want the identity of an "American person," they make a request to the intelligence community. The fear is that repeated requests could indicate political purposes.

That suspicion is how Samantha Power ended up at the House intelligence committee witness table. The former U.N. ambassador seemed to have broken records by requesting hundreds of unmaskings, though the transcript did not contain the identities of the people she exposed.

She explained to the committee why she needed to know.

"I am reading that intelligence with an eye to doing my job, right?" Ms. Power said. "Whatever my job is, whatever I am focused on on a given day, I'm taking in the intelligence to inform my judgment, to be able to advise the president on ISIL or on whatever, or to inform how I'm going to try to optimize my ability to advance U.S. interests in New York."

She continued: "I can't understand the intelligence . Can you go and ascertain who this is so I can figure out what it is I'm reading. You've made the judgement, intelligence professionals, that I need to read this piece of intelligence, I'm reading it, and it's just got this gap in it, and I didn't understand that. But I never discussed any name that I received when I did make a request and something came back or when it was annotated and came to me. I never discussed one of those names with any other individual."

Rep. Trey Gowdy, South Carolina Republican, listened and then mentioned other officeholders, such as the White House national security adviser and the secretary of state.

"There are lots of people who need to understand intelligence products, but the number of requests they made, ambassador, don't approach yours," Mr. Gowdy said.

Ms. Power implied that members of her staff were requesting American identities and invoking her name without her knowledge.

The dossier

By mid- to late 2017, the full story on the Democrats' dossier -- that it was riddled with false claims of criminality that served, as Mr. Barr said, to sabotage the Trump White House -- was not known.

Mr. Steele claimed that there was a far-reaching Trump- Russia conspiracy, that Mr. Trump was a Russian spy, that Mr. Trump financed Kremlin computer hacking, that his attorney went to Prague to pay hush money to Putin operatives, and that Manafort and Carter Page worked as a conspiracy team.

Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn R. Simpson, a Clinton operative, spread the inaccuracies all over Washington: to the FBI , the Justice Department , Congress and the news media.

None of it proved true.

But to Clinton loyalists in 2017, the dossier was golden.

"I was mostly focused in that meeting on, you know, the guy standing behind this material is Christopher Steele ," campaign foreign policy adviser Jake Sullivan said about a Fusion meeting. "He is the one who's judging its credibility and veracity. You know him. What do you think, based on your conversations with him? That's what I was really there to try and figure out. And Glenn was incredibly positive about Steele and felt he was really on to something and also felt that there was more out there to go find."

Clinton campaign attorney Marc Elias vouched for the dossier, and its information spread to reporters. He met briefly with Mr. Steele during the election campaign.

"I thought that the information that he or they wished to convey was accurate and important," Mr. Elias testified.

"So the information that Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele wished to portray to the media in the fall of 2016 at that time, you thought, was accurate and important?" he was asked.

"As I understand it," he replied.

Mr. Elias rejected allegations that the Clinton campaign conspired with Russia by having its operatives spread the Moscow-sourced dirt.

"I don't have enough knowledge about when you say that Russians were involved in the dossier," he said to a questioner. "I mean that genuinely. I'm not privy to what information you all have.

"It sounds like the suggestion is that Russia somehow gave information to the Clinton campaign vis-a-vis one person to one person, to another person, to another person, to me, to the campaign. That strikes me as fanciful and unlikely, but perhaps as I said, I don't have a security clearance. You all have facts and information that is not available to me. But I certainly never had any hint or whiff."

[May 18, 2020] Ghost of J. Edgar Haunts Flynn Investigation by Coleen Rowley

Essentially the second part of Flynn call was on behave of Israel
Notable quotes:
"... In those conversations, Flynn asked that the Russians not retaliate for the Obama administration sanctions on Moscow imposed for the now debunked Russiagate allegations. Russia eventually decided not to retaliate. Flynn also asked on behalf of Israel that the Russians veto a UN Security Council resolution condemning illegal Israeli West Bank settlements, which Obama was planning to abstain on. Russia refused this request. ..."
"... Contrary to popular belief, when you can't trust your own government, that's a very bad thing. ..."
"... This is a hugely important article explaining the process, the policies, and their historical context by one who was a top legal expert at the Bureau. This is what the American public should be reading to know what should happen, as well as to learn how the process and policies have been violated, what have been the consequences. Thank you Coleen Rowley, and thank you Consortium News. ..."
May 18, 2020 | consortiumnews.com

[May 18, 2020] Turley: The 'Unmasking' Of Joe Biden

Notable quotes:
"... The contradictions revealed in recent disclosures, including the list of officials seeking to "unmask" the identity of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, are shocking. There seems a virtual news blackout on these disclosures, including the fact that both former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Joe Biden followed the investigation. Indeed, Biden's name is on the unmasking list. ..."
"... The declassification of material from the Michael Flynn case has exposed more chilling details of an effort by prosecutors to come up with a crime to use against the former national security adviser. ..."
"... That included the testimony of Evelyn Farkas, a former White House adviser who was widely quoted by the media with her public plea for Congress to gather all of the evidence that she learned of as part of the Obama administration. ..."
"... That story would have been encompassing if it was learned that there was no direct evidence to justify the investigation and that the underlying allegation of Russian collusion was ultimately found to lack a credible basis. ..."
"... But the motives of Obama administration officials are apparently not to be questioned. Indeed, back when candidate Donald Trump said the Obama administration placed his campaign officials under surveillance, the media universally mocked him. That statement was later proven to be true. The Obama administration used the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court to conduct surveillance of Trump campaign officials. ..."
"... While unmasking is more routinely requested by intelligence officials, with a reported 10,000 such requests by the National Security Agency last year alone, it is presumably less common for figures like Biden or White House chief of staff Denis McDonough ..."
"... The media portrayed both Obama and Biden as uninvolved. But now we know they both actively followed the investigation. ..."
May 18, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

The contradictions revealed in recent disclosures, including the list of officials seeking to "unmask" the identity of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, are shocking. There seems a virtual news blackout on these disclosures, including the fact that both former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Joe Biden followed the investigation. Indeed, Biden's name is on the unmasking list.

The declassification of material from the Michael Flynn case has exposed more chilling details of an effort by prosecutors to come up with a crime to use against the former national security adviser. This week, however, a letter revealed another unsettling detail. Among over three dozen Obama administration officials seeking to "unmask" Flynn in the investigation was former Vice President Joe Biden . This revelation came less than a day after Biden denied any involvement in the investigation of Flynn. It also follows a disclosure that President Obama was aware of that investigation.

For three years, many in the media have expressed horror at the notion of the Trump campaign colluding with Russia to influence the 2016 election. We know there was never credible evidence of such collusion. In recently released transcripts, a long list of Obama administration officials admitted they never saw any evidence of such Russian collusion. That included the testimony of Evelyn Farkas, a former White House adviser who was widely quoted by the media with her public plea for Congress to gather all of the evidence that she learned of as part of the Obama administration.

The media covered her concern that this evidence would be lost "if they found out how we knew what we knew" about Trump campaign officials "dealing with Russians." Yet in her classified testimony under oath, she said she did not know anything. Farkas is now running for Congress in New York and highlighting her role in raising "alarm" over collusion. As much of the media blindly pushed this story, a worrying story unfolded over the use of federal power to investigate political opponents.

There is very little question that the response by the media to such a story would have been overwhelming if George Bush and his administration had targeted the Obama campaign figures with secret surveillance .

That story would have been encompassing if it was learned that there was no direct evidence to justify the investigation and that the underlying allegation of Russian collusion was ultimately found to lack a credible basis.

But the motives of Obama administration officials are apparently not to be questioned. Indeed, back when candidate Donald Trump said the Obama administration placed his campaign officials under surveillance, the media universally mocked him. That statement was later proven to be true. The Obama administration used the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court to conduct surveillance of Trump campaign officials.

Yet none of this matters as the media remains fully invested in the original false allegations of collusion. If Obama administration officials were to be questioned now, the coverage and judgment of the media may be placed into question, as even this latest disclosure from the investigation of the unmasking request of Biden will not alter the media narrative.

Unmasking occurs when an official asks an intelligence agency to remove anonymous designations hiding the identity of an individual. This masking is a very important protection of the privacy of American citizens who are caught up in national security surveillance. The importance of this privacy protection is being dismissed by media figures, like Andrea Mitchell, who declared the Biden story to be nothing more than gaslighting.

While unmasking is more routinely requested by intelligence officials, with a reported 10,000 such requests by the National Security Agency last year alone, it is presumably less common for figures like Biden or White House chief of staff Denis McDonough. Seeking unmasking information that was likely to reveal the name of a political opponent and possibly damage the Trump administration raises a concern. More importantly, it adds a detail of the scope of interest and involvement in an investigation that targeted Flynn without any compelling evidence of a crime or collusion.

The media portrayed both Obama and Biden as uninvolved. But now we know they both actively followed the investigation.

[May 18, 2020] Farkas is definitely one of the fraudulent supporters of the Obama Russiagate witch hunt, but generally he is clueless pawn in a big and dirty gate played by Obama-Brennan tandem

May 18, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Atlantic Council senior fellow, Congressional candidate, and Russia conspiracy theorist Evelyn Farkas is desperately trying to salvage her reputation after recently released transcripts from her closed-door 2017 testimony to the House Intelligence Committee revealed she totally lied on national TV .

In March of 2017, Farkas confidently told MSNBC 's Mika Brzezinski: " The Trump folks, if they found out how we knew what we knew about the Trump staff dealing with Russians , that they would try to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we would not longer have access to that intelligence ."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/dCMF94FX530?start=25

Except, during testimony to the House, Farkas admitted she lied . When pressed by former Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) on why she said 'we' - referring to the US government, Farkas said she "didn't know anything."

In short, she was either illegally discussing US intelligence matters with her "former colleagues," or she made the whole thing up.

Now, Farkas is in damage control mode - writing in the Washington Post that her testimony demonstrated "that I had not leaked intelligence and that my early intuition about Trump-Kremlin cooperation was valid.' She also claims that her comments to MSNBC were based on "media reports and statements by Obama administration officials and the intelligence community," which had "began unearthing connections between Trump's campaign and Russia."

Farkas is now blaming a 'disconcerting nexus between Russia and the reactionary right,' for making her look bad (apparently Trey Gowdy is part of the "reactionary right" for asking her who she meant by "we").

Attacks against me came first on Twitter and other social media platforms, from far-right sources. Forensics data I was shown suggested at least one entity had Russian ties . The attacks increased in quantity and ferocity until Fox News and Trump-allied Republicans -- higher-profile, and more mainstream, sources -- also criticized me .

...

Trump surrogates, including former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski , Donald Trump Jr. and Fox News hosts such as Tucker Carlson have essentially accused me of treason for being one of the "fraudulent originators" of the "Russia hoax." -Evelyn Farkas

She then parrots the Democratic talking point that the attacks she's received are part of Trump's larger "Obamagate" allegations - " a narrative that distracts attention from his administration's disastrous pandemic response and attempts to defect blame for Russian interference onto the Obama administration" (Obama told Putin to ' cut it out ' after all).

Meanwhile, Poor Evelyn's campaign staff has become " emotionally exhausted " after her Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts have been "overwhelmed with a stream of vile, vulgar and sometimes violent messages" in response to the plethora of conservative outlets which have called her out for Russia malarkey.

There is evidence that Russian actors are contributing to these attacks. The same day that right-wing pundits began pumping accusations, newly created Russian Twitter accounts picked them up. Within a day, Russian " disinformation clearinghouses " posted versions of the story . Many of the Twitter accounts boosting attacks have posted in unison, a sign of inauthentic social media behavior.

We assume Zero Hedge is included in said ' disinformation clearinghouses ' Farkas fails to expound on.

She closes by defiantly claiming "I wasn't silenced in 2017, and I won't be silenced now."

No Evelyn, nobody is silencing you. You're being called out for your role in the perhaps the largest, most divisive hoax in US history - which was based on faulty intelligence that includes crowdstrike admitting they had no proof of that Russia exfiltrated DNC emails, and Christopher Steele's absurd dossier based on his 'Russian sources.'


MrBoompi, 18 minutes ago

Lying is a common occurrence on MSNBC. Farkas was just showing her party she is qualified for a more senior position.

chubbar, 23 minutes ago

My opinion, based on zero facts, is that the lie she told was to Gowdy. She had to say she lied about having intelligence data or she'd be looking at a felony along with whomever she was talking to in the US gov't. You just know these cocksuckers in the resistance don't give a **** about laws or fairness, it's all about getting Trump. So they set up an informal network to get classified intelligence from the Obama holdovers out into the wild where these assholes could use it against Trump and the gov't operations. Treason. She needs to be executed for her efforts!

LetThemEatRand, 59 minutes ago

This whole thing reminds me of a fan watching their team play a championship game. If the ref makes a bad call and their team wins, they don't care. And if the ref makes a good call and their team loses, they blame the ref. No one cares about the truth or the facts. That in a nutshell is politics in the US. If you believe that anyone will "switch sides" or admit the ref made a bad call or a good call, you're smoking the funny stuff.

mtumba, 50 minutes ago

It's a natural response to a corrupt system.

When the system is wholly corrupt so that truth doesn't matter, what else is there to care about other than your side winning?

It's a travesty.

[May 18, 2020] Ep. 1251 Obama Did It - The Dan Bongino Show

Looks like Obama order surveillance on Flynn to Comey. Obama essentially fabricated the evident to start the color revolution against Trump
May 18, 2020 | www.youtube.com

John Haggart , 2 days ago

And that's why Obama could not help himself from calling that reporter.

John Sharp , 1 day ago

Pull Obama out of his mansion in cuffs. Stealing Americans votes is a death sentence.

Robert Beekman , 2 days ago

This is why they want to keep his case going, it keeps Flynn quiet. Drag it out till after the election.

Linda Catz , 2 days ago

Dano: you're giving senile Mueller too much credit. It wasn't him, it was Weissman! And possibly Van Crack!

H , 2 days ago

Hussein isn't sweating. He believes he's untouchable. He's that arrogant. He was a Trojan horse and has done irrefutable damage to our Constitution and our country.

Genny Reid , 2 days ago

It makes Watergate look like a picnic in the park. The complicit msm continues to hide the truth.

Thomas Loyd , 2 days ago

I have to echo Greg Gutfeld's sentiments on Adam Schiff: When the HELL is someone going to hold him accountable for the Three-Year-Schiff-Show the United States has had to go through??!?!?

He needs to be charged AT LEAST with leaking classified damnit!

And then all the other legal lies he held firm to! My last intelligence nerve was pressed hard with that.....and yet, there he continues lying his ass off protected (for now) by Congress! Elections CANNOT come quick enough! Can't wait to vote this year!

[May 17, 2020] General Flynn investigation 'has tarnished Obama's legacy' - YouTube

Highly recommended!
May 17, 2020 | www.youtube.com

Missie , 22 hours ago

President Trump battled China for 3 1/2 years while Democrats tried to take him down. Like POTUS said, they're human scum.

Gusli Kokle , 22 hours ago

Obama is self-tarnishing.

Shane Brbich , 22 hours ago div tabindex="0" role="article"

> He will go down as The most corrupt president in history! Spied on an opponents campaign Authorised the intelligence agencies to spy Leaker Collided with Russia

Memey Memes , 22 hours ago

Tarnished its more than that its total evil.

Cinda Jenkins , 22 hours ago

I didn't think he had a legacy. A pretty bad one to say the least.

toycollector10 , 22 hours ago

Sky News Australia. How do you keep getting away with all of the truth telling? Watching from N.Z. Keep up the good work.

Missie , 22 hours ago

Our Fakenews networks conspired with Obama, Obama's previous Cabinet, Hillary, the CIA, FBI, NSA, DNC, and Democrats in Congress. They were all in on it together. #Sedition #Treason

jamee boss , 21 hours ago

The New World Order virus needs to be investigate immediately. This is the biggest crimes in the world history

Epifanio Esmero , 22 hours ago

By framing an innocent man, they have only entrapped themselves!! Karma!!

Ken Mulrooney , 22 hours ago

You can't tarnish that idiots legacy He doesn't need any help

Mark Shaw , 19 hours ago

As an outsider looking in, I find it hard to believe that the American people, would allow politicians of any party to get away with this behavior.

הדבר אדני יהוה לישועה , 20 hours ago

Obama framed Trump as a Russian spy to deflect public focus from the crimes of his Administration

chris campbell , 22 hours ago

He was tarnished a lllooonnnngggg time ago!His legacy is one of corruption!

John Inton , 21 hours ago

ex-president Obummer biggest legacy to the democratic world is allowing China to claim all of the South China Sea by turning a blind eye whilst China was dredging the sea beds and creating artificial islands all over the South China sea!!

mG , 19 hours ago

A shame nothing will actually happen to that trash.

Green Onions , 22 hours ago

Every move he made tarnished his reputation. The only thing propping him up was the media.

Jann , 20 hours ago

I hope Barak Hussein Obama goes down for this.

NOISLAMONAZIS DOTCOM , 22 hours ago (edited)

What legacy? Obama was just another NWO puppet and so performed as a puppet should. MSM is owned by the same people that are Obama's boss.

SandhoeFlyer , 19 hours ago

Obama will go down in history as a lier, a fraud, dishonourable and a lousy President .

I P , 20 hours ago

Obama was an America hater from day one, and committed many treasons public and private. His "legacy" is and was a fabrication of the MSM, who tolerated no end of abuses, including Obama suing a number of journalists.

But let's just look at one item, underplayed by the MSM: Obama did everything he could to stop the 9/11 victims bill, including a presidential veto, which was then overridden by a gigantic (97-1) senate vote.

McCain and Graham continued to fight the LAW, undoubtedly with Obama help, using Arab funded lawyers to the tune of 1.2 million dollars per month.

[May 17, 2020] Apparently, the FBI, and not the CIA, are the real government.

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... According to these transcripts of congressional testimony by some of the participants, the FBI decided all by itself after Comey was fired to consider acting against Trump by pursuing him for suspicion of conspiracy with Russia to give the Russians the president of the US that they supposedly wanted. ..."
"... Following these seditious and IMO illegal discussions the FBI and Sessions/Rosenstein's Justice Department sought FISA Court warrants for surveillance against associates of Trump and members of his campaign for president. ..."
"... IMO this collection of actions when added to whatever Clapper, Brennan and "the lads" of the Deep State were doing with the British intelligence services amount to an attempted "soft coup" against the constitution and from the continued stonewalling of the FBI and DoJ the coup is ongoing ..."
Jan 15, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Just to review the situation:

  1. The president of the US was made head of the Executive Branch (EC) of the federal government by Article 2 of the present constitution of the US. He is also Commander in Chief of the armed forces of the federal government. As head of the EC, he is head of all the parts of the government excepting the Congress and the Federal courts which are co-equal branches of the federal government. The Department of Justice is just another Executive Branch Department subordinate in all things to the president. The FBI is a federal police force and counter-intelligence agency subordinate to the Department of Justice and DNI and therefore to the president in all things. The FBI actually IMO has no legal right whatever to investigate the president. He is the constitutionally elected commander of the FBI. Does one investigate one's commander? No. The procedures for legally and constitutionally removing a president from office for malfeasance are clear. He must be impeached by the House of Representatives for "High Crimes and Misdemeanors" and then tried by the US Senate on the charges. Conviction results in removal from office.
  2. According to these transcripts of congressional testimony by some of the participants, the FBI decided all by itself after Comey was fired to consider acting against Trump by pursuing him for suspicion of conspiracy with Russia to give the Russians the president of the US that they supposedly wanted. Part of the discussions among senior FBI people had to do with whether or not the president had the legal authority to remove from office an FBI Director. Say what? Where have these dummies been all their careers? Do they not teach anything about this at the FBI Academy? The US Army lectures its officers at every level of schooling on the subject of the constitutional and legal basis and limits of their authority.
  3. Following these seditious and IMO illegal discussions the FBI and Sessions/Rosenstein's Justice Department sought FISA Court warrants for surveillance against associates of Trump and members of his campaign for president. Their application for warrants were largely based on unsubstantiated "opposition research" funded by the Democratic Party and the Clinton campaign. The judge who approved the warrants was not informed of the nature of the evidence. These warrants provided an authority for surveillance of the Trump campaign.
  4. IMO this collection of actions when added to whatever Clapper, Brennan and "the lads" of the Deep State were doing with the British intelligence services amount to an attempted "soft coup" against the constitution and from the continued stonewalling of the FBI and DoJ the coup is ongoing. pl

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/14/politics/trump-fbi-debate-investigation/index.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Two_of_the_United_States_Constitution#Clause_4:_Receiving_foreign_representatives

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation#Organization

[May 17, 2020] Trump Unmasking of Flynn is greatest political scam in history of US

Trump say that Brennan was one of the architect. Obama knew everything and probably directed the color revolution against Trump
Notable quotes:
"... Self-described, "scandal-free" administration Obama is a lie nonetheless, Obama will eventually have to testify in front of Congress there is no hiding from it. ..."
May 17, 2020 | www.youtube.com

Bruce Wayne , 9 hours ago

General Flynn vs Strzok are great example of good vs bad cops.

Hope for the Best , 9 hours ago

Should they reopen all FBI cases for the past 4 years and see if anyone else was railroaded.

Him Bike , 7 hours ago

The day after the election Sen Elizabeth Warren said "Trump has no idea what we have in store for him."

foreveralive , 6 hours ago

None of this is a surprise at all. The real surprise is if they actually arrest these people and put them on trial for their crimes.

BlackSmith , 4 hours ago

"Obama's legacy out" A mic drop

Story Time , 8 hours ago

Self-described, "scandal-free" administration Obama is a lie nonetheless, Obama will eventually have to testify in front of Congress there is no hiding from it.

[May 17, 2020] Taibbi: Democrats Have Abandoned Civil Liberties

May 17, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Emmet G. Sullivan, the judge in the case of former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, is refusing to let William Barr's Justice Department drop the charge. He's even thinking of adding more, appointing a retired judge to ask "whether the Court should issue an Order to Show Cause why Mr. Flynn should not be held in criminal contempt for perjury."

Pundits are cheering. A trio of former law enforcement and judicial officials saluted Sullivan in the Washington Post, chirping, " The Flynn case isn't over until a judge says it's over ." Yuppie icon Jeffrey Toobin of CNN and the New Yorker , one of the #Resistance crowd's favored legal authorities, described Sullivan's appointment of Judge John Gleeson as " brilliant ." MSNBC legal analyst Glenn Kirschner said Americans owe Sullivan a " debt of gratitude ."

One had to search far and wide to find a non-conservative legal analyst willing to say the obvious, i.e. that Sullivan's decision was the kind of thing one would expect from a judge in Belarus. George Washington University professor Jonathan Turley was one of the few willing to say Sullivan's move could " could create a threat of a judicial charge even when prosecutors agree with defendants ."

Sullivan's reaction was amplified by a group letter calling for Barr's resignation signed by 2000 former Justice Department officials (the melodramatic group email somberly reported as momentous news is one of many tired media tropes in the Trump era) and the preposterous "leak" of news that the dropped case made Barack Obama sad. The former president "privately" told "members of his administration" (who instantly told Yahoo! News ) that there was no precedent for the dropping of perjury charges, and that the "rule of law" itself was at stake.

Whatever one's opinion of Flynn, his relations with Turkey, his " Lock her up!" chants , his haircut, or anything, this case was never about much. There's no longer pretense that prosecution would lead to the unspooling of a massive Trump-Russia conspiracy, as pundits once breathlessly expected. In fact, news that Flynn was cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller inspired many of the " Is this the beginning of the end for Trump ?" stories that will someday fill whole chapters of Journalism Fucks Up 101 textbooks.

The acts at issue are calls Flynn made to Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak on December 29th, 2016 in which he told the Russians not to overreact to sanctions. That's it. The investigation was about to be dropped, but someone got the idea of using electronic surveillance of the calls to leverage a case into existence.

In a secrets-laundering maneuver straight out of the Dick Cheney playbook, some bright person first illegally leaked classified details to David Ignatius at the Washington Post , then agents rushed to interview Flynn about the "news."

"The record of his conversation with Ambassador Kislyak had become widely known in the press," is how Deputy FBI chief Andrew McCabe put it, euphemistically. "We wanted to sit down with General Flynn and understand, kind of, what his thoughts on that conversation were."

A Laurel-and-Hardy team of agents conducted the interview, then took three weeks to write and re-write multiple versions of the interview notes used as evidence (because why record it?). They were supervised by a counterintelligence chief who then memorialized on paper his uncertainty over whether the FBI was trying to " get him to lie" or "get him fired ," worrying that they'd be accused of "playing games." After another leak to the Washington Post in early February, 2017, Flynn actually was fired, and later pleaded guilty to lying about sanctions in the Kislyak call, the transcript of which was of course never released to either the defense or the public.

Warrantless surveillance, multiple illegal leaks of classified information, a false statements charge constructed on the razor's edge of Miranda, and the use of never-produced, secret counterintelligence evidence in a domestic criminal proceeding – this is the "rule of law" we're being asked to cheer.

Russiagate cases were often two-level offenses: factually bogus or exaggerated, but also indicative of authoritarian practices. Democrats and Democrat-friendly pundits in the last four years have been consistently unable to register objections on either front.

Flynn's case fit the pattern. We were told his plea was just the " tip of the iceberg " that would "take the trail of Russian collusion" to the "center of the plot," i.e. Trump. It turned out he had no deeper story to tell. In fact, none of the people prosecutors tossed in jail to get at the Russian "plot" – some little more than bystanders – had anything to share.

Remember George Papadopoulos, whose alleged conversation about "dirt" on Hillary Clinton with an Australian diplomat created the pretext for the FBI's entire Trump-Russia investigation? We just found out in newly-released testimony by McCabe that the FBI felt as early as the summer of 2016 that the evidence " didn't particularly indicate" that Papadopoulos was "interacting with the Russians ."

If you're in the media and keeping score, that's about six months before our industry lost its mind and scrambled to make Watergate comparisons over Jim Comey's March, 2017 " bombshell " revelation of the existence of an FBI Trump-Russia investigation. Nobody bothered to wonder if they actually had any evidence. Similarly Chelsea Manning insisted she'd already answered all pertinent questions about Julian Assange, but prosecutors didn't find that answer satisfactory, and threw her in jail for year anyway, only releasing her when she tried to kill herself . She owed $256,000 in fines upon release, not that her many supporters from the Bush days seemed to care much.

The Flynn case was built on surveillance gathered under the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, a program that seems to have been abused on a massive scale by both Democratic and Republican administrations.

After Edward Snowden's 2013 revelations about mass data collection, a series of internal investigations began showing officials were breaking rules against spying on specific Americans via this NSA program. Searches were conducted too often and without proper justification, and the results were shared with too many people, including private contractors. By October, 2016, the FISA court was declaring that systematic overuse of so-called "702" searches were a " very serious fourth Amendment issue ."

In later court documents it came out that the FBI conducted 3.1 million such searches in 2017 alone. As the Brennan Center put it, "almost certainly the total number of U.S. person queries run by the FBI each year is well into the millions."

Anyone who bothers to look back will find hints at how this program might have been misused. In late 2015, Obama officials bragged to the Wall Street Journal they'd made use of FISA surveillance involving "Jewish-American groups" as well as "U.S. lawmakers" in congress, all because they wanted to more effectively "counter" Israeli opposition to Obama's nuclear deal with Iran. This is a long way from using surveillance to defuse terror plots or break up human trafficking rings.

I can understand not caring about the plight of Michael Flynn, but cases like this have turned erstwhile liberals – people who just a decade ago were marching in the streets over the civil liberties implications of Cheney's War on Terror apparatus – into defenders of the spy state . Politicians and pundits across the last four years have rolled their eyes at attorney-client privilege , the presumption of innocence, the right to face one's accuser, the right to counsel and a host of other issues, regularly denouncing civil rights worries as red-herring excuses for Trumpism.

I've written a lot about the Democrats' record on civil liberties issues in the past. Working on I Can't Breathe, a book about the Eric Garner case, I was stunned to learn the central role Mario Cuomo played in the mass incarceration problem, while Democrats also often embraced hyper-intrusive "stop and frisk" or "broken windows" enforcement strategies, usually by touting terms like "community policing" that sounded nice to white voters. Democrats strongly supported the PATRIOT Act in 2001, and Barack Obama continued or expanded Bush-Cheney programs like drone assassination , rendition , and warrantless surveillance , while also using the Espionage Act to bully reporters and whistleblowers.

Republicans throughout this time were usually as bad or worse on these issues, but Democrats have lately positioned themselves as more aggressive promoters of strong-arm policies, from control of Internet speech to the embrace of domestic spying. In the last four years the blue-friendly press has done a complete 180 on these issues, going from cheering Edward Snowden to lionizing the CIA, NSA, and FBI and making on-air partners out of drone-and-surveillance all-stars like John Brennan, James Clapper, and Michael Hayden. There are now too many ex-spooks on CNN and MSNBC to count, while there isn't a single regular contributor on any of the networks one could describe as antiwar.

Democrats clearly believe constituents will forgive them for abandoning constitutional principles, so long as the targets of official inquiry are figures like Flynn or Paul Manafort or Trump himself. In the process, they've raised a generation of followers whose contempt for civil liberties is now genuine-to-permanent. Blue-staters have gone from dismissing constitutional concerns as Trumpian ruse to sneering at them, in the manner of French aristocrats, as evidence of proletarian mental defect.

Nowhere has this been more evident than in the response to the Covid-19 crisis, where the almost mandatory take of pundits is that any protest of lockdown measures is troglodyte death wish . The aftereffects of years of Russiagate/Trump coverage are seen everywhere: press outlets reflexively associate complaints of government overreach with Trump, treason, and racism, and conversely radiate a creepily gleeful tone when describing aggressive emergency measures and the problems some " dumb " Americans have had accepting them.

On the campaign trail in 2016, I watched Democrats hand Trump the economic populism argument by dismissing all complaints about the failures of neoliberal economics. This mistake was later compounded by years of propaganda arguing that "economic insecurity" was just a Trojan Horse term for racism . These takes, along with the absurd kneecapping of the Bernie Sanders movement, have allowed Trump to position himself as a working-class hero, the sole voice of a squeezed underclass.

The same mistake is now being made with civil liberties. Millions have lost their jobs and businesses by government fiat, there's a clamor for censorship and contact tracing programs that could have serious long-term consequences, yet voters only hear Trump making occasional remarks about freedom; Democrats treat it like it's a word that should be banned by Facebook (a recent Washington Post headline put the term in quotation marks , as if one should be gloved to touch it). Has the Trump era really damaged our thinking to this degree?

My family is in quarantine, I worry about a premature return to work, and sure, I laughed at that Shaun of the Dead photo of Ohio protesters protesting state lockdown laws. But I also recognize the crisis is also raising serious civil liberties issues, from prisoners trapped in deadly conditions to profound questions about speech and assembly, the limits to surveillance and snitching, etc. If this disease is going to be in our lives for the foreseeable future, that makes it more urgent that we talk about what these rules will be, not less -- yet the party I grew up supporting seems to have lost the ability to do so, and I don't understand why.

[May 17, 2020] Compare Flynn entrapment with the MeToo movement which positively delights in trashing every one of the cherished civil liberties that protect people from improper conviction and false imprisonment. That is a Democratic Party initiative (or at least it until recently and the Tara Read accusations) and wholly consonant with the treatment meted out to Flynn.

May 17, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

bevin , May 17 2020 17:18 utc | 10

Matt Taibi says that "he doesn't understand why" the Democrats have suddenly given up on Civil Liberties.
Of course her spent a lot of the '90s in Russia but he must have heard about the Clinton administration and its many and varied assaults on the poor, mass incarceration and Welfare 'reform.' He can't have missed what the War Party was doing in Yugoslavia either. I guess it just takes some people a long time to wake up.

The truth is that the Democrats-the old party of Jim Crow- have been laughing at civil liberties and the rule of law for generations. There is nothing new about this. It goes back to Truman and the Cold War- a deliberate choice that the party made then when Medicare for All was the alternative on the table. A choice which involved Taft Hartley, which had so much Democratic Party support that Congress over rode the veto, one of the most obvious assaults on civil liberties and democratic rights in US History. And that is saying something.

As to this Taibi judgement

"..Democrats clearly believe constituents will forgive them for abandoning constitutional principles, so long as the targets of official inquiry are figures like Flynn or Paul Manafort or Trump himself. In the process, they've raised a generation of followers whose contempt for civil liberties is now genuine-to-permanent..."

Compare it with the MeToo movement which positively delights in trashing every one of the cherished civil liberties that protect people from improper conviction and false imprisonment. That is a Democratic Party initiative (or at least it until recently and the Tara Read accusations) and wholly consonant with the treatment meted out to Flynn.

[May 17, 2020] LET'S TALK ABOUT LEAKING Kayleigh McEnany TAKES ON REPORTER Over Flynn

Kayleigh McEnany is a really bright, sharp person
May 15, 2020 | www.youtube.com

Keith Green , 2 days ago

Kayleigh: I'm glad you asked that question. Reporter: Whoops. 🤣

Another Divorced Dad , 1 day ago

Oh, he didn't like hearing what his "job" is. She's right. Journalists used to do something called "investigative reporting." Now, it's all about that, "GOTCHA!" Pathetic. 🥱

Bern VENTER , 1 day ago

She is brilliant. Journalists look like idiots like they are.

[May 17, 2020] The Media and Pundits Are Lying--The Flynn Unmasking Was Uncommon and Unusual by Larry C Johnson

Notable quotes:
"... Could Samantha Powers husband, Bloomberg media and book writer Cass Sunstein, have been looking over Samantha's shoulder when she was unmasking hundreds of names critically necessary for her job as UN Ambassador, even though she does not remember requesting any of them? ..."
"... why would Obama proceed with the dramatic expulsions of all those Russian diplomats and properties (when we now all know that Russia didn't hack the DNC and exfiltrate any e-mails) in that particular point in time and just a few weeks before the inauguration? ..."
May 17, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

walrus, 17 May 2020 at 04:22 PM

Mr. Johnson, Thank you both for your lucid explanations of Russiagate and your tenacity. I pray that with your help, the forces of good will triumph.

A question, are the plotters trying to hold out till the elections? It would seem that if they succeeded in doing that they and Trump loses the election, then they will have gotten away with this crime and established the IC as the equivalent of the Praetorian Guard.

Deap, 17 May 2020 at 04:50 PM
I do not want you to spy on me, Mr Clapper.
I do not want what you did to Gen Flynn, done to me.
I do expect to be protected by the US Constitution.

(Signed) A private US Citizen.

Deap, 17 May 2020 at 05:07 PM
Could Samantha Powers husband, Bloomberg media and book writer Cass Sunstein, have been looking over Samantha's shoulder when she was unmasking hundreds of names critically necessary for her job as UN Ambassador, even though she does not remember requesting any of them?
Alan, 17 May 2020 at 07:12 PM
Dan Bongino claims he had an epiphany and solved the non-unmasking of Flynn during that crucial period. (Remember, he had Trump for an interview a few weeks ago, his connection to him and his people might have helped his powers of intuition a bit).

It is a scenario that explains a lot, like for example, why would Obama proceed with the dramatic expulsions of all those Russian diplomats and properties (when we now all know that Russia didn't hack the DNC and exfiltrate any e-mails) in that particular point in time and just a few weeks before the inauguration?

What does the committee think of his take (if you can ignore his theatrics)?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ9cqYSMWFs&feature=emb_logo

Jim, 17 May 2020 at 08:47 PM

+++++++++++++++++

Adding to the rot. . . .

The attempted prosecution of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn's business partners on alleged FARA crimes, in which prosecutors are still saying the general is a foreign agent. [Foreign Agents Registration Act, US law since 1938.] [Even though he is not a defendant in that case.]

His business partner was convicted by a jury, on this, last year.

Judge shortly thereafter said the court [that judge] failed to properly instruct the jury – as the DOJ did not have evidence anyone was under the control of a foreign government -- the key criteria.

The conviction was vacated by the judge; this criteria was not met, nor was evidence produced by DOJ to show this.

This judge [Anthony Trenga] also allowed the DOJ to: appeal ruling.

That is, Trenga's ruling that vacated the conviction.

That is, let DOJ try and get a new trial -- a do-over.

Which, the DOJ, now under AG Bill Barr is currently attempting to do.

In the appeal for a new trial, Flynn is not a defendant.

His former business partners are.

The DOJ, in a motion and memorandum to the federal appeals court, ---pleading for right for another trial --- in this motion, the DOJ also accused Flynn, in writing, of being an agent of Turkey -- all along – "from the beginning," the DOJ motion, from January 2020 states.

Below is from 1/24/2020 DOJ filing against Messrs. Rafiekian and Alptekin, [Flynn's then-business partners prior to 2017], docketed in federal court in January:

>>>>>[[The evidence discussed above equally shows concerted action between Rafiekian, Flynn, and Alptekin to act subject to Turkey's direction or control. . . . From the beginning, the co-conspirators agreed that. . . .]]<<<<<

[Note: Rafiekian, in 2006, was nominated by President Bush to Board of Directors of the 'Export–Import Bank of the United States'; this nomination was confirmed/approved by USA Senate. He served on the bank's board from 2006 to 2011.

see:

[ https://www.congress.gov/110/chrg/shrg50323/CHRG-110shrg50323.htm ]

Attorney representing defendants, their reply, opposing DOJ appeal request -- rejecting the January 2020 DOJ motion and claims about the men -- from April 2020, motion and memorandum includes this:

[[Although the government's appellate brief now alleges that Flynn was a Turkish agent "[f]rom the beginning" (Br. 2), it sang a different tune just a month before trial [last year], when it told the district court that Flynn was not part of any conspiracy. It was only after Flynn made it clear that he would not offer the testimony the government expected to hear that it reversed course, announced that its erstwhile star witness was really a co-conspirator all along. . . .]]

That is: "from the beginning," as the DOJ asserts in their January 2020 filing.

This case was dismissed last year because there was no evidence that any of them were under the control of a foreign government, i.e., "foreign agents" -- yet the DOJ persists.

Nor was Flynn ever charged with any FARA alleged crimes, not by Mueller, not by anyone.

Flynn's case, prosecuted by Mueller/SCO -- the DOJ recently moved to end it all – yet Judge Sullivan persists.

One case, presided by Judge Contreras, then Sullivan: should never have ever been prosecuted. We now know this for a fact. Flynn was framed by his own government.

In the other case, that Trenga dismissed: Flynn, who is not a defendant, is accused of being a foreign agent by the DOJ, in January 2020.

Of note: Sullivan, apparently believing that he is, threatened Flynn with 15 years in jail, during a hearing in Dec. 2018, when the judge removed all pretense of being impartial, with his rant about the general selling out his country, possible treason, blah blah blah. In other words, the ghost of the long dead, still-born Logan Act, apparently.

To what issue will this come?

HAMLET
My fate cries out,
And makes each petty artery in this body
As hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve.
Still am I call'd. Unhand me, gentlemen.
By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me!
I say, away! Go on; I'll follow thee.

[HAMLET begins following the ghost, exits]

HORATIO
He waxes desperate with imagination.

MARCELLUS
Let's follow; 'tis not fit thus to obey him.

HORATIO
Have after. To what issue will this come?

MARCELLUS
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

HORATIO
Heaven will direct it.

MARCELLUS
Nay, let's follow him.

Obama's recent signaling of Flynn as Mr. Perjury, followed up soon thereafter by Sullivan's latching onto that exact same theme is curious. I don't know if this is just one more curve ball in this, or a fast ball right down the middle.

Recall:
There is no public record of Obama, or then AG Lynch or then DAG Sally Yates doing anything to remove Comey as FBI director or discipline him when he announced there would be no prosecution of Clinton in 2016 – keeping in mind Comey's role was not prosecutor, [as the country's general attorney; rather, his role was as police chief of the nation].

McCabe leaking to Wall Street Journal, late October 2016, that there was a criminal investigation involving Clinton Foundation. There is no record Obama, Lynch, Yates, Comey did anything to remove McCabe from duty as the FBI deputy director, or discipline him.

There are numerous examples of this lack of action in 2016 right up until Jan. 20, 2017 when Trump was inaugurated.

This exact pattern includes, of course the Flynn/Kislyak issue.

What is factual at this point is: Washington Post had knowledge as early as [and perhaps sooner than] Jan. 5, 2017 of Flynn phone conversation with Russian ambassador to US, Sergey Ivanovich Kislyak, that occurred late December.

And, this stuff was actually published, in WAP, on Jan. 12, 2017.

Obama left office noontime Jan. 20, 2017.

Among other things, might a purpose of the Flynn persecution also involve, rather, just be another curve ball -- to keep eyes away from the failure by Obama team to prosecute this criminal leak and outing of Flynn? I don't know.

I also don't know why Trump stated the following on Dec. 2, 2017, [the day after Flynn plead:

[[I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!]]

https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/937007006526959618?lang=en

On May 13, 2020 Trump stated:
[[And when I see what is happening to him, it's disgraceful. And it was all a ruse. And, by the way, the FBI said he didn't lie. The FBI said he did not lie. So with all the stuff I'm hearing about lying, the FBI said he didn't lie. But the sleazebag said, "Well, we don't care what he -- what they say. We're saying he lied." Okay? But the FBI, you remember, when they left, they said, "He didn't lie." What they've done to that man and that family is a disgrace. But I just tell you that because I just left General Milley, and he said, "A great man and a great soldier." Isn't that a shame.]]

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-meeting-governor-polis-colorado-governor-burgum-north-dakota/

-30-

[May 17, 2020] Flynn - Perjury Emmet Sullivan Doubles Down By Walrus

Notable quotes:
"... Sydney Powell can only appeal the conduct of the Judge. This serves as a nice distraction from the unconstitutional conduct of the Obama administration in wiretapping political opponents; as well as multiple members of Congress ..."
"... We do know Rosenstein appointed Mueller as SC to investigate Flynn, among other things. ..."
"... And we now know there was no predicate for any of the Mueller SCO appointment; thus, Rosenstein, too: what was he doing? ..."
"... We do know that at some point after Bill Barr was confirmed as AG last year, that he began to investigate outing of Flynn and release of classified information, that is, actual crimes. ..."
"... And we know Obama is an enemy of Flynn. If the CIA never took any steps, prior to the Barr confirmation as AG -- and I have no way of knowing whether they did or did not, viz. the Flynn outing and leak of classified information, ---what, if any, might or should be, if any, the consequences of that? And, ditto the DOJ. ..."
"... It appear this judge want to protect the likes of Obama, and Yates, and the long list of villains whose mission remain: Destroy Flynn at all costs. ..."
"... General Flynn's original law team belonged to Covington & Burling. That's where Eric Holder made partner. Since his time as Attorney General, Holder has returned to that law firm. Like Fred said, they sandbagged the case. ..."
"... Flynn swore before two judges under penalty of perjury that he lied to the FBI. He then swore that he didn't lie to the FBI when he asked to withdraw his guilty plea. There's the conundrum. If we had the transcript of the Flynn-Kislyak conversations, we would know the answer to one of your questions. We could compare that to his guilty plea. We would then know if the prosecution's case was false. In that case both the prosecution and Flynn would be liable for perjuring themselves. It would also constitute prosecutorial misconduct IMO. Barr is doing Flynn a disservice by not releasing those transcripts. ..."
"... So all those mass incarcerated black men who pled guilty are really guilty because prosecutorial misconduct and defective legal advice neither happen to them nor are mitigating when a plea of guilty is made? "swore before two judges under penalty of perjury" The DOJ dropped the charges, it is up to the to prosecute for the new accusation that pleading guilty was actually perjury. Good luck at a jury trial with that. ..."
"... It seems to be a last minute desperation play by Sullivan to keep Obama out of the frying pan. ..."
"... Just today, the neocon-infested Washington Post ran an editorial, apparently by one of their DNC-affiliated writers, which attempted to jape the whole Obamagate narrative through a paroxysm of superlatives, mocking it as some gigantic and wholly imaginary conspiracy. This effort reminded me of their similar jocularity phase relative to Trump during the 2016 primary season. ..."
"... I suspect the reality is just the sleazy truth of Obama being just as much of a crooked bastard as Bush. The Obama gang, of course, is desperate to prevent the tarnishing of Saint Barry ..."
"... When Judge Sullivan said three days ago that he was going to make a schedule for outside persons and organizations to file written arguments, it was essentially an invitation for arguments against the government's request to dismiss the case. I started to put together an article about that brazen move. ..."
May 17, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com
Walrus

Firstly, Larry Johnson and Robert Willmann know more about this case than I do. It now appears, if this report today is to be believed, that Emmett Sullivan is now inclined to charge General Flynn with contempt of court and perjury. I have to ask; for what? This is Kafkaesque.

For agreeing to a plea deal that Flynn knew was false? For failing to plead innocence? For reversing his plea when it was demonstrated that the prosecution case against him was utterly untrue and corrupt?

"Judge", I use the term loosely, Sullivan seems to be so ensnared in the coils of judicial procedure that he has forgotten that truth and justice matter. That is the nicest construct I can put on it. I think it's time for Sidney Powell to rip this judge to shreds. I await Larry and Roberts comments.

https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/federal-judge-orders-arguments-on-whether-michael-flynn-should-be-jailed-for-perjury/

Fred , 14 May 2020 at 12:00 PM

Walrus,

Flynn was told by his lawyers from Covington & Burling that he was guilty. Covington & Burling were not only wrong they made no effort to get the exculpatory evidence and purposely withheld what evidence they did possess - repeatedly - from Flynn's new lawyer.

But then that has already been reported on publicly and discussed here. Perhaps your memory is faulty.

Sydney Powell can only appeal the conduct of the Judge. This serves as a nice distraction from the unconstitutional conduct of the Obama administration in wiretapping political opponents; as well as multiple members of Congress, multiple governors and state health officials in response to China's biological attack against the US and Western nations.

walrus , 14 May 2020 at 12:13 PM
Fred,

Yes, I agree with you. Sullivan trying to charge Flynn with perjury and contempt of court is a deliberate distraction. I would have thought the people who should be charged are the ones who constructed and prosecuted the bogus charge in the first place.

turcopolier , 14 May 2020 at 12:17 PM
walrus

Sullivan is in no sense an unbiased jurist.

Deap , 14 May 2020 at 12:32 PM
How many defendants automatically claim they are "not guilty, your honor" when asked to enter their plea, even when there is still gunpowder on their hands?

Do they also get charged with perjury after their guilt is established, beyond a reasonable doubt by a jury of their peers? You lied to the court - you said you were innocent. Double time in the slammer for you.

Defendant statements of either their own guilt or innocence should be "privileged" and therefore not actionable. Those statements are fundamental to our trust in our judicial system, and should never later be claimed perjury or false statements if the defendant changes their mind or a jury makes their ultimate finding.

Jim , 14 May 2020 at 12:34 PM
Thank you Larry and Walrus.

Although different people at different times, and different circumstances: a comparison.

Then CIA Agent Valerie Plame outing [she is currently a Democrat candidate for a New Mexico congressional seat].

And, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn [NSA-designee] outing.

Outing, that is: leaking their identities, by government officials[s], to . . . .and release of classified information.

How do the actions taken by government compare and contrast, at the time of outing/leaking crimes.

1] Both leaks went to the Washington Post.

2] Substance of the Plame and Flynn leaks related to . . .

WAP published Plame's identity, July 14, 2003. George Bush the younger, then president. Robert David Sanders "Bob" Novak put his name to this at WAP. [Her husband, Joseph C. Wilson 4th, "What I Didn't Find in Africa", in The New York Times, July 6, 2003, disputed Bush/Cheney administration claims, their claims of WMD in Iraq.]

WAP published Flynn's identify, Jan. 12, 2017. Barack Obama, then president. David Reynolds Ignatius put his name to it at WAP. Flynn disputed Obama administration "facts" about their Syrian war in particular, and more generally, in west Asia/near East/middle east.]

3] Investigation at the time or no investigation at the time.

Executive Order 12333 of Dec. 4, 1981 requires actions on such matters.

In the Plame matter, the CIA, on July 24, 2003 made a phone call to the DOJ about this, according to the CIA. They followed this up with a July 30, 2003 letter.

Government records show "on 24 July 2003, a CIA attorney left a phone message for the Chief of the Counterespionage Section of DoJ noting concerns with recent articles on this subject and stating that the CIA would forward a written crimes report pending the outcome of a review of the articles by subject matter experts. By letter dated 30 July 2003, the CIA reported to the Criminal Division of DoJ a possible violation of criminal law concerning the unauthorized disclosure of classified information. The letter also informed DoJ that the CIA's Office of Security had opened an investigation into this matter. This letter was sent again to DoJ by facsimile on 5 September 2003."

[[ see: https://web.archive.org/web/20060705062919/http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/plame.cia.letter.pdf ">http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/plame.cia.letter.pdf">https://web.archive.org/web/20060705062919/http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/plame.cia.letter.pdf ]]

Sept. 30, 2003, Bush famously stated, viz. the identities of the leaker[s]: "I want to know who it is ... and if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of."

Dec. 30, 2003 a Special Counsel was also appointed to investigate the Plame matter, as well.

Then AG John Ashcroft recused himself and thus declined to make this SC appointment.

Patrick Fitzgerald was named the Special Counsel by then Deputy AG James Comey.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

We know many more details now about the Plame matter, than about what, if any, investigation may, or may not have, begun, at the time of the Flynn outing and release of classified information.

What we do know, so far, about the Flynn matter is that, at the time, there was no attempt -- or at least, we don't know if there was -- any attempt from the Flynn outing on Jan. 12, 2017, to Jan. 20 of that year, when Obama was still president:
a] if the CIA asked for an investigation
b] if then AG Lynch did
c] if DAG at the time Yates did
d] if Obama did

We also don't know if, beginning Jan. 20
a] if then acting AG Yates did
b] if President Trump did
c] if the CIA did

Once Jeff Sessions was confirmed as AG, we don't know if he did, nor do we know if DAG Rod Rosenstein did.

Nor do we know if the CIA did.

We do know Rosenstein appointed Mueller as SC to investigate Flynn, among other things.

And we now know there was no predicate for any of the Mueller SCO appointment; thus, Rosenstein, too: what was he doing?

We do know that at some point after Bill Barr was confirmed as AG last year, that he began to investigate outing of Flynn and release of classified information, that is, actual crimes.

It is a fair question to ask when he actually began investigation on the Flynn outing, and leaking of classified material related to that.

And to ask when, or if, the CIA, since Jan. 20, 2017, ever did.

We do know there were many public enemies of Flynn at highest levels of DOJ, FBI, CIA, and the office Clapper was in charge of at the time, Director of National Intelligence.

And we know Obama is an enemy of Flynn. If the CIA never took any steps, prior to the Barr confirmation as AG -- and I have no way of knowing whether they did or did not, viz. the Flynn outing and leak of classified information, ---what, if any, might or should be, if any, the consequences of that? And, ditto the DOJ.

As an aside: Judge Emmett Sullivan's ongoing tomfoolery and slapdash in the Flynn criminal case puts in relief, sharp relief, just how upside down this entire issue has become.

It appear this judge want to protect the likes of Obama, and Yates, and the long list of villains whose mission remain: Destroy Flynn at all costs.


-30-

Mark K Logan , 14 May 2020 at 12:43 PM
Walrus,

Flynn's guilty plea being sworn to under penalty of perjury is no small matter, and the DOJs actions have been, in total, extremely odd.

It may be unwise to read too much into this at this point. The DOJ has wasted a couple of years and no doubt millions of dollars worth of the court's time. Sullivan is providing a platform wherein the DOJ will have to fully explain itself in this matter. Both past and present DOJs, that is.

Keith Harbaugh , 14 May 2020 at 12:49 PM
What is most relevant here is: What did Flynn know at the time he pled guilty, and what was his state of mind at that time.

I give links to two copies of the "Declaration of Michael T. Flynn", which addresses those issues, together with some discussion by me, here:
http://kwhmediawatch.blogspot.com/2020/05/what-media-wont-tell-you-about-flynn.html

As a general observation, there has been a tidal wave of criticism in American media over the DOJ dropping the charges against Flynn.

I have made an attempt to follow what the American MSM are saying about this, and the hostility to both Flynn and Barr is just overwhelming.
Surely that overwhelming media opinion had an effect on Judge Sullivan's bad decision.

Bill H , 14 May 2020 at 01:01 PM
Perhaps I'm missing something. I know the FBI can listen in on phone calls made to foreign nationals, but how can the FBI legally listen in on phone calls made by the NSC Director of the President-Elect, regardless of who he is talking to?
FakeBot , 14 May 2020 at 01:12 PM
General Flynn's original law team belonged to Covington & Burling. That's where Eric Holder made partner. Since his time as Attorney General, Holder has returned to that law firm. Like Fred said, they sandbagged the case.
turcopolier , 14 May 2020 at 01:45 PM
BillH

The intercept by NSA or CIA would be legal because of Kisliak's nationality.

akaPatience , 14 May 2020 at 01:48 PM
My husband's default TV channel is MSNBC, programming which I often overhear. A fair-minded observer can't help but notice that Obama apologists only mention that Flynn plead guilty twice. They NEVER emphasize the beyond-mitigating aspects of the matter, e.g., that his counsel at the time (which was a law firm also employing former Obama AG Eric Holder) was either incompetent or purposefully negligent in advising him to do so. Nor do they mention that Flynn was threatened with the prospect of his son being prosecuted using rarely-enforced FARA laws. The apologists also fail to remind their audiences that the FBI investigation of Flynn was about to be closed -- much less do they report that he was NEVER charged with perjury in the first place!

The convenient and expedient failure to fully inform people has become typical among the MSM/Democrats/NeverTrumpers, et al. Their efforts to misinform, to perpetuate ignorance, continue to play out not only in the entire Obamagate scandal but it seems also when it comes to COVID-19 policy. No wonder zombie-themed entertainment is so popular in recent years. SMFH...

The Twisted Genius , 14 May 2020 at 01:50 PM
Jim,

Flynn wasn't outed. He was a widely known public figure for years. Trump and Pence announced Flynn lied to them and the FBI when he was fired. I'm not if this was mentioned in the press before Trump's announcement.

The Twisted Genius , 14 May 2020 at 02:10 PM
Walrus,

Flynn swore before two judges under penalty of perjury that he lied to the FBI. He then swore that he didn't lie to the FBI when he asked to withdraw his guilty plea. There's the conundrum. If we had the transcript of the Flynn-Kislyak conversations, we would know the answer to one of your questions. We could compare that to his guilty plea. We would then know if the prosecution's case was false. In that case both the prosecution and Flynn would be liable for perjuring themselves. It would also constitute prosecutorial misconduct IMO. Barr is doing Flynn a disservice by not releasing those transcripts.

walrus , 14 May 2020 at 04:59 PM
TTG, there is this legal thing called the litigation privilege that, I think, covers what an accused can say in a trial. Plenty of people plead guilty to charges that they know to be false without the slightest demur by anyone..

Furthermore, Flynn may have become convinced by his lawyers that he had, in effect lied to the FBI. In addition, since he was not under oath or cautioned by the FBI at the time, even if he deliberately did lie for perhaps political or strategic reasons how is that a crime? People lie to people all the time.

To put that another way, is telling a female FBI agent "I'll still respect you in the morning" going to get you 20 years?

Fred , 14 May 2020 at 05:03 PM
TTG,

So all those mass incarcerated black men who pled guilty are really guilty because prosecutorial misconduct and defective legal advice neither happen to them nor are mitigating when a plea of guilty is made? "swore before two judges under penalty of perjury" The DOJ dropped the charges, it is up to the to prosecute for the new accusation that pleading guilty was actually perjury. Good luck at a jury trial with that.

Mark,

"Sullivan is providing a platform wherein the DOJ will have to fully explain itself in this matter."

So he is willfully refusing to dismiss the case so the DOJ can give him an explanation - other than the one they already gave him in the motion to dismiss? Justice Sullivan, on behalf of the Judiciary, is now taking it upon itself to determine what the executive branch of government was thinking in this case? To get that explanation he has appointed a former member of the judiciary, one who had previously worked side by side with Andrew Weissman. No bias there. You don't need to be a lawyer to see how ludicrous the suggestion and the judges actions appear.

TV , 14 May 2020 at 05:28 PM
Sullivan, like most of the Federal judiciary, is just another swamp creature.
He apparently slept through the class in law school where they said that the state has to prosecute the case, a judge can't - even as much as he may want to.
Jim , 14 May 2020 at 05:35 PM
The issue is both: the criminal leak of classified information; and the criminal outing -- the identity of Flynn -- related to classified information leak. Those are indissolubly linked.

The issue is also this, thanks to Judge Emmett Gilbert & Sullivan, who wrote May 13, 2020:

"ORDERED that amicus curiae shall address whether the Court should issue an Order to Show Cause why Mr. Flynn should not be held in criminal contempt for perjury. . . and any other applicable statutes, rules, or controlling law."

Who would be charging Flynn with "criminal contempt for perjury"? And/Or, "and any other applicable statutes, rules, or controlling law"?

Perhaps Gilbert & Sullivan will keep the case open until after the November presidential election, or the November 2024 election, or the next one, so that another DOJ -- not headed by Bill Barr -- can so charge Flynn.

Or perhaps Gilbert & Sullivan is inviting Congress to name a Special Prosecutor.

Who might that be? James Comey? Andrew Weissmann? Sally Yates?

After all, how dare anyone expose Barry as anything but "the scandal free" administration. This is Gilbert & Sullivan's motive, as I see it, my opinion, based on what I have seen so far: To protect Barry, among others. And do that via keeping alive a prosecution of Flynn, based on DOJ/FBI/CIA skullduggery. [Another theory is the judge wants to throw the book at Covington for misconduct; perhaps both or one or the other are at play, I don't have the evidence at this time to clearly say.]

As for Trump and Pence, that is grist for another mill.

For all we know, Trump and Pence may have wanted Flynn gone and they did not care how it was done. And they did not want their finger prints on it; and for all we know, Trump and Pence were not opposed to the Mueller SC appointment.

These are also things we actually just don't have clear answers to, just yet.

But that sideshow is irrelevant to this legal proceeding/circus per the May 13 order.

However, it may [or may not] be relevant to whether or not Trump and Pence actually wanted Flynn gone – using the "Flynn lied" as an excuse to be rid of him.

Pence, at the time, had no business speaking about what was essentially classified information, at the time, by the way; he did, on national TV, and Flynn was the patsy.

Did Trump and Pence, and their administration, sit on their hands as well, and do nothing about the criminal leak of classified information linked to the outing of Flynn?

Claiming he lied could suggest they also were not interested in the crime of leaking classified information and his outing.

At least Bush said or claimed to wanted to get to the bottom of the Plame matter. Did Trump and Pence, at the time?

And if they did want to get to the bottom of it, I would like to see evidence that they did so, and/or evidence that they were thwarted in doing so.

Surely, Trump and Pence can argue this was why they were not opposed to Mueller appointment.

We don't know all the contents of the scope memo Rosenstein wrote, as the boss of Mueller, -- whether or not investigation of the criminal leak and outing of Flynn was or was not part of Mueller's scope of work.

We don't know because chunks of scope memo are still redacted and not available to the public.

Presumably, AG Barr is investigation this; he came back on the scene last year.

What happened before him, going back to Jan. 20, 2017? And, what happened from Jan. 12 to Jan. 2020, with respect to the Obama administration, on this crime?

Did anyone, prior to Barr, do anything, or try to do anything?

If this was not part of Rosenstein's scope memo to Mueller, what can one conclude?
-30-

Bobo , 14 May 2020 at 05:58 PM
In recent years we have seen numerous individuals released from jail due to their innocence being found by DNA and other scientific processes. A good number of those individuals had plead guilty. In the Sullivan courtroom Flynn plead quietly twice (once to Sullivan the other to Contreras) but now pleads innocent and the government has decided to drop the case. But Judge Sullivan now questions what to do with Flynn and is asking for help from the legal community to determine what to do. It has become a circus or Sullivan wants his pound of flesh. Time will tell but if it is not to the benefit of Flynn then it's off to the Appeals Court where it will be justly determined.
After insinuating that Flynn was a traitor this Judge should drop the case quickly but no he wants make himself like a bigger Idiot.
The Twisted Genius , 14 May 2020 at 07:36 PM
Walrus,

Flynn's case never went to trial. It went straight to a guilty plea and was awaiting the sentencing phase. If the DOJ dropped charges before this guilty plea or at any time during a trial, I doubt we would be in this mess. What Flynn signed onto is straightforward. I don't know if this litigation privilege would apply to this Defendant's Acceptance.

"The preceding statement is a summary, made for the purpose of providing the Court with a factual basis for my guilty plea to the charge against me. It does not include all of the facts known to me regarding this offense. I make this statement knowingly and voluntarily and because I am, in fact, guilty o f the crime charged. No threats have been made to me nor am I under the influence o f anything that could impede my ability to understand this Statement o f the Offense fully."
"I have read every word of this Statement of the Offense, or have had it read to me. Pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11, after consulting with my attorneys, I agree and stipulate to this Statement of the Offense, and declare under penalty of perjury that it is true and correct."

blue peacock , 14 May 2020 at 09:23 PM
Sullivan is addressing the guilty plea by Flynn and his subsequent withdrawal of that plea. creating the charge of perjury to the court.

Barr is opening up the DOJ to prosecutorial misconduct if the reason for the withdrawal is exculpatory information that was not provided defendant prior to his guilty plea.

Sullivan is exploiting this discrepancy. I am neither a legal expert nor lawyer so will stand corrected.

Vegetius , 14 May 2020 at 10:29 PM
Down with the kritarchy!
Outrage Beyond , 14 May 2020 at 11:51 PM
It seems to be a last minute desperation play by Sullivan to keep Obama out of the frying pan.

Just today, the neocon-infested Washington Post ran an editorial, apparently by one of their DNC-affiliated writers, which attempted to jape the whole Obamagate narrative through a paroxysm of superlatives, mocking it as some gigantic and wholly imaginary conspiracy. This effort reminded me of their similar jocularity phase relative to Trump during the 2016 primary season.

I suspect the reality is just the sleazy truth of Obama being just as much of a crooked bastard as Bush. The Obama gang, of course, is desperate to prevent the tarnishing of Saint Barry.

If Flynn does get off in the end, might he sue Obama and at some point depose him? An interesting thought experiment.

Jack , 15 May 2020 at 12:46 AM
From the Twitter-in-Chief:
Where is the 302? It is missing. Was it stolen or destroyed? General Flynn is being persecuted! #OBAMAGATE

https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1261138690929295361?s=21

I find this hilarious. It is like POTUS is a helpless bystander. Does he not realize it is his DOJ that has "stolen or destroyed" the 302? Does he not know that he can declassify all of "Obamagate"?

Or is his intent to just troll everyone?

And what about him throwing Flynn to the hyenas by firing him?

robt willmann , 15 May 2020 at 09:37 AM
Walrus,

When Judge Sullivan said three days ago that he was going to make a schedule for outside persons and organizations to file written arguments, it was essentially an invitation for arguments against the government's request to dismiss the case. I started to put together an article about that brazen move.

Now Sullivan has abandoned that move and has exposed himself as an advocate singularly against the defendant Flynn, which of course is not his role. His order of Wednesday, 13 May, appointed John Gleeson, a former federal judge in the Eastern District of New York, to present arguments against the motion to dismiss Flynn's case and whether Flynn should be the subject of a proceeding for criminal contempt of court for perjury.

Judge Sullivan's new order indicates that he has improperly invested his ego in the case, and that something is likely going on behind the curtain.

JerseyJeffersonian , 15 May 2020 at 12:36 PM
Jack,

With all that is emerging from the recent releases of sworn testimony from various actors surrounding the Flynn case, and the Russiagate hoohaw exposing the motivations of these individuals, can it be doubted that given the depth of the duplicity on exhibit here that it is entirely possible (indeed, likely) that something as incriminating as the "missing" 302 was destroyed to cover the tracks?

Although some of the principals left of their own volition, and others were removed through being fired, it is clear that others acted as "stay behind" forces of the Deep State to continue the coup from inside the DOJ, FBI, and IC. Under these circumstances, it is not at all clear that President Trump was (and is now) substantially in command of these agencies. Incriminating documents and recordings may well have been preemptively destroyed on the sayso of the "stay behind" plotters still in high positions, so calls for declassification of already disappeared evidence would be futile.

No, it doesn't look good that Flynn was fired, but at the time, and with what was known at that time , and given Flynn's plea, what could be expected? Now that things have subsequently been revealed, it looks like a bad call; hindsight is, as the saying has it, 20/20.

[May 16, 2020] A model democrat

Highly recommended!
May 16, 2020 | www.youtube.com

Absaalookemensch , 1 week ago

Adam Schiff is a model Democrat. He has no integrity, decency, honesty. He's a model Democrat.

[May 16, 2020] Bought MSM experts typically are just MIC prostitutes: most are neocons and "Russiagaters"

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... War is too important to be left to the generals ..."
May 16, 2020 | www.rt.com

Originally from: Covid-19, Russiagate, Iraq – politicians are too happy to defer to convenient 'experts' -- RT Op-ed

So-called "experts" are too narrow in their focus and too often wrong in their judgments to be able to decide the sorts of life-and-death issues a nation's political leaders are asked to decide. If " War is too important to be left to the generals ," as Georges Clemenceau, (France's prime minister during World War I) claimed, then foreign policy is too important to be left to the intelligence agencies, and public policy is too important to be left to the scientists.

From the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, politicians and media fell over themselves in their rush to defer to the " experts. " Apparently, it was up to scientists to decide whether a country should shut down its economy and keep its citizens locked up in their homes in perpetuity. It was up to scientists to determine whether a country can, if ever, resume normal life. As for the consequences -- economic depression, exploding national debt, lost businesses and means of livelihood, growing alcoholism and drug abuse, rise in suicides, spiraling untreated medical problems -- those are things the public would just have to live with, because there could be no second-guessing of the scientists.

[May 16, 2020] Tucker Adam Schiff should resign

Highly recommended!
This act of sedition goes as high as (or as low as) Obama himself.
Notable quotes:
"... He should do more than resign. He should be prosecuted for his role in an attempted coup. Schiff for prisoner 2020. ..."
"... There's no willpower in the house to take action against him. ..."
May 16, 2020 | www.youtube.com

warchant59 , 1 week ago

He should do more than resign. He should be prosecuted for his role in an attempted coup. Schiff for prisoner 2020.

Shannon Moore , 2 days ago

Schiff probably practice his lies in his mirror every morning so he can convince himself of Russian interference. Biggest liar in America Adam Schifty schiff. Needs to be arrested immediately for treason and lying under oath. But as usual nothing will happen. These people are above the law. And are untouchable. Its enough to frustrate the hell out of normal sain Americans. 4 more years of Donald Trump

D LE , 3 days ago

Every person that went on television and knowingly lied should be tried for treason , sedition and attempted over throw of Trumps presidency.

TheFoolinthe rainn , 3 days ago

Folks need to take a much closer look at your own state legislature, district attorney, prosecutors, public defenders, social workers... especially your own town councils and school boards. They're stealing your lives and children at the Grassroots local level.

Norita Sanders , 5 days ago

Bill and Hillary Clinton sold the U.S. out years ago with the North American free trade agreement. And obama finished us off during g his last term.

CAPT. RICK ALLEN , 2 days ago

They should throw Schiff in jail and then give everything he owns to his victims who lost everything.

Joe Merkel , 1 day ago

Schiff absolutely SHOULD resign but he won't. Not only will he not but he'll cheat and win re-election along with his mom, Nancy Pelosi.

Tim Coleman , 3 days ago

Adam Schiff is not resigning. He's doubling down yet again! If you "want" him to resign, you need to understand he's staying in office until voted out. There's no willpower in the house to take action against him.

[May 16, 2020] No One Should Be Missing Kissinger

May 16, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Thomas Meaney debunks the myth of Henry Kissinger:

Since leaving office, too, Kissinger has rarely challenged consensus, let alone offered the kind of inconvenient assessments that characterized the later career of George Kennan, who warned President Clinton against NATO expansion after the Soviet Union's collapse. It is instructive to measure Kissinger's instincts against those of a true realist, such as the University of Chicago political scientist John Mearsheimer. As the Cold War ended, Mearsheimer was so committed to the "balance of power" principle that he made the striking suggestion of allowing nuclear proliferation in a unified Germany and throughout Eastern Europe. Kissinger, unable to see beyond the horizon of the Cold War, could not imagine any other purpose for American power than the pursuit of global supremacy.

Although he has criticized the interventionism of neoconservatives, there is scarcely a U.S. military adventure, from Panama to Iraq, that has not met with his approval. In all his meditations on world order, he has not thought about how contingent and unforeseen America's rise as global superpower actually was. Nothing in the country's republican tradition prior to the Second World War demanded it.

The contrast between the worldviews and careers of Kennan and Kissinger is instructive, and it helps to explain why the Washington foreign policy consensus has gotten so many things wrong over the decades. Meaney mentions that as early as 1965 Kissinger was privately admitting that the war in Vietnam was unwinnable, but publicly he supported it and went on to preside over its continuation and escalation for many years. During the same period, Kennan spoke out against the war, and urged full withdrawal. Kennan famously said:

There is more respect to be won in the opinion of this world by a resolute and courageous liquidation of unsound positions than by the most stubborn pursuit of extravagant or unpromising objectives.

Kissinger insisted on just the opposite: that the cynical and stubborn pursuit of extravagant and unpromising objectives was necessary to prove American resolve. Kissinger couldn't have been more wrong, as subsequent events showed beyond any doubt, but his profound wrongness had little or no effect on his standing in the U.S. It is no accident that Kissinger has repeatedly endorsed pursuing such objectives up to and including the invasion of Iraq. The blunders that Kennan warned against and correctly foresaw would be costly and wasteful are the same ones that Kissinger approved and defended.

Our government usually listens to and employs the Kissingers to make our foreign policy, and it ignores and marginalizes the Kennans once they start saying inconvenient things. Kissinger had great success in advancing himself, and he has continued to be a fixture in the foreign policy establishment almost fifty years after he last served in government, because he knows how to provide arguments that lend legitimacy to dubious and aggressive policies. He made bogus claims about "credibility" in the '60s that helped to perpetuate one war, and later generations of hawks have used the same claims to justify involvement in new ones. Despite all the evidence that his "credibility" arguments were nonsense, Kissinger's reputation has bizarrely continued to improve over time.

Meaney also compares Kissinger with Hans Morgenthau:

Like Kissinger, Morgenthau had become well known with a popular book about foreign policy, "Politics Among Nations" (1948). And he shared Kissinger's belief that foreign policy could not be left to technocrats with flowcharts and statistics. But, unlike Kissinger, Morgenthau was unwilling to sacrifice his realist principles for political influence [bold mine-DL]. In the mid-sixties, working as a consultant for the Johnson Administration, he was publicly critical of the Vietnam War, which he believed jeopardized America's status as a great power, and Johnson had him fired.

The different responses to Vietnam are telling. Kennan and Morgenthau could see very clearly that U.S. intervention was unnecessary and senseless, and they said as much. Kissinger could see the same thing, but he pretended otherwise to gain influence. U.S. foreign policy then and later would have benefited greatly from having more honest assessments of irresponsible policies and fewer cynical endorsements of unnecessary wars. If we are to learn anything from Kissinger's example, it is that we should strive to be as unlike him as we can be.


kouroi 4 days ago

Yeah, right. It will only get worse.

See Orwell's 1984 in full swing: How US erases history of WWII and the Soviet Union's overwhelming contribution to defeating Hitler's Germany.
https://www.rt.com/news/488...
https://www.rt.com/news/488...
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/48...

Also, it is worth mentioning the Soviet diplomacy's response to Keenan's Long Telegram, for parity:
http://www-personal.umd.umi...

While Mr. Larison has to / must continue his excellent work as a chronicler of US imperial madness, his and his peers' advice will continue to be ignored (ideally this advice would not even exist and no record of it would pass beyond government doors or "respectable" opinionators because TINA) regardless of public opinion pools and election promises and voting results.

Only a US societal quasi collapse, or the establishment of US as an endemic source of Covid-19 (or similar diseases), or Saudis selling their oil for other currencies beside US dollars, or a faster rising of ocean levels, or a full blown and rapid economic war and disengagement with China will potentially re-balance things. But it might be too late, and the US would have by then forgotten how to use certain intellectual tools the way Australian Aborigines and Tasmanians have forgotten to make and use bows and arrows.

Tim Chapman kouroi 4 days ago
It's amusingly daft to describe the US as having engaged in imperial madness, but ludicrous to assert that Australian Aborigines ever used bows and arrows.
Feral Finster Tim Chapman 4 days ago
The United States acts and talks like an empire, or need I trot out that quote fromt hat Bush-era apparatchik again?

And talk about not seeing the forest for the trees. If Kouroi used the term "boomerangs" instead of "bows and arrows", would that make you happy?

Tim 4 days ago
Thanks for that. I have always had a vague awareness that HK was a problematic factor, but, being preoccupied with the daily grind, never scrutinized the record much. This short comparative piece is good for clarity. Perhaps the saddest thing of all, though, is that after all these decades, the HK perspective has become accepted by the Neo- factions (cons? libs? does it matter?) as a default position. Makes US seem like we're in the thrall of a military-industrial complex or something.
Mark Pietrzyk 4 days ago • edited
In defense of Kissinger, he was skeptical of the expansion of NATO to the Baltic states and was much more open to diplomacy with Russia than most hawks in the GOP. But you're right that too often Kissinger was afraid to make waves by opposing military interventions. https://www.washingtonpost....
DUNK Mark Pietrzyk 4 days ago
Henry Kissinger called US soldiers "dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy" and he's been advising Trump since 2016.
Bag Man 4 days ago
Kissinger is an example that this old adage is true. "Only the Good Die Young". The devil is waiting for him. Kissinger is responsible for murdering and torturing many.
TheSnark 4 days ago • edited
Kissinger was a brilliant historian and diplomat, with deep insights into how the world works. However he was also a careerist who was willing to bend his views to achieve and stay in power. For better or worse, he shaped US foreign policy for many years, and strongly influenced it for many more.

Kennan was also a brilliant historian and diplomat, who had a huge impact on US policy with his Long Telegram. But once the policy was accepted, he had little influence over its long-term implementation because he refused to compromise and work with (manipulate?) lesser beings.

And today, our foreign policy is run by people who know little of the world and none of its history, and could care less. But they are great at PR and political manipulation. I'll take either Kissinger or Kennan over any of them. Whatever their flaws, at least they knew what they were talking about

Connecticut Farmer TheSnark 2 days ago
You are correct in your description of Kissinger as a "careerist". Unfortunately, unlike Kissinger George Kennan never became SoS, so he never had the president's
"ear." Some would argue that Truman should have picked him over Dean Acheson to succeed George Marshall. One can only wonder how history would have panned out.
=marco01= 4 days ago • edited
....as early as 1965 Kissinger was privately admitting that the war in Vietnam was unwinnable, but publicly he supported it and went on to preside over its continuation and escalation for many years.

How could he stubbornly persist knowing that every day Americans were losing their lives - for years. This guy must be a sociopath.

=marco01= 4 days ago • edited
....as early as 1965 Kissinger was privately admitting that the war in Vietnam was unwinnable, but publicly he supported it and went on to preside over its continuation and escalation for many years.

How could he stubbornly persist knowing that every day Americans were losing their lives - for years. This guy must be a sociopath.

[May 16, 2020] Rep Zeldin calls on Adam Schiff to resign

May 16, 2020 | www.youtube.com

George Powe , 5 days ago

Schiff resign? He should be tried for TREASON and EXECUTED!

CheapSkateSimmer , 5 days ago

Schiffty Schiff needs to answer questions under oath.

Tim Nobody , 1 day ago (edited)

Adam Schiff knew the truth and when on TV everyday and lied to the American people. He should be ran out of DC..

HugsBach , 5 days ago

Adam Schif needs to be impeached, criminal prosecution, perjury too!

[May 16, 2020] John Solomon 'Everything about the Schiff-show is falling apart' - YouTube

May 16, 2020 | www.youtube.com

Rosco Coltrane , 2 days ago (edited)

Why isn't Schiff in Jail. Isn't Barry's Alumni worried about the rule of law?

Juju Rellama , 2 days ago

She [Amb. Yovanovitch's] hated Trump. Blamed him for her failed career. Whistleblowers don't have long careers

Will Hunt , 2 days ago

Nothing but lies for 4 years from Dems. Pathetic and disgusting. A Coup, Imagine that?

mark spannar , 2 days ago

She needs to be put in jail. The American people demand and deserve justice .

Cy Todd , 2 days ago (edited)

"Wasn't completely honest"... mistress of understatements. She lied. The left's narrative is imploding. Corrupt Ambassador, and the left whined when she was fired. Belongs in prison... in Ukraine.

fiddlemastr jay , 2 days ago

Yovanovitch is just another piece of Rhodes Scholar trash.

ZW , 2 days ago

Is she lied she better be charged with a flipping crime. Time to stop playing coy.

RM SemFl , 2 days ago

Yovanovitch sat their and lied the whole time. Why isn't she being charged?

JDSwamp , 2 days ago

She's Princeton. The quality! The Ivy! Yovanovitch LIED under oath.

imaGINAtion , 2 days ago

During the impeachment sham hearing, Yovanovitch said she had not recall anything about the well known national scandal Burisma in Ukraine. Surprising, isn't it?

Noam Pitlik , 2 days ago

Schiff doesn't strike me as the 'fall on his sword' type. Maybe he will spill the beans someday.

Dave Wo , 2 days ago

Yeah.... Yovanovitch is a liar. Throw her in prison for lying to congress.

Vladim IANCU , 2 days ago

The entire Obama Administration was, for eight long years, a string of crimes and cover-ups by the then President and all his partners in wrongdoings. When is Lady Justice going to prevail?

[May 16, 2020] Greg Gutfeld Something has got to be done about Adam Schiff - YouTube

May 16, 2020 | www.youtube.com

terry ortiz , 1 day ago

The fake media isn't angry with their sources because the sources lied because the media were partners in crime.

[May 16, 2020] Obamagate Is Not A Conspiracy Theory Zero Hedge

Notable quotes:
"... It is not conspiracy-mongering to note that the investigation into Trump was predicated on an opposition-research document filled with fabulism and, most likely, Russian disinformation. We know the DOJ withheld contradictory evidence when it began spying on those in Trump's orbit. We have proof that many of the relevant FISA-warrant applications -- almost every one of them, actually -- were based on "fabricated" evidence or riddled with errors. We know that members of the Obama administration, who had no genuine role in counterintelligence operations, repeatedly unmasked Trump's allies. And we now know that, despite a dearth of evidence, the FBI railroaded Michael Flynn into a guilty plea so it could keep the investigation going. ..."
"... By 2016, the Obama administration's intelligence community had normalized domestic spying. Obama's director of national intelligence, James Clapper, famously lied about snooping on American citizens to Congress. His CIA director, John Brennan, oversaw an agency that felt comfortable spying on the Senate , with at least five of his underlings breaking into congressional computer files. His attorney general, Eric Holder, invoked the Espionage Act to spy on a Fox News journalist , shopping his case to three judges until he found one who let him name the reporter as a co-conspirator. The Obama administration also spied on Associated Press reporters , which the news organization called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion." And though it's been long forgotten, Obama officials were caught monitoring the conversations of members of Congress who opposed the Iran nuclear deal. ..."
"... In her very last hour in office, national-security adviser Susan Rice wrote a self-preserving email to herself , noting that she'd attended a meeting with the president, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, FBI director James Comey, and Vice President Joe Biden in which Obama stressed that everything in the investigation should proceed "by the book." ..."
"... Biden is the Democratic Party's presumptive presidential nominee, he's running as the heir to Obama's legacy, and he was at that meeting with Rice. He had denied even knowing anything about the FBI investigation into Flynn before being forced to correct himself after ABC's George Stephanopoulos pointed out that he was mentioned in Rice's email. It's completely legitimate to wonder what he knew about the investigation. ..."
"... s the FBI agents involved in the case noted, they wanted to have an " insurance policy " if the unthinkable happened. ..."
"... In 2016, the unthinkable did happen, and we're still dealing with the fallout four years later. We don't know where this scandal will end up, but one doesn't have to be a conspiracy theorist to wonder. ..."
May 16, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by David Harsanyi via The National Review,

Those sharing #Obamagate hashtags on Twitter would do best to avoid the hysterics we saw from Russian-collusion believers, but they have no reason to ignore the mounting evidence that suggests the Obama administration engaged in serious corruption.

Democrats and their allies, who like to pretend that President Obama's only scandalous act was wearing a tan suit, are going spend the next few months gaslighting the public by focusing on the most feverish accusations against Obama. But the fact is that we already have more compelling evidence that the Obama administration engaged in misconduct than we ever did for opening the Russian-collusion investigation.

It is not conspiracy-mongering to note that the investigation into Trump was predicated on an opposition-research document filled with fabulism and, most likely, Russian disinformation. We know the DOJ withheld contradictory evidence when it began spying on those in Trump's orbit. We have proof that many of the relevant FISA-warrant applications -- almost every one of them, actually -- were based on "fabricated" evidence or riddled with errors. We know that members of the Obama administration, who had no genuine role in counterintelligence operations, repeatedly unmasked Trump's allies. And we now know that, despite a dearth of evidence, the FBI railroaded Michael Flynn into a guilty plea so it could keep the investigation going.

What's more, the larger context only makes all of these facts more damning . By 2016, the Obama administration's intelligence community had normalized domestic spying. Obama's director of national intelligence, James Clapper, famously lied about snooping on American citizens to Congress. His CIA director, John Brennan, oversaw an agency that felt comfortable spying on the Senate , with at least five of his underlings breaking into congressional computer files. His attorney general, Eric Holder, invoked the Espionage Act to spy on a Fox News journalist , shopping his case to three judges until he found one who let him name the reporter as a co-conspirator. The Obama administration also spied on Associated Press reporters , which the news organization called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion." And though it's been long forgotten, Obama officials were caught monitoring the conversations of members of Congress who opposed the Iran nuclear deal.

What makes anyone believe these people wouldn't create a pretext to spy on the opposition party?

If anyone does, they shouldn't, because on top of everything else, we know that Barack Obama was keenly interested in the Russian-collusion investigation's progress.

In her very last hour in office, national-security adviser Susan Rice wrote a self-preserving email to herself , noting that she'd attended a meeting with the president, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, FBI director James Comey, and Vice President Joe Biden in which Obama stressed that everything in the investigation should proceed "by the book."

Did high-ranking Obama-administration officials not always conduct such investigations "by the book"? It is curious that they would need to be specifically instructed to do so. It is also curious that the outgoing national-security adviser, 15 minutes after Trump had been sworn in as president, would need to mention this meeting.

None of this means that Obama committed some specific crime; he almost assuredly did not. In a healthy media environment, though, the mounting evidence of wrongdoing would spark an outpouring of journalistic curiosity.

"But," you might ask, "why does it matter, anymore?"

Well, for one thing, many of the same characters central to all this apparent malfeasance now want to retake power in Washington . Biden is the Democratic Party's presumptive presidential nominee, he's running as the heir to Obama's legacy, and he was at that meeting with Rice. He had denied even knowing anything about the FBI investigation into Flynn before being forced to correct himself after ABC's George Stephanopoulos pointed out that he was mentioned in Rice's email. It's completely legitimate to wonder what he knew about the investigation.

Skeptics like to point out that the Obama administration had no motive to engage in abuse, because Democrats were sure they were going to win. Richard Nixon won 49 states in 1972. His cronies had no need to break into the DNC's offices and touch off Watergate. But as the FBI agents involved in the case noted, they wanted to have an " insurance policy " if the unthinkable happened.

In 2016, the unthinkable did happen, and we're still dealing with the fallout four years later. We don't know where this scandal will end up, but one doesn't have to be a conspiracy theorist to wonder.

[May 16, 2020] According to the Conservative TreeHouse link, sounds like Barry was in a snit because the Russians did not "over-react" the way Barry planned, so Trump's day one job would not be putting out fires with the Russians that Barry had just started.

May 16, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Deap , 15 May 2020 at 11:54 PM

Did Barry want to drop a load of doo doo on Trump at the 11th hour, when he kicked out the Russians and dropped the sanctions on them for their "proven election interference"?

That was my immediate feeling at the time - kind of a wag the dog in reverse - go ahead Trump, get out of this one. Bye. I'm outta here. You take the Russian phone calls now.

According to the Conservative TreeHouse link, sounds like Barry was in a snit because the Russians did not "over-react" the way Barry planned, so Trump's day one job would not be putting out fires with the Russians that Barry had just started.

Barry was sorely perplexed. Jst why weren't the Russians doing what he had planned for them to do - dump doo doo on the incoming President. Why weren't they sabre rattling and putting incoming President Trump in his very first international incident, as Barry had intended.

Nope, the Russians went all chill instead. Who cared what a lame duck POTUS does anyway. Then Putin, invited all the Moscow foreign embassy kids over for a holiday party. No bombs, no threats, not even any pouts. What was up with that? Good will and good cheer towards all men, regardless of outgoing Boy President's little sand box snit.

What could have gone wrong, the Russians are supposed to be mad and escalating Barry's "decisive" actions. Let's go snooping. And there begins one more chapter in Obamagate - Waaaaaa, the Russians didn't do what I wanted them to do. I wanted them to rub schmutz in Trump's face on Day One. Instead they offered us cookies and holiday crackers.

And in the process Team Obama left a nefarious paper trail. Thank you Susan - aka Lady McBeth- Rice - your CYA memo for this final Obama Russian caper simply did not pass the smell test. Barry was beaked the Russians did not start WWIII.

[May 15, 2020] "We lied, we cheated, we stole", version 2.0

May 15, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

WHY IS THE US IN SYRIA?

Washington longer bothers to prettify – the boot is straight to the face. ISIS?

Forget ISIS says Jeffrey : " My job is to make it a quagmire for the Russians ".

An amazing confession, in the same class as " We lied, we cheated, we stole ".

[May 15, 2020] The Complete Collusion Against Trump Timeline

Highly recommended!
May 15, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

The Complete "Collusion Against Trump" Timeline by Tyler Durden Fri, 05/15/2020 - 22:50 Via SharylAttkisson.com,

It's easy to find timelines that detail Trump-Russia collusion developments. Here are links to two of them I recommend:

On the other side, evidence has emerged that makes it clear there were organized efforts to collude against candidate Donald Trump - and then President Trump. For example:

  • Anti-Russian Ukrainians allegedly helped coordinate and execute a campaign against Trump in partnership with the Democratic National Committee and news reporters.
  • A Yemen-born ex-British spy reportedly delivered political opposition research against Trump to reporters, Sen. John McCain, and the FBI; the latter of which used the material--in part--to obtain wiretaps against one or more Trump-related associates.
  • There were orchestrated leaks of anti-Trump information and allegations to the press, including by ex-FBI Director James Comey.
  • The U.S. intel community allegedly engaged in questionable surveillance practices and politially-motivated "unmaskings" of U.S. citizens, including Trump officials.
  • Alleged conflicts of interests have surfaced regarding FBI officials who cleared Hillary Clinton for mishandling classified information and who investigated Trump's alleged Russia ties.

But it's not so easy to find a timeline pertinent to the investigations into these events.

Related: Obama Era Surveillance Timeline

Here's a work in progress...

(Please note that nobody cited has been charged with wrongdoing or crimes, unless the charge is specifically referenced. Temporal relationships are not necessarily evidence of a correlation.)

"Collusion against Trump" Timeline 2011

U.S. intel community vastly expands its surveillance authority, giving itself permission to spy on Americans who do nothing more than "mention a foreign target in a single, discrete communication." Intel officials also begin storing and entering into a searchable database sensitive intelligence on U.S. citizens whose communications are accidentally or "incidentally" captured during surveillance of foreign targets. Prior to this point, such intelligence was supposed to be destroyed to protect the constitutional privacy rights the U.S. citizens. However, it's required that names U.S. citizens be hidden or "masked" --even inside U.S. intel agencies --to prevent abuse.

Click here to read "Timeline of alleged sabotage of Trump in 2016 by Democrats and Ukraine."

2012

July 1, 2012: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton improperly uses unsecured, personal email domain to email President Obama from Russia.

2013

June 2013: FBI interviews U.S. businessman Carter Page, who's lived and worked in Russia, regarding his ongoing contacts with Russians. Page reportedly tells FBI agents their time would be better spent investigating Boston Marathon bombing (which the FBI's Andrew McCabe helped lead). Page later claims his remark prompts FBI retaliatory campaign against him. The FBI, under McCabe, will later wiretap Page after Page becomes a Donald Trump campaign adviser.

FBI secretly records suspected Russian industrial spy Evgeny Buryakov . It's later reported that Page helped FBI build the case.

Sept. 4, 2013: James Comey becomes FBI Director, succeeding Robert Mueller.

2014

Russia invades Ukraine. Ukraine steps up hiring of U.S. lobbyists to make its case against Russia and obtain U.S. aid. Russia also continues its practice of using U.S. lobbyists.

Ukraine forms National Anti-Corruption Bureau as a condition to receive U.S. aid. The National Anti-Corruption Bureau later signs evidence-sharing agreement with FBI related to Trump-Russia probe.

Ukrainian-American Alexandra Chalupa, a paid consultant for the Democratic National Committee (DNC), begins researching lobbyist Paul Manafort's Russia ties.

FBI investigates, and then wiretaps, Paul Manafort for allegedly not properly disclosing Russia-related work. FBI fails to make a case, according to CNN, and discontinues wiretap.

August 2014: State Dept. turns over 15,000 pages of documents to Congressional Benghazi committee, revealing former secretary of state Hillary Clinton used private server for government email. Her mishandling of classified info on this private system becomes subject of FBI probe.

2015

FBI opens investigation into Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe, including for donations from a Chinese businessman and Clinton Foundation donor.

FBI official Andrew McCabe meets with Gov. McAuliffe, a close Clinton ally. Afterwards, "McAuliffe-aligned political groups donated about $700,000 to Mr. McCabe's wife for her campaign to become a Democrat state Senator in Virginia." The fact of the McAuliffe-related donations to wife of FBI's McCabe, while FBI was investigating McAuliffe and Clinton later becomes the subject of conflict of interest inquiry by Inspector General.

Feb. 9, 2015: U.S. Senate forms Ukrainian caucus to further Ukrainian interests. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is a member.

March 4, 2015: New York Times breaks news about Clinton's improper handling of classified email as secretary of state.

In internal emails , Clinton campaign chairman (and former Obama adviser) John Podesta suggests Obama withhold Clinton's emails from Congressional Benghazi committee under executive privilege.

March 2015: Attorney General Loretta Lynch privately directs FBI Director James Comey to call FBI Clinton probe a "matter" rather than an "investigation." Comey follows the instruction, though he later testifies that it made him "queasy."

March 7, 2015: President Obama says he first learned of Clinton's improper email practices "through news reports." Clinton campaign staffers privately contradict that claim emailing: "it looks like [President Obama] just said he found out [Hillary Clinton] was using her personal email when he saw it on the news." Clinton aide Cheryl Mills responds, "We need to clean this up, [President Obama] has emails from" Clinton's personal account.

May 19, 2015: Justice Dept. Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs Peter Kadzik emails Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta from a private Gmail account to give him a "heads ups" involving Congressional questions about Clinton email.

Summer 2015: Democratic National Committee computers are hacked.

Sept. 2015: Glenn Simpson, co-founder of political opposition research firm Fusion GPS, is hired by conservative website Washington Free Beacon to compile negative research on presidential candidate Donald Trump and other Republicans.

Oct. 2015: President Obama uses a "confidentiality tradition" to keep his Benghazi emails with Hillary Clinton secret.

Oct. 12, 2015: FBI Director Comey replaces head of FBI Counterintelligence Division at New York Field Office with Louis Bladel.

Oct. 22, 2015: Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) publicly states that Clinton is "not under criminal investigation."

Clinton testifies to House Benghazi committee.

Oct. 23, 2015: Clinton campaign chair John Podesta meets for dinner with small group of friends including a top Justice Dept. official Peter Kadzik.

Late 2015: Democratic operative Chalupa expands her political opposition research about Paul Manafort to include Trump's ties to Russia. She "occasionally shares her findings with officials from the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign."

Dec. 4, 2015: Donald Trump is beating his nearest Republican presidential competitor by 20 points in latest CNN poll .

Dec. 9, 2015: FBI Director Comey replaces head of FBI Counterintelligence Division at Washington Field Office with Charles Kable.

Dec. 23, 2015: FBI Director Comey names Bill Priestap as assistant director of Counterintelligence Division.

2016

Obama officials vastly expand their searches through NSA database for Americans and the content of their communications. In 2013, there were 9,600 searches involving 195 Americans. But in 2016, there are 30,355 searches of 5,288 Americans.

Justice Dept. associate deputy attorney general Bruce Ohr meets with Fusion GPS' Christopher Steele, the Yemen-born ex-British spy leading anti-Trump political opposition research project.

January 2016: Democratic operative Ukrainian-American Chalupa tells a senior Democratic National Committee official that she feels there's a Russia connection with Trump.

Jan. 29, 2016: FBI Director Comey promotes Andrew McCabe to FBI Deputy Director.

McCabe takes lead on Clinton probe even though his wife received nearly $700,000 in campaign donations through Clinton ally Terry McAuliffe, who's also under FBI investigation.

March 2016: Clinton campaign chair John Podesta's email gets hacked.

FBI interviews Carter Page again.

Carter Page is named as one of the Trump campaign's foreign policy advisers.

March 2, 2016: FBI Director Comey replaces head of Intelligence Division of Washington Field Office with Gerald Roberts, Jr.

March 11, 2016: Russian Evgeny Buryakovwhich pleads guilty to spying in FBI case that Carter Page reportedly assisted with.

March 25, 2016: Ukrainian-American operative for Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chalupa meets with top Ukrainian officials at Ukrainian Embassy in Washington D.C. to "expose ties between Trump, top campaign aide Paul Manafort and Russia," according to Politico. Chalupa previously worked for the Clinton administration.

Ukrainian embassy proceeds to work "directly with reporters researching Trump, Manafort and Russia to point them in the right directions," according to an embassy official (though other officials later deny engaging in election-related activities.)

March 29, 2016: Trump campaign hires Paul Manafort as manager of July Republican convention.

March 30, 2016: Ukrainian-American Democratic operative Alexandra Chalupa briefs Democratic National Committee (DNC) staff on Russia ties to Paul Manafort and Trump.

With "DNC's encouragement," Chalupa asks Ukrainian embassy to arrange meeting with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to discuss Manafort's lobbying for Ukraine's former president Viktor Yanukovych. The embassy declines to arrange meeting but becomes "helpful" in trading info and leads.

Ukrainian embassy officials and Democratic operative Chalupa "coordinat[e] an investigation with the Hillary team" into Paul Manafort, according to a source in Politico. This effort reportedly includes working with U.S. media.

April 2016: There's a second breach of Democratic National Committee computers.

Washington Free Beacon breaks off deal with Glenn Simpson's Fusion GPS for political opposition research against Trump.

Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee lawyer Mark Elias and his law firm, Perkins Coie, hire Fusion GPS for anti-Trump political research project.

Ukrainian member of parliament Olga Bielkova reportedly seeks meetings with five dozen members of U.S. Congress and reporters including former New York Times reporter Judy Miller, David Sanger of New York Times, David Ignatius of Washington Post, and Washington Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt.

April 5, 2016: Convicted spy Buryakov is turned over to Russia.

Week of April 6, 2016: Ukrainian-American Democratic operative Chalupa and office of Rep. Mary Kaptur (D-Ohio), co-chair of Congressional Ukrainian Caucus, discuss possible congressional investigation or hearing on Paul Manafort-Russia "by September."

Chalupa begins working with investigative reporter Michael Isikoff, according to her later account.

April 10, 2016: In national TV interview, President Obama states that Clinton did not intend to harm national security when she mishandled classified emails. FBI Director James Comey later concludes that Clinton should not face charges because she did not intend to harm national security.

Around this time, the FBI begins drafting Comey's remarks closing Clinton email investigation, though Clinton had not yet been interviewed.

April 12, 2016:" Ukrainian parliament member Olga Bielkova and a colleague meet" with Sen. John McCain associate David Kramer with the McCain Institute. Bielkova also meets with Liz Zentos of Obama's National Security Council, and State Department official Michael Kimmage.

April 26, 2016: Investigative reporter Michael Isikoff publishes story on Yahoo News about Paul Manafort's business dealings with a Russian oligarch.

April 27, 2016 : The BBC publishes an article titled, "Why Russians Love Donald Trump."

April 28, 2016: Ukrainian-American Democratic operative Chalupa is invited to discuss her research about Paul Manafort with 68 investigative journalists from Ukraine at Library of Congress for Open World Leadership Center, a U.S. congressional agency. Chalupa invites investigative reporter Michael Isikoff to "connect(s) him to the Ukrainians."

After the event, reporter Isikoff accompanies Chalupa to Ukrainian embassy reception.

May 3, 2016: Ukrainian-American Democratic operative Chalupa emails Democratic National Committee (DNC) that she'll share sensitive info about Paul Manafort "offline" including "a big Trump component that will hit in next few weeks."

May 4, 2016: Trump locks up Republican nomination.

May 19, 2016: Paul Manafort is named Trump campaign chair.

May 23, 2016: FBI probe into Virginia governor and Clinton ally Terry McAuliffe becomes public. (McAuliffe is ultimately not charged with a crime.)

Justice Department Inspector General confirms it's looking into FBI's Andrew McCabe for alleged conflicts of interest in handling of Clinton and Gov. McAuliffe probes in light of McAuliffe directing campaign donations to McCabe's wife.

FBI officials Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, who are reportedly having an illicit affair, text each other that Trump's ascension in the campaign will bring "pressure to finish" Clinton probe.

Nellie Ohr, wife of Justice Dept. associate deputy attorney general Bruce Ohr and former CIA worker, goes on the payroll of Fusion GPS and assists with anti-Trump political opposition research. Her husband, Bruce, reportedly fails to disclose her specific employer and work in his Justice Dept. conflict of interest disclosures.

Nellie Ohr applies for a ham radio license.

June 2016: Fusion GPS' Glenn Simpson " hires Yemen-born ex-British spy Christopher Steele for anti-Trump political opposition research project."Steele uses info from Russian sources "close to Putin" to compile unverified "dossier" later provided to reporters and FBI, which the FBI uses to obtain secret wiretap.

The Guardian and Heat Street report that the FBI applied for a FISA warrant in June 2016 to "monitor four members of the Trump team suspected of irregular contacts with Russian officials" but that the "initial request was denied."

June 7, 2016: Hillary Clinton locks up the Democrat nomination.

June 9, 2016: Meeting in Trump Tower includes Donald Trump Jr., Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner with Russian lawyer who said he has political opposition research on Clinton. (No research was ultimately provided.) According to CNN , the FBI has not yet restarted a wiretap against Manafort but will soon do so.

June 10, 2016: Democratic National Committee (DNC) tells employees that its computer system has been hacked. DNC blames Russia but refuses to let FBI examine its systems.

June 15, 2016: "Guccifer 2.0" publishes first hacked document from Clinton campaign chair John Podesta.

June 17, 2016: Washington Post publishes front page story linking Trump to Russia: "Inside Trump's Financial Ties to Russia and His Unusual Flattery of Vladimir Putin."

June 20, 2016: Christopher Steele proposes taking some of Fusion GPS' research about Trump to FBI.

June 22, 2016: WikiLeaks begins publishing embarrassing, hacked emails from Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee.

June 27, 2016: Attorney General Loretta Lynch meets privately with former President Bill Clinton on an airport tarmac in Phoenix, Arizona.

Late June 2016: DCLeaks website begins publishing Democratic National Committee emails.

The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine signs evidence-sharing agreement with FBI and will later publicly release a "ledger" implicating Paul Manafort in allegedly improper payments.

June 30, 2016: FBI circulates internal draft of public remarks for FBI Director Comey to announce closing of Clinton investigation. It refers to Mrs. Clinton's "extensive" use of her personal email, including "from the territory of sophisticated adversaries," and a July 1, 2012 email to President Obama from Russia. The draft concludes it's possible that hostile actors gained access to Clinton's email account.

Comey's remarks are revised to replace reference to "the President" with the phrase: "another senior government official." (That reference, too, is removed from the final draft.)

Attorney General Lynch tells FBI she plans to publicly announce that she'll accept whatever recommendation FBI Director Comey makes regarding charges against Clinton.

July 2016: Ukraine minister of internal affairs Arsen Avakov attacks Trump and Trump campaign adviser Paul Manafort on Twitter and Facebook, calling Trump "an even bigger danger to the US than terrorism."

Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk writes on Facebook that Trump has "challenged the very values of the free world."

Carter Page travels to Russia to give a university commencement address. (Fusion GPS political opposition research would later quote Russian sources as saying Page met with Russian officials, which Page denies under oath and is not proven.)

One-time CIA operative Stefan Halper reportedly begins meetings with Trump advisers Carter Page and George Papadopoulos, secretly gathering information for the FBI. These contacts begin "prior to the date FBI Director Comey later claimed the Russian investigation began."

July 1, 2016: Under fire for meeting with former President Clinton amid the probe into his wife, Attorney General Lynch publicly states she'll " accept whatever FBI Director Comey recommends" without interfering.

FBI official Lisa Page texts her boyfriend, FBI official Peter Strzok, sarcastically commenting that Lynch's proclamation is "a real profile in courage, since she knows no charges will be brought."

Ex-British spy Christopher Steele writes Justice Department official Bruce Ohr that he wants to discuss "our favourite business tycoon!" (apparently referencing Trump.)

July 2, 2016: FBI official Peter Strzok and other agents interview Clinton. They don't record the interview. Two potential subjects of the investigation, Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson, are allowed to attend as Clinton's lawyers.

July 5, 2016: FBI Director Comey recommends no charges against Clinton, though he concludes she's been extremely careless in mishandling of classified information. Comey claims he hasn't coordinated or reviewed his statement in any way with Attorney General Lynch's Justice Department or other government branches. "They do not know what I am about to say," says Comey.

Fusion GPS' Steele, an ex-British spy, approaches FBI at an office in Rome with allegations against Trump, according to Congressional investigators. Justice Dept. official Bruce Ohr schedules a Skype conference call with Steele.

Days after closing Clinton case, FBI official Peter Strzok signs document opening FBI probe into Trump-Russia collusion.

July 10, 2016: Democratic National Committee (DNC) aide Seth Rich, reportedly a Bernie Sanders supporter, is shot twice in the back and killed. Police suspect a bungled robbery attempt, though nothing was apparently stolen. Conspiracy theorists speculate that Rich "not the Russians" had stolen DNC emails after he learned the DNC was unfairly favoring Clinton. The murder remains unsolved.

July 2016: Trump adviser Carter Page makes a business trip to Russia.

FISC (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court) rejects FBI request to wiretap Page.

Obama national security adviser Susan Rice begins to show increased interest in National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence material including "unmasked Americans" identities, according to news reports referring to White House logs.

July 18-21, 2016: Republican National Convention

Late July 2016 : FBI agent Peter Strzok opens counterintelligence investigation based on Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos.

Democratic operative and Ukrainian-American Chalupa leaves the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to work full-time on her research into Manafort, Trump and Russia; and provides off-the-record guidance to "a lot of journalists."

July 22, 2016: WikiLeaks begins publishing hacked Democratic National Committee emails. WikiLeaks' Julian Assange denies the email source is Russian.

July 25-28, 2016 : Democratic National Convention

July 30, 2016 : Justice Dept. official Bruce Ohr meets with ex-British spy Christopher Steele at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington. Ohr brings his wife, Nellie, who -- like Steele -- works at Fusion GPS on the Trump-Russia oppo research project. Ohr calls FBI Deputy Director McCabe.

July 31, 2016 : FBI's Peter Strzok formally begins counterintelligence investigation regarding Russia and Trump. It's dubbed "Crossfire Hurricane."

Aug. 3, 2016: Ohr reportedly meets with McCabe and FBI lawyer Lisa Page to discuss Russia-Trump collusion allegations relayed by ex-British spy Steele. Ohr will later testify to Congress that he considered Steele's information uncorroborated hearsay and that he told FBI agents Steele appeared motivated by a "desperate" desire to keep Trump from becoming president.

Aug. 4, 2016: Ukrainian ambassador to U.S. writes op-ed against Trump.

Aug. 8, 2016: FBI attorney Lisa Page texts her lover, FBI's head of Counterespionage Peter Strzok,"[Trump is] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!" Strzok replies,"No. No he won't. We'll stop it."

Aug. 14, 2016: New York Times breaks story about cash payments made a decade ago to Paul Manafort by pro-Russia interests in Ukraine. The ledger was released and publicized by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine.

Aug. 15, 2016: CNN reports the FBI is conducting an inquiry into Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort's payments from pro-Russia interests in Ukraine in 2007 and 2009.

After a meeting discussing the election in FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe's office, FBI's Counterespionage Chief Peter Strzok texts FBI attorney Lisa Page referring to the possibility of Trump getting elected. "We can't take that risk," he writes. And they speak of needing an "insurance policy."

Aug. 19, 2016: Paul Manafort resigns as Trump campaign chairman.

Ukrainian parliament member Sergii Leshchenko holds news conference to draw attention to Paul Manafort and Trump's "pro-Russia" ties.

Aug. 22, 2016 : Justice Dept. official Bruce Ohr meets with Fusion GPS' Glenn Simpson who identifies several "possible intermediaries" between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Late August 2016:

Reportedly working for the FBI, one-time CIA operative Professor Halper meets with Trump campaign co-chair Sam Clovis offering his services as a foreign-policy adviser, according to The Washington Post. Halper would later offer to hire Carter Page.

Approx. Aug. 2016: FBI initiates a new wiretap against ex-Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort, according to CNN, which extends at least through early 2017.

Sept. 2016: Fusion GPS's Steele becomes FBI source and uses associate deputy attorney general Bruce Ohr as point of contact. Steele tells Ohr that he's "desperate that Donald Trump not get elected."

President Obama warns Russia not to interfere in the U.S. election

Sept. 2, 2016: FBI officials Lisa Page and Peter Strzok text that "[President Obama] wants to know everything we're doing."

Sept. 13, 2016 : The nonprofit First Draft, funded by Google, whose parent company is run by major Hillary Clinton supporter and donor Eric Schmidt, announces initiative to tackle "fake news." It appears to be the first use of the phrase in its modern context.

Sept. 15, 2016: Clinton computer manager Paul Combetta appears before House Oversight Committee but refuses to answer questions, invoking his Fifth Amendment rights.

Sept. 19, 2016: At UN General Assembly meeting, Ukrainian President Poroshenko meets with Hillary Clinton.

Mid-to-late Sept. 2016: Fusion GPS's Christopher Steele's FBI contact tells him the agency wants to see his opposition research "right away" and offers to pay him $50,000, according to the New York Times, for solid corroboration of his salacious, unverified claims. Steele flies to Rome , Italy to meet with FBI and provide a "full briefing."

Sept. 22, 2016: Clinton computer aide Brian Pagliano is held in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with subpoena.

Sept. 23, 2016: It's revealed that Justice Department has granted five Clinton officials immunity from prosecution: former chief of staff Cheryl Mills, State Department staffers John Bentel and Heather Samuelson, and Clinton computer workers Paul Combetta and Brian Pagliano.

Yahoo News publishes report by Michael Isikoff about Carter Page's July 2016 trip to Moscow. (The article is apparently based on leaked info from Fusion GPS Steele anti-Trump "dossier" political opposition research.)

Sept. 25, 2016 : Trump associate Carter Page writes letter to FBI Comey objecting to the so-called "witch hunt" involving him.

Sept. 26, 2016 : Obama administration asks secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) court to allow National Counter Terrorism Center to access sensitive, "unmasked" intel on Americans acquired by FBI and NSA. (The Court later approves the request.)

FBI head of counterespionage Peter Strzok emails his mistress FBI attorney Lisa Page that Carter Page's letter (dated the day before) "...provides us a pretext to interview."

Sept. 27, 2016: Justice Department Assistant Attorney General of National Security Division John Carlin announces he's stepping down. He was former chief of staff and senior counsel to former FBI director Robert Mueller.

End of Sept. 2016: Fusion GPS' Glenn Simpson and Christopher Steele meet with reporters, including New York Times, Washington Post, Yahoo News, the New Yorker and CNN or ABC. One meeting is at office of Democratic National Committee general counsel.

Early October 2016: Fusion GPS' Christopher Steele, the Yemen-born author of anti-Trump "dossier," meets in New York with David Corn, Washington-bureau chief of Mother Jones.

According to The Guardian, the FBI submits a more narrowly focused FISA wiretap request to replace one turned down in June to monitor four Trump associates.

Oct. 3, 2016: FBI seizes computers belonging to Anthony Weiner, who is accused of sexually texting an underage girl. Weiner is married to top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin. FBI learns there are Clinton emails on Weiner's laptop but waits several weeks before notifying Congress and reopening investigation.

Oct. 4, 2016: FBI Director Comey replaces head of Counterintelligence Division, New York Field Office with Charles McGonigal.

Oct. 7, 2016: Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Department of Homeland Security issue statement saying Russian government is responsible for hacking Democrat emails to disrupt 2016 election.

Oct. 13, 2016: President Obama gives a speech in support of the crackdown on "fake news" by stating that somebody needs to step in and "curate" information in the "wild, wild West media environment."

Oct. 14, 2016: FBI head of counterespionage Peter Strzok emails his mistress FBI attorney Lisa Page discussing talking points to convince FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to persuade a high-ranking Dept. of Justice official to sign a warrant to wiretap Trump associate Carter Page. The email subject line is "Crossfire FISA." "Crossfire Hurricane" was one of the code names for four separate investigations the FBI conducted related to Russia matters in the 2016 election.

"At a minimum, that keeps the hurry the F up pressure on him," Strzok emailed Lisa Page less than four weeks before Election Day.

Mid-Oct. 2016: Fusion GPS' Steele again briefs reporters about Trump political opposition research. The reporters are from the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Yahoo News.

Oct. 16, 2016: Mary McCord is named Assistant Attorney General for Justice Department National Security Division.

Oct. 18, 2016: President Obama advises Trump to "stop whining" after Trump tweeted the election could be rigged. "There is no serious person out there who would suggest somehow that you could even you could even rig America's elections," said Obama. He also calls Trump's "flattery" of Russian president Putin "unprecedented."

In FBI emails, head of counterespionage Peter Strzok and his mistress FBI lawyer Lisa Page discuss rushing approval for a FISA warrant for a Russia-related investigation code-named "Dragon."

Oct. 19, 2016: Ex-British spy Christopher Steele writes his last memo for anti-Trump "dossier" political opposition research provided to FBI. The FBI reportedly authorizes payment to Steele. Fusion GPS has reportedly paid him $160,000.

Approx. Oct. 21, 2016: For the second time in several months, Justice Department and FBI apply to wiretap former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates sign the application. This time, the request is approved based on new FBI "evidence" including parts of Fusion GPS' "Steele dossier" and Michael Isikoff Yahoo article. The FBI doesn't tell the court that Trump's political opponent, the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, funded the "evidence."

Oct. 24, 2016: Benjamin Wittes, confidant of FBI Director James Comey and editor-in-chief of the blog Lawfare, writes of the need for an "insurance policy" in case Trump wins. It's the same phrase FBI officials Lisa Page and Peter Strzok had used when discussing the possibility of a Trump win.

Obama intel officials orally inform Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of an earlier Inspector General review uncovering their "significant noncompliance" in following proper "702" procedures safeguarding the National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence database with sensitive info on US citizens.

Late Oct. 2016: Fusion GPS' Steele again briefs reporter from Mother Jones by Skype about Trump political opposition research.

Oct. 26, 2016: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court holds hearing with Obama intel officials over their "702" surveillance violations. The judge criticizes NSA for "institutional lack of candor" and states "this is a very serious Fourth Amendment issue."

Oct. 28, 2016: FBI Director Comey notifies Congress that he's reopening Clinton probe due to Clinton emails found on Anthony Wiener laptop several weeks earlier.

Oct. 30, 2016: Mother Jones writer David Corn is first to report on the anti-Trump "dossier," quoting unidentified former spy, presumed to be Christopher Steele. FBI general counsel James Baker had reportedly been in touch with Corn but Corn later denies Baker was the leaker.

FBI terminates its relationship with Steele because Steele had leaked his FBI involvement in Mother Jones article.

Steele reportedly maintains backchannel contact with Justice Dept. through Deputy Associate Attorney General Bruce Ohr.

Oct. 31, 2016: New York Times reports FBI is investigating Trump and found no illicit connections to Russia.

Nov. 1, 2016: FBI concludes ex-British spy Christopher Steele, who compiled anti-Trump "dossier" using Russian sources, leaked to press and is not suitable for use as a confidential source. However, Steele continues to "help," according to Jan. 31, 2017 texts to Justice Dept. official Bruce Ohr.

Nov. 3, 2016: FBI Attorney Lisa Page texts FBI's Peter Strzok about her concerns that Clinton might lose and Trump would become president: "The [New York Times] probability numbers are dropping every day. I'm scared for our organization."

Nov. 6, 2016: FBI Director Comey tells Congress that Clinton emails on Anthony Weiner computer do not change earlier conclusion: she should not be charged.

Nov. 8, 2016: Trump is elected president.

Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice's interest in NSA materials accelerates, according to later news reports.

Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr meets with Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson shortly after election.

The FBI interviews Ohr about his ongoing contacts with Fusion GPS.

Nov. 9, 2016: An unnamed FBI attorney (later quoted in Dept. of Justice Inspector General probe) texts another FBI employee, "I'm just devastated...I just can't imagine the systematic disassembly of the progress we made over the last 8 years. ACA is gone. Who knows if the rhetoric about deporting people, walls, and crap is true. I honestly feel like there is going to be a lot more gun issues, too, the crazies won finally. This is the tea party on steroids. And the GOP is going to be lost, they have to deal with an incumbent in 4 years. We have to fight this again. Also Pence is stupid....Plus, my god damned name is all over the legal documents investigating [Trump's] staff."

Nov. 10, 2016 : Emails imply top FBI officials, including Peter Strzok, Andrew McCabe and Bill Priestap engaged in a new mission to "scrub" or research lists of associates of President-elect Trump, looking for potential "derogatory" information.

President Obama meets with President-elect Trump in the White House and reportedly advises Trump not to hire Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.

Nov. 2016: National Security Agency Mike Rogers meets with president-elect Trump and is criticized for "not telling the Obama administration."

Nov. 17, 2016: Trump moves his Friday presidential team meetings out of Trump Tower.

Nov. 18, 2016: Trump names Flynn his national security adviser. Over the next few weeks, Flynn communicates with numerous international leaders.

Nov. 18-20, 2016: Sen. John McCain and his longtime adviser, David Kramer--an ex-U.S. State Dept. official--attend a security conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia where former UK ambassador to Russia Sir Andrew Wood tells them about the Fusion GPS anti-Trump dossier. (Kramer is affiliated with the anti-Russia "Ukraine Today" media organization). They discuss confirming the info has reached top levels of FBI for action.

Nov. 21, 2016 : Justice Dept. official Bruce Ohr, works for Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, meets with FBI officials including Peter Strzok, Strzok's girlfriend--FBI attorney Lisa Page, and another agent. Ohr's notes indicate the FBI "may go back to [ex-British spy] Chris Steele" of Fusion GPS just 20 days after dismissing him.

Nov. 28, 2016: Sen. McCain associate David Kramer flies to London to meet Christopher Steele for a briefing on the anti-Trump research. Afterward, Fusion GPS' Glenn Simpson gives Sen. McCain a copy of the "dossier." Steele also passes anti-Trump info to top UK government official in charge of national security. Sen. McCain soon arranges a meeting with FBI Director Comey.

Late Nov. 2016: Justice Dept. official Bruce Ohr officially tells FBI about his contacts with Fusion GPS' Christopher Steele and about Ohr's wife's contract work for Fusion GPS.

Nov. 30, 2016 : UN Ambassador Samantha Power makes request to unmask the name of Trump National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who was "incidentally" captured by intel surveillance.

Dec. 2016: Text messages between FBI officials Strzok and Page are later said to be "lost" due to a technical glitch beginning at this point.

Dec. 2, 2016: UN Ambassador Samantha Power and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper request to unmask the name of Trump National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who was "incidentally" captured by intel surveillance.

Dec. 6, 2016: Two more Obama administration officials request to unmask the name of Flynn.

Dec. 7, 2016 : Power makes another Flynn unmasking request.

Dec. 8 or 9, 2016: Sen. John McCain meets with FBI Director Comey at FBI headquarters and hands over Fusion GPS anti-Trump research, elevating the FBI's investigation into the matter. The FBI compiles a classified two-page summary and attaches it to intel briefing note on Russian cyber-interference in election for President Obama .

Hillary Clinton makes a public appearance denouncing "fake news."

Hillary Clinton and Democratic operative David Brock of Media Matters announces he's leaving board of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), one of his many propaganda and liberal advocacy groups, to focus on "fake news" effort.

Brock later claims credit, privately to donors, for convincing Facebook to crack down on conservative fake news.

Dec. 14, 2017 : There are 10 more requests to unmask Flynn's name in intelligence, including two by Power, CIA Director Brennan, and six officials from the Treasury Dept.

Dec. 15, 2016: Obama intel officials "incidentally" spy on Trump officials meeting with the United Arab Emirates crown prince in Trump Tower. This is taken to mean the government was wiretapping the prince and "happened to capture" Trump officials communicating with him at Trump Tower. Identities of Americans accidentally captured in such surveillance are strictly protected or "masked" inside intel agencies for constitutional privacy reasons.

Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice secretly "unmasks" names of the Trump officials, officially revealing their identities. They reportedly include: Steve Bannon, Jared Kushner and Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.

Director of National Intelligence Clapper expands rules to allow the National Security Agency (NSA) to widely disseminate classified surveillance material within the government. The same day, 17 Obama officials request the unmasking of Lt. Gen. Flynn in intelligence.

Dec. 16, 2016 : Five more Obama officials request unmasking of intelligence materials regarding Lt. Gen. Flynn.

Dec. 23, 2016 : Power request another Flynn unmasking.

Dec. 28, 2016 :

Lt. Gen. Flynn speaks with Russia ambassador.

Clapper and the U.S. Ambassador to Turkey request Flynn unmasking.

Dec. 29, 2016: President Obama imposes sanctions against Russia for its alleged election interference.

President-elect Trump national security adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn speaks with Russian Ambassador to U.S. Sergey Kislyak. The calls are wiretapped by U.S. intelligence and later leaked to the press.

State Department releases 2,800 work-related emails from Huma Abedin, a top aide to Hillary Clinton, found by FBI on laptop computer of Abedin's husband, former Rep. Anthony Weiner.

2017

Jan. 2017: According to CNN: a wiretap reportedly continues against former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort, including times he speaks to Trump, meaning U.S. intel officials could have "accidentally" captured Trump's communications.

Justice Dept. Inspector General confirms it's investigating several aspects of FBI and Justice Department actions during Clinton probe.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testifies to Congress that Russia interfered in U.S. elections by spreading fake news on social media.

Justice Dept. official Peter Kadzik, who "tipped off" Hillary Clinton campaign regarding Congressional questions about Clinton's email, leaves government work for private practice.

The FBI interviews a main source of Christopher Steele's "dossier" and learns the information was merely bar room gossip and rumor never meant to be taken as fact or submitted to the FBI and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to wiretap Carter Page. (The FBI does not notify the court and applies for, and receives, another wiretap against Page).

Early Jan. 2017: FBI renews wiretap against Carter Page. FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates again sign the application.

Jan. 3, 2017: Obama Attorney General Lynch signs rules Director of National Intelligence Clapper expanded Dec. 15 allowing the National Security Agency (NSA) to widely disseminate surveillance within the government.

Jan. 5, 2017: Intelligence Community leadership including FBI Director Comey, Yates, CIA Director John Brennan and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, provides classified briefing to President Obama, Vice President Biden and National Security Adviser Susan Rice on alleged Russia hacking during 2016 campaign, according to notes later written by national security adviser Susan Rice.

After briefing, according notes made later by Rice, President Obama convenes Oval Office meeting with her, FBI Director Comey, Vice President Biden and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates. The "Steele dossier" is reportedly discussed. Also reportedly discussed: Trump National Security Adviser Flynn's talks with Russia's ambassador.

Jan. 6, 2017: FBI Director Comey and other Intel leaders meet with President-Elect Trump and his national security team at Trump Tower in New York to brief them on alleged Russian efforts to interfere in the election.

Later, Obama national security adviser Susan Rice would write herself an email stating that President Obama suggested they hold back on providing Trump officials with certain info for national security reasons.

After Trump team briefing, FBI Director Comey meets alone with Trump to "brief him" on Fusion GPS Steele allegations "to alert the incoming President to the existence of this material," even though it was salacious and unverified. Comey later says Director of National Intelligence Clapper asked him (Comey) to do the briefing personally.

Jan. 7, 2017 : Clapper and two other Obama administration officials request Flynn unmasking.

Jan. 10, 2017: The 35-page Fusion GPS anti-Trump "dossier" is leaked to the media and published. It reveals that sources of the unverified info are Russians close to President Putin.

Email written by FBI head of counterespionage Peter Strzok indicates the FBI has been given the anti-Trump "dossier" by at least 3 different anti-Trump sources.

A CIA official makes a Flynn unmasking request.

Jan. 11, 2017 : Power makes another Flynn unmasking request.

Jan. 12, 2017: Obama administration finalizes new rules allowing NSA to spread "certain intel to" other U.S. intel agencies without normal privacy protections.

Justice Dept. inspector general announces review of alleged misconduct by FBI Director Comey and other matters related to FBI's Clinton probe as well as FBI leaks.

Vice President Joe Biden and the Treasury Secretary request the unmasking of Flynn in intelligence communications.

Someone leaks to to David Ignatius of the Washington Post that Trump National Security Adviser Flynn had called Russia's ambassador. "What did Flynn say, and did it undercut the US sanctions?" asked Ignatius in the article.

Jan. 13, 2017: Senate Intelligence Committee opens investigation into Russia and U.S. political campaign officials.

Jan. 15, 2017: After leaks about Flynn's call with Russia's ambassador, Vice President-elect Mike Pence tells the press that Flynn did not discuss U.S. sanctions on the call.

Jan. 20, 2017: Trump becomes president.

Fifteen minutes after Trump becomes president, former National Security Adviser Susan Rice emails memo to herself purporting to summarize the Jan. 5 Oval Office meeting with President Obama and other top officials. She states that Obama instructed the group to investigate "by the book" and asked them to be mindful whether there were certain things that "could not be fully shared with the incoming administration."

Jan. 22, 2017: Intel info leaks to Wall Street Journal which reports "US counterintelligence agents have investigated communications" between Trump aide Gen. Michael Flynn and Russia ambassador to the U.S. Kislyak to determine if any laws were violated.

Jan. 23, 2017: Leak to Washington Post falsely claims Trump National Security Adviser Flynn is not the subject of an investigation.

Jan. 24, 2017: Acting Attorney General Sally Yates sends two FBI agents, including Peter Strzok, to the White House to question Gen. Flynn. FBI Director Comey later takes credit for "sending a couple of guys" to interview Flynn, circumventing normal processes.

Notes kept hidden until May 2020 show FBI officials discussing whether the goal of the meeting with Flynn was to "get him to lie" so that he would be fired or prosecuted.

Jan. 26, 2017: Acting Attorney General Sally Yates and a high-ranking colleague go to White House to tell counsel Don McGahn that Flynn had lied to Pence about the content of his talks with Russian ambassador and "the underlying conduct that Gen. Flynn had engaged in was problematic in and of itself."

Jan. 27, 2017: Acting Attorney General Sally Yates again visits the White House.

Jan. 31, 2017: President Trump fires Acting Attorney General Sally Yates after she refuses to enforce his temporary travel ban on Muslims coming into U.S. from certain countries.

Ex-British spy Christopher Steele texts Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr who worked for Yates: "B, doubtless a sad and crazy day for you re- SY."

Dana Boente becomes Acting Attorney General. (It's later revealed that Boente signed at least one wiretap application against former Trump adviser Carter Page.)

Feb. 2, 2017: It's reported that five men employed by House of Representatives Democrats, including leader Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Florida), are under criminal investigation for allegedly "accessing House IT systems without lawmakers' knowledge." Suspects include three Awan brothers "who managed office information technology for members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and other lawmakers."

Feb. 3, 2017: A Russian tech mogul named in the Steele "dossier" files defamation lawsuits against BuzzFeed in the U.S. and Christopher Steele in the U.K. over the dossier's claims he interfered in U.S. elections.

Feb. 8, 2017: Jeff Sessions becomes Attorney General and Dana Boente moves to Deputy Attorney General.

Feb. 9, 2017: News of FBI wiretaps capturing Trump national security adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn speaking with Russia's ambassador is leaked to the press. New York Times and Washington Post report Flynn discussed U.S. sanctions, despite his earlier denials. The Post also reports the FBI "found nothing illicit" in the talks. The Post headline in an article by Greg Miller, Adam Entous and Ellen Nakashima reads, "National Security Adviser Flynn Discussed Sanctions with Russian Ambassador, Despite Denials, Officials Say."

Feb. 13, 2017 : Washington Post reports Justice Dept. has opened a "Logan Act" violation investigation against Trump national security adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.

Feb. 14, 2017: New York Times reports that FBI had told Obama officials there was no "quid pro quo" (promise of a deal in exchange for some action) discussed between Gen. Flynn and Russian ambassador Kislyak.

Gen. Flynn resigns, allegedly acknowledging he misled vice president Mike Pence about the content of his discussions with Russia.

Comey says that, in a meeting, Trump states, "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go." Comey says he replies "he is a good guy." Trump later takes issue with Comey's characterization of the meeting.

Feb. 15, 2017 : NPR reports on "official transcripts of Flynn's calls" (saying they show no wrongdoing but that doesn't rule out illegal activity).

Feb. 17, 2017: Washington Post reports that "Flynn told FBI he did not discuss sanctions" with Russia ambassador and that "Lying to the FBI is a felony offense."

Feb. 24, 2017 : FBI interviews Flynn, according to later testimony from Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates.

March 1, 2017: Washington Post reports Attorney General Jeff Sessions has met with Russian ambassador twice in the recent past (as did many Democrat and Republican officials). His critics say that contradicts his earlier testimony to Congress. The article by Adam Entous, Ellen Nakashima and Greg Miller raises the idea of a special counsel to investigate.

March 2017: FBI Director James Comey gives private briefings to members of Congress and reportedly says he does not believe Gen. Flynn lied to FBI.

House Intelligence Committee requests list of unmasking requests Obama officials made. The intel agencies do not provide the information, prompting a June 1 subpoena.

March 2, 2017: Attorney General Jeff Sessions recuses himself from Russia-linked investigations.

Rod Rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney General, becomes Acting Attorney General for Russia Probe. It's later revealed that Rosenstein singed at least one wiretap application against former Trump adviser Carter Page.

March 4, 2017: President Trump tweets: "Is it legal for a sitting President to be 'wire tapping' a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!" and "How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!"

March 10, 2017: Former Congressman Dennis Kucinich, a Democrat, steps forward to support Trump's wiretapping claim, revealing that the Obama administration intel officials recorded his own communications with a Libyan official in Spring 2011.

March 14, 2017 : FBI Attorney Lisa Page texts FBI official Peter Strzok: "Finally two pages away from finishing [All the President's Men]. Did you know the president resigns in the end?!" Strzok replies, "What?!?! God, that we should be so lucky. [smiley face emoji]"

March 20, 2017 : FBI Director Comey tells House Intelligence Committee he has "no information that supports" the President's tweets about alleged wiretapping directed at him by the prior administration. "We have looked carefully inside the FBI," Comey says. "(T)he answer is the same for the Department of Justice and all its components."

FBI Director Comey tells Congress there is "salacious and unverified" material in the Fusion GPS dossier used by FBI, in part, to obtain Carter Page wiretap. (Under FBI "Woods Procedures," only facts carefully verified by the FBI are allowed to be presented to court to obtain wiretaps.)

March 22, 2017: Chairman of House Intelligence Committee Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) publicly announces he's seen evidence of Trump associates being "incidentally" surveilled by Obama intel officials; and their names being "unmasked" and illegally leaked. Nunes briefs President Trump and holds a news conference. He's criticized for doing so. An ethics investigation is opened into his actions but later clears him of wrongdoing.

In an interview on PBS, former Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice responds to Nunes allegations by stating: "I know nothing about this, I really don't know to what Chairman Nunes was referring." (She later acknowledges unmasking names of Trump associates.)

March 2017: Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) writes Justice Dept. accusing Fusion GPS of acting as an agent for Russia "without properly registering" due to its pro-Russia effort to kill a law allowing sanctions against foreign human rights violators. Fusion GPS denies the allegations.

March 24, 2017: Fusion GPS declines to answer Sen. Grassley's questions or document requests.

March 27, 2017: Former Deputy Asst. Secretary of Defense Evelyn Farkas admits she encouraged Obama and Congressional officials to "get as much information as they can" about Russia and Trump officials before inauguration. "That's why you have the leaking," she told MSNBC.

Early April, 2017: A third FBI wiretap on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page is approved. Again, FBI Director James Comey, and acting attorney general Dana Boente sign the application. Trump officials including Mike Pompeo at the CIA are now leading the intel agencies during the wiretap.

April 3, 2017: Multiple news reports state that Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice had requested and reviewed "unmasked" intelligence on Trump associates whose information was "incidentally" collected by intel agencies.

April 4, 2017: Obama former National Security Adviser Rice admits, in an interview, that she asked to reveal names of U.S. citizens previously masked in intel reports. She says her motivations were not political. When asked if she leaked names, Rice states, "I leaked nothing to nobody."

April 6, 2017: House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes recuses himself from Russia part of his committee's investigation.

April 11, 2017: FBI Director Comey appoints Stephen Laycock as special agent in charge of Counterintelligence Division for Washington Field Office.

Washington Post reports FBI secretly obtained wiretap against Trump campaign associate Carter Page last summer. (Later, it's revealed the summer wiretap had been turned down, but a subsequent application was approved in October.)

April 20, 2017: Acting Assistant Attorney General Mary McCord resigns as acting head of Justice Dept. National Security Division. She'd led probes of Russia interference in election and Trump-Russia ties.

April 28, 2017: Dana Boente is appointed acting assistant attorney general for national security division to replace Mary McCord. (Boente has signed one of the questioned wiretap applications for Carter Page.)

National Security Agency (NSA) submits remedies for its egregious surveillance violations (revealed last October) to Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court promising to "no longer collect certain internet communications that merely mention a foreign intelligence target." The NSA also begins deleting collected data on U.S. citizens it had been storing.

May 3, 2017: FBI Director Comey testifies he's "mildly nauseous" at the idea he might have affected election with the 11th hour Clinton email notifications to Congress.

Comey also testifies he's "never" been an anonymous news source on "matters relating to" investigating the Trump campaign.

Obama's former national security adviser Susan Rice declines Republican Congressional request to testify at a hearing about unmaskings and surveillance.

May 8, 2017: Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testify to Congress. They admit having reviewed "classified documents in which Mr. Trump, his associates or members of Congress had been unmasked," and possibly discussing it with others under the Obama administration.

May 9, 2017: President Trump fires FBI Director James Comey. Andrew McCabe becomes acting FBI Director.

May 12, 2017: Benjamin Wittes, confidant of ex-FBI Director James Comey and editor in chief of Lawfare, contacts New York Times reporter Mike Schmidt to leak conversations he'd had with Comey as FBI Director that are critical of President Trump.

May 16, 2017: New York Times publishes leaked account of FBI memoranda recorded by former FBI Director James Comey. Comey later acknowledges engineering the leak of the FBI material through his friend, Columbia Law School professor Daniel Richman, to spur appointment of special counsel to investigate President Trump.

Trump reportedly interviews , but passes over, former FBI Director Robert Mueller for position of FBI Director.

May 17, 2017: Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appoints Robert Mueller as Special Counsel, Russia-Trump probe. Mueller and former FBI Director Comey are friends and worked closely together in previous Justice Dept. and FBI positions.

The gap of missing text messages between FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page ends. The couple is soon assigned to the Mueller team investigating Trump.

May 19, 2017: Anthony Wiener, former Congressman and husband of Hillary Clinton confidant Huma Abedin, turns himself in to FBI in case of underage sexting ; his third major kerfuffle over sexting in six years.

May 22, 2017 : FBI Counterespionage Chief Peter Strzok texts FBI Attorney Lisa Page about whether Strzok should join Special Counsel Mueller's investigation of Trump-Russia collusion. Strzok spoke of "unfinished business" that he "unleashed" with the Clinton classified email probe and stated: "Now I need to fix it and finish it." He also referred to the Special Counsel probe, which hadn't yet begun in earnest, as an "investigation leading to impeachment." But he also stated he had a "gut sense and concern there's no big there there."

June 1, 2017: House Intelligence Committee issues 7 subpoenas, including for information related to unmaskings requested by ex-Obama officials national security adviser Susan Rice, former CIA Director John Brennan, and former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power.

June 8, 2017: Former FBI Director James Comey admits having engineered leak of his own memo to New York Times to spur appointment of a special counsel to investigate President Trump.

June 20, 2017: Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe names Philip Celestini as Special Agent in Charge of the Intelligence Division, Washington Field Office.

Late June, 2017: FBI renews wiretap against Carter Page for the fourth and final time that we know of. It lasts through late Sept. 2017. (Page is never ultimately charged with a crime.) FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein sign the renewal application.

Late July, 2017: FBI reportedly searches Paul Manafort's Alexandria, Virginia home.

Summer 2017: FBI lawyer Lisa Page is reassigned from Mueller investigation. Her boyfriend, FBI official Peter Strzok is removed from Mueller investigation after the Inspector General discovers compromising texts between Strzok and Page. Congress is not notified of the developments.

Aug. 2, 2017: Christopher Wray is named FBI Director.

August 2017: Ex-FBI Director Comey signs a book deal for a reported $2 million.

Sept. 13, 2017: Under questioning from Congress, Obama's former National Security Adviser Susan Rice reportedly admits having requested to see the protected identities of Trump transition officials "incidentally" captured by government surveillance.

Approx. Oct. 10, 2017: Former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos pleads guilty to lying to FBI about his unsuccessful efforts during the campaign to facilitate meetings between Trump officials and Russian officials.

Oct. 17, 2017: Obama's former U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power reportedly tells Congressional investigators that many of the hundreds of "unmasking" requests in her name during the election year were not made by her.

Oct. 24, 2017: Congressional Republicans announce new investigations into a 2010 acquisition that gave Russia control of 20% of U.S. uranium supply while Clinton was secretary of state; and FBI decision not to charge Clinton in classified info probe.

Oct. 30, 2017: Special Counsel Mueller charges ex-Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and business associate Rick Gates with tax and money laundering crimes related to their foreign work. The charges do not appear related to Trump.

Nov. 2, 2017: Carter Page testifies to House Intelligence committee under oath without an attorney and asks to have the testimony published. He denies ever meeting the Russian official that Fusion GPS claimed he'd met with in July 2016.

Nov. 5, 2017: Special Counsel Robert Mueller files charges against ex-Trump national security adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn for allegedly lying to FBI official Peter Strzok about contacts with Russian ambassador during presidential transition.

Dec. 1, 2017: Former national security adviser Gen. Flynn pleads guilty of lying to the FBI. Prosecutors recommend no prison time (but later reverse their recommendation).

James Rybicki steps down as chief of staff to FBI Director.

Dec. 6, 2017: Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr is reportedly stripped of one of his positions at Justice Dept. amid controversy over his and his wife's role in anti-Trump political opposition research.

Dec. 7, 2017: FBI Director Wray incorrectly testifies that there have been no "702" surveillance abuses by the government.

Dec. 19, 2017: FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe repeatedly testifies that the wiretap against Trump campaign official Carter Page would not have been approved without the Fusion GPS info. FBI general counsel James Baker, who is himself subject of an Inspector General probe over his alleged leaks to the press, attends as McCabe's attorney. McCabe acknowledges that if Baker had met with Mother Jones reporter David Corn, it would have been inappropriate.

FBI general counsel James Baker is reassigned amid investigation into his alleged anti-Trump related contacts with media.

2018

Jan. 4, 2018: Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) refer criminal charges against Christopher Steele to the FBI for investigation. There's an apparent conflict of interest with the FBI being asked to investigate Steele since the FBI has used Steele's controversial political opposition research to obtain wiretaps.

Jan. 8, 2018: Justice Dept. official Bruce Ohr loses his second title at the agency.

Jan. 10, 2018: Donald Trump lawyer Michael Cohen files defamation suits against Fusion GPS and BuzzFeed News for publishing the "Steele dossier," which he says falsely claimed he met Russian government officials in Prague, Czech Republic, in August of 2016.

Jan. 11, 2018: House of Representatives approves government's controversial "702" wireless surveillance authority. The Senate follows suit.

Jan. 19, 2018: Justice Dept. produces to Congress some text messages between FBI officials Lisa Page and Peter Strzok but states that FBI lost texts between December 14, 2016 and May 17, 2017 due to a technical glitch.

President Trump signs six-year extension of "702" wireless surveillance authority.

Jan. 23, 2018: Former FBI Director Comey friend who leaked on behalf of Comey to New York Times to spur appointment of special counsel is now Comey's attorney.

Jan. 25, 2018: Justice Dept. Inspector General notifies Congress it has recovered missing text messages between FBI officials Lisa Page and Peter Strzok.

Jan. 27, 2018: Edward O'Callaghan is named Acting Assistant Attorney General, National Security Division.

Jan. 29, 2018: Andrew McCabe steps down as Deputy FBI Director ahead of his March retirement.

Jan. 30, 2018: News reports allege that Justice Department Inspector General is looking into why FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe appeared to wait three weeks before acting on new Clinton emails found right before the election.

Feb. 2, 2018: House Intelligence Committee (Nunes) Republican memo is released. It summarizes classified documents revealing for the first time that Fusion GPS political opposition research was used, in part, to justify Carter Page wiretap; along with Michael Isikoff Yahoo News article based on the same opposition research.

Memo also states that Fusion GPS set up back channel to FBI through Nellie Ohr, who conducted opposition research on Trump and passed it to her husband, associate deputy attorney general Bruce Ohr.

Feb. 7, 2018: Justice Department official David Laufman, who helped oversee the Clinton and Russia probes, steps down as chief of National Security Division's Counterintelligence and Export Control Section.

Feb. 9, 2018: Former FBI Director Comey assistant Josh Campbell leaves FBI for job at CNN.

Justice Department Associate Attorney General, Office of Legal Policy, Rachel Brand, resigns.

Feb. 16, 2018: Special counsel Mueller obtains guilty plea from a Dutch attorney for lying to federal investigators about the last time he spoke to Rick Gates regarding a 2012 project related to Ukraine. The plea does not appear to relate to 2016 campaign or Trump. The Dutch attorney is married to the daughter of a Russian oligarch who's suing Buzzfeed and Christopher Steele for alleged defamation in the "dossier."

Feb. 22, 2018: Former State Dept. official and Sen. John McCain associate David Kramer invokes his Fifth Amendment right not to testify before House Intelligence Committee. Kramer reportedly picked up the anti-Trump political opposition research in London and delivered it to Sen. McCain who delivered it to the FBI.

Special counsel Mueller files new charges against former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and former campaign aide Rick Gates, accusing them of additional tax and bank fraud crimes. The allegations appear to be unrelated to Trump.

Fri. Feb. 23, 2018: Former Trump campaign aide Rick Gates, pleads guilty to conspiracy and lying to investigators (though he issues a statement saying he's innocent of the indictment charges). The allegations and plea have no apparent link to Trump-Russia campaign collusion.

Sat. Feb. 24, 2018: Democrats on House Intel Committee release their rebuttal memo to the Republican version that summarized alleged FBI misconduct re: using the GPS Fusion opposition research to get wiretap against Carter Page.

March 12, 2018 : House Intelligence Committee closes Russia-Trump investigation with no evidence of collusion.

Fri. March 16, 2018 : Attorney General Jeff Sessions fires Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, based on recommendation from FBI ethics investigators.

Thurs. March 22, 2018 : President Trump announces plans to replace National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster with former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton.

House Judiciary Committee issues subpoenas to Department of Justice after Department failed to produce documents.

May 4, 2018 : Amid allegations that he was responsible for improper leaks, FBI attorney James Baker resigns and joins the Brookings Institution, writing for the anti-Trump blog "Lawfare" that first discussed the need for an "insurance policy" in case Trump got elected.

2019

March 2019 : Special Counsel Robert Mueller signs off on his final report stating that there was no collusion or coordination between Trump -- or any American -- and Russia. He leaves as an open question the issue of whether Trump took any actions that could be considered obstruction. No new charges are recommended or filed with the issuance of the report.

June 2019 : Former Trump National Security Adviser Flynn fire his defense attorneys and hires Sidney Powell.

Oct. 25, 2019 : Flynn files a motion to dismiss the case against him due to prosecutorial misconduct. Among other claims, Flynn says prosecutors failed to turn over exculpatory material tending to show his innocence. Prosecutors claim they were not required to turn over the information.

Dec. 19, 2019 : An investigation by Inspector General Michael Horowitz finds egregious abuses by FBI and Justice Department officials in obtaining wiretaps of former Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page. The report also says an FBI attorney doctored a document, providing false information to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, to get the wiretaps.

2020

Jan. 7, 2020 : Prosecutors reverse their earlier recommendation for no prison time, and ask for up to six months in prison for Flynn.

Jan. 16, 2020 : Flynn files a motion to withdraw his guilty plea.

Jan. 23, 2020 : The Dept. of Justice finds that two of its wiretaps against former Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page were improperly obtained and are therefore invalid.

Feb. 10, 2020: The Dept. of Justice asks a judge to sentence Trump associate Roger Stone to 7 to 9 years in prison for lying about his communications with WikiLeaks.

Feb. 11, 2020 : The Dept. of Justice reduces its recommendation for prison time for Stone after President Trump and others criticized the initial representation as excessive. Stone receives three years and four months in prison.

Feb. 20, 2020: President Trump appoints Richard Grenell as acting Director of National Intelligence. Grenell begins facilitating the release of long withheld documents regarding FBI actions against Trump campaign associates.

March 31, 2020 : A Justice Dept. Inspector General's analysis of more than two dozen wiretap applications from eight FBI field offices over two months finds "we do not have confidence" that the bureau followed standards to ensure the accuracy of the wiretap requests.

April 3, 2020 : Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court asks FBI to review whether it wiretaps are valid in light of information about problems and abuses.

April 29, 2020 : Newly-released documents show FBI officials, prior to their original interview with Flynn, discussing whether the goal was to try to get him to lie to get him fired or so that he could be prosecuted.

May 7, 2020 : The Department of Justice announces a decision to drop the case against Flynn.

* * *

Order "Slanted: How the News Media Taught Us to Love Censorship and Hate Journalism" by Sharyl Attkisson at Harper Collins , Amazon , Barnes & Noble , Books a Million , IndieBound , Bookshop !

[May 15, 2020] No Proof That Russia Hacked DNC - Democrats Hid Sworn CrowdStrike Testimony For Over 2 Years

May 15, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

No Proof That Russia Hacked DNC - Democrats Hid Sworn CrowdStrike Testimony For Over 2 Years by Tyler Durden Fri, 05/15/2020 - 14:10 Authored by Aaron Maté via RealClearInvestigations.com,

CrowdStrike, the private cyber-security firm that first accused Russia of hacking Democratic Party emails and served as a critical source for U.S. intelligence officials in the years-long Trump-Russia probe, acknowledged to Congress more than two years ago that it had no concrete evidence that Russian hackers stole emails from the Democratic National Committee's server.

Crowdstrike President Shawn Henry: "We just don't have the evidence..."

CrowdStrike President Shawn Henry's admission under oath, in a recently declassified December 2017 interview before the House Intelligence Committee, raises new questions about whether Special Counsel Robert Mueller, intelligence officials and Democrats misled the public. The allegation that Russia stole Democratic Party emails from Hillary Clinton, John Podesta and others and then passed them to WikiLeaks helped trigger the FBI's probe into now debunked claims of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia to steal the 2016 election. The CrowdStrike admissions were released just two months after the Justice Department retreated from its its other central claim that Russia meddled in the 2016 election when it dropped charges against Russian troll farms it said had been trying to get Trump elected.

Henry personally led the remediation and forensics analysis of the DNC server after being warned of a breach in late April 2016; his work was paid for by the DNC, which refused to turn over its server to the FBI. Asked for the date when alleged Russian hackers stole data from the DNC server, Henry testified that CrowdStrike did not in fact know if such a theft occurred at all: "We did not have concrete evidence that the data was exfiltrated [moved electronically] from the DNC, but we have indicators that it was exfiltrated," Henry said.

Henry reiterated his claim on multiple occasions:

  • "There are times when we can see data exfiltrated, and we can say conclusively. But in this case it appears it was set up to be exfiltrated, but we just don't have the evidence that says it actually left."
  • "There's not evidence that they were actually exfiltrated. There's circumstantial evidence but no evidence that they were actually exfiltrated."
  • " There is circumstantial evidence that that data was exfiltrated off the network... We didn't have a sensor in place that saw data leave. We said that the data left based on the circumstantial evidence. That was the conclusion that we made."
  • "Sir, I was just trying to be factually accurate, that we didn't see the data leave, but we believe it left, based on what we saw."
  • Asked directly if he could "unequivocally say" whether "it was or was not exfiltrated out of DNC," Henry told the committee: "I can't say based on that."

Rep. Adam Schiff: Democrat held up interview transcripts, but finally relented after acting intel director Richard Grenell suggested he would release them himself. (Senate Television via AP)

In a later exchange with Republican Rep. Chris Stewart of Utah, Henry offered an explanation of how Russian agents could have obtained the emails without any digital trace of them leaving the server. The CrowdStrike president speculated that Russian agents might have taken "screenshots" in real time. "[If] somebody was monitoring an email server, they could read all the email," Henry said. "And there might not be evidence of it being exfiltrated, but they would have knowledge of what was in the email. There would be ways to copy it. You could take screenshots."

Henry's 2017 testimony that there was no "concrete evidence" that the emails were stolen electronically suggests that Mueller was at best misleading in his 2019 final report, in which he stated that Russian intelligence "appears to have compressed and exfiltrated over 70 gigabytes of data from the file server."

It is unlikely that Mueller had another source to make his more confident claim about Russian hacking.

The stolen emails, which were published by Wikileaks – whose founder, Julian Assange has long denied they came from Russia – were embarrassing to the party because, among other things, they showed the DNC had favored Clinton during her 2016 primary battles against Sen. Bernie Sanders for the presidential nomination. The DNC eventually issued an apology to Sanders and his supporters "for the inexcusable remarks made over email." The DNC hack was separate from the FBI's investigation of Clinton's use of a private server while serving as President Obama's Secretary of State.

The disclosure that CrowdStrike found no evidence that alleged Russian hackers exfiltrated any data from the DNC server raises a critical question: On what basis, then, did it accuse them of stealing the emails? Further, on what basis did Obama administration officials make far more forceful claims about Russian hacking?

Michael Sussmann: This lawyer at Perkins Coie hired CrowdStrike to investigate the DNC breach. He was also involved with Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele in producing the discredited Steele dossier.

The January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA), which formally accused Russia of a sweeping influence campaign involving the theft of Democratic emails, claimed the Russian intelligence service GRU "exfiltrated large volumes of data from the DNC." A July 2018 indictment claimed that GRU officers "stole thousands of emails from the work accounts of DNC employees."

According to everyone concerned, the cyber-firm played a critical role in the FBI's investigation of the DNC data theft. Henry told the panel that CrowdStrike "shared intelligence with the FBI" on a regular basis, making "contact with them over a hundred times in the course of many months." In congressional testimony that same year, former FBI Director James Comey acknowledged that the FBI "never got direct access to the machines themselves," and instead relied on CrowdStrike, which "shared with us their forensics from their review of the system." According to Comey, the FBI would have preferred direct access to the server, and made "multiple requests at different levels," to obtain it. But after being rebuffed, "ultimately it was agreed to [CrowdStrike] would share with us what they saw."

Henry's testimony seems at variance with Comey's suggestion of complete information sharing. He told Congress that CrowdStrike provided "a couple of actual digital images" of DNC hard drives, out of a total number of "in excess of 10, I think." In other cases, Henry said, CrowdStrike provided its own assessment of them. The firm, he said, provided "the results of our analysis based on what our technology went out and collected." This disclosure follows revelations from the case of Trump operative Roger Stone that CrowdStrike provided three reports to the FBI in redacted and draft form. According to federal prosecutors, the government never obtained CrowdStrike's unredacted reports.

CrowdStrike's newy disclosed admissions raise new questions about whether Special Counsel Robert Mueller (above), intelligence officials and Democrats misled the public.

There are no indications that the Mueller team accessed any additional information beyond what CrowdStrike provided. According to the Mueller report, "the FBI later received images of DNC servers and copies of relevant traffic logs." But if the FBI obtained only "copies" of data traffic – and not any new evidence -- those copies would have shown the same absence of "concrete evidence" that Henry admitted to.

Adding to the tenuous evidence is CrowdStrike's own lack of certainty that the hackers it identified inside the DNC server were indeed Russian government actors. Henry's explanation for his firm's attribution of the DNC hack to Russia is replete with inferences and assumptions that lead to "beliefs," not unequivocal conclusions. "There are other nation-states that collect this type of intelligence for sure," Henry said, "but what we would call the tactics and techniques were consistent with what we'd seen associated with the Russian state." In its investigation, Henry said, CrowdStrike "saw activity that we believed was consistent with activity we'd seen previously and had associated with the Russian Government. We said that we had a high degree of confidence it was the Russian Government."

But CrowdStrike was forced to retract a similar accusation months after it accused Russia in December 2016 of hacking the Ukrainian military, with the same software that the firm had claimed to identify inside the DNC server.

The firm's work with the DNC and FBI is also colored by partisan affiliations. Before joining CrowdStrike, Henry served as executive assistant director at the FBI under Mueller. Co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch is a vocal critic of Vladimir Putin and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, the pro-NATO think tank that has consistently promoted an aggressive policy toward Russia. And the newly released testimony confirms that CrowdStrike was hired to investigate the DNC breach by Michael Sussmann of Perkins Coie – the same Democratic-tied law firm that hired Fusion GPS to produce the discredited Steele dossier, which was also treated as central evidence in the investigation. Sussmann played a critical role in generating the Trump-Russia collusion allegation. Ex-British spy and dossier compiler Christopher Steele has testified in British court that Sussmann shared with him the now-debunked Alfa Bank server theory, alleging a clandestine communication channel between the bank and the Trump Organization.

Henry's recently released testimony does not mean that Russia did not hack the DNC. What it does make clear is that Obama administration officials, the DNC and others have misled the public by presenting as fact information that they knew was uncertain. The fact that the Democratic Party employed the two private firms that generated the core allegations at the heart of Russiagate -- Russian email hacking and Trump-Russia collusion – suggests that the federal investigation was compromised from the start.

The 2017 Henry transcript was one of dozens just released after a lengthy dispute. In September 2018, the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee unanimously voted to release witness interview transcripts and sent them to the U.S. intelligence community for declassification review. In March 2019, months after Democrats won House control, Rep. Adam Schiff ordered the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to withhold the transcripts from White House lawyers seeking to review them for executive privilege. Schiff also refused to release vetted transcripts, but finally relented after acting ODNI Director Richard Grenell suggested this month that he would release them himself.

Several transcripts, including the interviews of former CIA Director John Brennan and Comey, remain unreleased. And in light of the newly disclosed Crowdstrike testimony, another secret document from the House proceedings takes on urgency for public viewing. According to Henry, Crowdstrike also provided the House Intelligence Committee with a copy of its report on the DNC email theft.

[May 15, 2020] Camera Feed Cuts Out After CNN Asks James Clapper About Leaking Classified Information Zero Hedge

May 15, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

by Tyler Durden Fri, 05/15/2020 - 11:54 The camera feed to former Obama Director of National Intelligence James Clapper suddenly cut out while CNN 's John Berman was pressing him to answer questions about leaks of classified information to the media, one day after a declassified memo revealed a list of Obama administration officials who made 'unmasking' requests regarding President Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn. Included in the list are Clapper, former Vice President Joe Biden, President Obama's Chief of Staff, and former CIA Director John Brennan. Notably, the requests began before Flynn's call with former Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak - the classified details of which were leaked to the Washington Post in early 2017 as noted by the Washington Examiner .

"Asking for names, nothing wrong with that, unmasking in of itself, nothing wrong with that," Berman said to Clapper. "Leaking classified information, and by definition, these phone calls were classified, that's a problem, correct?"

Clapper, a CNN security analyst, responded "absolutely," before the image froze and his screen went dark.

Watch: Clapper just conceded on CNN that "No, I did not" find evidence of Trump-Russia collusion. Then, after being asked about leaking to the press, his video connection went dead... pic.twitter.com/Ab13DVFVQa

-- TV News HQ (@TVNewsHQ) May 14, 2020

Once his feed was restored, Clapper insisted that he wasn't the leaker.

"David Ignatius put out this famous column on Jan. 12 where he mentioned the phone call between Michael Flynn -- the Dec. 29 phone call. Did you leak that information?" Berman asked. "I did not," responded Clapper."

Once Clapper was back, he was asked whether he leaked the Flynn call to David Ignatius. He says: "No, I did not." pic.twitter.com/mAww8wsp9U

-- TV News HQ (@TVNewsHQ) May 14, 2020

Clapper insisted during Thursday's interview that unmasking a US citizen is a "routine thing" when "you have a valid foreign intelligence target engaging with a U.S. person."

That said, he c ouldn't remember what prompted the request "that was made on my behalf for unmasking" regarding Flynn, but that the "general concern" was over his engagement with Russians during the Trump team's transition to the White House. Of course, as even Slate wrote back in 2017, "Meetings between the president-elect's team and foreign officials are Normal," but that "Negotiations that undermine a sitting president's foreign policy are not unprecedented, but remain highly controversial and Not Normal.'

John Durham, the U.S. attorney picked by Attorney General William Barr to investigate the origins of the Trump-Russia inquiry, is scrutinizing the Flynn unmaskings and subsequent leaks as part of his inquiry.

The Connecticut federal prosecutor is reportedly looking into a Jan. 12, 2017, article in the Washington Post by Ignatius, which said Flynn "cultivates close Russian contacts" and cited a "senior U.S. government official" who revealed Flynn had talked to former Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak on Dec. 29, 2016, which was the same day former President Barack Obama expelled 35 Russian officials . It is likely that this revelation, and subsequent leaks about the alleged contents of Flynn's discussions with Kislyak, were based on classified information. - Washington Examiner

And now, after destroying Flynn's life in a perjury trap, the Obama all-stars are scrambling.

[May 15, 2020] Actually, Maddow considers herself a Serious Journalist

May 15, 2020 | www.unz.com

Bill Jones , says: Show Comment May 14, 2020 at 9:24 am GMT

@Sgt. Joe Friday "Actually, Maddow considers herself a Serious Journalist. She "speaks truth to power," and she'd probably be the first to tell you that. Repeatedly.

Limbaugh on the other hand, if asked to pick a word to describe his profession would likely say "entertainer.""

While in actuality, the roles are very nearly reversed. (Nearly only because I don't find Maddow amusing)

[May 14, 2020] NYT Falsely Blames Russia For Cyberattack Committed By British Hacker

Chancellor Angela Merkel that stupid? "Chancellor Angela Merkel used strong words on Wednesday condemning an "outrageous" cyberattack by Russia's foreign intelligence service on the German Parliament, her personal email account included. Russia, she said, was pursuing "a strategy of hybrid warfare."
Notable quotes:
"... That alleged attack happened in 2015. The attribution to Russia is as shoddy as all attributions of cyberattacks are. ..."
"... Intelligence officials had long suspected Russian operatives were behind the attack, but they took five years to collect the evidence, which was presented in a report given to Ms. Merkel's office just last week. ..."
"... This is really funny because we recently learned that the company which investigated the alleged DNC intrusion, CrowdStrike, had found no evidence , as in zero, that a Russian hacker group had targeted the DNC or that DNC emails were exfiltrated over the Internet: ..."
"... CrowdStrike, the private cyber-security firm that first accused Russia of hacking Democratic Party emails and served as a critical source for U.S. intelligence officials in the years-long Trump-Russia probe, acknowledged to Congress more than two years ago that it had no concrete evidence that Russian hackers stole emails from the Democratic National Committee's server. ..."
"... The DNC emails were most likely stolen by its local network administrator, Seth Rich , who provided them to Wikileaks before he was killed in a suspicious 'robbery' during which nothing was taken. ..."
"... The whole attribution of case of the stolen DNC emails to Russia is based on exactly nothing but intelligence rumors and CrowdStrike claims for which it had no evidence. As there is no evidence at all that the DNC was attacked by a Russian cybergroup what does that mean for the attribution of the attack on the German Bundestag to the very same group? ..."
May 14, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

The New York Times continues its anti-Russia campaign with a report about an old cyberattack on German parliament which also targeted the parliament office of Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Merkel Is 'Outraged' by Russian Hack but Struggling to Respond
Patience with President Vladimir Putin is running thin in Berlin. But Germany needs Russia's help on several geopolitical fronts from Syria to Ukraine.

NYT Berlin correspondent Katrin Bennhold writes:

Chancellor Angela Merkel used strong words on Wednesday condemning an "outrageous" cyberattack by Russia's foreign intelligence service on the German Parliament, her personal email account included. Russia, she said, was pursuing "a strategy of hybrid warfare."

But asked how Berlin intended to deal with recent revelations implicating the Russians, Ms. Merkel was less forthcoming.

"We always reserve the right to take measures," she said in Parliament, then immediately added, "Nevertheless, I will continue to strive for a good relationship with Russia, because I believe that there is every reason to always continue these diplomatic efforts."

That alleged attack happened in 2015. The attribution to Russia is as shoddy as all attributions of cyberattacks are.

Intelligence officials had long suspected Russian operatives were behind the attack, but they took five years to collect the evidence, which was presented in a report given to Ms. Merkel's office just last week.

Officials say the report traced the attack to the same Russian hacker group that targeted the Democratic Party during the U.S. presidential election campaign in 2016.

This is really funny because we recently learned that the company which investigated the alleged DNC intrusion, CrowdStrike, had found no evidence , as in zero, that a Russian hacker group had targeted the DNC or that DNC emails were exfiltrated over the Internet:

CrowdStrike, the private cyber-security firm that first accused Russia of hacking Democratic Party emails and served as a critical source for U.S. intelligence officials in the years-long Trump-Russia probe, acknowledged to Congress more than two years ago that it had no concrete evidence that Russian hackers stole emails from the Democratic National Committee's server.
...
[CrowdStrike President Shawn] Henry personally led the remediation and forensics analysis of the DNC server after being warned of a breach in late April 2016; his work was paid for by the DNC, which refused to turn over its server to the FBI. Asked for the date when alleged Russian hackers stole data from the DNC server, Henry testified that CrowdStrike did not in fact know if such a theft occurred at all : "We did not have concrete evidence that the data was exfiltrated [moved electronically] from the DNC, but we have indicators that it was exfiltrated," Henry said.

The DNC emails were most likely stolen by its local network administrator, Seth Rich , who provided them to Wikileaks before he was killed in a suspicious 'robbery' during which nothing was taken.

The whole attribution of case of the stolen DNC emails to Russia is based on exactly nothing but intelligence rumors and CrowdStrike claims for which it had no evidence. As there is no evidence at all that the DNC was attacked by a Russian cybergroup what does that mean for the attribution of the attack on the German Bundestag to the very same group?

While the NYT also mentions that NSA actually snooped on Merkel's private phonecalls it tries to keep the spotlight on Russia:

As such, Germany's democracy has been a target of very different kinds of Russian intelligence operations, officials say. In December 2016, 900,000 Germans lost access to internet and telephone services following a cyberattack traced to Russia.

bigger

Ahem. No!

That mass attack on internet home routers, which by the way happened in November 2016 not in December, was done with the Mirai worm :

More than 900,000 customers of German ISP Deutsche Telekom (DT) were knocked offline this week after their Internet routers got infected by a new variant of a computer worm known as Mirai. The malware wriggled inside the routers via a newly discovered vulnerability in a feature that allows ISPs to remotely upgrade the firmware on the devices. But the new Mirai malware turns that feature off once it infests a device, complicating DT's cleanup and restoration efforts.
...
This new variant of Mirai builds on malware source code released at the end of September . That leak came a little more a week after a botnet based on Mirai was used in a record-sized attack that caused KrebsOnSecurity to go offline for several days . Since then, dozens of new Mirai botnets have emerged , all competing for a finite pool of vulnerable IoT systems that can be infected.

The attack has not been attributed to Russia but to a British man who offered attacks as a service. He was arrested in February 2017:

A 29-year-old man has been arrested at Luton airport by the UK's National Crime Agency (NCA) in connection with a massive internet attack that disrupted telephone, television and internet services in Germany last November. As regular readers of We Live Security will recall, over 900,000 Deutsche Telekom broadband customers were knocked offline last November as an alleged attempt was made to hijack their routers into a destructive botnet.
...
The NCA arrested the British man under a European Arrest Warrant issued by Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) who have described the attack as a threat to Germany's national communication infrastructure.

According to German prosecutors, the British man allegedly offered to sell access to the botnet on the computer underground. Agencies are planning to extradite the man to Germany, where – if convicted – he could face up to ten years imprisonment.

The British man, one Daniel Kaye, plead guilty in court and was sentenced to 18 month imprisonment :

During the trial, Daniel admitted that he never intended for the routers to cease functioning. He only wanted to silently control them so he can use them as part of a DDoS botnet to increase his botnet firepower. As discussed earlier he also confessed being paid by competitors to takedown Lonestar.

In Aug 2017 Daniel was extradited back to the UK to face extortion charges after attempting to blackmail Lloyds and Barclays banks. According to press reports, he asked the Lloyds to pay about £75,000 in bitcoins for the attack to be called off.

The Mirai attack is widely known to have been attributed to Kaye. The case has been discussed at length . IT security journalist Brian Krebs, who's site was also attacked by a Mirai bot net, has written several stories about it. It was never 'traced to Russia' or attributed it to anyone else but Daniel Kaye.

Besides that Kennhold writes of "Russia's foreign intelligence service, known as the G.R.U.". The real Russian foreign intelligence services is the SVR. The military intelligence agency of Russia was once called GRU but has been renamed to GU.

The New York Times just made up the claim about Russia hacking in Germany from absolutely nothing. The whole piece was published without even the most basic research and fact checking.

It seems that for the Times anything can be blamed on Russia completely independent of what the actually facts say.

Posted by b on May 14, 2020 at 14:38 UTC | Permalink


J Swift , May 14 2020 15:05 utc | 1

Good article!

Along the same lines, it always bothered me that among all the (mostly contrived) arguments about who might have been responsible for the alleged "hacking" of DNC as well as Clinton's emails, we never heard mentioned one single time the one third party that we absolutely KNOW had intercepted and collected all of those emails--the NSA! Never a peep about how US intelligence services could be tempted to mischief when in possession of everyone's sensitive, personal information.

Petri Krohn , May 14 2020 15:26 utc | 2
The "Fancy Bear" group (also knowns as advanced persistent threat 28) that is claimed to be behind the hacks is likely little more than the collection of hacking tools shared on the open and hidden parts of RuNet or Russian-speaking Internet. Many of these Russian-speaking hackers are actually Ukrainians .

Some of the Russian hackers also worked for the FSB, like the members of Shaltai Boltai group that were later arrested for treason. George Eliason claims Shaltai Boltai actually worked for Ukrainians. For a short version of the story read this:

Cyberanalyst George Eliason Claims that the "Fancy Bear" Who Hacked the DNC Server is Ukrainian Intelligence – In League with the Atlantic Council and Crowdstrike

Cyberanalyst George Eliason has written some intriguing blogs recently claiming that the "Fancy Bear" which hacked the DNC server in mid-2016 was in fact a branch of Ukrainian intelligence linked to the Atlantic Council and Crowdstrike. I invite you to have a go at one of his recent essays...

Patrick Armstrong , May 14 2020 15:27 utc | 3 Wow! You've done it again. I was just writing my Sitrep and thinking what an amazing coincidence it is that, just as the Russian pipelaying ship arrived to finish Nord Stream, Merkel is told that them nasty Russkies are doing nasty things. I come here and you've already solved it. Yet another scoop. Congratulations.
Brendan , May 14 2020 15:41 utc | 4
The NYT has removed that sentence about the attack on internet/phone access:

"Correction: May 14, 2020

An earlier version of this article incorrectly attributed responsibility for a 2016 cyberattack in which 900,000 Germans lost access to internet and telephone services. The attack was carried out by a British citizen, not Russia. The article also misstated when the attack took place. It was in November, not December. The sentence has been removed from the article. "

That was there for at least 13 hours from yesterday evening onwards. The page was archived this morning though before that edit:
https://web.archive.org/web/20200513221700/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/13/world/europe/merkel-russia-cyberattack.html

Norwegian , May 14 2020 15:45 utc | 5
From this we can learn that anything can be blamed by MSM, completely independent of what the facts are. It is not limited to allegations related to Russia or China, but any and all claims by MSM that have no direct reference to provable fact.
james , May 14 2020 15:45 utc | 6
great coverage b... thank you... facts don't matter.. what matters is taking down any positive image of russia, or better - putting up a constantly negative one... of this the intel and usa msm are consistent... the sad reality is a lot of people will believe this bullshit too...

i was just reading paul robinsons blog last night - #DEMOCRACY RIP AND THE NARCISSISM OF RUSSIAGATE .. even paul is starting to getting pissed off on the insanity of the media towards russia which is rare from what i have read from him!

@ 3 patrick armstrong.. keep up the good work!! thanks for your work..

Brendan , May 14 2020 15:48 utc | 7
OK I don't know how to fix the formatting in my last link but you can look up https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/13/world/europe/merkel-russia-cyberattack.html on https://web.archive.org for 10:46 May 14 2020
m droy , May 14 2020 15:51 utc | 8
There is already a correction made to the DT attack - someone reads MofA! Shame they don't get more of their new interpretation form here.

Whole piece reads here like it started as a Merkel gets close to Russia piece, shown around to colleagues and politicians for feedback, and a ton of fake "why Merkel actually hates the Russians" nonsense was added in.

After all pretty much everyone has tapped Merkel's phone by now.

tucenz , May 14 2020 16:22 utc | 9
Fairy tales told by Danny Kaye....

[May 14, 2020] Tucker on Obamagate

May 14, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Patient Observer May 11, 2020 at 8:50 am

Don't fuck with the Tuck:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/fHh19Baj_pM?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

The guy is on fire. Per Carlson, Obama orchestrated the Russian collusion propaganda. I suspect that the lovely Ms. Hilary was a conspirator as well.

Carlson has the number 1 television news show with 4.56 million viewers on average.

https://www.nytimes.com/svc/oembed/html/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2020%2F04%2F28%2Fbusiness%2Fmedia%2Fvirus-tucker-carlson-sean-hannity-fox-ratings.html

Like Like

Mark Chapman May 11, 2020 at 9:54 am
Absolutely remarkable; in fact, 'stunning', as he uses it, is not too much of a stretch. The 'liberal elites' just go right on lying even though the sworn testimony of FBI interviewers is available for anyone to read, as well as the chilling manipulations of Strozk and Page, both of whom should be in prison and perhaps will be. And that fucker Schiff should swing. I can't believe the transformation of Carlson from Bush shill to the reincarnation of Edward R. Murrow. He makes this case so compellingly that nobody could watch that clip and not believe that Flynn was railroaded from the outset. And what were they allegedly going to jail Flynn's son for? Does anyone know? Were they just going to make something up? That is terrifying, and almost argues for the disbanding of the FBI, although it demonstrably still contains honest agents – as Carlson asks rhetorically, how many times have they done this already, and gotten away with it?

It's hard to imagine anyone would vote Democrat now.

Like Like

Cortes May 11, 2020 at 10:10 am
The son was being lined up for prosecution for alleged FARA violations regarding work on Turkey, I think. The son was working with the General.

Like Like

Mark Chapman May 11, 2020 at 11:45 am
Couldn't have been too much of a crime, if they offered to let him go in exchange for Flynn pleading guilty to lying. Actually, you'd kind of think their business was prosecuting crimes whoever committed them, and that offering to excuse a crime in exchange for a guilty plea is .kind of a crime.

Man, they have to clean house at the FBI. And there probably are several other organizations that need it, too. Not the political culling based on ideology that was a feature of the Bush White House, but the crowd that's in now just cannot be allowed to get off with nothing.

Like Like

uncle tungsten May 12, 2020 at 2:55 am
Greetings Mark and all, I am a new arrival as Jen suggested the company is fine here for barflies to ponder the world. Can I surmise that if Flynn and son were the FBI targets for nefarious business dealings then surely Biden and son fall in to that same category. After all Biden and son filched millions after arranging a USA loan of $1Billion to Ukraine and then did it again after the IMF loaned a few million more. Carpetbagging and its modern day practice is a crime in the USA last I looked.

If that conspicuous bias isn't enough cause to dismember the FBI then consider the Uranium One deal that Hillary Clinton and family set up or perhaps the Debbie Wasserman Shultz fostering the Awan family spy and blackmail ring.

Like Like

Mark Chapman May 12, 2020 at 9:37 am
Good day, Uncle, and welcome! For some reason I can't fathom, the Democrats seem to own or control all the 'respectable' media in the USA. FOX News is an exception, and has been a mouthpiece for the Republicans since its inception. But the Democrats control the New York Times and the Washington Post, which together represent the bulk of American public feeling to foreigners, and probably to the domestic audience as well. They are extremely active on conflicts between the two parties, ensuring the Democratic perspective gets put forward in calm, reasonable why-wouldn't-a-sensible-person-think-this-way manner. At the same time they cast horrific aspersions at the Republicans. Not that either are much good; but the news coverage is very one-sided – the position of the Democrats on the sexual-assault furor over the Kavanaugh appointment compared with their wait-and-see attitude to very similar accusations against Biden is a classic example.

Like Like

rkka May 13, 2020 at 9:33 am
Mark,

I don't think its the Democrats that control the NYT &WP, so much as plutocrats. They're also the ones who fund both the Democrats & the Republicans. The only significant difference between the parties is largely in the arena of the social "culture war" issues. But on the issues plutocrats care about, like economic policy & foreign policy, the differences are shades of grey, rather than actual distinctions.

Just remember the coverage of both papers in the run up to George W Shrub's catastrophic Iraq war. They're stenographers, not journalists.

Like Like

Mark Chapman May 13, 2020 at 11:12 am
That may well be true, but the NYT and WP historically champion the Democrats, endorse the Democratic candidate for president, and pander to Democratic issues and projects. The Wall Street Journal is the traditional Republican print outlet, and there might be others but I don't know them. CNN is overwhelmingly and weepily Democratic in its content – Wolf Blitzer's eyes nearly roll back in his head with ecstasy whenever he mentions Saint Hillary – while FOX News is Repubican to the bone and openly contemptuous of liberals. It could certainly be, on reflection probably is, that the same cabal of corporatists control them all, and a fine joke they must think it. And I certainly and emphatically agree there is almost no difference between the parties in execution of external policy.

[May 14, 2020] Dirty Dozen: The 12 revelations that sunk Mueller's case against Flynn

Notable quotes:
"... Ideally, they should each be prosecuted with an attempt to discern their connections to the political establishment, and specifically to the Clintons. What does that woman have to do to get jailed – blow somebody away on the 6 o'clock news? ..."
May 14, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

et Al May 11, 2020 at 8:22 am

JusttheNews.com: Dirty Dozen: The 12 revelations that sunk Mueller's case against Flynn
https://justthenews.com/accountability/russia-and-ukraine-scandals/dirty-dozen-12-revelations-sunk-muellers-case-against

After a prescient 2017 tip from inside the FBI, a slow drip of revelations exposed the deep problems with the Flynn prosecution.
####

All at the link.

I should add that the author, seasoned investigative reporter John Soloman, wrote much of this over at TheHill.com and was targeted for review over his clearly labelled 'opinion' pieces reporting on the Bidens in the Ukraine. The Hill's conclusion is piss weak and accuses him of what just about every other journalist in the US does and reads in particular of holding him up to a much higher standard than others. As you will see from his twatter bio, he's worked for AP, Washington Post, The Washington Times and The Hill. Some things you are just not supposed to investigate, let alone report.

https://thehill.com/author/john-solomon

https://thehill.com/homenews/news/483600-the-hills-review-of-john-solomons-columns-on-ukraine

Mark Chapman May 11, 2020 at 9:37 am
At an absolute minimum, the FBI officials involved – except those who did their jobs properly and stated their judgments at the outset that there was no evidence Flynn was not telling the truth, or believed he was – should be fired and their pensions, if applicable, rescinded.

Ideally, they should each be prosecuted with an attempt to discern their connections to the political establishment, and specifically to the Clintons. What does that woman have to do to get jailed – blow somebody away on the 6 o'clock news?

[May 14, 2020] NYT defends Obama cabal efforts to entrap Flynn

May 14, 2020 | www.nytimes.com

Ex-F.B.I. Official Is Said to Undercut Justice Dept. Effort to Drop Flynn Case

Prosecutors questioned a former F.B.I. official whose notes were used to buttress their motion to dismiss the charge against the president's first national security adviser.

Bill Priestap, a former top F.B.I. official, played a central role in the agency's 2016 investigation into Russia's efforts to interfere in the presidential election. Credit... Alex Wong/Getty Images
Adam Goldman Katie Benner

By Adam Goldman and Katie Benner

    Published May 13, 2020 Updated May 14, 2020, 7:48 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON -- A key former F.B.I. official cast doubt on the Justice Department's case for dropping a criminal charge against President Trump's former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn during an interview with investigators last week, according to people familiar with the investigation.

Department officials reviewing the Flynn case interviewed Bill Priestap, the former head of F.B.I. counterintelligence, two days before making their extraordinary request to drop the case to Judge Emmet G. Sullivan. They did not tell Judge Sullivan about Mr. Priestap's interview. A Justice Department official said that they were in the process of writing up a report on the interview and that it would soon be filed with the court.

The department's motion referred to notes that Mr. Priestap wrote around the bureau's 2017 questioning of Mr. Flynn, who later pleaded guilty to lying to investigators during that interview. His lawyers said Mr. Priestap's notes -- recently uncovered during a review of the case -- suggested that the F.B.I. was trying to entrap Mr. Flynn, and Attorney General William P. Barr said investigators were trying to "lay a perjury trap."

That interpretation was wrong, Mr. Priestap told the prosecutors reviewing the case. He said that F.B.I. officials were trying to do the right thing in questioning Mr. Flynn and that he knew of no effort to set him up. Media reports about his notes misconstrued them, he said, according to the people familiar with the investigation.

The department's decision to exclude mention of Mr. Priestap's interview in the motion could trouble Judge Sullivan, who signaled late on Tuesday that he was skeptical of the department's arguments.

Mr. Priestap and the Justice Department declined to comment. Mr. Priestap told investigators that he did not remember the circumstances surrounding the notes that he took, and that he was giving them his interpretation of the notes as he read them now, according to a person familiar with his interview.

Listen to 'The Daily': The Saga of Michael Flynn The U.S. dropped its criminal case against President Trump's first national security adviser. It was the latest reversal in a case full of them.

Former prosecutors and defense lawyers called the department's position hypocritical and troubling.

"If it is accurate that the F.B.I. official provided context around those notes, which is materially different from what they suggest, this could be a game changer in terms of how the court views the motivations behind the request to dismiss the case," said Edward Y. Kim, a former federal prosecutor in Manhattan.

The department's decision to drop the Flynn case was a stunning reversal, widely regarded as part of an effort by Mr. Barr to undermine the Russia investigation . The prosecutor who led the case, Brandon L. Van Grack, withdrew from it, and only the interim U.S. attorney in Washington, Timothy Shea, a longtime adviser to Mr. Barr, signed the motion.

Both Mr. Van Grack and Jocelyn Ballantine, another prosecutor on the case, were upset with Mr. Barr's decision to drop the charge and his overall handling of the Flynn review, according to people familiar with their thinking.

Mr. Barr, who has long said that he had misgivings about the decision to prosecute Mr. Flynn, asked the top federal prosecutor in St. Louis, Jeff Jensen, earlier this year to scrub the case for any mistakes or improprieties.

Mr. Priestap's notes were among the documents that Mr. Jensen found. The prosecutors already on the case, Mr. Jensen's team and the F.B.I. disagreed about whether they were exculpatory and should be given to Mr. Flynn's lawyer, Sidney Powell. Mr. Jensen prevailed and gave them to Ms. Powell, who declared that they would exonerate her client, people familiar with the events said.

Mr. Priestap played a central role in the F.B.I. investigation into Russian interference in the presidential election and was involved in high-level discussions about whether to question Mr. Flynn, whose phone calls to the Russian ambassador at the time, Sergey I. Kislyak, had aroused investigators' suspicions.

Mr. Jensen and Ms. Ballantine, herself a veteran prosecutor, interviewed Mr. Priestap along with another prosecutor, Sayler Fleming, and an F.B.I. agent from St. Louis who was there to memorialize the encounter.

Justice Department investigators spoke with Mr. Priestap while they were embroiled in a debate that began last month about whether to drop the Flynn case.

Mr. Jensen and officials in Mr. Shea's office pushed to give Mr. Flynn's lawyers copies of the notes and other documents they had recently found. Mr. Van Grack and Dana Boente, the F.B.I. general counsel, argued against disclosing them.

Eventually the F.B.I. agreed to release the documents because they contained no classified or sensitive material, even though they believed they were not required to share them with the defense, according to an email from lawyers in Mr. Boente's office on April 23.

By the beginning of May, Mr. Jensen recommended to Mr. Barr that the charge be dropped, and the team began to draft the motion to dismiss it.

Mr. Van Grack and Ms. Ballantine, the prosecutors on the case, acknowledged the facts but vociferously disagreed with Mr. Jensen's legal argument that Mr. Flynn's lies were immaterial to the larger investigation into Russian election interference, according to department lawyers familiar with their conversations.

As the lawyers digested the interview with Mr. Priestap, some prosecutors expressed concern that they were moving too fast. But other officials pointed out that in less than a week the department was due to respond to Mr. Flynn's motion to dismiss the case, and argued against proceeding in that matter if they were about to drop the entire case.

Mr. Jensen agreed, as did Mr. Barr, and they filed their request. Even though they knew it was coming, some prosecutors on the case expressed shock, associates said.

Mr. Flynn's case grew out of phone calls he made to Mr. Kislyak in the final days of 2016, asking that Moscow refrain from retaliating after the Obama administration imposed sanctions on Russia as punishment for interfering in the election. The conversations were captured on routine wiretaps of Mr. Kislyak and prompted concern among the F.B.I. agents investigating Mr. Flynn once they learned of them.

Then the incoming vice president, Mike Pence, publicly denied that Mr. Flynn had asked Russia to hold off on sanctions. Agents began to suspect that Mr. Flynn was lying to other Trump officials about the phone calls and were concerned that he was a blackmail risk because Russia knew the truth of the calls.

Mr. Priestap's notes, taken hours before agents questioned Mr. Flynn on Jan. 24, 2017, showed that F.B.I. officials were debating how to proceed and trying to determine the objective of questioning Mr. Flynn.

Mr. Priestap wrote: "What's our goal? Truth/admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?" Mr. Priestap also mentioned the risks of an interview, adding, "Protect our institution by not playing games" and "If we're seen playing games, WH will be furious."

Those notes reflected Mr. Priestap's own thoughts before meeting with F.B.I. leadership to discuss how to question Mr. Flynn, the people said. A footnote in Mr. Shea's motion included a reference to Mr. Priestap's ruminations. The motion described them as "talking points."

The notes also showed that the F.B.I. softened its interview strategy with Mr. Flynn. Officials decided that agents would be allowed to read back portions of the highly classified phone call transcripts to refresh Mr. Flynn's memory. F.B.I. investigators felt at the time it was important to figure out whether Mr. Flynn would tell the truth in an interview.

Though Mr. Flynn was told ahead of time about the interview, the F.B.I. director at the time, James B. Comey, unilaterally decided to go forward with it, angering Justice Department officials who said the bureau should have coordinated closely with them and notified the White House Counsel's Office.

Two agents went to the White House to question Mr. Flynn. He lied repeatedly, and prosecutors have said that agents gave him "multiple opportunities to correct his false statements by revisiting key questions."

Mr. Flynn later agreed to plead guilty, entering a plea twice before he later reversed himself, hiring new lawyers and asking Judge Sullivan to allow him to withdraw it.

After the notes and other documents were made public, Ms. Powell seized on them to declare that they cast doubt on the F.B.I.'s decision to question Mr. Flynn and to charge him with lying. She accused the bureau of framing her client.

Mr. Shea also argued that the F.B.I. had no legitimate reason to interview Mr. Flynn. He said that the bureau's counterintelligence investigation into Mr. Flynn had essentially ended and agents had insufficient reason to keep it open and were trying to entrap him.

The interview with Mr. Flynn "seems to have been undertaken only to elicit those very false statements and thereby criminalize Mr. Flynn," Mr. Shea wrote.

Mr. Barr has called Mr. Flynn's conversations with Mr. Kislyak " laudable " and said that his lies were immaterial to the Russia investigation, rejecting the view of the prosecutors who had said that Mr. Flynn hurt the inquiry by misleading the F.B.I. agents. Judge Sullivan has also said the lies were material.

[May 14, 2020] Sullivan Flies Over the Cuckoo's Nest?

Notable quotes:
"... he recognizes he is sitting on a volcano, partly of his own making because of decisions he made; and those of Judge Rudy Contreras, the man who was on the bench when Flynn plead to the false charges, circa Dec. 1, 2017. ..."
"... Neither Contreras, nor Flynn's Covington lawyers, prior this plea, demanded the DOJ produce original FBI 302s -- of the Jan. 24, 2017 FBI interview of Flynn -- to show the concrete substance, that is, actual evidence, that would purportedly show the general lied. ..."
"... The DOJ never produced this. Ever. Sullivan, he never asked nor demanded nor got to read those original 302s either, even though he has been sitting on this case since Dec. 7, 2017. ..."
"... The only rational reason, I think, Sullivan said he needs "help" -- before consummating the DOJ's request to end this matter – is simple. Sullivan knows he is sitting on a volcano, and he can't take the heat. ..."
"... Thus, he might be creating conditions for a last hurrah of nonsense from the enemies of justice who are the enemies of Flynn, who want to file amica with the court. Put another way, the judge is inviting the very circus he claim to want to avoid, in his Minute Order. ..."
May 14, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Jim , 13 May 2020 at 04:51 PM

Federal Judge Emmett Sullivan needs "help." His words, not mine. Although amica, or amicus briefs can be routine in civil cases, in a criminal case, it is a prosecutor's duty to decide things as basic as whether to prosecute a case. But in the Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn matter, Sullivan says he now needs outside help.

The need, the judge says, came following the DOJ decision to end prosecution of the general, having determined there was no crime; the heretofore prosecution of him was a phantom of the opera.

Sullivan now wants an encore. What might that be? Pirates of Penzance? Sullivan Flies Over the Cuckoo's Nest?

In a recent order the judge said he will invite outside parties -- outside of the DOJ -- to provide this judge "unique information or perspective that can help the court." The absurdity of Sullivan notwithstanding, it could be: he recognizes he is sitting on a volcano, partly of his own making because of decisions he made; and those of Judge Rudy Contreras, the man who was on the bench when Flynn plead to the false charges, circa Dec. 1, 2017.

Neither Contreras, nor Flynn's Covington lawyers, prior this plea, demanded the DOJ produce original FBI 302s -- of the Jan. 24, 2017 FBI interview of Flynn -- to show the concrete substance, that is, actual evidence, that would purportedly show the general lied.

The DOJ never produced this. Ever. Sullivan, he never asked nor demanded nor got to read those original 302s either, even though he has been sitting on this case since Dec. 7, 2017.

After a year of sitting on the case, Flynn said he was ready to be sentenced: the prosecutors had said they were fine with no jail time for him.

During this Dec. 18, 2018 hearing, Sullivan Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. [If you have not, read transcript of this hearing, it's at least a half-hour read.] Sullivan told Flynn he could face 15 years in jail, implied he committed treason, was a traitor to his country, blah blah blah.

The prosecutor at the time, Brandon Van Grack, told the Pirate of Penzance that more assistance of Flynn was needed for the bogus Mueller investigation. Sullivan [Gilbert was not in the courtroom] then allowed Flynn's sentencing hearing to be continued, so long as Mueller submitted monthly progress reports to ascertain the general was cooperating with the special counsel office's "investigation" of nonexistent "crimes" against who knows what at that point. To recap: Sullivan threatened Flynn with 15 years in prison; Flynn withdrew his willingness to be sentenced at that time; Van Grack out of nowhere said the general needed to cooperate some more with Mueller.

Had Sullivan not gone rouge at this hearing; had he demanded and gotten the original 302s, I would give more credence to what I'll say next.

The only rational reason, I think, Sullivan said he needs "help" -- before consummating the DOJ's request to end this matter – is simple. Sullivan knows he is sitting on a volcano, and he can't take the heat.

Thus, he might be creating conditions for a last hurrah of nonsense from the enemies of justice who are the enemies of Flynn, who want to file amica with the court. Put another way, the judge is inviting the very circus he claim to want to avoid, in his Minute Order.

Reason I'm not necessarily opposed to this circus is practical: more sunshine can be brought to this prosecution, this malicious and political perecution of Flynn – sunshine, via the DOJ release document after document that just piles onto the record DOJ/FBI/CIA lawlessness that was directed against and targeted Flynn. And perhaps other delicious nuggets, too.

When the smoke clears, the fat lady finally sings, Sullivan can say or claim he did everything to give everyone their say, blah blah blah, and hope like hell everyone forgets this Pirate's dereliction of duty, as a judge with a lifetime appointment.

Perhaps, should this show go on, we might discover why Contreras mysteriously recused himself right after the Flynn pleas.

Perhaps we will read all of the Covington law firm Eric Holder and Michael Chertoff emails, and what they were saying about Flynn, the good, the bad, the ugly.

And, since Barry decided to directly and publicly insert himself in this fiasco last week, with his remark about Flynn and "perjury," who knows what other documents will be filed on the docket. [Obama's pre meditated use of "perjury" when he knows it was not about that, indicates just how sinister his public involvement now is.]

I would like to see all of Sullivan's communications, work related and private, involving the Flynn case.

Please file all of them on the docket, Judge Sullivan, un-redacted, you who opened this can of worms. [So we can see if you, by your own "standards" might be a "security threat" or "sold out your country," etc.]

Sullivan didn't start this fire; he did pour gasoline on it.

". . . .Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. . . ."[Epistle to the Galatians]

-30-

ambrit , 13 May 2020 at 11:50 PM
Sir;
What was Flynn's attitude towards the "Holy Land" at that time? Was he a threat to the Judea and Samaria clique?
I can't help but compare the treatment of Flynn to the treatment of Petraeus.
turcopolier , 14 May 2020 at 08:43 AM
ambrit

He was opposed to a lot of our commitments in the ME.

Deap , 13 May 2020 at 10:01 PM
There is one hidden benefit leaving Flynn still "twisting slowly, slowly in the wind" for making a "false statement during a federal investigation".

His treatment at the hands of his own government will certainly resonate with those we now find on the unmasking list. They will soon be visited by federal investigators who will be asking them a lot of questions - no lying guys and gals. Look what could happen to you too.

akaPatience , 13 May 2020 at 05:53 PM
I could use an explanation of the IMPLICATIONS of this revelation. Is it possible there's nothing nefarious about someone who, for example, received a copy of Obama's daily briefing in which Flynn may have been alluded to and therefore that person requested unmasking for a fuller understanding of the matter? It's been reported that Obama exponentially expanded the numbers of people who were privy to his daily briefing.

Does the fact that the FBI was undertaking a counterintelligence investigation of Gen. Flynn at the time, wrong/unethical as that may have been, give cover?

Is there any legal jeopardy facing those whose names are on the list? If so, what?

turcopolier , 13 May 2020 at 06:24 PM
aka Patience

Whoever leaked the unmasked identity is liable for a felony charge carrying a ten year prison term

[May 14, 2020] No More Mr.Nice Guy - Trump Urges Senate To Call Obama To Testify

May 14, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

After the unmasking of the unmaskers (including Biden), ObamaGate is growing...

And President Trump clearly won't let it go (and why should he after three years of utter bullshit)...

If I were a Senator or Congressman, the first person I would call to testify about the biggest political crime and scandal in the history of the USA, by FAR, is former President Obama. He knew EVERYTHING. Do it @LindseyGrahamSC , just do it. No more Mr. Nice Guy. No more talk!

-- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 14, 2020

We won't be holding our collective breaths however, but it would be deliciously ironic if the president who claimed "no scandals" during his presidency, was brought down after leaving office by the biggest scandal in US history.

[May 14, 2020] 'I Didn't Know Anything': Former Obama Official Criticized After Classified Testimony Contradicts Her Public Statements by Jonathan Turley

Notable quotes:
"... One of the most embarrassing is the testimony of Evelyn Farkas, a former Obama Administration official who was widely quoted in her plea to Congress to gather the evidence that she knew was found in by the Obama Administration. In her testimony under oath Farkas repeatedly stated that she knew of no such evidence of collusion. ..."
"... Farkas, who served as the deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia, was widely quoted when she said on MSNBC in 2017 that she feared that evidence she knew about would be destroyed by the Trump Administration. She stated: ..."
"... ...was urging my former colleagues, and, frankly speaking, the people on the Hill Get as much information as you can, get as much intelligence as you can, before President Obama leaves the administration, because I had a fear that somehow that information would disappear with the senior people that left. So it would be hidden away in the bureaucracy . . . the Trump folks, if they found out how we knew what we knew about their, the staff, the Trump staff's dealing with Russians, that they would try to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we would no longer have access to that intelligence. So I became very worried, because not enough was coming out into the open, and I knew that there was more. ..."
"... 'You also didn't know whether or not anybody in the Trump campaign had colluded with Russia, did you?' Gowdy later asked, getting to the point. ..."
"... "I didn't," Farkas responded. ..."
May 11, 2020 | ronpaulinstitute.org

The long-delayed release of testimony from the House Intelligence Committee has proved embarrassing for a variety of former Obama officials who have been extensively quoted on the allegedly strong evidence of collusion by the Trump campaign and the Russians. Figures like James Clapper, who is a CNN expert, long indicated hat the evidence from the Obama Administration was strong and alarming. However, in testimony, Clapper denied seeing any such evidence .

One of the most embarrassing is the testimony of Evelyn Farkas, a former Obama Administration official who was widely quoted in her plea to Congress to gather the evidence that she knew was found in by the Obama Administration. In her testimony under oath Farkas repeatedly stated that she knew of no such evidence of collusion.

Farkas, who served as the deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia, was widely quoted when she said on MSNBC in 2017 that she feared that evidence she knew about would be destroyed by the Trump Administration. She stated:

...was urging my former colleagues, and, frankly speaking, the people on the Hill Get as much information as you can, get as much intelligence as you can, before President Obama leaves the administration, because I had a fear that somehow that information would disappear with the senior people that left. So it would be hidden away in the bureaucracy . . . the Trump folks, if they found out how we knew what we knew about their, the staff, the Trump staff's dealing with Russians, that they would try to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we would no longer have access to that intelligence. So I became very worried, because not enough was coming out into the open, and I knew that there was more.
MSNBC never seriously questioned the statements despite the fact that Farkas left the Obama Administration in 2015 before any such investigation could have occurred. As we have seen before, the factual and legal basis for such statements are largely immaterial in the age of echo journalism. The statement fit the narrative even if it lacked any plausible basis.

Not surprisingly, the House Intelligence Committee was eager to have Farkas share all that she stated she "knew about ["the Trump folks"], their staff, the Trump's staff's dealing with Russian" and wanted to get "into the open." After all, she told MSNBC that "I knew that there was more."

She was finally put under oath in the closed classified sessions and there was nothing but classified crickets. Farkas was repeatedly asked to share that information that electrified the MSNBC hosts and audience. She repeatedly denied any such knowledge, telling then Rep. Trey Gowdy (R, S.C.), "I didn't know anything."

Gowdy noted that Farkas left the Obama administration in 2015 and asked "Then how did you know?" She repeated again "I didn't know anything."

Gowdy then asked "Well, then why would you say, we knew?"

He also asked:

'You also didn't know whether or not anybody in the Trump campaign had colluded with Russia, did you?' Gowdy later asked, getting to the point.
"I didn't," Farkas responded.

MSNBC has said nothing about its prior headline story being untrue. Indeed, the media has barely acknowledged that the new documents reinforce that there was never any evidence of collusion and ultimately the allegations were rejected by the Special Counsel, Congress, and inspectors general.

For her part, Farkas has moved on. She is running for Congress . She is still citing her role in raising "the alarm" about Russian collusion:

'fter I left the Obama administration, I campaigned to help elect Secretary Clinton as our next President. When Russians interfered in that election, I was among the first to sound the alarm and urge Congress to take action. And I haven't let up since then.
She was indeed one of the first but it proved to be a false alarm based on nonexistent knowledge. Does that matter anymore?

Reprinted with permission from JonathanTurley.org .


Related What are you supporting? When you join the
Ron Paul Institute
for Peace and Prosperity
You are supporting

News and analysis
like you'll get nowhere else

Brave insight on
foreign policy and civil liberties

A young writer's program
and much more!

Support Ron Paul
Support the Institute!
Support Peace and Prosperity! Archives


[May 13, 2020] From RussiaGate To ObamaGate The End Of Boomerville by Tom Luongo

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... it's clear that Obama was always the vector through which the entire investigation into Donald Trump pointed. He's the only one with the power to have marshaled the forces arrayed against Trump for the past four years. ..."
"... What's clear now is the President Obama's administration was regularly engaged in illegally using NSA database access to spy on Americans and political opponents . This operation pre-dates Trump by a few years ..."
"... On April 18, 2016, following the preliminary audit results, Director Rogers shut down all FBI contractor access to the database after he learned FISA-702 "about"(17) and "to/from"(16) search queries were being done without authorization ..."
"... And that's when everything changed. Because at that point, having lost access Obama's spy team needed another way into the NSA database. Enter Fusion GPS, Christopher Steele and the ridiculous dossier used to issue FISA warrants on Carter Page and all the rest of it. ..."
"... Obama is guilty of the highest crimes a President can be guilty of, utilizing Federal law enforcement and intelligence services to spy on a political opponent during an election. This is after eight years of ruinous wars, coups both successful and not, drone-striking U.S. citizens and generally carrying on like the vandal he is. ..."
"... Obama's people have been covering for him for nearly four years now. They have been exposed as bald-faced liars by the transcripts of their impeachment testimonies to Adam Schiff and the House Intelligence Committee. ..."
"... Now that the heat is rising and the apparatus they used to control turns its attention to what they did, enough of them will roll over and give Attorney General William Barr what he wants. ..."
"... And here we are coming into the home stretch and the bitter end is staring these people in the face. They've lost all credibility, corrupted whole swaths of the Federal government beyond recognition and activated every resource they have in the media and the chattering classes to make manifest a bald-faced lie. And it didn't work. Now the desperation sets in. The exoneration of Gen. Michael Flynn, the release of the transcripts and conflicting stories told by John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey and the rest all point to something beyond sinister. ..."
"... You can smell the fear now. From Bill Kristol to John Brennan they can see the end of their project, whether it was for a New American Neocon Century or just the cynical push for a transnational oligarchy based around the European Union, their Utopian dreams have run into the immovable object of a people refusing to believe their lies anymore. ..."
May 13, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, 'n Guns blog,

From the beginning of the story RussiaGate was always about Barack Obama . I didn't always see it that way, certainly. My seething hatred for all things Hillary Clinton is a powerful blind spot I admit to freely.

But, it's clear that Obama was always the vector through which the entire investigation into Donald Trump pointed. He's the only one with the power to have marshaled the forces arrayed against Trump for the past four years.

We've known this for a couple of years now but there were a seemingly endless series of distractions put in place to obfuscate the truth...

Donald Trump was not a Russian agent.

What's clear now is the President Obama's administration was regularly engaged in illegally using NSA database access to spy on Americans and political opponents . This operation pre-dates Trump by a few years.

It was de rigeur by the time the election cycle ramped up in 2016. The timing of events is during that time period paints a very damning picture. This article from Zerohedge by way of Conservative Treehouse lays out the timing, the activities and the shifts in the narrative that implicate Obama beyond any doubt.

On April 18, 2016, following the preliminary audit results, Director Rogers shut down all FBI contractor access to the database after he learned FISA-702 "about"(17) and "to/from"(16) search queries were being done without authorization. Thus begins the first discovery of a much bigger background story.

And that's when everything changed. Because at that point, having lost access Obama's spy team needed another way into the NSA database. Enter Fusion GPS, Christopher Steele and the ridiculous dossier used to issue FISA warrants on Carter Page and all the rest of it.

The details are all there for anyone with eyes willing to see, the question is whether anyone deep in the throes of Trump Derangement Syndrome will take their eyes off the shadow play in front of them long enough to look.

I'm not holding my breath.

Obama is guilty of the highest crimes a President can be guilty of, utilizing Federal law enforcement and intelligence services to spy on a political opponent during an election. This is after eight years of ruinous wars, coups both successful and not, drone-striking U.S. citizens and generally carrying on like the vandal he is.

OBAMAGATE! pic.twitter.com/pFbb6hgDhF

-- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2020

... ... ...

These people obviously missed the key point about Goebbels' Big Lie theory of propaganda. For it to work there has to be a nugget of truth to wrap the lie in before you can repeat it endlessly to make it real. And that's why RussiaGate is dead. Long live ObamaGate.

Obama's people have been covering for him for nearly four years now. They have been exposed as bald-faced liars by the transcripts of their impeachment testimonies to Adam Schiff and the House Intelligence Committee.

None of them were willing to testify under oath, and be guilty of perjury, to the effect that Trump was colluding with the Russians. But, they'd say it on TV, Twitter and anywhere else they could to attack Trump with patent nonsense.

Now that the heat is rising and the apparatus they used to control turns its attention to what they did, enough of them will roll over and give Attorney General William Barr what he wants. Some of them will fall on their sword for Obama.

But I don't think Trump will be satisfied with that. He has to know that Obama is the key to truly draining the Swamp if that is, in fact, his goal. Because if he doesn't attack Obama now, Obama will be formidable in October. Both men are fighting for their lives at this point.

Trump was supposed to roll over and play nice. But Pat Buchanan rightly had him pegged at the beginning of this back in January of 2017, saying that Trump wasn't like Nixon, he wouldn't walk away to protect the office of the Presidency. He would fight to the bitter end because that's who he is.

And here we are coming into the home stretch and the bitter end is staring these people in the face. They've lost all credibility, corrupted whole swaths of the Federal government beyond recognition and activated every resource they have in the media and the chattering classes to make manifest a bald-faced lie. And it didn't work. Now the desperation sets in. The exoneration of Gen. Michael Flynn, the release of the transcripts and conflicting stories told by John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey and the rest all point to something beyond sinister.

You can smell the fear now. From Bill Kristol to John Brennan they can see the end of their project, whether it was for a New American Neocon Century or just the cynical push for a transnational oligarchy based around the European Union, their Utopian dreams have run into the immovable object of a people refusing to believe their lies anymore.

... ... ...

* * *

Join My Patreon if you no longer want to live in Boomerville. Install the Brave Browser if you want to help others escape it.

[May 13, 2020] Is Federal Judge Emmett Sullivan a part of Obama plot to entrap Flynn?

May 13, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Jim , 13 May 2020 at 04:51 PM

Federal Judge Emmett Sullivan needs "help."

His words, not mine.

Although amica, or amicus briefs can be routine in civil cases, in a criminal case, it is a prosecutor's duty to decide things as basic as whether to prosecute a case.

But in the Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn matter, Sullivan says he now needs outside help.

The need, the judge says, came following the DOJ decision to end prosecution of the general, having determined there was no crime; the heretofore prosecution of him was a phantom of the opera.

Sullivan now wants an encore.

What might that be?

Pirates of Penzance?

Sullivan Flies Over the Cuckoo's Nest?

In a recent order the judge said he will invite outside parties -- outside of the DOJ -- to provide this judge "unique information or perspective that can help the court."

The absurdity of Sullivan notwithstanding, it could be: he recognizes he is sitting on a volcano, partly of his own making because of decisions he made; and those of Judge Rudy Contreras, the man who was on the bench when Flynn plead to the false charges, circa Dec. 1, 2017.

Neither Contreras, nor Flynn's Covington lawyers, prior this plea, demanded the DOJ produce original FBI 302s -- of the Jan. 24, 2017 FBI interview of Flynn -- to show the concrete substance, that is, actual evidence, that would purportedly show the general lied.

The DOJ never produced this. Ever.

Sullivan, he never asked nor demanded nor got to read those original 302s either, even though he has been sitting on this case since Dec. 7, 2017.

After a year of sitting on the case, Flynn said he was ready to be sentenced: the prosecutors had said they were fine with no jail time for him.

During this Dec. 18, 2018 hearing, Sullivan Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

[If you have not, read transcript of this hearing, it's at least a half-hour read.]

Sullivan told Flynn he could face 15 years in jail, implied he committed treason, was a traitor to his country, blah blah blah.

The prosecutor at the time, Brandon Van Grack, told the Pirate of Penzance that more assistance of Flynn was needed for the bogus Mueller investigation.

Sullivan [Gilbert was not in the courtroom] then allowed Flynn's sentencing hearing to be continued, so long as Mueller submitted monthly progress reports to ascertain the general was cooperating with the special counsel office's "investigation" of nonexistent "crimes" against who knows what at that point.

To recap: Sullivan threatened Flynn with 15 years in prison; Flynn withdrew his willingness to be sentenced at that time; Van Grack out of nowhere said the general needed to cooperate some more with Mueller.

Had Sullivan not gone rouge at this hearing; had he demanded and gotten the original 302s, I would give more credence to what I'll say next.

The only rational reason, I think, Sullivan said he needs "help" -- before consummating the DOJ's request to end this matter – is simple.

Sullivan knows he is sitting on a volcano, and he can't take the heat.

Thus, he might be creating conditions for a last hurrah of nonsense from the enemies of justice who are the enemies of Flynn, who want to file amica with the court.

Put another way, the judge is inviting the very circus he claim to want to avoid, in his Minute Order.

Reason I'm not necessarily opposed to this circus is practical: more sunshine can be brought to this prosecution, this malicious and political perecution of Flynn – sunshine, via the DOJ release document after document that just piles onto the record DOJ/FBI/CIA lawlessness that was directed against and targeted Flynn. And perhaps other delicious nuggets, too.

When the smoke clears, the fat lady finally sings, Sullivan can say or claim he did everything to give everyone their say, blah blah blah, and hope like hell everyone forgets this Pirate's dereliction of duty, as a judge with a lifetime appointment.

Perhaps, should this show go on, we might discover why Contreras mysteriously recused himself right after the Flynn pleas.

Perhaps we will read all of the Covington law firm Eric Holder and Michael Chertoff emails, and what they were saying about Flynn, the good, the bad, the ugly.

And, since Barry decided to directly and publicly insert himself in this fiasco last week, with his remark about Flynn and "perjury," who knows what other documents will be filed on the docket. [Obama's pre meditated use of "perjury" when he knows it was not about that, indicates just how sinister his public involvement now is.]

I would like to see all of Sullivan's communications, work related and private, involving the Flynn case.

Please file all of them on the docket, Judge Sullivan, un-redacted, you who opened this can of worms. [So we can see if you, by your own "standards" might be a "security threat" or "sold out your country," etc.]

Sullivan didn't start this fire; he did pour gasoline on it.

". . . .Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. . . ."[Epistle to the Galatians]

-30-

[May 13, 2020] 13 May 2020 at 07:58 PM

May 13, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com
div Was Flynn a victim of his own incompetence?

There several fuzzy, unexplainable moments in this whole story:

1. Why Flynn intentionally violated White House protocol for questioning of Trump administration officials? He was fired by Obama-Brennan mafia for questioning Obama policies and during this period he should obtain more or less complete understanding of the modus of operation of this mafia and should not have any illusions about them, should he ?

2. How he did not sense the danger? Why no lawyer was present during the interview? It is impossible that Flynn did not understand that both Strzok and his boss were essentially plants from CIA in FBI and indirectly reported to Brennan ?

3. Why in this chess party between former paratrooper and former DIA chief (who has a Master of Business Administration in Telecommunications from Golden Gate University) and such a sleazy, feminine second, if not third rate individual as Strzok, the simplest defensive move was to ask for transcripts of his talks with conversations with Kislyak was not used? Why Flynn so easily fall a victim of a primitive, textbook entrapment? It is inconceivable that he does not understand that such a full transcript exist. Why he behaved like a 17 year old detailed by a police officer?

4. On Jan 23, 2017 Russiagate hysteria was in full bloom. So any normal individual would understand where are the legs of questions that Strzok asked him during the interview just based on this simple fact. Also it is unconceivable that neither he, not Trump has no information about the actions of Comey and his henchmen from former Flynn colleagues in DIA. Why no preemptive strikes against McCabe and Strzok plot were fired?

5. How important was the fact that Comey and his henchmen have Flynn by the balls due to his lobbing efforts for Turkey in this whole story ?

[May 13, 2020] The NSA list of people asking that a name be unmasked which turned out to be Michael Flynn

May 13, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

By Robert Willmann

Released today is a list from the National Security Agency of officials who asked -- between 8 November 2016 and 31 January 2017 -- that a name be unmasked in intercepted communications, and the name turned out to be Gen. Michael Flynn--

https://turcopolier.typepad.com/files/michaelflynn_nsa_unmasking_requests.pdf

Gen. Paul M. Nakasone, the Director of the NSA, included the list with a short memo to Richard Grenell, the Acting Director of National Intelligence, who declassified the list and then routed it today to U.S. Senators Charles Grassley and Ron Johnson.

I think the senators should have asked for a wider time frame.

[May 13, 2020] All the Adam Schiff Transcripts - WSJ

May 13, 2020 | www.wsj.com

Americans expect that politicians will lie, but sometimes the examples are so brazen that they deserve special notice. Newly released Congressional testimony shows that Adam Schiff spread falsehoods shamelessly about Russia and Donald Trump for three years even as his own committee gathered contrary evidence.

[May 13, 2020] Biden Spokesman Insults Journolist Who Revealed Biden Role in Unmasking Flynn

May 13, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

The day just keeps getting better and better. The left is now moving the goalposts, parroting the new talking point that: 'sure, Biden unmasked Flynn - but that just goes to show how concerned everyone was about him.'

Biden spokesman Andrew Bates, meanwhile, took to Twitter to insult journalist Catherine Herridge as a "partisan, rightwing hack who is a regular conduit for conservative media manipulation..." for revealing Biden's involvement in unmasking Flynn. He then deleted the tweet and issued a statement accusing President Trump of "dishonest media manipulation to distract from his response to the worst public health crisis in 100 years," adding that the documents "simply indicate the breadth and depth of concern across the American government -- including among career officials -- over intelligence reports of Michael Flynn's attempts to undermine ongoing American national security policy through discussions with Russian officials or other foreign representatives."

. @JoeBiden camp responds to "unmasking" list: "These documents simply indicate the breadth and depth of concern across the American govt...over intelligence reports of Michael Flynn's attempts to undermine ongoing American national security policy" via @AndrewBatesNC pic.twitter.com/bNl9Fp5JH1

-- Bo Erickson CBS (@BoKnowsNews) May 13, 2020

Somehow their response failed to include why Biden tried to lie on Tuesday about knowledge of the Flynn investigation. * * *

Update (1635ET): It did not take long for the liberalati to try and distract from what just dropped and to turn their cognitive dissonance up to '11'. None other than Ben Rhodes quickly ranted:

"The unconfirmed, acting DNI using his position to criminalize routine intelligence work to help re-elect the president and obscure Russian intervention in our democracy would normally be the scandal here..."

To which The Wall Street Journal's Kimberley Strassel rebuked rather eloquently...

"This is the best they've got--to complain about transparency. "

But perhaps most notable is the fact the unmasking involved here occurred BEFORE the Kislyak call that was supposedly triggered the move against Flynn et al.

Another riddle we are sure Messrs. Biden et al. will quickly mumble-splain.

* * *

A list of Obama administration officials who participated in the 'unmasking' of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has been released by Sens. Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley. The names include former FBI Director James Comey, former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and former Vice President Joe Biden .

SCOOP @CBSNews obtains @RichardGrenell notification to congress declassified "unmasking list" Flynn between late 2016 and January 2017 - Read 3 pages provided by NSA here pic.twitter.com/NozVpQlRn2

-- Catherine Herridge (@CBS_Herridge) May 13, 2020

#FLYNN unmasking docs include these key details "Each individual was an authorized recipient of the original report and the unmasking was approved through NSA's standard process..While the principals are identified below, we cannot confirm they saw the unmasked information." pic.twitter.com/vz9W3uHPSz

-- Catherine Herridge (@CBS_Herridge) May 13, 2020

The revelation comes after Biden was caught trying to lie about his knowledge of the Flynn investigation during a Tuesday morning interview - changing course after host George Stephanopoulos pointed out his documented attendance at a January 5 Oval Office meeting in which key members of the Obama administration discussed the ongoing investigation into Flynn's intercepted contacts with the Russian ambassador.

Notably, Obama asked Comey to conceal the FBI's investigation from the incoming administration.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/oIaqV0CtOBY

Declassified documents reveal V.P. Biden ordered the unmasking of General Flynn's private conversation.
Anyone think that Biden might have abused his power to go after a political opponent...

-- Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) May 13, 2020

The Senate must immediately hold hearings on this! Clapper, Comey, Brennan and even Biden owe it to the American people. They should testify under oath. What did the former president know?

-- Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) May 13, 2020

As we have previously noted, "unmasking" is a term used when the identity of a U.S. citizen or lawful resident is revealed in classified intelligence reports. Normally, when government officials receive intelligence reports, the names of American citizens are redacted to protect their privacy. But officials can request that names, listed as "U.S. Person 1," for example, be unmasked internally in order to give context about the potential value of the intelligence. Unmasking is justified for national security reasons but is governed by strict rules across the U.S. intelligence apparatus that make it illegal to pursue for political reasons or to leak classified information generated by the process .

Last week, Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell visited the Justice Department with the list of unmaskers, which the DOJ effectively said was up to him to release, according to a Fox News report.

After Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice was outed as the ringleader of an unmasking campaign, the Wall Street Journal reported that she wasn't the only administration official to participate in Flynn's unmasking .

The new disclosure comes after the FBI was revealed to have attempted to ensnare Flynn in a perjury trap , despite the agency's own DC field office suggesting that the case be closed.

Wooooo.... Biden's in trouble.

-- Jenna Jameson (@jennajameson) May 13, 2020

[May 13, 2020] President Obama should have kept his mouth shut

Especially in view of his role in Russiagate...
May 13, 2020 | news.yahoo.com

Related: What is 'Obamagate' and why is Trump so worked up about it?

Last week, remarks by Obama were leaked to Yahoo News that were highly critical about Trump and his administration, seeming to break a convention in US politics that former occupants of the White House rarely criticize their successors.

Speaking to alumni of his administration, Obama said he was worried about the "rule of law", in light of the justice department's decision to drop its case against the former national security adviser Michael Flynn. That's the issue at the heart of Trump's attempts to gin up an "Obamagate" scandal, which on Tuesday morning he again claimed "makes Watergate look small time!"

Obama also said the response to the coronavirus pandemic had been "an absolute chaotic disaster".

McConnell was speaking to Trump's daughter-in-law Lara Trump in an online fundraiser on Monday night.

Asked about Obama "slamming" the administration for its response to the coronavirus outbreak, he said: "I think President Obama should have kept his mouth shut.

"You know, we know he doesn't like much this administration is doing. That's understandable. But I think it's a little bit classless frankly to critique an administration that comes after you."

He added: "You had your shot. You were there for eight years. I think the tradition that the Bushes set up of not critiquing the president who comes after you is a good tradition."

There is a tradition of former presidents not commenting on or attacking their successors in the Oval Office, but Trump is not part of the informal club which currently includes Obama, George W Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, and he has regularly attacked those who went before him.

Plus, Obama's views of Trump are pretty well known, if usually by indirect routes and leaks to the press. For example, in a Hulu documentary about Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign against Trump, the Virginia senator Tim Kaine is seen to say the then president thinks Trump is a fascist.

In the remarks leaked to Yahoo News, Obama said he would be hitting the campaign trail for Joe Biden this fall to help him try to unseat Trump and make him a one-term president. Biden leads Trump in key swing states and national polling and McConnell is also presiding over a Senate majority that now looks increasingly at risk as Republican popularity dips.

[May 13, 2020] John Brennan Concealed 'High-Quality' Intelligence That Russia Wanted Hillary Clinton To Win Report

Notable quotes:
"... House Intelligence Committee staff told me that after an exhaustive investigation reviewing intelligence and interviewing intelligence officers, they found that Brennan suppressed high-quality intelligence suggesting that Putin actually wanted the more predictable and malleable Clinton to win the 2016 election . ..."
"... Instead, the Brennan team included low-quality intelligence that failed to meet intelligence community standards to support the political claim that Russian officials wanted Trump to win, House Intelligence Committee staff revealed. They said that CIA analysts also objected to including that flawed, substandard information in the assessment. ..."
"... Fox 's Henry said that he has obtained independent confirmation of the pro-Clinton Russia claim made by Fleitz . ..."
"... Brennan's concealment of this key information was yet another link in the chain of the Obama administration's plot to smear Donald Trump as a Russian asset - a hoax supported by the Clinton-funded Steele dossier, which the FBI knew was Russian disinformation (or, more likely, Steele's Russophobic fantasies) before they used it as a predicate to spy on Trump aide Carter Page during the 2016 election. ..."
May 13, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
Former CIA director John Brennan suppressed intelligence which indicated that Russia wanted Hillary Clinton to win because "she was a known quantity," vs. the unpredictable Donald Trump, according to Fox News ' Ed Henry.

During a Tuesday night discussion with Tucker Carlson, Henry said that Brennan "also had intel saying, actually, Russia wanted Hillary Clinton to win because she was a known quantity, she had been secretary of state, and Vladimir Putin's team thought she was more malleable, while candidate Donald Trump was unpredictable."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/xWSWdS8rILs

Perhaps Russian President Vladimir Putin has fond memories of the time Bill Clinton hung out at his 'private homestead' during the same trip where he collected a $500,000 payday for a speech at a Moscow bank, right before the Uranium One deal was approved.

And as Breitbart 's Joel Pollak notes, Henry's claim backs up a similar allegation by former National Security Council chief of staff Fred Fleitz , who said on April 22:

House Intelligence Committee staff told me that after an exhaustive investigation reviewing intelligence and interviewing intelligence officers, they found that Brennan suppressed high-quality intelligence suggesting that Putin actually wanted the more predictable and malleable Clinton to win the 2016 election .

Instead, the Brennan team included low-quality intelligence that failed to meet intelligence community standards to support the political claim that Russian officials wanted Trump to win, House Intelligence Committee staff revealed. They said that CIA analysts also objected to including that flawed, substandard information in the assessment.

Fox 's Henry said that he has obtained independent confirmation of the pro-Clinton Russia claim made by Fleitz .

Brennan's concealment of this key information was yet another link in the chain of the Obama administration's plot to smear Donald Trump as a Russian asset - a hoax supported by the Clinton-funded Steele dossier, which the FBI knew was Russian disinformation (or, more likely, Steele's Russophobic fantasies) before they used it as a predicate to spy on Trump aide Carter Page during the 2016 election.

And now, Brennan is a contributor on MSNBC. How fitting.

[May 12, 2020] OBAMAGATE! Trump Tweets Tucker Carlson's Crushing Breakdown Why The Former President Should Be Panicking

May 12, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Why is former President Obama calling forth all his defensive resources now? Why did former national security advisor Susan Rice write her CYA letter? Why have republicans in congress not been willing to investigate the true origins of political surveillance? What is the reason for so much anger, desperation and opposition from a variety of interests?

In a single word in a single tweet tonight, President Trump explained it perfectly - with help from Fox News' Tucker Carlson's detailed breakdown" "OBAMAGATE!" ...

OBAMAGATE! pic.twitter.com/pFbb6hgDhF

-- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2020

As around 2:15 in the clip above, Carlson explains that then president of the United States Barack Obama turned to the head of the FBI - the most powerful law enforcement official in America, and said "Continue to secretly investigate my chief political rival so I can act against him."

Comey's response? "Yes, sir."

Having watched that clip in detail, here is 'sundance' from TheConservativeTreehouse.com laying out the details surrounding political surveillance in the era of President Obama...

With the release of recent transcripts and the declassification of material from within the IG report, the Carter Page FISA and Flynn documents showing FBI activity, there is a common misconception about why the intelligence apparatus began investigating the Trump campaign in the first place. Why was Donald Trump considered a threat?

In this outline we hope to provide some fully cited deep source material that will explain the origin; and specifically why those inside the Intelligence Community began targeting Trump and using Confidential Human Sources against campaign officials.

During the time-frame of December 2015 through April 2016 the NSA database was being exploited by contractors within the intelligence community doing unauthorized searches.

On March 9, 2016, oversight personnel doing a review of FBI system access were alerted to thousands of unauthorized search queries of specific U.S. persons within the NSA database.

NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers was made aware.

Subsequently NSA Director Rogers initiated a full compliance review of the system to identify who was doing the searches; & what searches were being conducted.

On April 18, 2016, following the preliminary audit results, Director Rogers shut down all FBI contractor access to the database after he learned FISA-702 "about"(17) and "to/from"(16) search queries were being done without authorization. Thus begins the first discovery of a much bigger background story.

When you compile the timeline with the people involved; and the specific wording of the resulting review, which was then delivered to the FISA court; and overlay the activity that was taking place in the GOP primary; what we discover is a process where the metadata collected by the NSA was being searched for political opposition research and surveillance.

Additionally, tens-of-thousands of searches were identified by the FISA court as likely extending much further than the compliance review period: " while the government reports it is unable to provide a reliable estimate of the non compliant queries since 2012, there is no apparent reason to believe the November 2015 [to] April 2016 period coincided with an unusually high error rate" .

In short, during the Obama administration the NSA database was continually used to conduct surveillance. This is the critical point that leads to understanding the origin of "Spygate", as it unfolded in the Spring and Summer of 2016.

It was the discovery of the database exploitation and the removal of access as a surveillance tool that created their initial problem. Here's how we can tell .

Initially in December 2015 there were 17 GOP candidates and all needed to be researched.

However, when Donald Trump won New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina the field was significantly whittled. Trump, Cruz, Rubio, Kasich and Carson remained.

On Super Tuesday, March 2, 2016 , Donald Trump won seven states (VT, AR, VA, GA, AL, TN, MA) it was then clear that Trump was the GOP frontrunner with momentum to become the presumptive nominee. On March 5th , Trump won Kentucky and Louisiana; and on March 8th Trump won Michigan, Mississippi and Hawaii.

The next day, March 9th , NSA security alerts warned internal oversight personnel that something sketchy was going on.

This timing is not coincidental. As FISA Judge Rosemary Collyer later wrote in her report, " many of these non-compliant queries involved the use of the same identifiers over different date ranges ." Put another way: attributes belonging to a specific individual(s) were being targeted and queried, unlawfully. Given what was later discovered, it seems obvious the primary search target, over multiple date ranges , was Donald Trump.

There were tens-of-thousands of unauthorized search queries; and as Judge Collyer stated in her report, there is no reason to believe the 85% non compliant rate was any different from the abuse of the NSA database going back to 2012.

As you will see below the NSA database was how political surveillance was being conducted during Obama's second term in office. However, when the system was flagged, and when NSA Director Mike Rogers shut down "contractor" access to the system, the system users needed to develop another way to get access.

Mike Rogers shuts down access on April 18, 2016. On April 19, 2016, Fusion-GPS founder Glenn Simpson's wife, Mary Jacoby visits the White House. Immediately thereafter, the DNC and Clinton campaign contract Fusion GPS who then hire Christopher Steele.

Knowing it was federal "contractors", outside government with access to the system, doing the unauthorized searches, the question becomes: who were the contractors?

The possibilities are quite vast. Essentially anyone the FBI or intelligence apparatus was using could have participated. Crowdstrike was a known FBI contractor ; they were also contracted by the DNC . Shawn Henry was the former head of the FBI office in DC and is now the head of Crowdstrike; a rather dubious contractor for the government and a politically connected data security and forensic company. James Comey's special friend Daniel Richman was an unpaid FBI "special employee" with security access to the database. Nellie Ohr began working for Fusion-GPS on the Trump project in November 2015 and she was a CIA contractor ; and it's entirely likely Glenn Simpson or people within his Fusion-GPS network were also contractors for the intelligence community.

Remember the Sharyl Attkisson computer intrusions? It's all part of this same network; Attkisson even names Shawn Henry as a defendant in her ongoing lawsuit.

All of the aforementioned names, and so many more, held a political agenda in 2016.

It seems likely if the NSA flags were never triggered then the contracted system users would have continued exploiting the NSA database for political opposition research; which would then be funneled to the Clinton team. However, once the unauthorized flags were triggered, the system users (including those inside the official intelligence apparatus) needed to find another back-door to continue Again, the timing becomes transparent.

Immediately after NSA flags were raised March 9th; the same intelligence agencies began using confidential human sources (CHS's) to run into the Trump campaign. By activating intelligence assets like Joseph Mifsud and Stefan Halper the IC (CIA, FBI) and system users had now created an authorized way to continue the same political surveillance operations.

When Donald Trump hired Paul Manafort on March 28, 2016 , it was a perfect scenario for those doing the surveillance. Manafort was a known entity to the FBI and was previously under investigation. Paul Manafort's entry into the Trump orbit was perfect for Glenn Simpson to sell his prior research on Manafort as a Trump-Russia collusion script two weeks later.

The shift from "unauthorized exploitation of the NSA database" to legally authorized exploitation of the NSA database was now in place. This was how they continued the political surveillance. This is the confluence of events that originated "spygate", or what officially blossomed into the FBI investigation known as "Crossfire Hurricane" on July 31.

If the NSA flags were never raised; and if Director Rogers had never initiated the compliance audit; and if the political contractors were never blocked from access to the database; they would never have needed to create a legal back-door, a justification to retain the surveillance. The political operatives/contractors would have just continued the targeted metadata exploitation.

Once they created the surveillance door, Fusion-GPS was then needed to get the FBI known commodity of Chris Steele activated as a pipeline. Into that pipeline all system users pushed opposition research. However, one mistake from the NSA database extraction during an "about" query shows up as a New Yorker named Michael Cohen in Prague.

That misinterpreted data from a FISA-702 "about query" is then piped to Steele and turns up inside the dossier; it was the wrong Michael Cohen. It wasn't Trump's lawyer, it was an art dealer from New York City with the same name; the same "identifier".

A DEEP DIVE – How Did It Work?

Start by reviewing the established record from the 99-page FISC opinion rendered by Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer on April 26, 2017. Review the details within the FISC opinion.

I would strongly urge everyone to read the FISC report (full pdf below) because Judge Collyer outlines how the DOJ, which includes the FBI, had an "institutional lack of candor" in responses to the FISA court. In essence, the Obama administration was continually lying to the FISA court about their activity, and the rate of fourth amendment violations for illegal searches and seizures of U.S. persons' private information for multiple years.

Unfortunately, due to intelligence terminology Judge Collyer's brief and ruling is not an easy read for anyone unfamiliar with the FISA processes. That complexity also helps the media avoid discussing it; and as a result most Americans have no idea the scale and scope of the Obama-era surveillance issues. So we'll try to break down the language.

Top Secret FISA Court Order... by The Conservative Treehouse on Scribd

https://www.scribd.com/embeds/349542716/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll&access_key=key-72P5FzpI44KMOuOPZrt1

For the sake of brevity and common understanding CTH will highlight the most pertinent segments showing just how systemic and troublesome the unlawful electronic surveillance was.

Early in 2016 NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers was alerted of a significant uptick in FISA-702(17) "About" queries using the FBI/NSA database that holds all metadata records on every form of electronic communication.

The NSA compliance officer alerted Admiral Mike Rogers who then initiated a full compliance audit on/around March 9th, 2016 , for the period of November 1st, 2015, through May 1st, 2016.

While the audit was ongoing, due to the severity of the results that were identified, Admiral Mike Rogers stopped anyone from using the 702(17) "about query" option, and went to the extraordinary step of blocking all FBI contractor access to the database on April 18, 2016 (keep these dates in mind).

Here are some significant segments:

The key takeaway from these first paragraphs is how the search query results were exported from the NSA database to users who were not authorized to see the material. The FBI contractors were conducting searches and then removing, or 'exporting', the results. Later on, the FBI said all of the exported material was deleted.

Searching the highly classified NSA database is essentially a function of filling out search boxes to identify the user-initiated search parameter and get a return on the search result.

♦ FISA-702(16) is a search of the system returning a U.S. person ("702"); and the "16" is a check box to initiate a search based on " To and From ". Example, if you put in a date and a phone number and check "16" as the search parameter the user will get the returns on everything "To and From" that identified phone number for the specific date. Calls, texts, contacts etc. Including results for the inbound and outbound contacts.

♦ FISA-702(17) is a search of the system returning a U.S. person (702); and the "17" is a check box to initiate a search based on everything " About " the search qualifier. Example, if you put a date and a phone number and check "17" as the search parameter the user will get the returns of everything about that phone. Calls, texts, contacts, geolocation (or gps results), account information, user, service provider etc. As a result, 702(17) can actually be used to locate where the phone (and user) was located on a specific date or sequentially over a specific period of time which is simply a matter of changing the date parameters.

And that's just from a phone number.

Search an ip address "about" and read all data into that server; put in an email address and gain everything about that account. Or use the electronic address of a GPS enabled vehicle (about) and you can withdraw more electronic data and monitor in real time. Search a credit card number and get everything about the account including what was purchased, where, when, etc. Search a bank account number, get everything about transactions and electronic records etc. Just about anything and everything can be electronically searched; everything has an electronic 'identifier' .

The search parameter is only limited by the originating field filled out. Names, places, numbers, addresses, etc. By using the "About" parameter there may be thousands or millions of returns. Imagine if you put "@realdonaldtrump" into the search parameter? You could extract all following accounts who interacted on Twitter, or Facebook etc. You are only limited by your imagination and the scale of the electronic connectivity.

As you can see below, on March 9th, 2016, internal auditors noted the FBI was sharing "raw FISA information, including but not limited to Section 702-acquired information".

In plain English the raw search returns were being shared with unknown entities without any attempt to "minimize" or redact the results. The person(s) attached to the results were named and obvious. There was no effort to hide their identity or protect their 4th amendment rights of privacy; and database access was from the FBI network:

But what's the scale here? This is where the story really lies.

Read this next excerpt carefully.

The operators were searching "U.S Persons". The review of November 1, 2015, to May 1, 2016, showed "eighty-five percent of those queries" were unlawful or "non compliant".

85% !! "representing [redacted number]".

We can tell from the space of the redaction the number of searches were between 10,000 and 99,999 [six digits]. If we take the middle number of 50,000 – a non compliant rate of 85 percent means 42,500 unlawful searches out of 50,000.

The [six digit] amount (more than 10,000, less than 99,999), and 85% error rate, was captured in a six month period, November 2015 to April 2016.

Also notice this very important quote: " many of these non-compliant queries involved the use of the same identifiers over different date ranges ." This tells us the system users were searching the same phone number, email address, electronic identifier, repeatedly over different dates.

Specific person(s) were being tracked/monitored .

Additionally, notice the last quote: " while the government reports it is unable to provide a reliable estimate of" these non lawful searches "since 2012, there is no apparent reason to believe the November 2015 [to] April 2016 coincided with an unusually high error rate" .

That means the 85% unlawful FISA-702(16)(17) database abuse has likely been happening since 2012 .

2012 is an important date in this database abuse because a network of specific interests is assembled that also shows up in 2016/2017:

  • Who was 2012 FBI Director? Robert Mueller, who was selected by the FBI group to become special prosecutor in 2017.
  • Who was Mueller' chief-of-staff? Aaron Zebley, who became one of the lead lawyers on the Mueller special counsel.
  • Who was 2012 CIA Director? John Brennan (remember the ouster of Gen Petraeus)
  • Who was ODNI? James Clapper.
  • Remember, the NSA is inside the Pentagon (Defense Dept) command structure. Who was Defense Secretary? Ash Carter

Who wanted NSA Director Mike Rogers fired in 2016? Brennan, Clapper and Carter.

And finally, who wrote and signed-off-on the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment and then lied about the use of the Steele Dossier? The same John Brennan, and James Clapper along with James Comey.

Tens of thousands of searches over four years (since 2012), and 85% of them are illegal. The results were extracted for? . (I believe this is all political opposition use; and I'll explain why momentarily.)

OK, that's the stunning scale; but who was involved?

Private contractors with access to " raw FISA information that went well beyond what was necessary to respond to FBI's requests ":

And as noted, the contractor access was finally halted on April 18th, 2016.

[Coincidentally (or likely not), the wife of Fusion-GPS founder Glenn Simpson, Mary Jacoby, goes to the White House the very next day on April 19th, 2016.]

None of this is conspiracy theory.

All of this is laid out inside this 99-page opinion from FISC Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer who also noted that none of this FISA abuse was accidental in a footnote on page 87 : " deliberate decisionmaking ":

This specific footnote, if declassified, could be a key. Note the phrase: "( [redacted] access to FBI systems was the subject of an interagency memorandum of understanding entered into [redacted])" , this sentence has the potential to expose an internal decision; withheld from congress and the FISA court by the Obama administration; that outlines a process for access and distribution of surveillance data.

Note: " no notice of this practice was given to the FISC until 2016 ", that is important.

Summary:

The FISA court identified and quantified tens-of-thousands of search queries of the NSA/FBI database using the FISA-702(16)(17) system. The database was repeatedly used by persons with contractor access who unlawfully searched and extracted the raw results without redacting the information and shared it with an unknown number of entities.

The outlined process certainly points toward a political spying and surveillance operation; and we are not the only one to think that's what this system is being used for.

Back in 2017 when House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes was working to reauthorize the FISA legislation, Nunes wrote a letter to ODNI Dan Coats about this specific issue:

SIDEBAR :

To solve the issue, well, actually attempt to ensure it never happened again, NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers eventually took away the "About" query option permanently in 2017. NSA Director Rogers said the abuse was so inherent there was no way to stop it except to remove the process completely. [ SEE HERE ] Additionally, the NSA database operates as a function of the Pentagon, so the Trump administration went one step further. On his last day as NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers -together with ODNI Dan Coats- put U.S. cyber-command, the database steward, fully into the U.S. military as a full combatant command. [ SEE HERE ] Unfortunately it didn't work as shown by the 2018 FISC opinion rendered by FISC Judge James Boasberg [ SEE HERE ]

There is little doubt the FISA-702(16)(17) database system was used by Obama-era officials, from 2012 through April 2016, as a way to spy on their political opposition.

Quite simply there is no other intellectually honest explanation for the scale and volume of database abuse that was taking place; and keep in mind these searches were all ruled to be unlawful. Searches for repeated persons over a period time that were not authorized.

When we reconcile what was taking place and who was involved, then the actions of the exact same principle participants take on a jaw-dropping amount of clarity.

All of the action taken by CIA Director Brennan, FBI Director Comey, ODNI Clapper and Defense Secretary Ashton Carter make sense. Including their effort to get NSA Director Mike Rogers fired .

Everything after March 9th, 2016, had a dual purpose: (1) done to cover up the weaponization of the FISA database. [ Explained Here ] Spygate, Russia-Gate, the Steele Dossier, and even the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (drawn from the dossier and signed by the above) were needed to create a cover-story and protect themselves from discovery of this four year weaponization, political surveillance and unlawful spying. Even the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel makes sense; he was FBI Director when this began. And (2) they needed to keep the surveillance going.

The beginning decision to use FISA(702) as a domestic surveillance and political spy mechanism appears to have started in/around 2012. Perhaps sometime shortly before the 2012 presidential election and before John Brennan left the White House and moved to CIA. However, there was an earlier version of data assembly that preceded this effort.

Political spying 1.0 was actually the weaponization of the IRS. This is where the term " Secret Research Project " originated as a description from the Obama team. It involved the U.S. Department of Justice under Eric Holder and the FBI under Robert Mueller. It never made sense why Eric Holder requested over 1 million tax records via CD ROM, until overlaying the timeline of the FISA abuse:

The IRS sent the FBI "21 disks constituting a 1.1 million page database of information from 501(c)(4) tax exempt organizations, to the Federal Bureau of Investigation." The transaction occurred in October 2010 ( link )

Why disks? Why send a stack of DISKS to the DOJ and FBI when there's a pre-existing financial crimes unit within the IRS. All of the evidence within this sketchy operation came directly to the surface in early spring 2012 .

The IRS scandal was never really about the IRS, it was always about the DOJ asking the IRS for the database of information. That is why it was transparently a conflict when the same DOJ was tasked with investigating the DOJ/IRS scandal. Additionally, Obama sent his chief-of-staff Jack Lew to become Treasury Secretary; effectively placing an ally to oversee/cover-up any issues. As Treasury Secretary Lew did just that.

Lesson Learned – It would appear the Obama administration learned a lesson from attempting to gather a large opposition research database operation inside a functioning organization large enough to have some good people that might blow the whistle.

The timeline reflects a few months after realizing the "Secret Research Project" was now worthless (June 2012), they focused more deliberately on a smaller network within the intelligence apparatus and began weaponizing the FBI/NSA database. If our hunch is correct, that is what will be visible in footnote #69:

How this all comes together in 2019/2020

Fusion GPS was not hired in April 2016 just to research Donald Trump. As shown in the evidence provided by the FISC, the intelligence community was already doing surveillance and spy operations. The Obama administration already knew everything about the Trump campaign, and were monitoring everything by exploiting the FISA database.

However, after the NSA alerts in/around March 9th, 2016, and particularly after the April 18th shutdown of contractor access, the Obama intelligence community needed Fusion GPS to create a legal albeit ex post facto justification for the pre-existing surveillance and spy operations. Fusion GPS gave them that justification in the Steele Dossier.

That's why the FBI small group, which later transitioned into the Mueller team, were so strongly committed to and defending the formation of the Steele Dossier and its dubious content.

The Steele Dossier, an outcome of the Fusion contract, contains three insurance policy purposes: (1) the cover-story and justification for the pre-existing surveillance operation (protect Obama); and (2) facilitate the FBI counterintelligence operation against the Trump campaign (assist Clinton); and (3) continue the operation with a special counsel (protect both).

An insurance policy would be needed. The Steele Dossier becomes the investigative virus the FBI wanted inside the system. To get the virus into official status, they used the FISA application as the delivery method and injected it into Carter Page. The FBI already knew Carter Page; essentially Carter Page was irrelevant, what they needed was the FISA warrant and the Dossier in the system { Go Deep }.

The Obama intelligence community needed Fusion GPS to give them a plausible justification for already existing surveillance and spy operations. Fusion-GPS gave them that justification and evidence for a FISA warrant with the Steele Dossier.

Ultimately that's why the Steele Dossier was so important; without it, the FBI would not have a tool that Mueller needed to continue the investigation of President Trump. In essence by renewing the FISA application, despite them knowing the underlying dossier was junk, the FBI was keeping the surveillance gateway open for Team Mueller to exploit later on.

Additionally, without the Steele Dossier the DOJ and FBI are naked with their FISA-702 abuse as outlined by John Ratcliffe.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/wWsvZuiPyTI

Thankfully we know U.S. Attorney John Durham has talked to NSA Director Mike Rogers. In this video Rogers explains how he was notified of what was happening and what he did after the notification.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/CIJGH9RS2Fc

* * *

After tonight's tweets from President Trump, we should expect a full-court press from 'the resistance' to distract from the cracks appearing in the former President's halo of invincibility...

Login Channels ZeroHedge Search Today's Top Stories Loading... Contact Information Tips: [email protected]

General: [email protected]

Legal: [email protected]

Advertising: Click here

Abuse/Complaints: [email protected] Suggested Reading Make sure to read our "How To [Read/Tip Off] Zero Hedge Without Attracting The Interest Of [Human Resources/The Treasury/Black Helicopters]" Guide

It would be very wise of you to study our disclaimer , our privacy policy and our (non)policy on conflicts / full disclosure . Here's our Cookie Policy .

How to report offensive comments

Notice on Racial Discrimination .

Copyright ©2009-2020 ZeroHedge

[May 12, 2020] Flashback Obama Ordered Comey To Conceal FBI Activities Right Before Trump Took Office

May 12, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Flashback: Obama Ordered Comey To Conceal FBI Activities Right Before Trump Took Office by Tyler Durden Mon, 05/11/2020 - 14:05 With weeks to go before Donald Trump's inauguration, former President Obama and VP Joe Biden were briefed by Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, FBI Director James Comey, CIA Director John Brennan, and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper on matters related to the Russia investigation.

The January 5, 2017 meeting - also attended by former National Security Adviser Susan Rice, has taken on a new significance in light of revelations of blatant misconduct by the FBI - and the fact that the agency decided not to brief then-candidate Trump that a "friendly foreign government" (Australia) advised them that Russia had offered a member of his campaign 'dirt' on Hillary Clinton.

The rumored 'dirt' was in fact told to Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos by Joseph Mifsud - a shadowy Maltese professor and self-described member of the Clinton Foundation. Papadopoulos then told Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, who told Aussie intelligence, which tipped off the FBI, which then launched Operation Crossfire Hurricane. Papadopoulos was then surveiled by FBI spy Stefan Halper and his honeypot 'assistant' who went by the name "Azra Turk" - while in 2017, Papadopoulos claims a spy handed him $10,000 in what he says goes "all the way back to the DOJ, under the previous FBI under Comey, and even the Mueller team."

Meanwhile, the Trump DOJ decided last week to drop the case against former Director of National Security, Mike Flynn, after it was revealed that the FBI was trying to ensnare him in a 'perjury trap,' and that Flynn was coerced into pleading guilty to lying about his very legal communications with the Russian Ambassador.

And let's not forget that the FBI used the discredited Steele Dossier to spy on Trump campaign associate Carter Page - and all of his contacts . Not only did the agency lie to the FISA court to obtain the warrant, the DOJ knew the outlandish claims of Trump-Russia ties in the Steele Dossier - funded by the Clinton Campaign - had no basis in reality.

And so, it's worth going back in time and reviewing that January 5, 2017 meeting which was oddly documented by Susan Rice in an email to herself on January 20, 2017 - inauguration day, which purports to summarize that meeting.

Rice later wrote an email to herself on January 20, 2017 -- Trump's inauguration day and her last day in the White House -- purporting to summarize that meeting. "On January 5, following a briefing by IC leadership on Russian hacking during the 2016 Presidential election," Rice wrote, "President Obama had a brief follow-on conversation with FBI Director Jim Comey and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates in the Oval Office. Vice President Biden and I were also present."

According to Rice, "President Obama began the conversation by stressing his continued commitment to ensuring that every aspect of this issue is handled by the Intelligence and law enforcement communities 'by the book.'" But then she added a significant caveat to that "commitment": "From a national security perspective, however, President Obama said he wants to be sure that, as we engage with the incoming team, we are mindful to ascertain if there is any reason that we cannot share information fully as it relates to Russia . "

The next portion of the email is classified, but Rice then noted that " the President asked Comey to inform him if anything changes in the next few weeks that should affect how we share classified information with the incoming team . Comey said he would."

At the time Obama suggested to Yates and Comey -- who were to keep their posts under the Trump administration -- that the hold-overs consider withholding information from the incoming administration, Obama knew that President Trump had named Flynn to serve as national security advisor. Obama also knew there was an ongoing FBI investigation into Flynn premised on Flynn being a Russian agent. - The Federalist

And so, instead of briefing Trump on the Flynn investigation, Comey "privately briefed Trump on the most salacious and absurd 'pee tape' allegation in the Christopher Steele dossier."

The fact that Comey did so leaked to the press, which used the briefing itself as justification to report on, and publish the dossier .

What Comey didn't brief Trump on was the FBI's bullshit case against Michael Flynn - accusing the incoming national security adviser of being a potential Russian agent. And according to The Federalist , " Even after Obama had left office and Comey had a new commander-in-chief to report to, Comey continued to follow Obama's prompt by withholding intel from Trump. "

The Federalist also raises questions about former DNI James Clapper - specifically, whether Clapper lied to Congress in July of 2017 when he said he never briefed Obama on the substance of phone calls between Flynn and the Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak.

According to the report, accounts from Comey and McCabe directly contradict Clapper's claim.

" Did you ever brief President Obama on the phone call, the Flynn-Kislyak phone calls? " asked Rep. Francis Rooney (R0FL) during Congressional testimony, to which Clapper replied: " No. "

Except, Comey told Congress that Clapper directly briefed Obama ahead of the January 5 meeting.

"[A]ll the Intelligence Community was trying to figure out, so what is going on here?" Comey testified. "And so we were all tasked to find out, do you have anything [redacted] that might reflect on this. That turned up these calls [between Flynn and Kislyak] at the end of December, beginning of January," Comey testified. "And then I briefed it to the Director of National Intelligence, and Director Clapper asked me for copies [redacted], which I shared with him ... In the first week of January, he briefed the President and the Vice President and then President Obama's senior team about what we found and what we had seen to help them understand why the Russians were reacting the way they did. "

And now to see if anything comes of the ongoing Durham investigation, or if Attorney General Bill Barr will simply tie a bow on the matter and call it a day.

[May 11, 2020] Lee Zeldin Adam Schiff 'should resign today' for role in Russia investigation by Dominick Mastrangelo

Highly recommended!
Looks like Obama was the head of this gaslighing operation, not Schiff...
May 11, 2020 | www.washingtonexaminer.com
R ep. Lee Zeldin demanded that Rep. Adam Schiff be stripped of his post as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and resign because of his role in the Russia investigation.

"Adam Schiff should not be the chair of the House Intelligence Committee. His gavel should be removed. He should be censured. He should resign," Zeldin said Monday on Fox News. "There's a lot that should happen, but Nancy Pelosi isn't going to punish Adam Schiff. In fact, that's the reason why he has the gavel in the first place."

Republicans have been critical of Schiff in recent weeks after reports suggested that Schiff was trying to block the release of some of the transcripts of the investigation's 53 witness interviews.

Some of the transcripts were eventually released and undercut claims used by Democrats to push for impeachment.

"He's the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, which became the House Impeachment Committee because of the way he writes these fairy-tale parodies," Zeldin said.

The Republican from New York suggested that Schiff and Democrats who impeached Trump and tried to remove him from office were aided by friends in the media.

"It's actually one that the Democrats reward. It's one that the media rewards," Zeldin said. "So, I'm not going to expect any repercussions even though he should resign today."

https://embed.air.tv/v1/iframe/oJNk_yRyQ5G9DqCdGyOLTQ?organization=MoTlAWfQQXyEPg6AYxEZSw

[May 11, 2020] McCarthy: It would be 'profoundly crazy if Obama wasn't in on Flynn case'

Highly recommended!
Obama knew details of wiretapped Flynn phone calls, surprising top DOJ official in meeting with Biden, declassified docs show
And persecution of Flynn might be continuation of Obama action to destroy him after he criticized Obama foreign policy.
May 11, 2020 | www.youtube.com

Travis Moorman , 3 hours ago

It would be even more scary if Obama wasn't in on it.

LostInPA , 3 hours ago

Yates is up to her eyeballs in this coup attempt. She's trying to CYA like Rice. They going to jail.

[May 11, 2020] Twin Pillars of Russiagate Crumble by Ray McGovern

Highly recommended!
So the RussiaGate was giant gaslighting of the US electorate by Clinton gang and intelligence agencies rogues.
Notable quotes:
"... For two and a half years the House Intelligence Committee knew CrowdStrike didn't have the goods on Russia. Now the public knows too. ..."
"... House Intelligence Committee documents released Thursday reveal that the committee was told two and half years ago that the FBI had no concrete evidence that Russia hacked Democratic National Committee computers to filch the DNC emails published by WikiLeaks ..."
"... Henry testifies that "it appears it [the theft of DNC emails] was set up to be exfiltrated, but we just don't have the evidence that says it actually left." ..."
"... This, in VIPS view, suggests that someone with access to DNC computers "set up" selected emails for transfer to an external storage device – a thumb drive, for example. The Internet is not needed for such a transfer. Use of the Internet would have been detected, enabling Henry to pinpoint any "exfiltration" over that network. ..."
"... Bill Binney, a former NSA technical director and a VIPs member, filed a sworn affidavit in the Roger Stone case. Binney said: "WikiLeaks did not receive stolen data from the Russian government. Intrinsic metadata in the publicly available files on WikiLeaks demonstrates that the files acquired by WikiLeaks were delivered in a medium such as a thumb drive." ..."
"... Both pillars of Russiagate–collusion and a Russian hack–have now fairly crumbled. ..."
"... Thursday's disclosure of testimony before the House Intelligence Committee shows Chairman Adam Schiff lied not only about Trump-Putin "collusion," [which the Mueller report failed to prove and whose allegations were based on DNC and Clinton-financed opposition research] but also about the even more basic issue of "Russian hacking" of the DNC. [See: "The Democratic Money Behind Russia-gate."] ..."
"... Fortunately, the cameras were still on when I approached Schiff during the Q&A: "You have every confidence but no evidence, is that right?" I asked him. His answer was a harbinger of things to come. This video clip may be worth the four minutes needed to watch it. ..."
"... Schiff and his partners in crime will be in for much tougher treatment if Trump allows Attorney General Barr and US Attorney John Durham to bring their investigation into the origins of Russia-gate to a timely conclusion. Barr's dismissal on Thursday of charges against Flynn, after released FBI documents revealed that a perjury trap was set for him to keep Russiagate going, may be a sign of things to come. ..."
May 11, 2020 | original.antiwar.com

For two and a half years the House Intelligence Committee knew CrowdStrike didn't have the goods on Russia. Now the public knows too.

House Intelligence Committee documents released Thursday reveal that the committee was told two and half years ago that the FBI had no concrete evidence that Russia hacked Democratic National Committee computers to filch the DNC emails published by WikiLeaks in July 2016.

The until-now-buried, closed-door testimony came on Dec. 5, 2017 from Shawn Henry, a protégé of former FBI Director Robert Mueller (from 2001 to 2012), for whom Henry served as head of the Bureau's cyber crime investigations unit.

Henry retired in 2012 and took a senior position at CrowdStrike, the cyber security firm hired by the DNC and the Clinton campaign to investigate the cyber intrusions that occurred before the 2016 presidential election.

The following excerpts from Henry's testimony speak for themselves. The dialogue is not a paragon of clarity; but if read carefully, even cyber neophytes can understand:

Ranking Member Mr. [Adam] Schiff: Do you know the date on which the Russians exfiltrated the data from the DNC? when would that have been?

Mr. Henry: Counsel just reminded me that, as it relates to the DNC, we have indicators that data was exfiltrated from the DNC, but we have no indicators that it was exfiltrated (sic). There are times when we can see data exfiltrated, and we can say conclusively. But in this case, it appears it was set up to be exfiltrated, but we just don't have the evidence that says it actually left.

Mr. [Chris] Stewart of Utah: Okay. What about the emails that everyone is so, you know, knowledgeable of? Were there also indicators that they were prepared but not evidence that they actually were exfiltrated?

Mr. Henry: There's not evidence that they were actually exfiltrated. There's circumstantial evidence but no evidence that they were actually exfiltrated.

Mr. Stewart: But you have a much lower degree of confidence that this data actually left than you do, for example, that the Russians were the ones who breached the security?

Mr. Henry: There is circumstantial evidence that that data was exfiltrated off the network.

Mr. Stewart: And circumstantial is less sure than the other evidence you've indicated.

Mr. Henry: "We didn't have a sensor in place that saw data leave. We said that the data left based on the circumstantial evidence. That was the conclusion that we made.

In answer to a follow-up query on this line of questioning, Henry delivered this classic: "Sir, I was just trying to be factually accurate, that we didn't see the data leave, but we believe it left, based on what we saw."

Inadvertently highlighting the tenuous underpinning for CrowdStrike's "belief" that Russia hacked the DNC emails, Henry added: "There are other nation-states that collect this type of intelligence for sure, but the – what we would call the tactics and techniques were consistent with what we'd seen associated with the Russian state."

Interesting admission in Crowdstrike CEO Shaun Henry's testimony. Henry is asked when "the Russians" exfiltrated the data from DNC.

Henry: "We did not have concrete evidence that the data was exfiltrated from the DNC, but we have indicators that it was exfiltrated." ?? pic.twitter.com/TyePqd6b5P

-- Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) May 8, 2020

Not Transparent

Try as one may, some of the testimony remains opaque. Part of the problem is ambiguity in the word "exfiltration."

The word can denote (1) transferring data from a computer via the Internet (hacking) or (2) copying data physically to an external storage device with intent to leak it.

As the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity has been reporting for more than three years, metadata and other hard forensic evidence indicate that the DNC emails were not hacked – by Russia or anyone else.

Rather, they were copied onto an external storage device (probably a thumb drive) by someone with access to DNC computers. Besides, any hack over the Internet would almost certainly have been discovered by the dragnet coverage of the National Security Agency and its cooperating foreign intelligence services.

Henry testifies that "it appears it [the theft of DNC emails] was set up to be exfiltrated, but we just don't have the evidence that says it actually left."

This, in VIPS view, suggests that someone with access to DNC computers "set up" selected emails for transfer to an external storage device – a thumb drive, for example. The Internet is not needed for such a transfer. Use of the Internet would have been detected, enabling Henry to pinpoint any "exfiltration" over that network.

Bill Binney, a former NSA technical director and a VIPs member, filed a sworn affidavit in the Roger Stone case. Binney said: "WikiLeaks did not receive stolen data from the Russian government. Intrinsic metadata in the publicly available files on WikiLeaks demonstrates that the files acquired by WikiLeaks were delivered in a medium such as a thumb drive."

The So-Called Intelligence Community Assessment

There is not much good to be said about the embarrassingly evidence-impoverished Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) of Jan. 6, 2017 accusing Russia of hacking the DNC.

But the ICA did include two passages that are highly relevant and demonstrably true:

(1) In introductory remarks on "cyber incident attribution", the authors of the ICA made a highly germane point: "The nature of cyberspace makes attribution of cyber operations difficult but not impossible. Every kind of cyber operation – malicious or not – leaves a trail."

(2) "When analysts use words such as 'we assess' or 'we judge,' [these] are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on collected information, which is often incomplete or fragmentary High confidence in a judgment does not imply that the assessment is a fact or a certainty; such judgments might be wrong." [And one might add that they commonly ARE wrong when analysts succumb to political pressure, as was the case with the ICA.]

The intelligence-friendly corporate media, nonetheless, immediately awarded the status of Holy Writ to the misnomered "Intelligence Community Assessment" (it was a rump effort prepared by "handpicked analysts" from only CIA, FBI, and NSA), and chose to overlook the banal, full-disclosure-type caveats embedded in the assessment itself.

Then National Intelligence Director James Clapper and the directors of the CIA, FBI, and NSA briefed President Obama on the ICA on Jan. 5, 2017, the day before they gave it personally to President-elect Donald Trump.

On Jan. 18, 2017, at his final press conference, Obama saw fit to use lawyerly language on the key issue of how the DNC emails got to WikiLeaks , in an apparent effort to cover his own derriere.

Obama: "The conclusions of the intelligence community with respect to the Russian hacking were not conclusive as to whether WikiLeaks was witting or not in being the conduit through which we heard about the DNC e-mails that were leaked."

So we ended up with "inconclusive conclusions" on that admittedly crucial point. What Obama was saying is that U.S. intelligence did not know -- or professed not to know -- exactly how the alleged Russian transfer to WikiLeaks was supposedly made, whether through a third party, or cutout, and he muddied the waters by first saying it was a hack, and then a leak.

From the very outset, in the absence of any hard evidence, from NSA or from its foreign partners, of an Internet hack of the DNC emails, the claim that "the Russians gave the DNC emails to WikiLeaks " rested on thin gruel.

In November 2018 at a public forum, I asked Clapper to explain why President Obama still had serious doubts in late Jan. 2017, less than two weeks after Clapper and the other intelligence chiefs had thoroughly briefed the outgoing president about their "high-confidence" findings.

Clapper replied : "I cannot explain what he [Obama] said or why. But I can tell you we're, we're pretty sure we know, or knew at the time, how WikiLeaks got those emails." Pretty sure?

Preferring CrowdStrike; 'Splaining to Congress

CrowdStrike already had a tarnished reputation for credibility when the DNC and Clinton campaign chose it to do work the FBI should have been doing to investigate how the DNC emails got to WikiLeaks . It had asserted that Russians hacked into a Ukrainian artillery app, resulting in heavy losses of howitzers in Ukraine's struggle with separatists supported by Russia. A Voice of America report explained why CrowdStrike was forced to retract that claim.

Why did FBI Director James Comey not simply insist on access to the DNC computers? Surely he could have gotten the appropriate authorization. In early January 2017, reacting to media reports that the FBI never asked for access, Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee there were "multiple requests at different levels" for access to the DNC servers.

"Ultimately what was agreed to is the private company would share with us what they saw," he said. Comey described CrowdStrike as a "highly respected" cybersecurity company.

Asked by committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-NC) whether direct access to the servers and devices would have helped the FBI in their investigation, Comey said it would have. "Our forensics folks would always prefer to get access to the original device or server that's involved, so it's the best evidence," he said.

Five months later, after Comey had been fired, Burr gave him a Mulligan in the form of a few kid-gloves, clearly well-rehearsed, questions:

BURR: And the FBI, in this case, unlike other cases that you might investigate – did you ever have access to the actual hardware that was hacked? Or did you have to rely on a third party to provide you the data that they had collected?

COMEY: In the case of the DNC, we did not have access to the devices themselves. We got relevant forensic information from a private party, a high-class entity, that had done the work. But we didn't get direct access.

BURR: But no content?

COMEY: Correct.

BURR: Isn't content an important part of the forensics from a counterintelligence standpoint?

COMEY: It is, although what was briefed to me by my folks – the people who were my folks at the time is that they had gotten the information from the private party that they needed to understand the intrusion by the spring of 2016.

In June last year it was revealed that CrowdStrike never produced an un-redacted or final forensic report for the government because the FBI never required it to, according to the Justice Department.

By any normal standard, former FBI Director Comey would now be in serious legal trouble, as should Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan, et al. Additional evidence of FBI misconduct under Comey seems to surface every week – whether the abuses of FISA, misconduct in the case against Gen. Michael Flynn, or misleading everyone about Russian hacking of the DNC. If I were attorney general, I would declare Comey a flight risk and take his passport. And I would do the same with Clapper and Brennan.

Schiff: Every Confidence, But No Evidence

Both pillars of Russiagate–collusion and a Russian hack–have now fairly crumbled.

Thursday's disclosure of testimony before the House Intelligence Committee shows Chairman Adam Schiff lied not only about Trump-Putin "collusion," [which the Mueller report failed to prove and whose allegations were based on DNC and Clinton-financed opposition research] but also about the even more basic issue of "Russian hacking" of the DNC. [See: "The Democratic Money Behind Russia-gate."]

Five days after Trump took office, I had an opportunity to confront Schiff personally about evidence that Russia "hacked" the DNC emails. He had repeatedly given that canard the patina of flat fact during an address at the old Hillary Clinton/John Podesta "think tank," The Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Fortunately, the cameras were still on when I approached Schiff during the Q&A: "You have every confidence but no evidence, is that right?" I asked him. His answer was a harbinger of things to come. This video clip may be worth the four minutes needed to watch it.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/SdOy-l13FEg

Schiff and his partners in crime will be in for much tougher treatment if Trump allows Attorney General Barr and US Attorney John Durham to bring their investigation into the origins of Russia-gate to a timely conclusion. Barr's dismissal on Thursday of charges against Flynn, after released FBI documents revealed that a perjury trap was set for him to keep Russiagate going, may be a sign of things to come.

Given the timid way Trump has typically bowed to intelligence and law enforcement officials, including those who supposedly report to him, however, one might rather expect that, after a lot of bluster, he will let the too-big-to-imprison ones off the hook. The issues are now drawn; the evidence is copious; will the Deep State, nevertheless, be able to prevail this time?

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 .

[May 11, 2020] Tucker: Adam Schiff should resign

This is nationwide gaslighting by Clinton gang of neoliberals who attempted coup d'état, and Adam Schiff was just one of the key figures in this coupe d'état, king of modern Joe McCarthy able and willing to destroy a person using false evidence
What is interesting is that Tucker attacked Republicans for aiding and abetting the coup d'état against Trump
May 11, 2020 | www.youtube.com

RionE23 , 2 days ago

I'm sick of politicians getting a free pass by "resigning" no, they break the law they go to jail.. just like the rest of us.

shannon11590 , 1 day ago

Adam Schiff simply needs to be criminally prosecuted and imprisoned for the countless number of criminal acts that he committed while in Congress.

[May 11, 2020] Durham Supercharges Investigation With Elite Prosecutors To Review 'Witch Hunt'

Notable quotes:
"... "This is one particular episode, but we view it as part of a number of related acts ... and we're looking at the whole pattern of conduct," Barr added, saying that they're investigating actions taken before "and after ... the election." ..."
"... And according to Fox' s source, Durham is investigating a "pattern of conduct" which includes lying to the FISA court to obtain warrants to spy on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page . ..."
"... "Barr talks to Durham every day," a source recently told Fox News . " The president has been briefed that the case is being pursued, and it's serious. " ..."
"... " It was a very dangerous situation what they did ," Trump said during an interview with "Fox & Friends" Friday. " These are dirty politicians and dirty cops and some horrible people and hopefully they're going to pay a big price in the not too distant future. ..."
"... Durham's probe is expected to wrap up by the end of the summer. Right as Trump is expected to face off against Joe Biden - who was VP while most of this was going on . ..."
May 11, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
John Durham has supercharged his review into the origins of the Russiagate hoax orchestrated by the Obama administration during and after the 2016 US election - adding additional top prosecutors to explore different components of the original probe, according to Fox News .

Durham, the U.S. Attorney for Connecticut tasked with by Attorney General Bill Barr with investigating the actions taken against the Trump team, has tapped Jeff Jensen - U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri who had been investigating the Michael Flynn case. Also added to the team is interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Timothy Shea, according to Fox 's sources.

" They farmed the investigation out because it is too much for Durham and he didn't want to be distracted ," said one source, adding "He's going full throttle, and they're looking at everything. "

Word of Durham's beefed-up team comes amid worsening tensions between the Trump administration and congressional Democrats, who have been making the case that the Justice Department's reviews have become politicized given the decision last week to drop the Flynn case - a move which House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) called "outrageous."

" The evidence against General Flynn is overwhelming ," said Nadler - who probably wasn't referring to handwritten notes by one of the FBI agents who interviewed Flynn which exposed their perjury trap . Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his perfectly legal communications with a Russian ambassador - a plea he made while under severe financial strain due to legal expenses, and to save his son from the FBI 'witch hunt.' Flynn would later withdraw his plea as evidence mounted that he was set up.

The DOJ determined that the bureau's 2017 Flynn interview -- which formed the basis for his guilty plea of lying to investigators -- was "conducted without any legitimate investigative basis."

Breadcrumbs were being dropped in the days preceding the decision that his case could be reconsidered. Documents unsealed the prior week by the Justice Department revealed agents discussed their motivations for interviewing him in the Russia probe – questioning whether they wanted to "get him to lie" so he'd be fired or prosecuted, or get him to admit wrongdoing. Flynn allies howled over the revelations, arguing that he essentially had been set up in a perjury trap. In that interview, Flynn did not admit wrongdoing and instead was accused of lying about his contacts with the then-Russian ambassador – to which he pleaded guilty. - Fox News

Jensen, the U.S. attorney now working with Durham, was reportedly the one who recommended dropping the Flynn case to Barr.

Barr speaks

When asked whether he thought the FBI conspired against Flynn, Barr told CBS News on Thursday "I think, you know, that's a question that really has to wait [for] an analysis of all the different episodes that occurred through the summer of 2016 and the first several months of President Trump's administration," adding that Durham is "still looking at all of this."

"This is one particular episode, but we view it as part of a number of related acts ... and we're looking at the whole pattern of conduct," Barr added, saying that they're investigating actions taken before "and after ... the election."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/g_OeiKXr0WE

And according to Fox' s source, Durham is investigating a "pattern of conduct" which includes lying to the FISA court to obtain warrants to spy on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page .

President Trump has long-referred to the investigation as a "witch hunt" - which Barr and Durham are now untangling.

"Barr talks to Durham every day," a source recently told Fox News . " The president has been briefed that the case is being pursued, and it's serious. "

President Trump on Friday offered a vague, but ominous, warning as the Durham probe proceeds.

" It was a very dangerous situation what they did ," Trump said during an interview with "Fox & Friends" Friday. " These are dirty politicians and dirty cops and some horrible people and hopefully they're going to pay a big price in the not too distant future. "

Trump was specifically reacting to newly released transcripts of interviews from the House Intelligence Committee's Russia investigation that revealed top Obama officials acknowledged they knew of no "empirical evidence" of a conspiracy despite their concerns and suspicions. - Fox News

Durham's probe is expected to wrap up by the end of the summer. Right as Trump is expected to face off against Joe Biden - who was VP while most of this was going on .

[May 11, 2020] Grenell Takes Action To 'Unmask' Obama Officials Involved In Flynn Unmasking Scandal

Notable quotes:
"... Grenell reportedly visited the Justice Department last week to request the list of individuals, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity. ..."
"... Will Grenell unmask the unmaskers? ..."
May 11, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
Richard Grenell, President Trump's acting Director of National Intelligence who successfully pressured Adam Schiff (D-CA) into releasing bombshell transcripts from the Russia investigation, is now after former officials from the Obama administration involved in the so-called "unmasking" of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn during his conversations with the former Russian ambassador following the 2016 election, according to ABC News .

"Unmasking" is a term used when the identity of a U.S. citizen or lawful resident is revealed in classified intelligence reports. Normally, when government officials receive intelligence reports, the names of American citizens are redacted to protect their privacy. But officials can request that names, listed as "U.S. Person 1," for example, be unmasked internally in order to give context about the potential value of the intelligence. Unmasking is justified for national security reasons but is governed by strict rules across the U.S. intelligence apparatus that make it illegal to pursue for political reasons or to leak classified information generated by the process .

And much like Obama's IRS targeting scandal, US government capabilities were exploited to accomplish political objectives .

Grenell reportedly visited the Justice Department last week to request the list of individuals, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

His visit indicates his focus on an issue previously highlighted in 2017 by skeptics of the investigation into the Trump campaign's contacts with Russia, specifically allegations that former officials improperly unveiled Flynn's identity from intercepts of his call with former Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

Grenell's visit came the same week that Attorney General William Barr moved to dismiss the criminal case against Flynn following his guilty plea for lying to the FBI about his conversations with Kislyak. - ABC News

After Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice was outed as the ringleader of an unmasking campaign, the Wall Street Journal reported that she wasn't the only administration official to participate in Flynn's unmasking .

The news comes after the DOJ dropped all charges against Flynn, after several unsealed documents revealed that the FBI was more interested in ensnaring him in a perjury trap - after the agency's own DC field office advised that they were barking up the wrong tree . Under pressure due to legal bills and an FBI threat to pursue his son, Flynn caved and pleaded guilty to lying about his communications with the Russian ambassador.

" They did not have a basis for a counterintelligence investigation against Flynn at that stage , based on a perfectly legitimate and appropriate call he made as a member of the transition," Barr told CBS last week.

In 2017, then-House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes (R-CA) accused the Obama administration of unmasking Trump transition officials - while two national security officials at the White House provided Nunes with supporting evidence.

Will Grenell unmask the unmaskers?

@GenFlynn was wrongly targeted.
• The Steele Dossier was made-up.
• The Russia-collusion narrative was a farce.

Obama's White House and Justice Department led the way on these lies. Time for Susan Rice, James Clapper, and Loretta Lynch to answer for what transpired.

-- Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLeader) May 11, 2020

[May 11, 2020] Obama Participated In Plot To Frame Flynn Sidney Powell

May 11, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

"These agents specifically schemed and planned with each other how to not tip him off, that he was even the person being investigated," Powell told Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures," adding "So they kept him relaxed and unguarded deliberately as part of their effort to set him up and frame him."

According to recently released testimony, President Obama revealed during an Oval Office meeting weeks before the interview that he knew about Flynn's phone call with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak , apparently surprising then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates .

After the meeting, Obama asked Yates and then-FBI Director James Comey to "stay behind." Obama "specified that he did not want any additional information on the matter, but was seeking information on whether the White House should be treating Flynn any differently, given the information." - Fox News

Despite the FBI's Washington DC field office recommending closing the case against Flynn - finding "no derogatory information" against him - fired agent Peter Strzok pushed to continue investigating, while former FBI Director James Comey admitted in December 2019 that he "sent" Strzok and agent Joe Pientka to interview Flynn without notifying the White House first .

... ... ...

After Strzok and Pientka interviewed Flynn, handwritten notes unsealed last month reveal that at least one agent thought the goal was to entrap Flynn .

"What is our goal? Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?" reads one note.

... ... ...

"The whole thing was orchestrated and set up within the FBI, [former Director of National Intelligence James] Clapper, [Former CIA Director John] Brennan, and in the Oval Office meeting that day with President Obama," said Powell. When asked if she thinks Flynn was the victim of a plot that extended to Obama, she said "Absolutely."

[May 11, 2020] Trump and the culture of ling in his administration

May 11, 2020 | www.unz.com

As noted above, the Establishment view on foreign and national security policy was based on the principle that there must always be a united front when dealing with situations that are being closely watched by foreigners. If a cabinet secretary or the president says something relating to foreign or military affairs it should be the unified view of both the administration and the loyal opposition. Unfortunately, with President Donald Trump that unanimity has broken down, largely because the chief executive either refuses to or is incapable of staying on script. The most recent false step involved the origin of the corona virus, with the intelligence community stating that there was no evidence that the virus was "man made or genetically modified" in a lab followed by the president several hours later contradicting that view asserting that he had a "high degree of confidence" that the coronavirus originated in a laboratory in Wuhan, China based on secret information that he could not reveal .

There has also been reports that the Trump White House has in fact been pushing the intelligence community (IC) to "hunt for evidence" linking the virus to the Wuhan laboratory, suggesting that the entire China gambit is mostly political, to have a scapegoat available in case the troubled handling of the virus in the United States becomes a fiasco and therefore a political liability. This pressure apparently prompted an additional statement from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence saying: "The IC will continue to rigorously examine emerging information and intelligence to determine whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan."

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has claimed without providing any details that there is "overwhelming evidence" that coronavirus came out of the Wuhan laboratory, is reportedly leading the push to demonize China. He and other administration officials have expressed their frustration over the C.I.A.'s apparent inability to come up with a definitive explanation for the outbreak's origin. C.I.A. analysts have reportedly responded that there is no evidence to support any one theory with "high confidence" and they are afraid that any equivocating response will immediately be politicized. Some analysts noted that their close monitoring of communications regarding the Wuhan lab suggest that the Chinese government itself does not regard the lab as a source of the contagion.

To be sure, any intelligence community document directly blaming the Chinese government for the outbreak would have a devastating impact on bilateral relations for years to come, a consequence that Donald Trump apparently does not appreciate. And previous interactions initiated by Trump administration officials suggest that Washington might use its preferred weapon sanctions in an attempt to pressure other nations to also hold China accountable, which would multiply the damage.

Given what is at stake in light of the White House pressure to prove what might very well be unprovable, many in the intelligence community who actually value what they do and how they do it are noticeably annoyed and some have even looked for allies in Congress, where they have found support from the Pentagon over Administration decision making that is both Quixotic and heavily politicized.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith of Washington has responded to the concerns expressed to him by both the military and intelligence communities, admitting that he is " worried about a culture developing" where many senior officials are now making decision not on the merits of the case but rather out of fear that they will upset the president if they do not choose correctly.

While the intelligence agencies are concerned over the fabrication of a false consensus over the coronavirus, similar to what occurred regarding Iraq's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction in 2002-3, the Defense Department is more concerned that fundamental mechanisms that have been in place since the Second World War are now under attack, including how the military maintains discipline and punishes officers and enlisted men who have deviated from established policies.

[May 11, 2020] Anti-Russian hysteria as the key feature of American neofascism. In a way RussiaGate is a neofascist putsch

May 11, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

FDR warned his son before his death of his understanding of the British takeover of American foreign policy, but still could not reverse this agenda. His son recounted his father's ominous insight:

"You know, any number of times the men in the State Department have tried to conceal messages to me, delay them, hold them up somehow, just because some of those career diplomats over there aren't in accord with what they know I think. They should be working for Winston. As a matter of fact, a lot of the time, they are [working for Churchill]. Stop to think of 'em: any number of 'em are convinced that the way for America to conduct its foreign policy is to find out what the British are doing and then copy that!" I was told six years ago, to clean out that State Department. It's like the British Foreign Office ."

Before being fired from Truman's cabinet for his advocacy of US-Russia friendship during the Cold War, Wallace stated:

"American fascism" which has come to be known in recent years as the Deep State. "Fascism in the postwar inevitably will push steadily for Anglo-Saxon imperialism and eventually for war with Russia. Already American fascists are talking and writing about this conflict and using it as an excuse for their internal hatreds and intolerances toward certain races, creeds and classes."

In his 1946 Soviet Asia Mission , Wallace said " Before the blood of our boys is scarcely dry on the field of battle, these enemies of peace try to lay the foundation for World War III. These people must not succeed in their foul enterprise. We must offset their poison by following the policies of Roosevelt in cultivating the friendship of Russia in peace as well as in war."

[May 11, 2020] We Could All Be General Michael Flynn Tomorrow by Scott Ritter

Notable quotes:
"... "[Plea bargaining] is not some adjunct to the criminal justice system; it is the criminal justice system." ..."
"... Federal prosecutors are equipped with a considerable range of legal weapons that can be used to compel confessions and discourage a jury trial, including charge-stacking (charging multiple criminal counts derived from a single act), mandatory-minimum sentences which eliminate discretion on the part of a sentencing judge, pretrial confinement, inordinately high bail, threats against friends and family, and the reality that any sentence handed down after trial will be substantially greater than one that could be reached via a plea bargain. ..."
"... The upside of such a process is a streamlined criminal justice system which places a premium on convictions and incarceration without the cost of a trial. The downside, however, is an unacceptably high rate of false confessions obtained by the plea deal process -- the National Registry of Exonerations estimates that as many as 20 percent of all plea deal-related confessions are false . ..."
"... The Obama national security team abused its power by unmasking Flynn's identity, then leaked Flynn's identity to the press, using this press reporting to justify the continuance of a baseless counterintelligence investigation in order to set a perjury trap intended to place Flynn in legal jeopardy. This is not how American justice is supposed to be dispensed, and the fact that Flynn had to undergo this ordeal should send a shiver down every American's spine, because if left unchecked, there but for the grace of God go us all. ..."
May 11, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com
The Department of Justice's case against retired Army Lieutenant General and former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn has exposed an ugly reality involving the abuse of power at the highest levels of the Executive Office all the way down the justice system this country ostensibly holds so dear.

Plea bargains are an unfortunate reality of an American system of justice which finds merit in coercing people to admit guilt for crimes they didn't commit in order to avoid the expense of a trial and to prevent friends and family from potential legal liability. If the purpose behind such procedural abuse of power is to fight actual crime, the American people have grown accustomed to turning a blind eye. But if the purpose is to exact political revenge on someone who has incurred the disfavor of those in power, then the plea bargain system is a direct assault on the Constitution that should insult every American, regardless where they stand on the respective merits of the case. General Flynn's case falls firmly in the latter category.

Mike Flynn isn't everyone's cup of tea. The controversial intelligence officer is perhaps best known for his short 24-day tenure as President Trump's National Security Advisor, relieved of his duties for allegedly lying about a conversation he had with then-Russian Ambassador to the United States, Sergei Kislyak. The FBI claimed Flynn had lied about this conversation to its agents during a January 24, 2017 interview , a charge Flynn subsequently pled guilty to .

But in a surprising turn of events, the Department of Justice has dropped its case against Flynn on the eve of his being sentenced in a Federal Court. In their dismissal of the case, the Justice department concluded that the FBI's interview with Flynn was "conducted without any legitimate investigative basis" and that the questioning was "untethered to, and unjustified by, the F.B.I.'s counterintelligence investigation into Mr. Flynn."

Flynn's many critics have cried foul, claiming the dismissal is nothing short of a perversion of justice carried out at the behest of President Trump by an overly partisan Attorney General, William Barr. Flynn's supporters have praised this outcome as a clear case of exoneration in the face of corrupt FBI agents who abused the extraordinary powers they wield to engage in Constitutionally impermissible conduct designed to frame the former General.

In 2018, the Department of Justice initiated approximately 80,000 federal prosecutions . Two percent of these cases went to trial, with an 83 percent conviction rate. Of the remaining 98 percent of the cases, some 90 percent ended with the defendant pleading guilty; the remaining 8 percent were dismissed. The plea process is so prevalent and pervasive in the U.S. Court system that in the Supreme Court's 2012 decision in Missouri v. Frye , Justice Steven Kennedy, writing for the majority, quoted a prominent law review article which concluded that "[Plea bargaining] is not some adjunct to the criminal justice system; it is the criminal justice system."

Federal prosecutors are equipped with a considerable range of legal weapons that can be used to compel confessions and discourage a jury trial, including charge-stacking (charging multiple criminal counts derived from a single act), mandatory-minimum sentences which eliminate discretion on the part of a sentencing judge, pretrial confinement, inordinately high bail, threats against friends and family, and the reality that any sentence handed down after trial will be substantially greater than one that could be reached via a plea bargain.

The upside of such a process is a streamlined criminal justice system which places a premium on convictions and incarceration without the cost of a trial. The downside, however, is an unacceptably high rate of false confessions obtained by the plea deal process -- the National Registry of Exonerations estimates that as many as 20 percent of all plea deal-related confessions are false .

The reason for such a high rate of occurrence rests in the coercive reality attached to the tools used by the prosecutor to leverage a plea in the first place. For someone who is guilty of a crime, a plea deal that reduces a potential 20-year sentence to five is very attractive. For an innocent person, however, the prospect of not being able to afford competent legal representation (an all-too reality, especially in one is subjected to pre-trial confinement and as such unable to earn a living), combined with potential threats made to prosecute family and friends, make pleading guilty to a crime not committed a viable option.

The plea bargain process also facilitates prosecutorial misconduct. By pleading guilty, a defendant cedes control of the processes of justice to the prosecution; issues related to discovery -- the requirement on the part of the prosecution to turn over all evidence relating to the charged conduct, even if exculpatory in nature -- are often brushed aside, since guilt is admitted and no challenge to the charges will be mounted. Prosecutors more often than not bully their way into a coerced plea agreement, even when they know that their case would not withstand scrutiny, because simple statistics have proven that more often than not they can get away with it.

♦♦♦

The prosecution of General Flynn is a text-book example of clear prosecutorial abuse designed to obtain a guilty plea. The FBI initiated a counterintelligence-scope investigation against General Flynn not because he was accused of committing a crime, but rather because he had incurred the wrath of the Obama administration.

When the FBI opened its Crossfire Hurricane investigation was opened on July 31, 2016, its scope was limited to allegations that a Trump campaign advisor, George Papadopoulos, was in contact with persons working on behalf of the Russian government who were involved in the alleged theft of documents from the Democratic National Committee server. Flynn had no connection whatsoever to this issue. However, the FBI used the Crossfire Hurricane investigation as cover to open a separate investigation , known as Crossfire Razor, against Flynn based upon contacts he had with Russia Today, a state-sponsored media outlet.

William Barr has since determined that Crossfire Razor was not a bona fide counterintelligence investigation in so far as it lacked proper predication and Flynn's Russian connections were not materially relevant.

In January 2017 the FBI was preparing to shut down Crossfire Razor when FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok argued that it remain open so that he could conduct an interview with Flynn about his telephone call with Ambassador Kislyak in December 2016. This is where the Flynn case loses touch with its foundation of legality. The Flynn-Kislyak phone call was monitored by the U.S. intelligence community. Normally the identity of any U.S. citizen so monitored is "masked," or hidden, from any consumer of the intelligence. On certain occasions, select senior officials may request that an identity be "unmasked" to allow for a greater understanding of the context of the conversation. Flynn's identity was "unmasked" using this procedure, most likely on the orders of then-FBI Director James Comey. According to Comey , he then briefed Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, who in turn briefed President Obama.

There was bad blood between Flynn, Clapper and Obama. On November 10, 2016, when Obama met with President-elect Trump in the White House, he warned Trump not to hire Flynn as his National Security Advisor, ostensibly because of his behavior while serving as the Director of DIA; Trump ignored this advice, naming Flynn as the incoming NSA on November 18. Clapper was the man who fired Flynn at the DIA in 2014.

On January 12, David Ignatius published an article in The Washington Post which detailed Flynn's December conversation with Kislyak; Sydney Powell, Flynn's laywer, has filed documents with the Federal Court asserting that Ignatius had received this highly classified information in violation of the law, and furthermore that is was Clapper who cleared Ignatius to "take the kill shot on Flynn" by publishing the details of the Flynn-Kislyak conversation.

If the potential for collusion between the FBI Director (Comey), the Director of National Intelligence (Clapper) and the President of the United States (Obama) to undermine Flynn wasn't disturbing enough, the fact that Ignatius' article enabled the FBI to conduct an interview on January 24 with Flynn that has been described by William Barr as "a perjury trap" should seal the deal.

Flynn was subsequently fired as the NSA, charged with lying to the FBI, bankrupted in the process of trying to defend himself, and threatened with the prosecution of his son if he opted to take the matter to trial. Like many before him, Flynn pled guilty to a crime he never should have been charged with in the first place. Only the diligence of Flynn's current legal team in forcing disclosure of exculpatory information, combined with William Barr's efforts to expose wrongdoing by the FBI and the Intelligence Community in investigating alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, made the dismissal of Flynn's case possible.

It doesn't matter where one stands on the issue of Mike Flynn, the man. I for one am personally disturbed by his overly partisan approach toward national security, and the liberty he takes with facts when making an argument. I don't believe he was the right person to serve as Trump's National Security Advisor. Apparently neither did President Obama and his national security team. But we don't have a vote in this matter; the National Security Advisor is President Trump's responsibility to select. Elections have consequences.

The Obama national security team abused its power by unmasking Flynn's identity, then leaked Flynn's identity to the press, using this press reporting to justify the continuance of a baseless counterintelligence investigation in order to set a perjury trap intended to place Flynn in legal jeopardy. This is not how American justice is supposed to be dispensed, and the fact that Flynn had to undergo this ordeal should send a shiver down every American's spine, because if left unchecked, there but for the grace of God go us all.

Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm, and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD. He is the author of several books, including his forthcoming, Scorpion King: America's Embrace of Nuclear Weapons From FDR to Trump (2020).

[May 10, 2020] Obama cabal of color revolution plotters

May 10, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

And you have to ask yourself one question. They all stuck with the same exact propaganda, the same exact his information, that the Trump administration, that the Trump campaign conspired with Russia, even though they had no evidence whatsoever, and they manufactured that evidence against the president."

"And this is why all of them need to be investigated" explained Carter.

[May 10, 2020] Did the FBI target Michael Flynn to protect Obama's policies, not national security by Kevin R. Brock

Highly recommended!
This was a coup d'état and it has little to do with the protection of Oabama policies, but a lot with protection of Clinton clan to which Obama belongs.
FBI investigators were corrupt and acted as a political police
Notable quotes:
"... Heavily redacted FBI documents that have been released indicate Flynn was one of several Trump campaign members who merited their own subfile investigation under the larger, now infamous " Crossfire Hurricane " debacle. Flynn even got his own cool codename -- "Crossfire Razor." (No, the FBI isn't usually that absurd. But absurdity colored that entire period of time.) ..."
"... FBI documents show that a Foreign Agent Registration Act ( FARA ) case was opened against Flynn. The stated reasons, in rank order, for initiating the investigation were that he was a member of the Trump campaign; he had "ties" to various Russian state-affiliated entities; he traveled to Russia; and he had a high-level top-secret clearance -- for which, by the way, he was polygraphed regularly to determine if he was a spy. ..."
"... None of the listed reasons is unusual activity for the kind of positions he held. Overall it is pretty thin justification for investigating an American citizen. Yet, most chillingly, the Crossfire Hurricane team stated it was investigating Flynn "specifically" because he was "an adviser to then Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump for foreign policy issues." ..."
"... Kevin R. Brock, former assistant director of intelligence for the FBI, was an FBI special agent for 24 years and principal deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). He is a founder and principal of NewStreet Global Solutions , which consults with private companies and public safety agencies on strategic mission technologies. ..."
May 10, 2020 | thehill.com
investigation of Michael Flynn , the more it appears he was targeted precisely because, as the national security adviser to the incoming Trump administration, he signaled that the new administration might undo Obama administration policies -- which is kind of what the American people voted for in 2016.

Some will say that Gen. Flynn was investigated for legitimate criminal or national security reasons. Yet, the FBI's ultimate interview of Flynn addressed none of the grounds that the FBI used to open the original case against him. For those of us who have run FBI investigations, that is more than odd.

Heavily redacted FBI documents that have been released indicate Flynn was one of several Trump campaign members who merited their own subfile investigation under the larger, now infamous " Crossfire Hurricane " debacle. Flynn even got his own cool codename -- "Crossfire Razor." (No, the FBI isn't usually that absurd. But absurdity colored that entire period of time.)

For the record, Flynn clearly exercised poor judgment as a result of being interviewed by the FBI. The larger question is whether the team under then-Director James Comey had a legitimate basis to conduct the interview at all.

FBI documents show that a Foreign Agent Registration Act ( FARA ) case was opened against Flynn. The stated reasons, in rank order, for initiating the investigation were that he was a member of the Trump campaign; he had "ties" to various Russian state-affiliated entities; he traveled to Russia; and he had a high-level top-secret clearance -- for which, by the way, he was polygraphed regularly to determine if he was a spy.

None of the listed reasons is unusual activity for the kind of positions he held. Overall it is pretty thin justification for investigating an American citizen. Yet, most chillingly, the Crossfire Hurricane team stated it was investigating Flynn "specifically" because he was "an adviser to then Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump for foreign policy issues."

Let me be clear: That is not a legitimate justification to investigate an American citizen.

There is a theme that runs through the entire Crossfire Hurricane disaster, which has been publicly articulated by Comey and his deputy director, Andrew McCabe : They saw themselves as stalwarts in the breach defending America from a presidential candidate who they believed was an agent of Russia .

... ... ...

Kevin R. Brock, former assistant director of intelligence for the FBI, was an FBI special agent for 24 years and principal deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). He is a founder and principal of NewStreet Global Solutions , which consults with private companies and public safety agencies on strategic mission technologies.

[May 10, 2020] Does Obama now feels his potential liability for staging coup d' tat and gaslighting the whole nation?

Highly recommended!
All-in-all Obama was a CIA sponsored fraud: In 2008 I posted at another blog this: "Obama is a fraud and my view does not hang on the controversial birther movement. " From whence he came? He made a speech at the Democratic National Convention; 3 years in the Senate, then runs to occupy the White House. The media puff pieces. "Hope and Change, Yes, We Can" Watch for the broken promises."
Notable quotes:
"... Now why is Obama against General Flynn? Hmmm. Good question. Did the FBI target Michael Flynn to protect Obama's policies, not national security? LINK ..."
"... Gen. Flynn: Obama Administration made a "wilful decision" to support Sunni extremists (a Jihadi proxy army) against Assad . This directly contradicts the phony narrative of Obama as peace-loving black man (as certified by his Nobel Prize!). ..."
"... In 2008 I posted at another blog this: "Obama is a fraud and my view does not hang on the controversial birther movement. " From whence he came? He made a speech at the Democratic National Convention; 3 years in the Senate, then runs to occupy the White House. The media puff pieces. "Hope and Change, Yes, We Can" Watch for the broken promises." ..."
May 10, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Prof K , May 10 2020 16:05 utc | 9

Posted by: Prof K | May 10 2020 16:05 utc | 9

Obama weighed in this week...on Flynn. Why?

What is he trying to preempt?

He only steps in at critical moments to stop something, as he did before SC to block Bernie.

Now this. How does it relate to Russiagate and his potential liability?


Likklemore , May 10 2020 17:08 utc | 18

@ ProfK 9

Whether or not General Flynn is loathed or liked, there is Supreme Court decisions setting precedence for dropping a case when found to be wrapped in prosecutorial misdeeds:

As for the first 'black' president out from the shadows;

Obama, the petit constitutional law scholar, signed the NDAA National Defence Authorization Act which allows imprisonment of Americans forever has no standing to claim the "rule of law is at risk" and he may want to call Eric Holder.

Certified Hypocrite.

Now why is Obama against General Flynn? Hmmm. Good question. Did the FBI target Michael Flynn to protect Obama's policies, not national security? LINK

Jackrabbit , May 10 2020 17:31 utc | 19
Likklemore @ May10 17:08
Did the FBI target Michael Flynn to protect Obama's policies, not national security?

Gen. Flynn: Obama Administration made a "wilful decision" to support Sunni extremists (a Jihadi proxy army) against Assad . This directly contradicts the phony narrative of Obama as peace-loving black man (as certified by his Nobel Prize!).

!!

Likklemore , May 10 2020 18:11 utc | 22
@ Jackrabbit 19

Thanks for that additional link. And that's why Obama could not standby with Flynn in the NSA role. Recall Hillary's on Trump- "if he is elected we'll hang" (paraphrased)

In 2008 I posted at another blog this: "Obama is a fraud and my view does not hang on the controversial birther movement. " From whence he came? He made a speech at the Democratic National Convention; 3 years in the Senate, then runs to occupy the White House. The media puff pieces. "Hope and Change, Yes, We Can" Watch for the broken promises."

Fast Forward to 2011 he signs NDAA. "How Obama disappointed the world." Der Spiegel had such an article 9 Aug.2011. But he was re-(S)-elected.

[May 10, 2020] Mike Flynn ran interference for Israel but that angle goes unmentioned by press by Philip Weiss

May 10, 2020 | mondoweiss.net

May 8, 2020 The latest outrage from the Trump White House is that the Justice Department dropped its case against former national security adviser Mike Flynn for lying to the FBI, even though Flynn pleaded guilty to the charges in 2017.

In its coverage of the exoneration, the New York Times notes that Flynn had pleaded guilty to lying about a discussion with the Russian ambassador in December 2016 during the transition between the Obama and Trump administrations. Flynn asked Russia not to overreact to sanctions the Obama administration had placed on Russia for interfering in the election; Trump would be in the White House in another three weeks.

Hmmm. The Times does not mention the other alleged lie– which involves Israel. A week before the sanctions call, Flynn called the Russian ambassador, and a "litany" of other countries , to try to get them to counter the U.S. decision to allow a resolution highly critical of Israeli settlements to pass in the U.N. Security Council. That resolution went through 14-0 with the U.S. abstaining– Obama's parting shot at Netanyahu.

The FBI interviewed Flynn in January 2017, a month later, as part of the Russia probe. And at that time, Flynn lied about his attempt to block the anti-settlements resolution (according to his own guilty plea).

And former FBI director James Comey speculated that Flynn might have violated the Logan Act– which criminalizes discussions by unauthorized American citizens with foreign governments that are having a dispute with the United States.

The whole affair revealed Israel's unseemly influence over U.S. politics. Trump's transition team "colluded with Israel," as the Intercept put it– even as everyone was so obsessed with Trump's alleged collusion with Russia.

Back then the New York Times said that the Israel angle was going to become more of an issue:

The possible involvement or knowledge of Israel in the case will be one of many questions that congressional investigators will pursue.

Well, I guess no one wanted that to happen. Certainly the Times doesn't seem to want it. Two articles today about the Justice Department's collapse mention Russia repeatedly. Says one, "The [FBI] questioning focused on his [Flynn's] conversations during the transition after the 2016 election with the Russian ambassador about the Obama administration's imposition of sanctions on Russia for its interference in the American election." That's just half-true.

The Israel angle was also buried in the coverage on MSNBC today by Andrea Mitchell. Her segment on the decision expressed a lot of outrage over Vladimir Putin and Russian influence; but no mention of what else Flynn was up to.

Here's the original Justice Department charge sheet to which Flynn pleaded guilty in December 2017. It tells the story of the settlements resolution.

On or about December 21, 2016, Egypt submitted a resolution to the United Nations Security Council on the issue of Israeli settlements ("resolution"). The United Nations Security Council was scheduled to vote on the resolution the following day.

On or about December 22, 2016, a very senior member of the Presidential Transition Team directed FLYNN to contact officials from foreign governments, including Russia, to learn where each government stood on the resolution and to influence those governments to delay the vote or defeat the resolution

On or about December 22, 2016, FLYNN contacted the Russian Ambassador about the pending vote. FLYNN informed the Russian Ambassador about the incoming administration's opposition to the resolution, and requested that Russia vote against or delay the resolution.

That senior member of the team was apparently Jared Kushner, a friend of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and btw the president's son in law. Buzzfeed in December 2017 :

In the run-up to the vote, both Flynn and [Jared] Kushner called several officials of Security Council member states in order to block or delay the resolution. Flynn personally called foreign ambassadors on the Security Council, including representatives of Uruguay and Malaysia, according to a February report by Foreign Policy.

Trump himself intervened in the matter, getting the Egyptian government to withrdraw its anti-settlements resolution. The resolution was ultimately proposed by New Zealand, Malaysia, Venezuela and Senegal.

Trump's biggest donor, Sheldon Adelson, is an ardent supporter of Israel and a friend to Netanyahu. Adelson and other donors' influence over Middle East policy has been a running theme of the Trump administration.

In dropping the case, even having obtained a guilty plea, the Justice Department now says that the FBI had no business questioning Flynn in January 2017. The issues he was asked about were not "material" to the ongoing investigation.

The Justice Department filing of yesterday takes Flynn at his word in his original interview by the FBI: that the many calls he made to foreign governments were just a "battle drill" by the Trump campaign office in Washington to see how quickly it could get foreign leaders on the phone–Israel, Senegal, Britain, France, Egypt, Russia -- and Flynn was just trying to suss out the Russians, not pressure them to block the resolution. "Flynn stated he conducted these calls to attempt to get a sense of where countries
stood on the UN vote "

But three years ago Comey and some congresspeople were concerned that the lobbying in Israel's interests against the U.S. would violate the Logan Act. From a hearing by the House Select Committee on Intelligence in March 2017:

Rep. Jackie Speier (of California):

"The fact that he actively was asking the Russians, through the Ambassador, to vote against the United States at the U[N] . . with regard to Israeli settlements, have you
looked further into that issue? Because that clearly involves a private citizen conducting foreign policy.

James Comey said it might be a Logan Act violation, but he wasn't sure.

That is one of the questions for the Department of Justice, is do you want further investigation. That would be the Logan Act angle, not the false statements to
Federal agents angle I am not an expert, but I don't think it is something prosecutors have used. But it is possible. That is one of the reasons we sent it over to them, saying look , here is this old statute. Do you want us to do further investigation?

[May 10, 2020] Sweet revenge Now that Michael Flynn is free, Trump may be tempted to punish the Russiagate conspirators -- RT Op-ed

May 10, 2020 | www.rt.com

Sweet revenge? Now that Michael Flynn is free, Trump may be tempted to punish the Russiagate conspirators Robert Bridge Robert Bridge 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. @Robert_Bridge 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. @Robert_Bridge 8 May, 2020 13:43 Get short URL Sweet revenge? Now that Michael Flynn is free, Trump may be tempted to punish the Russiagate conspirators FILE PHOTO December 01, 2017 Gen. Michael Flynn, former national security adviser to US President Donald Trump, leaves Federal Court in Washington, DC © AFP / Brendan Smialowski Follow RT on RT As the Justice Department drops charges against the former White House adviser, many are hoping the final chapter on Russiagate has been closed. But as an investigation against Trump's rivals proceeds, the saga is just beginning. May 7 may go down in the American history books as the day when Donald Trump began to turn the tide against his Democrat opponents and their relentless efforts to have him removed from office. That was the day when the Justice Department declared there was no "legitimate investigative basis" for FBI agents to interview Gen. Michael Flynn over his meetings with Russian diplomats, coming as they did when the lame-duck Obama administration was sabotaging US-Russia relations on its way out the door.

Thursday brought other bits of good news for the Trump administration. The House Intelligence Committee released its Russiagate interviews, in which the former director of national intelligence, James Clapper, admitted he "never saw any direct empirical evidence that the Trump campaign was plotting/conspiring with the Russians to meddle with the election."

No wonder Intel chief Adam Schiff demanded absolute secrecy during his closed-door inquisition.

DOJ now says 2017 interview of Flynn was 'unjustified' DOJ now says it had NO probable cause to spy on Carter Page in '17 Transcripts now show exculpatory evidence on Papadopoulos/Page w/held frm FISAcourt Someone remind me y we needed $30M+ Mueller collusion investigation?

-- ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) May 7, 2020

Among Trump's close circle of colleagues brought down in the Democrats' big-game hunting expedition, such as former campaign adviser Roger Stone and businessman Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn was by far the most prized trophy. In hindsight, Trump may have believed that, by firing Flynn just days into his job, the Russia-collusion story would just magically disappear as the Democrats gave up the hunt. If that was the plan, it backfired in spectacular fashion: the Democrats sensed blood and doubled down on their impeachment efforts.

What came next was a three-year political witch hunt against Trump that was never seriously challenged by the predominantly left-leaning mainstream media – even after the US$30 million Mueller probe finally put the conspiracy theory to bed. Today, although the media headlines conceal it, the narrative is slowly beginning to swing in Trump's favor, as Flynn's release strongly suggests.

My Campaign for President was conclusively spied on. Nothing like this has ever happened in American Politics. A really bad situation. TREASON means long jail sentences, and this was TREASON!

-- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 17, 2019

As I discussed in a recent column, many Americans are blissfully ignorant of the fact that, back in May 2019, Trump launched an investigation into the origins of Russiagate. Tracking the scandal leads one into a labyrinthine rabbit hole of intrigue, where it is believed that the Obama-led FBI misled the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court to spy on the Trump campaign. The potential list of individuals who may eventually be forced to testify for their actions extends to the highest echelons of the Democratic Party. And that would include even 'untouchables,' such as former president Barack Obama and his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton. In fact, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that has-been politicians like Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton are still being considered as presidential material simply to escape prosecution.

Also on rt.com White House efforts to exonerate Michael Flynn could see America explode

For anyone who doubts the severity of the possible charges would do well to consider recent comments by Attorney General William Barr. In an interview last month with Fox News, Barr said the FBI counterintelligence against Trump served to "sabotage the presidency without any basis." That is about as close to the legal definition of sedition as one can get, and I am sure there are many powerful people who have arrived at the same conclusion.

Is a former president involved in treason of a sitting president? 🤯

-- Anna Khait (@Annakhait) May 8, 2020

It should be remembered that Donald Trump was voted into office largely because of his pledge to "drain the swamp." In other words, the Manhattan real-estate developer turned rabble-rousing populist had a very negative attitude about the career politicians who make up Washington, DC long before he entered the Oval Office. Now, after being hounded and harassed for the entirety of his first term, while watching colleagues such as Michael Flynn, Roger Stone and Paul Manafort have their lives and careers senselessly upended, Trump may be expected to take full advantage of Flynn's exoneration to make those responsible pay a hefty legal penalty. If ever there were a time for such a move, now would certainly be it.

Exactly what the charges against the architects of Russiagate will be, if there are any, will probably be revealed in the next days and weeks, when William Barr and his assistant, John Durham, are expected to make the findings of their year-long investigation public.

I am guessing we have not heard the end of the Russiagate drama yet with the freeing of Michael Flynn, but, instead, are heading into Part II. Fasten your seatbelts – things could get interesting.

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!

[May 10, 2020] What did Obama know, and when did he know it

FBI under Obama acted as Gestapo -- the political police. Obama looks now especially bad and probably should be prosecuted for the attempt to stage coup d'état against legitimately elected president. His CIA connections need to investigated and prosecuted too, and first of all Brennan.
Notable quotes:
"... Yates, who was briefly the acting attorney general during the early days of the Trump administration before getting fired, also laid out how in the ensuing days, Comey kept the FBI's actions cloaked in secrecy and repeatedly rebuffed her suggestions that the incoming Trump team be made aware of the Flynn recordings. ..."
"... "One thing people will see when they look at the documents is how Director Comey purposely went around the Justice Department and ignored Deputy Attorney General Yate s," Attorney General William Barr said during a Thursday interview with CBS News. "Deputy Attorney General Yates, I've disagreed with her about a couple of things, but, you know, here she upheld the fine tradition of the Department of Justice. She said that the new administration has to be treated just like the Obama administration, and they should go and tell the White House about their findings And, you know, Director Comey ran around that." ..."
"... Obama asked Yates and Comey to stay behind when the meeting concluded. ..."
"... Obama "started by saying that he had 'learned of the information about Flynn' and his conversation with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak," Yates said, according to the notes. "Obama specified he did not want any additional information on the matter but was seeking information on whether the White House should be treating Flynn any differently." washington examiner ..."
"... Obama did not want any additional information on the matter? Careful CYA. From the account of this meeting it is clear that Obama and Biden knew that Comey was intent on pursuing Flynn. If that is so, then subsequent events indicate that Obama did not act to stop Comey, and since Comey was hiding his effort against Flynn from main Justice, it must be that someone on high was encouraging him. Now, who would that be? pl ..."
"... All this was known in DC for the past few years. Everyone on the HSPCI knew what the closed door testimony was. Clapper was categorical that there was "no empirical evidence of collusion". The Crowdstrike CEO was categorical that he had no definitive evidence that the Russians exfiltrated data from the DNC servers. Yet Schiff, Clapper, Brennan and all the media hacks were on TV every night screaming Russia! Russia! and Collusion! Collusion! ..."
"... I'm revealing my age by using this expression from the Watergate era, but "what did Obama, Biden and Comey know, and when did they know it?" ..."
"... So Obama used Yates to go after Flynn. They have really worked a number on Flynn to discredit him, and it almost worked. Now it would appear their scheme is starting to unravel a bit. ..."
"... Is Obama being thrown under the bus here? Are Comey and Yates (or others) trying to cover their asses now that Flynn is free? Did Trump and his allies always know this and waited for the right moment to reveal it for better effect? The game is at hand. ..."
"... Brennan was encouraging Comey. I just learned something recently. Brennan spent time in Indonesia around the same time that Obama's mother lived there. It has been reported that Obama and Brennan had a fairly close relationship. I wonder how long they have known each other. ..."
"... I did see a clip of Matt Gaetz calling out Ryan and Trey Gowdy from preventing them from issuing subpoenas. Why do you think the Republican leadership in the House and Senate did not want to investigate? ..."
May 09, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

" Former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates told special counsel Robert Mueller's team that she first learned the FBI possessed and was investigating recordings of Flynn's late 2016 conversations with a Russian envoy following a Jan. 5, 2017, national security meeting at the White House. It wasn't Comey who told her, but former President Barack Obama.

Yates, who was briefly the acting attorney general during the early days of the Trump administration before getting fired, also laid out how in the ensuing days, Comey kept the FBI's actions cloaked in secrecy and repeatedly rebuffed her suggestions that the incoming Trump team be made aware of the Flynn recordings.

These revelations appear in declassified FBI interview notes of the Mueller team's conversation with Yates in August 2017, highlighted by the Justice Department on Thursday as U.S. Attorney for D.C. Timothy Shea moved to drop its criminal charges against Flynn.

"One thing people will see when they look at the documents is how Director Comey purposely went around the Justice Department and ignored Deputy Attorney General Yate s," Attorney General William Barr said during a Thursday interview with CBS News. "Deputy Attorney General Yates, I've disagreed with her about a couple of things, but, you know, here she upheld the fine tradition of the Department of Justice. She said that the new administration has to be treated just like the Obama administration, and they should go and tell the White House about their findings And, you know, Director Comey ran around that."

Yates told Mueller's team she first learned of the Flynn recordings following a White House meeting about the Intelligence Community Assessment attended by Yates, Comey, Vice President Joe Biden , then-CIA Director John Brennan, then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, then-national security adviser Susan Rice, and others. Obama asked Yates and Comey to stay behind when the meeting concluded.

Obama "started by saying that he had 'learned of the information about Flynn' and his conversation with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak," Yates said, according to the notes. "Obama specified he did not want any additional information on the matter but was seeking information on whether the White House should be treating Flynn any differently." washington examiner

-------------

Obama did not want any additional information on the matter? Careful CYA. From the account of this meeting it is clear that Obama and Biden knew that Comey was intent on pursuing Flynn. If that is so, then subsequent events indicate that Obama did not act to stop Comey, and since Comey was hiding his effort against Flynn from main Justice, it must be that someone on high was encouraging him. Now, who would that be? pl

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/sally-yates-learned-of-flynn-targeting-from-obama-as-comey-kept-her-in-the-dark-declassified-documents-show


Jack , 09 May 2020 at 12:40 PM

Sir

All this was known in DC for the past few years. Everyone on the HSPCI knew what the closed door testimony was. Clapper was categorical that there was "no empirical evidence of collusion". The Crowdstrike CEO was categorical that he had no definitive evidence that the Russians exfiltrated data from the DNC servers. Yet Schiff, Clapper, Brennan and all the media hacks were on TV every night screaming Russia! Russia! and Collusion! Collusion!

Devin Nunes was spot on and correct that there was an attempted coup. All the media and even many Republicans called him a conspiracy theorist.

SST maintaining its glorious tradition was spot on in its analysis with the limited data available that there was a coup and the traitors were not those in the Trump campaign but the leadership in law enforcement and intelligence. A big shoutout to you, Larry and David Habakkuk.

Trump himself was like deer caught in the headlights. Furiously tweeting but not doing much of anything else while his own nominees at the DOJ and FBI were plotting and acting to destroy his presidency. Devin Nunes imploring him to declassify and expose all the evidence from the FISA applications, the 302s, the internal communications among the plotters including the prolific FBI lovers. He still hasn't.

What happens next? Will the whole coup be exposed in its entirety? Will anyone be held to account?

If Trump doesn't care enough even when his ass was being fried to disclose all the evidence with the stroke of his pen and if all he cares is to tweet "witch-hunt" and "Drain the Swamp", how realistic is it that any of the coup plotters will be tried for treason?

Deap , 09 May 2020 at 01:01 PM
Barry was doing his usual thing, the signature move of his entire political career: .... voting "present". His CYA equivalent of no comment.

Plausible deniability was a high art form for Barry. Where was Barry Soetoro between 16:00 and 22:00 on Sept 11, 2012? We still do not know.

Jim Henely , 09 May 2020 at 01:07 PM
I'm revealing my age by using this expression from the Watergate era, but "what did Obama, Biden and Comey know, and when did they know it?"
RussianBot , 09 May 2020 at 01:40 PM
So Obama used Yates to go after Flynn. They have really worked a number on Flynn to discredit him, and it almost worked. Now it would appear their scheme is starting to unravel a bit.

Is Obama being thrown under the bus here? Are Comey and Yates (or others) trying to cover their asses now that Flynn is free? Did Trump and his allies always know this and waited for the right moment to reveal it for better effect? The game is at hand.

Yahoo released a leaked call today of Obama criticizing Trump's response over coronavirus. Here's the big headline Yahoo is running:

Exclusive: Obama says in private call that 'rule of law is at risk' in Michael Flynn case

https://news.yahoo.com/obama-irule-of-law-michael-flynn-case-014121045.html

The Flynn case was invoked by Obama as a principal reason that his former administration officials needed to make sure former Vice President Joe Biden wins the November election against President Trump. "So I am hoping that all of you feel the same sense of urgency that I do," he said. "Whenever I campaign, I've always said, 'Ah, this is the most important election.' Especially obviously when I was on the ballot, that always feels like it's the most important election. This one -- I'm not on the ballot -- but I am pretty darn invested. We got to make this happen."
Obama misstated the charge to which Flynn had previously pleaded guilty. He was charged with false statements to the FBI, not perjury.

Misstated seems like a stretch. The call sounds scripted and I suspect the leak was deliberate.

Keith Harbaugh , 09 May 2020 at 02:12 PM
Sundance covered in great detail the context in which that 2017-01-05 meeting occurred:
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/05/01/why-was-flynn-targeted-a-timeline-review-of-the-three-phases/

A YouTube video of Barry's cry of dismay (and fear) over the dismissal of charges against Flynn is here:
https://youtu.be/tbQ8P3GhD-c

EmJay72159508 , 09 May 2020 at 04:50 PM
Brennan was encouraging Comey. I just learned something recently. Brennan spent time in Indonesia around the same time that Obama's mother lived there. It has been reported that Obama and Brennan had a fairly close relationship. I wonder how long they have known each other.
JMH , 09 May 2020 at 04:58 PM
Keith Harbaugh,

O'Biden's Dad just wheeled around the corner in a wood paneled station wagon and dressed down the neighborhood kids who took O'Biden's ball. A humiliating experience for O'Biden who sits in the passenger seat as a mere spectator.

Keith Harbaugh , 09 May 2020 at 07:35 PM
Sundance just posted an astoundingly detailed account of
how illegal surveillance was conducted by unauthorized FBI-contractors
while the GOP was sorting out the candidates for its 2016 presidential nomination:
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/05/09/why-is-obama-panicking-now-the-importance-of-understanding-political-surveillance-in-the-era-of-president-obama/

The open question is: Just who were those contractors?
Surely that is known to some, and is significant to current politically-charged inquiries.
Just why that information has not become public is a good question.
Can anyone provide a reliable source for that information?

Jack , 09 May 2020 at 09:30 PM
It is unsurprising @realDonaldTrump enjoys wallowing in his fetid self-indulgence, but I find it surreal that so many other government officials encourage his ignorance, incompetence, & destructive behavior.

BTW, history will be written by the righteous, not by his lickspittle.

https://twitter.com/johnbrennan/status/1259191320515616770?s=21

Is Brennan always like this? His tweets seem unhinged.

Fred , 09 May 2020 at 09:55 PM
"Deputy Attorney General Yates"

She served as Acting AG, accepting the post when Trump was inaugurated. What did she tell him about his whole affair? Was the opposition to the EO 13769 just an excuse to have herself fired so she would not have to either perjure herself or reveal the truth to Trump?

Jack,
"All this was known in DC for the past few years."

You left out that Paul Ryan was Speaker of the House because the Republicans were in the majority then and the HPSCI under his term as speaker did not subpoena a very large group of people, didn't ask relevant questions, didn't release information to the public and thus ensuring the left took over the House after the 2016 elections.

JerseyJeffersonian , 09 May 2020 at 10:33 PM
I, too, coincidentally just concluded a close reading of the Conservative Tree House post that Mr. Harbaugh just recommended. It is, indeed, well worth such a close reading. There have been various puzzling things along the way these last few years for which this post provides explanations. Of particular utility, is its inclusion of a timeline of the arc of the episodes of illegal government surveillance that began (?) with the IRS spying of 2012, and how - and why - it evolved from that episode into the massive abuses of the FISA process of which we are becoming increasingly aware as revelations are forthcoming.

CTH's work is superb, but I do want to say that I am also supremely grateful for all of the good work and analysis from Larry Johnson, and other contributors, as well as for the trenchant comments of Col. Lang. Multivalent sources of information, analysis, and comment provide one with the parallax requisite to understanding this web of perfidy. My gratitude also is owing to all of you Members of the Committee of Correspondence, each of whom brings personal observations and insights to bear, always much to my benefit.

Jack , 10 May 2020 at 03:51 AM
Fred,

I did see a clip of Matt Gaetz calling out Ryan and Trey Gowdy from preventing them from issuing subpoenas. Why do you think the Republican leadership in the House and Senate did not want to investigate?

Jim , 10 May 2020 at 05:42 AM
["One thing people will see when they look at the documents is how Director Comey purposely went around the Justice Department and ignored Deputy Attorney General Yates," Attorney General William Barr said during a Thursday interview with CBS News. "Deputy Attorney General Yates, I've disagreed with her about a couple of things, but, you know, here she upheld the fine tradition of the Department of Justice. She said that the new administration has to be treated just like the Obama administration, and they should go and tell the White House about their findings And, you know, Director Comey ran around that."]

++++++++++++

This is fascinating because: this, what Barr is discussing, on national TV, . . . this particular dimension, this Yates/Comey playing hide the bacon has nothing at all to do with actual Brady material in the Lt. Gen. Flynn case.

Barr is referring to the Special Counsel Mueller Office's interview with Yates on Aug. 15, 2017, entered into the system three weeks later. Her interview occurred more than two months prior to Flynn's coerced guilty plea.

This SCO document was released to the court May 7 as exhibit 4 attached to the DOJ motion to end the prosecution of Flynn. It was produced in line with request by defense for Brady material.

What Barr forgets to say is: This SCO interview of Yates shows that Comey and Yates talked on the phone -- prior to -- the notorious Jan. 24, 2017 FBI interview of Flynn.

"Comey . . . informed her that two agents were on their way to interview Flynn at the White House," the SCO said, according to the new court filing.

Yates took no action, -- she did nothing to order Comey to abort this soon-to-happen FBI interview of Flynn, this SCO interview of her shows.

She was Comey's boss, the Acting Attorney General, at the time.

It shows that she was upset precisely because she wanted the FBI to coordinate with the DOJ -- on getting Flynn screwed -- even suggesting, she told the SCO, that consideration that Flynn be recorded, instead of memorialized using standard 302 form – in-writing-only.

Yates wanted Flynn fired, she told the SCO.

Yates apparently was unable on her own to figure out, as the AG, the FBI and DOJ -- none of them had any predicate, no "materiality," nothing "tethered" to any crime, as there was no crime. And if she did not know these basic facts, had no awareness of them, then: why was she the AG in the first place?

And what did Yates glean, right after this Jan. 24 interview of Flynn?

"Yates received a brief readout of the interview the night it happened, and a longer readout the following day," which begs the question of why the original 302 of this was never produced by the DOJ, to the defense; and also, why Covington law firm never asked to see this before allowing Flynn to make his plea.

"Yates did not speak to the interviewing agents herself, but understood from others that their assessment was that Flynn showed no 'tells' of lying," the SCO report says.

Based on her personal preference, rather than DOJ norms, she went to the White House, and her expectation was they would fire Flynn. I fail to see how this nonsense by Yates seem to escape Barr's notice. Or, is something else also going on?

She personally went to the White House, and her smear campaign against Flynn began, went on and on and on, even after she was fired after being Acting AG for just ten days.

In her brief stint as Acting AG: Yates refused to tell the White House Counsel if Flynn was being investigated, when the WHC asked her, directly, about this, according to what she told the SCO. Can't blame this fact on the unctuous Comey.

She did tell the SCO that she wanted the WHC to know Flynn had been interviewed by the FBI – and that she had concerns about Flynn, and she said those concerns related to the Logan Act. Yates told SCO her concerns were because of the Logan Act, and that she expressed this to the White House.

The Washington Examiner reporting that "It wasn't Comey who told her, but former President Barack Obama" -- about the Flynn-Kislyak phone call --- this is interesting, very interesting, if true, assuming Yates was telling the SCO the truth. This is what she claims in her August 2017 interview with SCO.

But this bit of information is hardly Brady material [how is whether Obama or Comey told her materially germane to the Flynn case, viz. Brady material?].

The question the SCO should have been concerned about is: who actually leaked the transcript of the Flynn-Kislyak telephone call to the media?

Is this a serious crime? Or is this OK?

We still do not know this answer, and AG Barr has not told us. Nor has his boss, Trump.

It is interesting that Barr chose to highlight that Comey went around Yates' back in Comey ordering FBI to interview Flynn, but not that Yates knew of the Flynn interview before it went down, and sat on her arse about it.

In fairness to Comey, they were, as the FB of Investigations, conducting the investigation, which is their job, however rogue this FBI's I actually was, targeting Flynn.

The Flynn-Kislyak telephone call, occurring late December of 2016, was reported by the Washington Post on Jan. 12, 2017, eight days before Trump was sworn in.

And who leaked this, has anyone been prosecuted, will anyone be?

Obama still president, Loretta Lynch still AG, Yates still Deputy AG, Comey FBI director, McCabe Deputy FBI director, etc.

Starting Jan. 20 and for ten days, Yates was the AG. She appeared bent on destroying Flynn, and did nothing that I know of to prosecute who leaked the Flynn-Kislyak telephone call to WAPO. Did someone on high perhaps ask her not to?

Nor was Comey and McCabe investigating this as best I can tell. Yet this was an actual, clear cut crime we all saw, plain as day. Or maybe this is OK? Was someone on high asking them not to?

I watched Barr say, during his interview with CBS news, [following the May 7 release of documents to the court]: "One thing people will see when they look at the documents is how Director Comey purposely went around the Justice Department and ignored Deputy Attorney General Yates," Barr told Catherine Herridge.

And my first thought was: why is Barr doing an apparent CYA for Yates?

What office might she want to be running for in the future; is she a cooperating witness in the wider Durham probe, why is Yates being portrayed as someone other than what she was: A leader in the effort to destroy Michael Flynn.

She was the AG, and she failed to hold Comey accountable at the time; this is a fact, apparently, that reflects poorly on her.

She told the White House -- as best she could -- that Flynn was a piece of dung, and told the SCO, in their interview of her, that she expected the White House to fire Flynn. This reflects poorly on her.

And threatened Logan Act prosecution of Flynn to the White house. This reflects poorly on her.

She smeared Flynn in a CNN interview on May 16, the day before Mueller was appointed. This reflects poorly on her.

Well, who leaked the Flynn-Kislyak telephone call, and did Yates act on that?

Folks that "should have known better" -- far and wide, smeared Flynn, justified the lawlessness against him; one of many examples, titled: "Leaking Flynn's name to the press was illegal, but utterly justified" published by TheHill.com.

https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/the-administration/319955-yes-leaking-flynns-name-to-press-was-illegal-but

She wasn't the only one, but Yates was smack dab in the middle of enabling and perpetuating a long-running smear campaign against Flynn, to destroy him by any means necessary. This reflects poorly on her.

Why is Barr carrying water for her.

As for Obama, he did nothing to stop Comey in 2016 when Comey announced he was exonerating Clinton. Nor did AG Lynch, even though that is not the function of the FBI -- an act of insubordination, by the way, for which Rosenstein officially fired him in May 2017, which set, somehow, in motion the Mueller SC appointment by Rosenstein.

If Comey is such a rogue, and Barr is now claiming Yates tried to do the right thing, in spite of Comey, then why didn't Yates fire Comey Jan. 24 right on the spot? And end the fiasco right then and there?

In her May 16, 2017 CNN interview she only has kind words to say about him.

AS for who on high was encouraging Comey's extra legal free-lancing in the Clinton and Flynn matters is a pertinent question.

Who were the enablers, in other words?

Barr appears to imply Comey did it all on his own, which is not entirely accurate. Perhaps this also implies that Durham will prosecute Comey? I don't know if anyone will be prosecuted at all. Time will tell.

It is clear Comey's enablers would, by rank, have been, viz. the Clinton matter: Obama and Lynch.

In the Flynn matter: Trump and Yates.

Simple logic dictates that: if Main Justice was "not in the loop" then, for Clinton matter, this means Obama was enabling Comey to exonerate her; and also dictate that, for Flynn, that Trump was the one "on high" enabling Comey.

If there are others on high, they were not in the chain of command as I understand the current US Government structure.
-30-

Fred , 10 May 2020 at 09:19 AM
Jack,

"Never Trump".

Jim,

You seem to think Trump was informed of all the relevant information about the FBI's conduct during his first ten days in office. Because Barr, being appointed AG two years after these events, has yet to indict anyone in the case, Trump was actually enabling Yates in destroying Flynn? Neither appear to be logical conclusions to me.

Bobo , 10 May 2020 at 09:50 AM
So on a December 29, 2016 The Obama administration placed sanctions on Russia that evolved to Flynn, at the instruction of the incoming Trump administration, contacting the Russian ambassador requesting that they not retaliate or heighten the situation.

On January 5th Ms. Yates learned from Obama of the Flynn intervention.

Rather than contact Trump directly Obama went along with the Comey Logan Act thoughts.

The decision to enact sanctions obviously involved State, CIA, DNI and FBI but why not Justice or did it. But why was the incoming Trump administration not consulted.

There was only one Machiavellian thinker in that group and it wasn't the idiot who got his panties all twisted up.

[May 10, 2020] A Cabal Of Liars - Sara Carter Demands Top Obama Officials Need To Be Held Accountable by Sara Carter

May 10, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Via SaraACarter.com,

"This is a cabal of liars of the Obama administration senior officials," said Sara Carter, a Fox News contributor and host of "The Sara Carter Show" on Fox News's show "The Ingraham Angle" on Friday.

https://video.foxnews.com/v/video-embed.html?video_id=6155418151001&loc=zerohedge.com&ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fcabal-liars-sara-carter-demands-top-obama-officials-need-be-held-accountable&_xcf=

Watch the latest video at <a href="https://www.foxnews.com">foxnews.com</a>

"And you have to ask yourself one question. They all stuck with the same exact propaganda, the same exact his information, that the Trump administration, that the Trump campaign conspired with Russia, even though they had no evidence whatsoever, and they manufactured that evidence against the president."

"And this is why all of them need to be investigated " explained Carter.

" What they did here is not only in effect of our national security, they basically told a lie across the globe and divided our nation for more than three years, and eventually someone is going to pay the price for this. And I think this is exactly why John Durham and Attorney General William Barr are conducting this investigation so thoroughly, because what they did was a crime against the American people.

"Why is it that Obama asks Comey and Yates, how should we treat Michael Flynn? Why does he ask that question to them in a private meeting in the Oval Office?" asked Raymond Arroyo, who hosted "The Ingraham Angle' on Friday.

"I think that is pretty evident, because he along with Michael Flynn had a very divisive relationship," responded Carter.

" When Michael Flynn challenged him on the narrative that he was spreading that Al Qaeda was on the run and that ISIS was just this jayvee team, Michael Flynn was not going to accept that. He also was not going to accept the fact that there were serious problems within the intelligence community, and he challenged President Obama on that. I think in the beginning it was a good relationship. I remember that, they had a good relationship, and then it broke apart."

"A lot of people don't remember, was that meeting that President Trump, very first meeting he had with President Obama at the White House," continued Sara Carter.

"When President Obama put a seed in President Trump's head, saying, I only have one person I want to warn you about, and that is Mike Flynn. And the reason they wanted Mike Flynn out was because he was the only one in the administration that really understood the intelligence community, and he was going to catch all of them and what they were doing , which was what they were trying to do was break the administration apart and remove President Trump."

[May 10, 2020] Russiagate has been an obvious coup attempt from the beginning, and several attempts have followed...

The genius of Russiagate is that it managed to gaslight the whole nation
May 10, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
jinn , May 10 2020 15:20 utc | 5
Russiagate has been an obvious coup attempt from the beginning, and several attempts have followed...
__________________________________________________

That is not at all obvious.
Russiagate was obviously designed to look like a coup attempt, but you have to be extremely gullible to believe any of it is real.

The recent Flynn bruhaha is a perfect example of the phoniness surrounding Russiagate.

The FBI investigators that interviewed Flynn believed he had not been deceptive and any fool who was paying attention at the time believed he was not guilty because 2 weeks before that FBI interview the news media had reported that the phone call with Kislyak had been recorded by the FBI and that there was nothing improper or illegal that would motivate Flynn to lie about his talk with Kislyak. The story that Flynn lied to the FBI is unbelievable on its face.

Don't blame the FBI for creating this fake story. Trump is the one and only one that created the fake Flynn-lied-to-the-FBI story, Before Trump created the phony story that Flynn had lied to the FBI nobody else had at that time believed Flynn lied to the FBI.
But once Trump had created the phony story that Flynn lied to the FBI then all the gullible morons started to believe the phony story. And even Flynn himself goes along with Trump's phony story because he is a good soldier that follows command.

Trump says he fired Flynn for lying to the FBI

Before Comey's testimony to Congress that suggested that Trump was twisting Comey's arm to let Flynn go for lying to the FBI no one had ever said that Flynn lied to the FBI. That story was created by Trump and reported by Comey.
And then Mueller and Flynn and Comey all helped Trump foist that phony story that Flynn lied to the FBI onto the public.

The implication of Comey's testimony to Congress was that in order to get Flynn off a charge of Lying to the FBI Trump first tried to cajole Comey to go easy on Flynn and when that did not work Trump fired Comey.
The problem with that whole BS story is that the crux of it (that Flynn lied to the FBI) never happened. It was entirely invented by Trump to make it look like Trump was engaged in mortal combat with the deep state. But it was all staged and fake (i.e. Kayfabe)


jinn , May 10 2020 15:42 utc | 7

Russigate falls apart:

_______________________________________________
Well duh....

Russiagate was designed to fall apart.

It was obvious all along that all the stories that came out in the Mueller Report were badly written sit-com material - the script for a comic soap opera. And they were all scripted to fall apart when examined closely.

What I could never figure out was what this guy Mueller was going to say when he was dragged in front of Congress and required to answer tough questions about all the garbage he had produced. I thought for sure that for Mueller the jig would be up there was no way the farce would not be revealed for all to see.

And then it happened. Mueller testified and it turned out Mueller could not remember any of it.

Senator: Did you say XYZ?
Mueller: Is that in the report??
Senator: yes it is.
Mueller: Then it is true.

Making Mueller Senile and unable to remember anything was brilliant - pure genius. The rest of the Russiagate script was mediocre at best.

Jackrabbit , May 10 2020 17:01 utc | 16
bevin @ May 10 16:41

It was a transparently false narrative designed, by the most incompetent election campaign team in history ...

Occam's razor says Hillary threw the election. No seasoned politician would make the mistakes that she made - especially when they yearn to make history (as the first woman president) and the entire establishment (left and right) is counting on them to win.

Believing what is evidently incredible has long been a test of loyalty ...

And you prove your loyalty with the belief that Hillary lost because of an "incompetent election campaign".

!!

[May 10, 2020] Did Obama Defense Deputy Lie To Protect Her Fraudulent Russiagate Sources

May 10, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Did Obama Defense Deputy Lie To Protect Her Fraudulent Russiagate Sources?


xxx Barnacles, 1 minute ago

Justice for me, but not for thee. They prosecute Flynn, Manafort, Stone, Papadoupolis, and tried to prosecute Trump. Yet, none of the Deep State/demonrats get prosecuted. No Comey, Strzok, Page, McCabe, Clapper, or Brennan.

xxx booboo, 2 minutes ago

It would not be difficult to ascertain just the opposite, she spoke the truth in the MSNBC interview and she lied under oath in a congressional hearing. There are always paper trails and bread crumbs but they won't be followed because the Atlantic Council is the defacto State Department. Ciitizen Jury, Crime and Punishment teams would have to enforce the law of the land at this point.

xxx lwilland1012, 5 minutes ago (Edited)

Nobody is covering this bombshell that was dropped from the Grenell transcripts: "we had indication that the DNC was hacked."

"Indication? Direct evidence?"

"No direct evidence."

Matt Taibi of all people is covering this bombshell from Crowdstrike

No direct evidence means that Russia DID NOT interfere in the election.

xxx onwisconsinbadger, 11 minutes ago

Did Michael Flynn Lie To Protect His Russia Sources?

Flynn was in violation of both federal law and the US Constitution Emoluments Clause which forbids former military members from getting paid to lobby for a foreign government without written permission from congress or the Secretary of the Army which he never got. Flynn was lobbying for both Turkey and Russia without explicit permission to do so. Technically he could be brought back to active duty and tried in a Courts Martial for what he did or be charged in a federal court but that would be pointless with Trump as POTUS like so many other things with Trump it establishes a dangerous precedent for future incidents because they will argue a uneven application of law because Flynn wasn't prosecuted so why should they?

[May 08, 2020] The Flynn affair has ended. Both sides (Trump Establishment) have laid down their cards. Trump wins. The only remaining question is whether he goes for the throat.

May 08, 2020 | www.unz.com

Anonymous [360] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment May 8, 2020 at 8:39 am GMT

@schnellandine OK, guys. To draw an analogy to a card game:
The Flynn affair has ended. Both sides (Trump & Establishment) have laid down their cards. Trump wins. The only remaining question is whether he goes for the throat.

Remember, he pretty much has to. The Establishment has made it clear that Trump will be attacked after he leaves office, and the Flynn affair shows that the attack would have nothing to do with law or Trump's actions.

Still, has to isn't "did".

So Trump's remarks on "scum" and "treason" are important -- he's going for the throat. Moreover, the Establishment has been weakened enough by inept COVID-19 preparation and reaction, and the general public so afraid that the Establishment (what Feifer called the "Anonymous Authority") will eat them next that a chance to rid themselves of it will receive considerable backing, and the Establishment's urban power base become so -- well, Hellish, that Trump actually has a fair chance. If he pulls the string the right way, prosecutes serially and follows up on facts uncovered by the trials, follows up Epstein's trainl he could discredit/imprison a good fraction of the Establishment's leaders and personnel. They can see that as clearly as I can, and some of them, at least, will try to fight rather than simply lose. They've always succeeded by all-out offensive, know little else.

Awhile back I mentioned that US political stability would drop considerably by early July (by 2020-07-07, as I recall). Looks like that's really going to happen.

So -- Please do your best to stay safe. Remember, this won't do the food supply chain any good, and that home invasions won't stop just because things are a bit chaotic.

A123 , says: Show Comment May 8, 2020 at 11:16 am GMT
Anti-Trump Government Officials Conflicted Over Not Being Able To Lie

The treasonous Mueller non-investigation now stands exposed. Those who lied to overthrow the election are now in serious trouble.

All charges against Flynn are being dropped now that declassified documents show what actually hapoened. Details including the transcripts can be found at these links.

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/05/08/must-read-full-interview-transcript-of-ag-barr-discussing-dropping-the-flynn-case/

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/05/07/hpsci-and-odni-release-53-declassified-transcripts-from-russia-gate-witness-testimony/

Hopefully charges will soon follow, indicting those who intentionally defrauded the Courts and committed other crimes.

[May 08, 2020] Barr fight against Clinton gang

So Flynn was framed but the plot eventually failed. will Strzok get a jail sencetnce for his role in this FBI operation?
Charlie Savage being a NYT correspondent belongs to Clinton gang and defend their point of view. But h revels some interesting tidbits about the nature of framing and possible consequences for the key members of Clinton gang.
May 08, 2020 | www.nytimes.com

Originally from: 'Never Seen Anything Like This' Experts Question Dropping of Flynn Prosecution By Charlie Savage, NYT, May 7, 2020

WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department's decision to drop the criminal case against Michael T. Flynn , President Trump's former national security adviser, even though he had twice pleaded guilty to lying to investigators, was extraordinary and had no obvious precedent, a range of criminal law specialists said on Thursday.

"I've been practicing for more time than I care to admit and I've never seen anything like this," said Julie O'Sullivan, a former federal prosecutor who now teaches criminal law at Georgetown University.

The move is the latest in a series that the department, under Attorney General William P. Barr, has taken to undermine and dismantle the work of the investigators and prosecutors who scrutinized Russia's 2016 election interference operation and its links to people associated with the Trump campaign.

The case against Mr. Flynn for lying to the F.B.I. about his conversations with the Russian ambassador was brought by the office of the former special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. It had become a political cause for Mr. Trump and his supporters, and the president had signaled that he was considering a pardon once Mr. Flynn was sentenced. But Mr. Barr instead abruptly short-circuited the case.

On Thursday, Timothy Shea, the interim U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia, told the judge overseeing the case, Emmet G. Sullivan, that prosecutors were withdrawing the case. They were doing so, he said, because the department could not prove to a jury that Mr. Flynn's admitted lies to the F.B.I. about his conversations with the ambassador were "material" ones.

The move essentially erases Mr. Flynn's guilty pleas. Because he was never sentenced and the government is unwilling to pursue the matter further, the prosecution is virtually certain to end, although the judge must still decide whether to grant the department's request to dismiss it "with prejudice," meaning it could not be refiled in the future.

A range of former prosecutors struggled to point to any previous instance in which the Justice Department had abandoned its own case after obtaining a guilty plea. They portrayed the justification Mr. Shea pointed to -- that it would be difficult to prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that the lies were material -- as dubious.

"A pardon would have been a lot more honest," said Samuel Buell, a former federal prosecutor who now teaches criminal law at Duke University.

The law regarding what counts as "material" is extremely forgiving to the government, Mr. Buell added. The idea is that law enforcement is permitted to pursue possible theories of criminality and to interview people without having firmly established that there was a crime first.

James G. McGovern , a defense lawyer at Hogan Lovells and a former federal prosecutor, said juries rarely bought a defendant's argument that a lie did not involve a material fact.

"If you are arguing 'materiality,' you usually lose, because there is a tacit admission that what you said was untrue, so you lose the jury," he said.

No career prosecutors signed the motion. Mr. Shea is a former close aide to Mr. Barr. In January, Mr. Barr installed him as the top prosecutor in the district that encompasses the nation's capital after maneuvering out the Senate-confirmed former top prosecutor in that office, Jessie K. Liu.

Soon after, in an extraordinary move, four prosecutors in the office abruptly quit the case against Mr. Trump's longtime friend Roger J. Stone Jr. They did so after senior Justice Department officials intervened to recommend a more lenient prison term than standard sentencing guidelines called for in the crimes Mr. Stone was convicted of committing -- including witness intimidation and perjury -- to conceal Trump campaign interactions with WikiLeaks.

It soon emerged that Mr. Barr had also appointed an outside prosecutor, Jeff Jensen, the U.S. attorney in St. Louis, to review the Flynn case files. The department then began turning over F.B.I. documents showing internal deliberations about questioning Mr. Flynn, like what warnings to give -- even though such files are usually not provided to the defense.

Mr. Flynn's defense team has mined such files for ammunition to portray the F.B.I. as running amok in its decision to question Mr. Flynn in the first place. The questioning focused on his conversations during the transition after the 2016 election with the Russian ambassador about the Obama administration's imposition of sanctions on Russia for its interference in the American election.

The F.B.I. had already concluded that there was no evidence that Mr. Flynn, a former Trump campaign adviser, had personally conspired with Russia about the election, and it had decided to close out the counterintelligence investigation into him. Then questions arose about whether and why Mr. Flynn had lied to administration colleagues like Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations with the ambassador.

Because the counterintelligence investigation was still open, the bureau used it as a basis to question Mr. Flynn about the conversations and decided not to warn him at its onset that it would be a crime to lie. Notes from Bill Priestap , then the head of the F.B.I.'s counterintelligence division, show that he wrote at one point about the planned interview: "What's our goal? Truth/admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?"

Mr. Barr has also appointed another outside prosecutor, John H. Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, to reinvestigate the Russia investigators even though the department's independent inspector general was already scrutinizing them .

And his department has intervened in a range of other ways, from seeking more comfortable prison accommodations last year for Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump's former campaign chairman, to abruptly dropping charges in March against two Russian shell companies that were about to go to trial for financing schemes to interfere in the 2016 election using social media .

Mr. Barr has let it be known that he does not think the F.B.I. ever had an adequate legal basis to open its Russia investigation in the first place, contrary to the judgment of the Justice Department's inspector general.

In an interview on CBS News on Thursday, Mr. Barr defended the dropping of the charges against Mr. Flynn on the grounds that the F.B.I. "did not have a basis for a counterintelligence investigation against Flynn at that stage."

Anne Milgram , a former federal prosecutor and former New Jersey attorney general who teaches criminal law at New York University, defended the F.B.I.'s decision to question Mr. Flynn in January 2017. She said that much was still a mystery about the Russian election interference operation at the time and that Mr. Flynn's lying to the vice president about his postelection interactions with a high-ranking Russian raised new questions.

But, she argued, the more important frame for assessing the dropping of the case was to recognize how it fit into the larger pattern of the Barr-era department "undercutting the law enforcement officials and prosecutors who investigated the 2016 election and its aftermath," which she likened to "eating the Justice Department from the inside out."

[May 07, 2020] Media Malpractice Is Criminalizing Better Relations With Russia by Stephen F. Cohen

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The foundational accusation of Russiagate was, and remains, charges that Russian President Putin ordered the hacking of DNC e-mails and their public dissemination through WikiLeaks in order to benefit Donald Trump and undermine Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, and that Trump and/or his associates colluded with the Kremlin in this "attack on American democracy." As no actual evidence for these allegations has been produced after nearly a year and a half of media and government investigations, we are left with Russiagate without Russia. ..."
"... This is unprecedented, preposterous, and dangerous, potentially more so than even McCarthy's search for "Communist" connections. It would suggest, for example, that scores of American corporations doing business in Russia today are engaged in criminal enterprise. ..."
"... Russiagate began sometime prior to June 2016, not after the presidential election in November, as is often said, as an anti-Trump political project. ..."
"... Leaving aside possible financial improprieties on the part of General Flynn, his persecution and subsequent prosecution is highly indicative. Flynn pled guilty to having lied to the FBI about his communications with the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, on behalf of the incoming Trump administration, discussions that unavoidably included some references, however vague, to sanctions imposed on Russia by President Obama in December 2016, just before leaving office. ..."
"... Those sanctions were highly unusual-last-minute, unprecedented in their seizure of Russian property in the United States, and including a reckless veiled threat of unspecified cyber attacks on Russia. ..."
"... Finally, and similarly, Cohen points out, there is the ongoing effort by the political-media establishment to drive Secretary of State Tillerson from office and replace him with a fully neocon, anti-Russian, anti-détente head of the State Department. ..."
Dec 13, 2017 | thenation.com

Cohen offers the following general observations, which form the basis of the discussion:

  • The foundational accusation of Russiagate was, and remains, charges that Russian President Putin ordered the hacking of DNC e-mails and their public dissemination through WikiLeaks in order to benefit Donald Trump and undermine Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, and that Trump and/or his associates colluded with the Kremlin in this "attack on American democracy." As no actual evidence for these allegations has been produced after nearly a year and a half of media and government investigations, we are left with Russiagate without Russia. (An apt formulation perhaps first coined in an e-mail exchange by Nation writer James Carden.) Special counsel Mueller has produced four indictments: against Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump's short-lived national-security adviser, and George Papadopolous, a lowly and inconsequential Trump "adviser," for lying to the FBI; and against Paul Manafort and his partner Rick Gates for financial improprieties. None of these charges has anything to do with improper collusion with Russia, except for the wrongful insinuations against Flynn. Instead, the several investigations, desperate to find actual evidence of collusion, have spread to "contacts with Russia"-political, financial, social, etc.-on the part of a growing number of people, often going back many years before anyone imagined Trump as a presidential candidate. The resulting implication is that these "contacts" were criminal or potentially so.

    This is unprecedented, preposterous, and dangerous, potentially more so than even McCarthy's search for "Communist" connections. It would suggest, for example, that scores of American corporations doing business in Russia today are engaged in criminal enterprise. More to the point, advisers to US policy-makers and even media commentators on Russia must have many and various contacts with Russia if they are to understand anything about the dynamics of Kremlin policy-making. Cohen himself, to take an individual example, was an adviser to two (unsuccessful) presidential campaigns, which considered his wide-ranging and longstanding "contacts" with Russia to be an important credential, as did the one sitting president he advised. To suggest that such contacts are in any way criminal is to slur hundreds of reputations and to leave US policy-makers with advisers laden with ideology and no actual expertise. It is also to suggest that any quest for better relations with Russia, or détente, is somehow suspicious, illegitimate, or impossible, as expressed recently by Andrew Weiss in The Wall Street Journal and by The Washington Post, in an editorial. This is one reason Cohen, in a previous Batchelor broadcast and commentary, argued that Russiagate and its promoters have become the gravest threat to American national security.

  • Russiagate began sometime prior to June 2016, not after the presidential election in November, as is often said, as an anti-Trump political project. (Exactly why, how, and by whom remain unclear, and herein lies the real significance of the largely bogus "Dossier" and the still murky role of top US intel officials in the creation of that document.) That said, Cohen continues, the mainstream American media have been largely responsible for inflating, perpetuating, and sustaining the sham Russiagate as the real political crisis it has become, arguably the greatest in modern American presidential and thus institutional political history. The media have done this by increasingly betraying their own professed standards of verified news reporting and balanced coverage, even resorting to tacit forms of censorship by systematically excluding dissenting reporting and opinions. (For inventories of recent examples, see Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept and Joe Lauria at Consortium News. Anyone interested in exposures of such truly "fake news" should visit these two sites regularly, the latter the product of the inestimable veteran journalist Robert Parry.) Still worse, this mainstream malpractice has spread to some alternative-media publications once prized for their journalistic standards, where expressed disdain for "evidence" and "proof" in favor of allegations without any actual facts can sometimes be found. Nor are these practices merely the ordinary occasional mishaps of professional journalism. As Greenwald points out, all of the now retracted stories, whether by print media or cable television, were zealous promotions of Russiagate and virulently anti-Trump. They, too, are examples of Russiagate without Russia.

  • Leaving aside possible financial improprieties on the part of General Flynn, his persecution and subsequent prosecution is highly indicative. Flynn pled guilty to having lied to the FBI about his communications with the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, on behalf of the incoming Trump administration, discussions that unavoidably included some references, however vague, to sanctions imposed on Russia by President Obama in December 2016, just before leaving office.

    Those sanctions were highly unusual-last-minute, unprecedented in their seizure of Russian property in the United States, and including a reckless veiled threat of unspecified cyber attacks on Russia. They gave the impression that Obama wanted to make even more difficult Trump's professed goal of improving relations with Moscow.

    Still more, Obama's specified reason was not Russian behavior in Ukraine or Syria, as is commonly thought, but Russiagate-that is, Putin's "attack on American democracy," which Obama's intel chiefs had evidently persuaded him was an entirely authentic allegation. (Or which Obama, who regarded Trump's victory over his designated successor, Hillary Clinton, as a personal rebuff, was eager to believe.) But Flynn's discussions with the Russian ambassador-as well as other Trump representatives' efforts to open "back-channel" communications with Moscow–were anything but a crime. As Cohen pointed out in another previous commentary, there were so many precedents of such overtures on behalf of presidents-elect, it was considered a normal, even necessary practice, if only to ask Moscow not to make relations worse before the new president had a chance to review the relationship. When Henry Kissinger did this on behalf of President-elect Nixon, his boss instructed him to keep the communication entirely confidential, not to inform any other members of the incoming administration. Presumably Flynn was similarly secretive, thereby misinforming Vice President Pence and finding himself trapped-or possibly entrapped-between loyalty to his president and an FBI agent. Flynn no doubt would have been especially guarded with a representative of the FBI, knowing as he did the role of Obama's Intel bosses in Russiagate prior to the election and which had escalated after Trump's surprise victory. In any event, to the extent that Flynn encouraged Moscow not to reply in kind immediately to Obama's highly provocative sanctions, he performed a service to US national security, not a crime. And, assuming that Flynn was acting on the instructions of his president-elect, so did Trump. Still more, if Flynn "colluded" in any way, it was with Israel, not Russia, having been asked by that government to dissuade countries from voting for an impending anti-Israel UN resolution.

  • Finally, and similarly, Cohen points out, there is the ongoing effort by the political-media establishment to drive Secretary of State Tillerson from office and replace him with a fully neocon, anti-Russian, anti-détente head of the State Department. Tillerson was an admirable appointee by Trump-widely experienced in world affairs, a tested negotiator, a mature and practical-minded man. Originally, his role as the CEO of Exxon Mobil who had negotiated and enacted an immensely profitable and strategically important energy-extraction deal with the Kremlin earned him the slur of being "Putin's pal." This preposterous allegation has since given way to charges that he is slowly restructuring, and trimming, the long bloated and mostly inept State Department, as indeed he should do. Numerous former diplomats closely associated with Hillary Clinton have raced to influential op-ed pages to denounce Tillerson's undermining of this purportedly glorious frontline institution of American national security. Many news reports, commentaries, and editorials have been in the same vein. But who can recall, Cohen asks, a major diplomatic triumph by the State Department or a secretary of state in recent years? The answer might be the Obama administration's multinational agreement with Iran to curb its nuclear-weapons potential, but that was due no less to Russia's president and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which provided essential guarantees to the sides involved. Forgotten, meanwhile, are the more than 50 career State Department officials who publicly protested-in the spirit of DOD-Obama's rare attempt to cooperate with Moscow in Syria. Call it by what it was: the sabotaging of a president by his own State Department. In this spirit, there are a flurry of leaked stories that Tillerson will soon resign or be ousted. Meanwhile, however, he carries on. The ever-looming menace of Russiagate compels him to issue wildly exaggerated indictments of Russian behavior while, at the same time, calling for a "productive new relationship" with Moscow, in which he clearly believes. (And which, if left unencumbered, he might achieve.) Evidently, he has established a "productive" working relationship with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, the two of them having just announced North Korea's readiness to engage in negotiations with the United States and other governments involved in the current crisis.

    Tillerson's fate, Cohen concludes, will tell us much about the number-one foreign-policy question confronting America: cooperation or escalating conflict with the other nuclear superpower, a détente-like diminishing of the new Cold War or the growing risks that it will become hot war. Politics and policy should never be over-personalized; larger factors are always involved. But in these unprecedented times, Tillerson may be the last man standing who represents the possibility of some kind of détente. Apart, that is, from President Trump himself, loathe him or not. Or to put the issue differently: Will Russiagate continue to gravely endanger American national security?

    Stephen F. Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University. A Nation contributing editor, his most recent book, War With Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate, is available in paperback and in an ebook edition. His weekly conversations with the host of The John Batchelor Show, now in their seventh year, are available at www.thenation.com.

  • [May 07, 2020] There's No Question It's A Fraud Fmr Trump Attorney Says Mueller Badly Misled White House, Schiff Is Nancy's Liar Zero

    Highly recommended!
    May 07, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
    Former Trump attorney John Dowd says it's "staggering" that former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's "so-called Dream Team would put on such a fraud," after the Wednesday release of the investigation's "scope memo" revealed that Mueller was tasked with investigating accusations from Clinton-funded operative Christopher Steele which the DOJ already knew were debunked . "In the last few days, I have been going back through my files and we were badly misled by Mueller and his senior people , particularly in the meetings that we had," Dowd told Fox News Radio host Brian Kilmeade on Thursday.

    The scope memo also revealed that Mueller's authority went significantly beyond what was previously known - including "allegations that Carter Page committed a crime or crimes by colluding with Russian government officials with respect to the Russian government's efforts to interfere with the 2016 election for President of the United States, in violation of United States law," yet as John Solomon of Just The News noted on Wednesday - the FBI had already:

    • fired Steele as an informant for leaking;
    • interviewed Steele's sub-source, who disputed information attributed to him;
    • ascertained that allegations Steele had given the FBI specifically about Page were inaccurate and likely came from Russian intelligence sources as disinformation;
    • been informed repeatedly by the CIA that Page was not a Russian stooge but, rather, a cooperating intelligence asset for the United States government.

    " There's no question it's a fraud I think the whole report is just nonsense and it's staggering that the so-called 'Dream Team' would put on such a fraud ," Dowd said, according to Fox News .

    Dowd also discussed Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham's investigation into the origins of the Russia probe , which is expected to be wrapped up by the end of the summer.

    "Durham has really got a load on his hands tracking all this down," Dowd said.

    Durham was appointed last year by Attorney General Bill Barr to review the events leading up to Trump's inauguration. However, Durham has since expanded his investigation to cover a post-election timeline spanning the spring of 2017, when Mueller was appointed as special counsel. - Fox News

    "Nancy's Liar"

    Dowd also circled back to a claim by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff that there was "direct evidence" that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 election, despite the fact that transcripts of House Intelligence Committee interviews proving otherwise .

    "Schiff doesn't release these interviews because they're going to make him a liar," said Dowd, adding "They're going to expose him and he'll be run out of town."

    "He lied for months in the impeachment inquiry. He's essentially Nancy [Pelosi]'s liar and he's now going to be exposed."

    [May 07, 2020] Angry Bear " "cannot remember a single International Crisis in which the United States had no global presence at all"

    Highly recommended!
    Notable quotes:
    "... Anne Applebaum is a bitter neocon. She is furious that people no longer read the Washington Post as the authoritative voice of US foreign policy. She has apparently made a tidy fortune warning us that the Russians are coming, but she wants even more. The Washington Post still views her as an expert, but the American people, as she herself complains, are no longer interested in her worn-out fantasies. She is buried in defense industry funded think tanks and she does the bidding of her masters. Every intelligent American reader should ridicule her as the propagandist she is. ..."
    "... "McMaster's dangerous China hawkishness calls to mind something that Jim Mattis said about him regarding a different issue when they served together in the Trump administration: "Oh my God, that moron is going to get us all killed." His aggressiveness towards China is not driven by an assessment of the threat from China, but comes from his tendency to advocate for aggressive measures everywhere." ..."
    "... The country which spends over trillion dollars on "defense" is by definition an imperial country and its foreign policy priorities are not that difficult to discern. ..."
    "... And due to well fed MIC which maintains an army of lobbyists and along with FIRE sector controls Capitol Hill this is a Catch 22 situation (we can't abandon neocon Full Spectrum Dominance doctrine and can't continue as it will bankrupt the country) which might not end well for the country. ..."
    "... Note how unprepared the country was to COVID-19 epidemic. Zero strategic thinking as if the next epidemic was not in the cards at least since swine fly ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_swine_flu_pandemic_in_the_United_States ). ..."
    "... Some experts now claim that this is criminal incompetence on the part of Trump administration. "So, what does it mean to let thousands die by negligence, omission, failure to act, in a legal sense under international law?" asked Gonsalves, an assistant professor of epidemiology of microbial diseases at the Yale School of Public Health, in a tweet Wednesday morning. https://twitter.com/gregggonsalves/status/1257988303443431425 ..."
    "... Please note that Trump campaigned in 2016 on the idea of disengagement from foreign wars and abandoning the global neoliberal empire built by his predecessors as well as halting neoliberal globalization. ..."
    "... And what we got? We got this warmonger McMaster, bombing Syria on false flag chemical attack pretext, conflict with Russia over North Stream II and Ukraine, and the assassination of Soleimani. Such a bait and switch. ..."
    May 07, 2020 | angrybearblog.com

    likbez , May 6, 2020 11:53 pm

    Hi run75441,

    I do not share your enthusiasm about those two authors.

    Anne Applebaum is married to "Full spectrum Dominance doctrine". Like any neocon she a regular well-paid MIC prostitute

    http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/neocon-watch/2017/may/08/neocon-anne-applebaum-give-me-money-to-fight-russian-disinformation/

    Neocon Anne Applebaum has never seen a bed she did not expect to find an evil Russian lurking beneath. More than a quarter of a century after the end of the Cold War, she cannot let go of that hysterical feeling that, "The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming!" In screeching screed after screeching screech, Applebaum is, like most neocons, a one trick pony: the US government needs to spend more money to counter the threat of the month. Usually it's Russia or Putin. But it can also be China, Iran, Assad, Gaddafi, Saddam, etc.

    Nothing new, nothing interesting.

    Anne Applebaum is a bitter neocon. She is furious that people no longer read the Washington Post as the authoritative voice of US foreign policy. She has apparently made a tidy fortune warning us that the Russians are coming, but she wants even more. The Washington Post still views her as an expert, but the American people, as she herself complains, are no longer interested in her worn-out fantasies. She is buried in defense industry funded think tanks and she does the bidding of her masters. Every intelligent American reader should ridicule her as the propagandist she is.

    As for McMaster paper see Daniel Larison take on the subject in his brilliant post "McMaster and the Myths of Empire" https://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/mcmaster-and-the-myths-of-empire/

    Here is what he said:

    "McMaster's dangerous China hawkishness calls to mind something that Jim Mattis said about him regarding a different issue when they served together in the Trump administration: "Oh my God, that moron is going to get us all killed." His aggressiveness towards China is not driven by an assessment of the threat from China, but comes from his tendency to advocate for aggressive measures everywhere."

    And as a China scholar McMaster is not the best choice either:

    McMaster uses the same "paper tiger image" to portray China as an unstoppable aggressor that can nonetheless be stopped at minimal risk.

    I have heard from other colleagues that several CN scholars met w/ McMaster before he wrote this (while working on his book) and corrected him on many issues. He apparently ignored all of their views. This is what we face people: a simple, deceptive narrative is more seductive.

    -- Michael

    likbez, May 7, 2020 6:22 pm

    The main thrust here is the US abandoning the world to China and a much weaker Russia. I am calling for the US to play a much broader role in the world as it has economic and strategic value

    The road to hell is paved with good intentions. This is definitely above my pay grade, but the problem that I see here is that it is very unclear where "a much broader role in the world" ends and where "imperial overstretch" starts.

    The country which spends over trillion dollars on "defense" is by definition an imperial country and its foreign policy priorities are not that difficult to discern.

    And due to well fed MIC which maintains an army of lobbyists and along with FIRE sector controls Capitol Hill this is a Catch 22 situation (we can't abandon neocon Full Spectrum Dominance doctrine and can't continue as it will bankrupt the country) which might not end well for the country.

    Note how unprepared the country was to COVID-19 epidemic. Zero strategic thinking as if the next epidemic was not in the cards at least since swine fly ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_swine_flu_pandemic_in_the_United_States ).

    Some experts now claim that this is criminal incompetence on the part of Trump administration. "So, what does it mean to let thousands die by negligence, omission, failure to act, in a legal sense under international law?" asked Gonsalves, an assistant professor of epidemiology of microbial diseases at the Yale School of Public Health, in a tweet Wednesday morning. https://twitter.com/gregggonsalves/status/1257988303443431425

    Please note that Trump campaigned in 2016 on the idea of disengagement from foreign wars and abandoning the global neoliberal empire built by his predecessors as well as halting neoliberal globalization. That's how he got anti-war independents to vote for him.

    And what we got? We got this warmonger McMaster, bombing Syria on false flag chemical attack pretext, conflict with Russia over North Stream II and Ukraine, and the assassination of Soleimani. Such a bait and switch.

    [May 07, 2020] He Is An Innocent Man - Trump Happy After DoJ Drops All Charges Against General Flynn

    May 07, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    Shortly after Brandon Van Grack, chief of the Justice Department's Foreign Agents Registration Act division, filed a notice of his withdrawal in federal court in Washington, The Justice Department has this morning filed a motion to drop the criminal case against President Donald Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn , abandoning the critical leg of many leftists' belief in the Russia collusion bullshit.

    And all it took was one line...

    As Byron York notes, the Justice Department finally concedes it had no basis to interview Michael Flynn on January 24, 2017 , with the move coming less than a week after unsealed documents in the case fueled renewed claims by Flynn that FBI agents had cooked up a bogus case against him, and as AP reports, is a stunning reversal for one of the signature cases brought by special counsel Robert Mueller.

    In court documents being filed Thursday, the Justice Department said it is dropping the case "after a considered review of all the facts and circumstances of this case, including newly discovered and disclosed information."

    The documents were obtained by The Associated Press.

    The Justice Department said it had concluded that Flynn's interview by the FBI was "untethered to, and unjustified by, the FBI's counterintelligence investigation into Mr. Flynn" and that the interview on January 24, 2017 was "conducted without any legitimate investigative basis."

    It comes even though prosecutors for the last three years had maintained that Flynn had lied to the FBI about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in a January 2017 interview. Flynn himself admitted as much, and became a key cooperator for Mueller as he investigated ties between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign.

    We are sure it will not take long before Trump tweet-celebrates, as has relentlessly tweeted about the case, and just last week pronounced Flynn "exonerated."

    As Sara Carter detailed last week, U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan unsealed four pages of stunning FBI emails and handwritten notes which allegedly revealed that the retired three star general was targeted by senior FBI officials for prosecution . Those notes and emails revealed that the retired three-star general appeared to be set up for a perjury trap by the senior members of the bureau and agents charged with investigating the now-debunked allegations that President Donald Trump's campaign colluded with Russia, said Sidney Powell, the defense lawyer representing Flynn.

    Last week, after the FBI documents were unsealed, the president tweeted :

    "What happened to General Michael Flynn, a war hero, should never be allowed to happen to a citizen of the United States again!"

    It didn't take long, as Trump spoke to reporters saying "he is happy for Flynn," and adding that Flynn "is an innocent man."

    Your Logan Act investigation is over. The bums lost.

    -- Eli Lake (@EliLake) May 7, 2020

    [May 07, 2020] The 'Blob' Strikes Back by Daniel Larison

    Notable quotes:
    "... If America's adversaries were made of strawmen, the defenders of the foreign policy "Blob" would have a foolproof strategy for defeating them. Unfortunately, a recent defense of the U.S. foreign policy establishment's record is no more successful than the policies that its authors have supported. ..."
    "... The authors of the FA piece want to identify the "Blob" with expert knowledge, but many of the loudest critics of the "Blob" find fault with it because so many policy debates are not informed by genuine country or regional expertise. ..."
    May 07, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

    Realism & Restraint The 'Blob' Strikes Back

    A recent defense of the foreign policy establishment is no more successful than the policies its authors supported.

    If America's adversaries were made of strawmen, the defenders of the foreign policy "Blob" would have a foolproof strategy for defeating them. Unfortunately, a recent defense of the U.S. foreign policy establishment's record is no more successful than the policies that its authors have supported.

    Writing for the Foreign Affairs website last week, Hal Brands, Peter Feaver, and Will Inboden attempt to rebut critics of the so-called "Blob," but in their attempt they demonstrate many of the very flaws in analysis and inability to admit error that their critics have pointed out over the years. The real record of the U.S. foreign policy establishment over the last thirty years has been much less impressive than its defenders claim, and it has helped to create many more avoidable calamities than they admit.

    The authors of the FA piece want to identify the "Blob" with expert knowledge, but many of the loudest critics of the "Blob" find fault with it because so many policy debates are not informed by genuine country or regional expertise. Think back to the Iraq war debate. On the pro-war side, there were legions of pundits and politicians that knew little or nothing about Iraq and the surrounding region. The few historians and specialists they could find to promote the war were extreme ideologues. On the opposing side, you had the vast majority of regional experts and trained officials at the State Department. The U.S. invaded Iraq despite the overwhelming consensus among people that knew the country and region best that it would be a disaster. War supporters had no use for that expertise because it did not line up with what they wanted to do. The "Blob" prevailed by overruling and ignoring the experts.

    Many prominent foreign policy professionals from both parties jumped on the pro-war bandwagon because they weren't terribly interested in what the experts had to say and because backing military action to exercise American "leadership" is what these people usually do. Even those that didn't really believe the case for war said nothing because it was politically safer for them to conform. We have seen this happen many other times. The conventional view endorsed by the "Blob" often has nothing to do with expert knowledge, and it frequently flies in the face of that expertise.

    It would help to start with accurate definitions. What do critics of U.S. foreign policy mean when we talk about the "Blob"? The term refers in part to the tendency towards groupthink, aggression, and interference in other countries' affairs among foreign policy pundits and think tankers. It is a criticism of the reflexive bias towards "action," which almost always involves advocacy for military options, and the disparagement of diplomatic engagement that usually goes with it. Members of the "Blob" promote and claim to believe in a number of far-fetched myths about "credibility" and America's "indispensable" role in the world that provide ready-made justifications for sanctioning and bombing a long list of other countries. They usually twist themselves into knots to avoid acknowledging U.S. responsibility for the consequences of our government's actions, but they are the first to decry American "inaction" when something unfortunate beyond our control happens on the other side of the world. If one or more of those things describes you, you might be part of the "Blob."

    One of the biggest failings of the "Blob" is its resistance to learning and reevaluating core assumptions. This is one reason why the U.S. keeps making similar mistakes decade after decade. The "Blob" not only spreads dangerous myths, but it clings to them all the more desperately when those myths are discredited by experience. The U.S. can destabilize entire regions for decades, but they will continue to insist that the U.S. military presence is "stabilizing" and cannot end. U.S. interventions consistently leave countries in worse shape than they were in before the U.S. intervened, but that does not lessen their eagerness for the next intervention.

    The authors allow that the "Blob" makes mistakes, but asserts that it "learns from them and changes course." That is simply not true. The only learning that does seem to take place concerns how some of the same awful policies get labeled. Advocates for regime change usually avoid using that phrase now, but they still demand regime change in substance. Supporters of illegal warfare still advocate for illegal war, but now they call it "restoring deterrence." Aggressive U.S. policies have predictably led to hostile responses from other states, but the "Blob" doesn't acknowledge the U.S. role in provoking the responses.

    When presented with evidence of groupthink, the authors relabel it as "the wisdom of professional crowds." When presented with the familiar litany of U.S. foreign policy failures, they claim that the record is actually successful. When presented with the record of near-constant use of force since the end of the Cold War, they declare that the U.S. "hardly ran amok in search of monsters to destroy," and then rattle off a list of countries that the U.S. didn't attack. You could hardly ask for more of a self-parody of what critics call the "Blob" than boasting about all of the places that the U.S. could have invaded but didn't. Look at all that restraint! This is akin to defending an arsonist by pointing to all of the buildings that he didn't set on fire.

    Perhaps biggest flaw in the defense of the "Blob" is the very American-centric habit of taking credit for all positive post-Cold War developments around the world:

    In short, after 1989, the deep global engagement favored by the Blob kept the world moving forward on a generally positive track, rather than regressing to the historical mean of tyranny, depression, and war.

    How much did post-Cold War U.S. actions contribute to this outcome? Isn't it likely that much of the world would have been "moving forward" as it did with or without the U.S.? In other words, how much can the U.S. really take credit for the successes of other nations after the end of the Cold War? To make the balance come out in their favor, the authors need to claim that the U.S. deserves credit for almost all of it, but that hardly seems credible.

    One of the unintentionally funniest parts of the "Blob" defense is the claim that there is accountability for failure:

    The American foreign policy establishment, finally, is generally more pragmatic than ideological. It values prudence and security over novelty and creativity. It knows that thinking outside the box may be useful in testing policy assumptions, but the box is usually there for a reason, and so reflexively embracing the far-out option is dangerous. Its members have made many mistakes, individually and collectively, but several features of the system enforce accountability over time. Foreign policy failures, for example, are politically toxic and often spur positive change.

    This is a bold claim to make when the complete lack of accountability is one of the most distinctive features of the "Blob." Not only do many of the same failed policies continue on for decades, but many of the same people that advocated for failed and disastrous policies in the past keep resurfacing to advocate for new ones. Foreign policy failures should be toxic, but for some reason they never seem to do any harm to the people responsible for them. There is almost no political or professional price to be paid for being consistently, horribly wrong about foreign policy. One reason for this is the network of institutions that employ former government officials so that people responsible for bad policies never go away. Another is the reluctance of "Blob" members to enforce accountability among themselves. So long as someone sticks with the consensus view of the U.S. role in the world, there is virtually nothing that he or she can do to be expelled from the polite company of the foreign policy establishment. Stray outside of the narrow confines of that consensus, however, and you will quickly find yourself persona non grata.

    The weakest part of their argument is the attempt to conflate other critics of the "Blob" with the Trump administration's open hostility to expertise:

    How about the critics' third argument, that escaping the influence of the Blob would make American policy more effective and the country more secure? As it happens, a real-time test of that proposition has been running for over three years.

    This not the first time that defenders of conventional foreign policy have tried to blur the lines between Trump and some of his staunchest non-interventionist and realist critics, and it is no more convincing now than it was before. Trump has not governed as a conventional foreign policy president, but neither has he seriously challenged most of the conventional U.S. role in the world. Trump has left us with the worst of both worlds in which a largely Blobby foreign policy has been executed by inexperienced and ignorant officials. When critics attack the "Blob," we are objecting to the failure to rely on expertise in making policy. The choice does not have to be between Blobby stagnation and Trumpian incompetence, but it is unsurprising that defenders of the discredited "Blob" want to keep it that way. 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 . email


    Dodo11 hours ago

    Trump and his team have destroyed US foreign relations. They bully allies and boast to Americans as their "success".

    Americans believe the nonsense - US helped allies before so now they must sacrifice for US causes without asking any compensation support them with full heart.

    Even worse, some even believe the worthless Republican's "American value" is what allies should sacrifice for. Sorry, they need genuine silver and gold, not your worthless "value".

    Of course, veteran of US diplomats feel sad that the alliance structure built up is destroyed.

    Alex (the one that likes Ike) Dodo10 hours ago
    Don't be silly. There was nothing to destroy yet before Trump and his team entered their offices, due to the destruction thereof having been already brought about by the said "veteran diplomats".
    Alex (the one that likes Ike)9 hours ago
    Jumpin' Jehoshaphat. In their feeble, piteous attempts of relabeling they seem to have forgotten the ancient arcane art of rebranding. Just read it (bold mine):
    the wisdom of professional crowds


    Oxymoronic, right? Well, frankly, I'm not sure about "oxy".

    chris chuba8 hours ago
    The Blob remains in power because the biggest cost of their failures is born by countries we don't really care about, a small number of volunteer military men, and money that we borrow. The Blob will remain in power until we squander most of our collective power and we can no longer inflict their will on others and we become increasingly irrelevant. Until then it will be very painful to watch.

    Which brings me to the Coronavirus outbreak. It easily penetrated our shores and we are by any honest measure the world leader in number of deaths and economic devastation despite the fact that the first outbreak did not reach New York until March 1 from Europe. Our response? We closed travel from the EU on March 15, our Defense establishment convinced every MSM outlet that Russia, China, and Iran was waging and information war against the U.S. falsely claiming that we mishandled the situation (we are good a deceiving ourselves, aren't we), we are gearing up for a Cold War against China, but we were able to get the Blue Angels to fly over 5 cities on a days notice. Is it too late to take the blue pill?

    Vhailor chris chuba3 hours ago
    You are right regarding the Blob - I would add that most (if not all) of them have zero skin in the game and I bet that neither of those chickenhawks served in the military.
    Feral Finster7 hours ago
    The War on Iraq provides a most instructive example. Those in foreign policy circles who knowingly lied, those who knowingly parroted conscious lies, none of these people paid any price for their lies, not personal or professional. Instead, they were rewarded for being loyal accomplices.

    Those who called out the lies were cast into outer darkness.

    Unless and until those responsible for the stupid wars pay a very real and very personal price for their crimes, nothing will change. For sociopaths learn only from reward and punishment, but they do learn.

    Mick Price6 hours ago
    Trump's foreign policy, while based on almost complete ignorance, was light-years ahead of the blob. In fact the worst of his actions were when he actually believed the blob and/or did what they wanted. I mean really he hasn't started a war, he actually threatened to withdraw from Europe if they don't pay for the protection, which at best means NATO is toast and at worst means the yanks don't subsidize the europeans. What's so bad about his foreign policy.
    marku52 Mick Price6 hours ago
    Well, endorsing very visible assassination as a foreign policy tool is one that will rebound badly some day. And he was proud of that one.
    Feral Finster Mick Price5 hours ago
    Trump has used his veto power three times already - twice to stop US involvement in the genocidal war on Yemen, and again today to prevent him from making war on Iran.

    Meanwhile, Trump has failed twice to pull out of Syria. What a pathetic weaking cuck he is!

    blimbax5 hours ago
    That picture reminds me of a line up, except usually at a line up there is only one truly guilty party.

    Few photographs better symbolize the problem with American foreign policy. At least Colin Powell showed some redemptive recognition of failure, at least at one time.

    EdMan35 minutes ago
    I want to push back on the the notion that the State Dept. were on the right side of history regarding the decision to invade Iraq. Many of those opposed to the war were still in favor of maintaining the embargo and no-fly zones against Iraq into perpetuity. If the war's supporters were wrong in proposing a bad solution, many of their opponents were wrong in offering no solution at all.

    Except the status quo.

    In fact, this is "The Blob" - the defenders of the status quo, more than anything else. As Larison observed, the few historians and specialists who supported the Iraq invasion were extreme ideologues. At the same time, many of them weren't.

    [May 07, 2020] Schiff Folds Publishes Russiagate Transcripts After Showdown With DNI

    May 07, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    Schiff Folds: Publishes Russiagate Transcripts After Showdown With DNI by Tyler Durden Thu, 05/07/2020 - 18:25 Following the standoff between Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Acting DNI Richard Grenell, the House Intelligence Committee published all of the Russia investigation transcripts Thursday evening.

    Interview Transcripts:

    Updates to follow.

    * * *

    Via SaraACarter.com,

    House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff is planning to selectively release information from some of the 53 declassified transcripts of witnesses that testified before Congress regarding the FBI's Russia probe into the Trump campaign. This move, comes after a long battle against Republican colleagues, who are fighting to make all the transcripts available to the American public, said a U.S. official, with knowledge of Schiff's plans.

    Schiff has been fighting the release of the transcripts.

    The decision for Schiff to publish a selective portion of the 6,000 pages of transcripts comes after a recent public showdown with Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell, who is also fighting to make all the transcripts public. In fact, Grenell reiterated in a letter Wednesday that if Schiff doesn't make the transcripts public then he will release them himself.

    Interestingly, the committee voted unanimously in the fall of 2018, to make all the transcripts public after declassification, which has already been done.

    "Schiff's planning to selectively leak to the liberal media what he wants, while keeping the truth from the American people," said one source, familiar with Schiff's plans.

    Schiff's office did not immediately respond to an email for comment.

    A congressional source familiar with the issue said "the committee voted in the last Congress to publish all the transcripts together, precisely to avoid any staged release calculated for political effect."

    "Schiff has had possession of most of the redacted transcripts for a long time, but he used the fact that he didn't have all of them as an excuse not to publish any," said the congressional source.

    "If he selectively publishes just some of them now, it'll be rank hypocrisy."

    Allegedly Schiff is also having his senior subcommittee staff director and counsel with the intelligence committee contact the various heads of the intelligence community asking them to challenge plans by Grenell to release the transcripts, which were declassified prior to his arrival at DNI.

    Several sources, familiar with Schiff's actions, have stated that his refusal to release the transcripts is based on information contained in the testimony that will destroy his Russia hoax propaganda.

    "Schiff has been sitting on a lot of these transcripts for a long time," said a Republican congressional source.

    "They were using this as an excuse to ensure that the White House wouldn't have access to the transcripts, now he wants to selectively leak and that's the game he plays – he's definitely shifty. "

    [May 06, 2020] Michael Flynn Did Not Lie, He Was Framed by The FBI by Larry C Johnson

    Notable quotes:
    "... In 2010, Flynn co-authored an important analysis, Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan . Flynn's key conclusion warned that the U.S. intelligence effort in Afghanistan was failing: ..."
    "... The paper argues that because the United States has focused the overwhelming majority of collection efforts and analytical brainpower on insurgent groups, our intelligence apparatus still finds itself unable to answer fundamental questions about the environment in which we operate and the people we are trying to protect and persuade. ..."
    "... lambasted American intelligence performance in Afghanistan. . . [It] pulled no punches, using words like "marginally relevant," "ignorant," "hazy," and "incurious" to describe U.S. intelligence work in Afghanistan in a scathing fashion. ..."
    "... During 2012-2013, DIA provided honest, objective analysis about the success of the Syrian Army in fighting against ISIS and Al Qaeda. If you go back and look at the media reporting at the time, there were dire reports claiming that the rebels were on the verge of ousting Syrian leader Assad and sweeping to power. Members of Congress, such as Senators McCain and Graham, were busy cheerleading the Syrian rebels progress. ..."
    "... Few knew at the time that the CIA was running a massive arms and training program to support some of the Syrian rebels. ..."
    "... This earned Michael Flynn the lasting enmity of DNI Director Jim Clapper and CIA Director John Brennan. Flynn would not play ball in down playing the jihadist threat in Syria. If you recall, President Obama referred to ISIS as the "junior varsity" during a January 2014 interview with the New Yorker: ..."
    "... "The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn't make them Kobe Bryant," Obama said, resorting to an uncharacteristically flip analogy. "I think there is a distinction between the capacity and reach of a bin Laden and a network that is actively planning major terrorist plots against the homeland versus jihadists who are engaged in various local power struggles and disputes, often sectarian. ..."
    "... His refusal to downplay the ISIS threat was on of the contributing factors that led Obama to fire Flynn, who left the DIA position in August 2014. ..."
    "... Michael Flynn did not go quietly into retirement. He became a vocal critic of Obama's failed policies in the Middle East ..."
    "... This made him a target of both Clapper and Brennan. When Brennan put together a CIA Task Force in the late summer of 2015, I believe that one of the targets of the intelligence collection from that effort was Michael Flynn. By March of 2016, Flynn was squarely in the crosshairs of the Obama political/intelligence hit squad : ..."
    "... Flynn, who was forced out of his post as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency in August 2014 after clashing with other senior officials, has said that "political correctness" has prevented the U.S. from confronting violent extremism, which he sees as a "cancerous idea that exists inside of the Islamic religion." Flynn has authored a forthcoming book that argues the U.S. government "has concealed the actions of terrorists like [Osama] bin Laden and groups like ISIS, and the role of Iran in the rise of radical Islam " ..."
    "... But that did not stop Jim Comey and his cronies from stepping up their efforts to find something they could use to charge and prosecute Flynn. Text messages from Peter Strzok to the author of the memo recommending the case be closed show that Strzok begged to keep the investigation open and cited "7th Floor" interest as justification. The 7th Floor of the FBI is where Jim Comey and Andy McCabe were located. ..."
    "... Who authorized that collection of those conversations? Flynn was the acting National Security Advisor to President elect Donald Trump. Listening in on such a phone call was a pure act of domestic espionage against a political opponent of Obama. There was no justification to UNMASK General Flynn. But that is exactly what the FBI did. ..."
    "... If and that's a big IF, somehow these scumbags (Comey, Brennan, Clapper, Strzok, et. al) ever got to a courtroom, they'd be facing - in DC - a jury of 12 Trump-haters and an Obama judge;see Roger Stone's trial. ..."
    "... Excellent summary. Yes, Flynn was scapegoated and dragged through the mud for embarrassing his "betters" with the truth. He made mistakes and was naive himself, but he did the right thing exposing their plan to arm and support a jihadi takeover of Syria and Iraq. The plan was to let them takeover and then take the "JV team" out. ..."
    "... They didn't want to send too many more troops to war. Americans had grown weary due to Bush's madness, so they used jihadis to carry out their plan in the Middle East and North Africa, to fill in the void ..."
    "... It was very naive policy making and in the end Obama grew paranoid he was being screwed like Carter, that Benghazi was going to be turned into another Iranian hostage-like situation. It's a curious thing that Obama warned Trump of Flynn. In Obama's mind, Flynn was part of a conspiracy to screw him for choosing to back "Syrian and Libyan farmers" over American troops. That this was the US military brass showing him who's really boss and that they were trying to embarrass him. In reality, he made a bad policy decision based on failure to understand the region. His failures to under these people, exactly as Flynn warned, precipitated these failures. ..."
    "... Trump showed a lot of promise that these circumstances would change for the better. Sadly, he has performed no better. Netanyahu and Pompeo are so far up his ass that they are now his ventriloquists. Obama should have warned him of those two instead. ..."
    "... ...We see the same thing has evolved in the American Empire. If you take time to read up on the Flynn case or the much larger plot around it, you see a large cast of people with one thing in common. They all live together as a social class. Some were having sex with one another. Others had been friends since college. Others developed their relationships when they came to Washington. All of these social relationships transcend the formal positions and titles of the people... ..."
    "... At that time of the Syria events, it appeared one of the biggest names in the background pushing for more support for Syrian "rebels", was the shadowy activist group AVAAZ. ..."
    "... Now comes the present day kicker, the mistress Antonia Staats of the recently fired UK "expert" Neil Ferguson that caused our global shut down with his wildly inaccurate corona death count numbers, works for US based AVAAZ. Did she have any influence over his draconian pronouncements based up on her known AVAAZ activism? ..."
    "... Is AVAAZ just one more name for Bernnan's CIA, not like unlike CNN? Should these dots be connected or just discarded as one more right-wing wacko conspiracy theory. ..."
    "... Thanks for the excellent summary of how Flynn became "persona non grata" to various powers in the IC. But there is another powerful group in Washington whose fervent enmity he drew: the Democratic establishment. See: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/10/how-mike-flynn-became-americas-angriest-general-214362 ..."
    "... Adding to my comment just above, my personal feeling on why there was such a push to find something to prosecute Flynn over was as a direct response to Flynn's leading of chants to "lock her up." "What goes around comes around" seems to be an operative policy for some in Washington. I can't help but believe that is what drove DOJ's otherwise inexplicable drive to find something to prosecute Flynn over. ..."
    May 06, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    Two and one-half years ago, Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller unveiled charges against Michael Flynn for "lying to Federal agents." At the time I gave Mueller the benefit of the doubt and assumed, incorrectly, that the investigation was fair and honest. We now know without any doubt that the so-called investigation of Michael Flynn was frame-up. It was a punishment in search of a crime and ultimately led the FBI to manufacture a crime in order to take out Michael Flynn and damage the fledgling Presidency of Donald Trump.

    It is important to understand the lack of proper foundation to investigate Michael Flynn as a collaborator with Russia as part of some bizarre plot to steal the 2016 Presidential election for Donald Trump.

    Flynn was perceived as a threat to the CIA and refused to cook the intelligence for the Obama Administration while he was Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

    In 2010, Flynn co-authored an important analysis, Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan . Flynn's key conclusion warned that the U.S. intelligence effort in Afghanistan was failing:

    The paper argues that because the United States has focused the overwhelming majority of collection efforts and analytical brainpower on insurgent groups, our intelligence apparatus still finds itself unable to answer fundamental questions about the environment in which we operate and the people we are trying to protect and persuade.

    Flynn's work did not sit well with Jim Clapper and John Brennan. John Schindler, a rabid anti-Trumper, wrote a hit piece on Flynn in December 2017, that highlights the Deep State anger at Flynn. Schindler characterizes Flynn's work in unflattering terms and claims that Flynn :

    lambasted American intelligence performance in Afghanistan. . . [It] pulled no punches, using words like "marginally relevant," "ignorant," "hazy," and "incurious" to describe U.S. intelligence work in Afghanistan in a scathing fashion.

    Flynn's honesty in that assessment did not derail his next promotion -- he was sworn in as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency in July 2012. Once in that position he refused to cook the intelligence. I saw this firsthand (at the time I had access to the classified intelligence analysis by DIA with respect to the war in Syria). During 2012-2013, DIA provided honest, objective analysis about the success of the Syrian Army in fighting against ISIS and Al Qaeda. If you go back and look at the media reporting at the time, there were dire reports claiming that the rebels were on the verge of ousting Syrian leader Assad and sweeping to power. Members of Congress, such as Senators McCain and Graham, were busy cheerleading the Syrian rebels progress.

    Few knew at the time that the CIA was running a massive arms and training program to support some of the Syrian rebels. The program was a failure and the attack on the CIA base in Benghazi, Libya came close to exposing the covert effort. What the media was not reporting is that the rebels the U.S. backed were inept. The only rebels achieving some success were the radical jihadists aligned with ISIS and elements of Al Qaeda (e.g. Al Nusra).

    This earned Michael Flynn the lasting enmity of DNI Director Jim Clapper and CIA Director John Brennan. Flynn would not play ball in down playing the jihadist threat in Syria. If you recall, President Obama referred to ISIS as the "junior varsity" during a January 2014 interview with the New Yorker:

    "The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn't make them Kobe Bryant," Obama said, resorting to an uncharacteristically flip analogy. "I think there is a distinction between the capacity and reach of a bin Laden and a network that is actively planning major terrorist plots against the homeland versus jihadists who are engaged in various local power struggles and disputes, often sectarian.

    But that was not the story that Flynn's DIA was telling. His refusal to downplay the ISIS threat was on of the contributing factors that led Obama to fire Flynn, who left the DIA position in August 2014.

    Michael Flynn did not go quietly into retirement. He became a vocal critic of Obama's failed policies in the Middle East :

    Since taking off his uniform last August, Flynn, 56, has been in the vanguard of those criticizing the president's policies in the Middle East, speaking out at venues ranging from congressional hearings and trade association banquets to appearances on Fox News, CNN, Sky News Arabia, and Japanese television, targeting the Iranian nuclear deal, the weakness of the U.S. response to the Islamic State, and the Obama administration's refusal to call America's enemies in the Middle East "Islamic militants."

    This made him a target of both Clapper and Brennan. When Brennan put together a CIA Task Force in the late summer of 2015, I believe that one of the targets of the intelligence collection from that effort was Michael Flynn. By March of 2016, Flynn was squarely in the crosshairs of the Obama political/intelligence hit squad :

    They question why the retired general, who has earned criticism for his leadership style but has generally been regarded as a well-intentioned professional, would assist a candidate who has called for military actions that would constitute war crimes.

    "I think Flynn and Trump are two peas in a pod," one former senior U.S. intelligence official who knows Flynn told The Daily Beast. "They have this naïve notion that yelling at people will just solve problems."

    Flynn, who was forced out of his post as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency in August 2014 after clashing with other senior officials, has said that "political correctness" has prevented the U.S. from confronting violent extremism, which he sees as a "cancerous idea that exists inside of the Islamic religion." Flynn has authored a forthcoming book that argues the U.S. government "has concealed the actions of terrorists like [Osama] bin Laden and groups like ISIS, and the role of Iran in the rise of radical Islam "

    His co-author, Michael Ledeen, is a neoconservative author and policy analyst who was involved in the Iran-Contra Affair.

    Thanks to the document release on 30 April, 2020, we know that the FBI opened an unsuccessful investigation of Flynn. Here are the key points from the memo recommending the investigation be closed:

    • The FBI opened captioned case based on an particularly false factual basis that CROSSFIRE RAZOR (CR) may wittingly or unwittingly be involved in activity on behalf of the Russian Federation which may constitute a federal crime· or threat to the national security.
    • The FBI predicated the investigation on predetermined criteria set forth by the CROSSFIRE HURRICANE (CH) investigative team based on an assessment of reliable lead information received during the course of the investigation.
    • The FBI queried the FBI databases and at least two other intelligence community databases for incriminating information but found NO DEROGATORY INFORMATION .
    • The FBI used a Confidential Human Source (aka CHS probably Stefan Halper) to try to collect incriminating information. The CHS claimed that Flynn was in contact with Svetlana Lokhova, a British academic born in Russia, but a subsequent FBI search of their databases turned up NO DEROGATORY INFORMATION .

    The FBI memo concludes:

    the absence of any derogatory information or lead information from these logical sources reduced the number of investigative avenues and techniques to pursue. . . . The FBI is closing this investigation.

    But that did not stop Jim Comey and his cronies from stepping up their efforts to find something they could use to charge and prosecute Flynn. Text messages from Peter Strzok to the author of the memo recommending the case be closed show that Strzok begged to keep the investigation open and cited "7th Floor" interest as justification. The 7th Floor of the FBI is where Jim Comey and Andy McCabe were located.

    They decided to pursue two lines of attack. First, to go after Flynn for allegedly failing to register as a "Foreign Agent" because of a report his consulting firm prepared on a Turk living in the United States that Turkey named as a "terrorist." Second, the FBI had in hand the transcript of Flynn's conversations with Russia's Ambassador and wanted to entrap him into lying about those conversations.

    Who authorized that collection of those conversations? Flynn was the acting National Security Advisor to President elect Donald Trump. Listening in on such a phone call was a pure act of domestic espionage against a political opponent of Obama. There was no justification to UNMASK General Flynn. But that is exactly what the FBI did.

    The news of Mike Flynn's plea agreement in late 2017 with special prosecutor Robert Mueller was trumpeted on the media as if Flynn admitted to killing Kennedy or having unprotected sex with Vladimir Putin. But read the actual indictment and the accompanying agreement.

    Here is the chronology of Michael Flynn's entirely appropriate actions as the National Security Advisor to President-elect Donald Trump. This is not what an agent of Russia would do. This is what the National Security Advisor to an incoming President would do.

    • December 21, 2016 --Egypt submitted a resolution to the United Nations Security Council on the issue of Israeli settlements ("resolution").
    • December 22, 2016-- a very senior member of the Presidential Transition Team (reportedly Jared Kushner) directed FLYNN to contact officials from foreign governments, including Russia, to learn where each government stood on the resolution and to influence those governments to delay the vote or defeat the resolution.
    • December 23, 2016-- FLYNN again spoke with the Russian Ambassador, who informed FLYNN that if it came to a vote Russia would not vote against the resolution.

    On this same day, President-elect Trump spoke with Egyptian leader Sisi, who agreed to withdraw the resolution ( link ).

    [I would note that there is nothing illegal or wrong about any of this. Quite an appropriate action, in fact, for an incoming President. Moreover, if Trump and the Russians had been conspiring before the November election, why would Trump and team even need to persuade the Russian Ambassador to do the biding of Trump on this issue?]

    • December 28, 2016-- President Barack Obama signed Executive Order 13757, which was to take effect the following day, imposing sanctions on Russia. Russian Ambassador Kislyak called General Flynn (who was vacationing in the Caribbean).
    • December 29, 2016 , FLYNN called a senior official of the Presidential Transition Team ("PTT official"), who was with other senior members of the Presidential Transition Team at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, to discuss what, if anything, to communicate to the Russian Ambassador about the U.S. Sanctions. On that call, FLYNN and the PTT official discussed the U.S. Sanctions, including the potential impact of those sanctions on the incoming administration's foreign policy goals. The PTT official and FLYNN also discussed that the members of the Presidential Transition Team at Mar-a-Lago did not want Russia to escalate the situation.
    • FLYNN called the Russian Ambassador and requested that Russia not escalate the situation and only respond to the U.S. Sanctions in a reciprocal manner.
    • Shortly after his phone call with the Russian Ambassador, FLYNN spoke with the PTT official to report on the substance of his call with the Russian Ambassador, including their discussion of the U.S. Sanctions.
    • December 31, 2016-- the Russian Ambassador called FLYNN and informed him that Russia had chosen not to retaliate in response to FLYNN's request.

    After his phone call with the Russian Ambassador, FLYNN spoke with senior members of the Presidential Transition Team about FLYNN's conversations with the Russian Ambassador regarding the U.S. Sanctions and Russia's decision not to escalate the situation.

    Michael Flynn's contact with the Russian Government and other members of the UN Security Council in the month preceding Trump's inauguration was appropriate and normal. He did nothing wrong. But President Obama's henchmen, including James Comey, John Brennan, Jim Clapper and Susan Rice were out for blood and relied on the FBI to stick the shiv into General Flynn's belly.

    That travesty of justice is being methodically and systematically revealed in the documents delivered to the Flynn defense team thanks to the efforts of Attorney General William Barr. Barr is relying on the US Attorney in the Eastern District of Missouri (EDMO) to review the case and provide Brady material to the Flynn defense team. This is by the book. Doing it this way provides the legal foundation for future prosecution of the FBI and prosecutors who abused the General Flynn's rights and violated the Constitution. Stay tuned.


    Terence Gore , 06 May 2020 at 10:03 AM

    All true in my book but it would be very hard to prosecute and get convictions as the defense would be "We were working in the best interests of the US against the dastardly Russkies"

    At least half the country believes it goes the Russians interfered materially in the 2016 election. 2018 poll

    https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/18/poll-russia-meddling-election-mueller-investigation-730529

    Ray - SoCal , 06 May 2020 at 10:43 AM
    Great analysis, your article added a lot of context on why Flynn was targeted. What a horrible thing to do to a person. http://meaninginhistory.blogspot.com/ that has been doing A+ work on the Flynn set up, linked to you.
    TV , 06 May 2020 at 11:34 AM
    If and that's a big IF, somehow these scumbags (Comey, Brennan, Clapper, Strzok, et. al) ever got to a courtroom, they'd be facing -
    in DC - a jury of 12 Trump-haters and an Obama judge;see Roger Stone's trial.

    Bottom line: Until the swamp is drained and then burned (meaning all SES and over a certain GS level bureaucrats gone), we will continue to live under the thumbs of this corrupt "ruling class." And getting rid of all these people wouldn't make much of a difference to most Americans; witness the notorious "shutdowns" in recent years.

    RussianBot , 06 May 2020 at 12:00 PM
    Excellent summary. Yes, Flynn was scapegoated and dragged through the mud for embarrassing his "betters" with the truth. He made mistakes and was naive himself, but he did the right thing exposing their plan to arm and support a jihadi takeover of Syria and Iraq. The plan was to let them takeover and then take the "JV team" out.

    They didn't want to send too many more troops to war. Americans had grown weary due to Bush's madness, so they used jihadis to carry out their plan in the Middle East and North Africa, to fill in the void while they could before Russia remained weak and China yet to fully emerge, to checkmate the grand chessboard Zbigniew wrote of while the US held unchallenged supremacy.

    Obama was very naive about what Muslims are really like in some of those parts. It's best to liken them to Comanches. He bought into the Zbigniew/Neocon belief that they'll just be another Taliban, but ask any Afghan who managed to escape the country at the time and they'll tell you these guys are all devils, djinns.

    It was very naive policy making and in the end Obama grew paranoid he was being screwed like Carter, that Benghazi was going to be turned into another Iranian hostage-like situation. It's a curious thing that Obama warned Trump of Flynn. In Obama's mind, Flynn was part of a conspiracy to screw him for choosing to back "Syrian and Libyan farmers" over American troops. That this was the US military brass showing him who's really boss and that they were trying to embarrass him. In reality, he made a bad policy decision based on failure to understand the region. His failures to under these people, exactly as Flynn warned, precipitated these failures.

    Obama made a lot of mistakes, but thankfully he didn't make it worse by invading in spite of his red line. I have to credit him that much, but his failures in Libya and Syria are on par with Bush's failures in Afghanistan and Iraq. Disastrous doesn't even begin to describe these failures.

    Trump showed a lot of promise that these circumstances would change for the better. Sadly, he has performed no better. Netanyahu and Pompeo are so far up his ass that they are now his ventriloquists. Obama should have warned him of those two instead.

    Fred , 06 May 2020 at 01:07 PM
    Walrus,

    "... internal investigation unit". If I run the IG and change the definition of "whistle blower" to allow hearsay evidence that is not admissible as evidence in any court in the Western world that still makes it okay to use hearsay, right? Of course it does. You forgot about Horowitz and his IG report already, you guys must really be getting desperate. Thanks for the laugh.

    JerseyJeffersonian , 06 May 2020 at 01:24 PM
    TV,

    As much as I would love to see this "ruling class" brought low, by which I mean burnt to the ground, we face the problem of The Ruling System, outlined in this post on the Z-Man blog: http://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=20405 A little snippet from the post:

    ...We see the same thing has evolved in the American Empire. If you take time to read up on the Flynn case or the much larger plot around it, you see a large cast of people with one thing in common. They all live together as a social class. Some were having sex with one another. Others had been friends since college. Others developed their relationships when they came to Washington. All of these social relationships transcend the formal positions and titles of the people...

    Z-Man examines this in various historical settings, Versailles, Communist Russia, before arriving at The Swamp. Interesting angle.

    Deap , 06 May 2020 at 01:58 PM
    Small world, speaking of Seymour Hersh's lengthy CIA gun-running to Syria expose in "The Red Line and Rat Line", that all his prior media connections refused to publish at the time (Benghazi-Obama days), until it finally appeared in the London Review of Books- or something like that.

    At that time of the Syria events, it appeared one of the biggest names in the background pushing for more support for Syrian "rebels", was the shadowy activist group AVAAZ.

    Now comes the present day kicker, the mistress Antonia Staats of the recently fired UK "expert" Neil Ferguson that caused our global shut down with his wildly inaccurate corona death count numbers, works for US based AVAAZ. Did she have any influence over his draconian pronouncements based up on her known AVAAZ activism?

    Who was it that says there are no coincidences? Long time since I saw any media attention given to AVAAZ, nor any final answers why the CIA was running such a big operation in Benghazi in 2012. However, all the same names and players still swirling around gives one pause.

    Is AVAAZ just one more name for Bernnan's CIA, not like unlike CNN? Should these dots be connected or just discarded as one more right-wing wacko conspiracy theory.

    Keith Harbaugh , 06 May 2020 at 02:27 PM
    Thanks for the excellent summary of how Flynn became "persona non grata" to various powers in the IC. But there is another powerful group in Washington whose fervent enmity he drew: the Democratic establishment. See: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/10/how-mike-flynn-became-americas-angriest-general-214362
    Keith Harbaugh , 06 May 2020 at 02:54 PM
    Adding to my comment just above, my personal feeling on why there was such a push to find something to prosecute Flynn over was as a direct response to Flynn's leading of chants to "lock her up." "What goes around comes around" seems to be an operative policy for some in Washington. I can't help but believe that is what drove DOJ's otherwise inexplicable drive to find something to prosecute Flynn over.
    jjc , 06 May 2020 at 04:05 PM
    Not yet confirmed, but it appears almost certain that Strzok's predicate for keeping the Flynn file open relied entirely on the Logan Act.
    Jim , 06 May 2020 at 05:03 PM
    AVAAZ pushed FaceBook and Zuckerberg to ban about half of FB content on novel coronavirus, starting last month, Politico gleefully reported. [Two medical doctors in California 'out of step' with the diktats of some medical cartel's message, among those FB canceled, for example.]

    AVAAZ, which pushed regime change in Syria, no fly zone in Libya, spews hatred of Russia, etc. is alive and well, working hard at increasing online censorship.

    Their clicktivism business model and lock downs go hand in hand.

    [[Avaaz discovered that over 40 percent of the coronavirus-related misinformation it found on Facebook. . .]]

    [[Avaaz said that these fake social media posts -- everything from advice about bogus medical remedies for the virus to claims that minority groups were less susceptible to infection -- had been shared, collectively, 1.7 million times on Facebook in six languages]]

    [[Avaaz tracked 104 claims debunked by fact-checkers to see how quickly they were removed from the platform]]

    https://www.politico.eu/article/facebook-avaaz-covid19-coronavirus-misinformation-fake-news/


    -30-

    Keith Harbaugh , 06 May 2020 at 05:46 PM
    Acting DNI Grenell wants to release some transcripts; HPSCI Chairman Schiff wants to keep them under wraps. Sundance discusses the situation here: https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/05/06/forced-tran+sparency-odni-richard-grenell-reminds-adam-schiff-he-can-release-transcripts/
    walrus , 06 May 2020 at 07:10 PM
    Fred,

    " If I run the IG and change the definition of "whistle blower" to allow hearsay evidence that is not admissible as evidence in any court in the Western world that still makes it okay to use hearsay, right? Of course it does. You forgot about Horowitz and his IG report already, you guys must really be getting desperate. Thanks for the laugh."

    No laughing matter. The IG position is obviously politicized. It may be a surprise to you, but many police forces have an internal investigation unit that has extremely wide powers that. go far beyond those available in ordinary investigation. The staff of such units are a rare and disliked breed and the units are managed by the natural enemies of the police - criminal lawyers.

    Given that I've seen what these units do here, I am surprised that Strzok, Page and others were not apprehended and charged very quickly.

    Deap , 06 May 2020 at 07:24 PM
    Jim, thank you for the further AVAAZ info. Call me gob-smacked. Hope the investigative media picks up this thread. Seymour Hersh, are you listening? AVAAZ felt sinister during the Benghazi days - also reacll some connections with Samantha Power and Susan Rice - Barry's Girls.

    Maybe mistress Antonia Staats was on a mission; and not just being a scofflaw mistress? In fact is she trying out to be the new S.P.E.C.T.R.E Bond Girl?

    Fred , 06 May 2020 at 08:31 PM
    Walrus,

    IG's are no surprise to me nor the politicalization, such as Baltimore and Chicago, cities run by the same political party for decades. Or the "intelligence community" IG, who changed to rules to allow the scam of Schiff's supersecret whistleblower fraud to go forward. But then you probably forgot that guy like you did Horowitz.

    "I am surprised that Strzok, Page and others were not apprehended and charged ...." Larry insists that will happen. I'm not holding my breath.

    [May 05, 2020] The departing ambassador is a female from the Ukrainian diaspora in Canada. A Ukrainian "Nationalist" by descent. Incapable of thinking of the interests of this unfortunate country.

    May 05, 2020 | www.unz.com

    Alfred , says: Show Comment May 2, 2020 at 6:00 am GMT

    @Derer Georgia's lunatic who is now Ukraine deputy prime minister

    I think Saakashvili has not made it yet. He is being opposed by a lot of the Jews who control this "country". Last week, the guy investigating "corruption" was sacked. His replacement was a Jew. It is just so funny. Like a theater.

    Almost all the oligarchs are Jewish – courtesy of the World Bank and (((Western))) banks. It is amazing that in a country of allegedly 42 million they cannot find an ethnic Slav to get the job. I do not use the term Ukrainian as it is not really one country.

    Forget the bluster. I suspect they want to bring in Saakashvili because he can bring in more loans from the IMF. His backers are in the USA.

    BTW, the new American ambassador to Ukraine is a retired US Army general. That should give you some idea as to their line of thinking. However, I suspect that he is too knowledgeable to want to start a war with Russia.

    Alfred , says: Show Comment May 2, 2020 at 6:00 am GMT
    @Derer Georgia's lunatic who is now Ukraine deputy prime minister

    I think Saakashvili has not made it yet. He is being opposed by a lot of the Jews who control this "country". Last week, the guy investigating "corruption" was sacked. His replacement was a Jew. It is just so funny. Like a theater.

    Almost all the oligarchs are Jewish – courtesy of the World Bank and (((Western))) banks. It is amazing that in a country of allegedly 42 million they cannot find an ethnic Slav to get the job. I do not use the term Ukrainian as it is not really one country.

    Forget the bluster. I suspect they want to bring in Saakashvili because he can bring in more loans from the IMF. His backers are in the USA.

    BTW, the new American ambassador to Ukraine is a retired US Army general. That should give you some idea as to their line of thinking. However, I suspect that he is too knowledgeable to want to start a war with Russia.

    The departing ambassador is a female from the Ukrainian diaspora in Canada. A Ukrainian "Nationalist" by descent. Incapable of thinking of the interests of this unfortunate country.

    [May 05, 2020] Could there be a more obvious demonstration that the man is FULL OF SHIT??

    Notable quotes:
    "... The bungling, toxic incompetence of this administration is quite something to behold. Wow... ..."
    May 05, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    farm ecologist , May 4 2020 18:53 utc | 4

    RADDATZ: Do you believe it was manmade or genetically modified?

    POMPEO: Look, the best experts so far seem to think it was manmade. I have no reason to disbelieve that at this point.

    RADDATZ: Your -- your Office of the DNI says the consensus, the scientific consensus was not manmade or genetically modified.

    POMPEO: That's right. I -- I -- I agree with that. Yes. I've -- I've seen their analysis. I've seen the summary that you saw that was released publicly. I have no reason to doubt that that is accurate at this point.

    To summarize: Pompeo does not doubt that the virus has been genetically modified, but he also does not doubt that is has not been genetically modified.

    Could there be a more obvious demonstration that the man is FULL OF SHIT??


    Jpc , May 4 2020 19:13 utc | 8

    To Farm ecologist.

    You are totally on the money. How or why is he in this job?
    It's demented!

    Sol Invictus , May 4 2020 19:16 utc | 12
    Those incompetent neo-confederates leading america into oblivion will jumble strategic defeats with winning. So much for accountability, hard work and personal responsability... Seems they can't compete fairly without superior military variable of adjustment and threat of violence against adversaries. Orange springs eternal and their great white hope has now adopted a paralizing rhetoric of victimization - republican lawmakers follow suit and are going so far as invoking a western bid for monetary reparations from Chinese depredations. # the art of winnig for maggots, derp.
    Daniel , May 4 2020 20:56 utc | 34
    The bungling, toxic incompetence of this administration is quite something to behold. Wow...

    [May 05, 2020] Newly released FBI documents show Israel intervened in 2016 election to help Trump

    Highly recommended!
    Looks like Mueller barked to the wrong tree... And that was not accidental
    Notable quotes:
    "... The back story that's really significant here is that Mueller redacted evidence of Israeli interference in the U.S. election, and the Russiagate! scandal was a cover for that and other third-country meddling. Most of us here knew that a couple years ago ..."
    "... @Blue Republic ..."
    "... @leveymg ..."
    "... @leveymg ..."
    May 05, 2020 | caucus99percent.com

    leveymg on Tue, 05/05/2020 - 8:17am

    Previously sealed FBI documents indicate close contacts between Israel and the Trump campaign and that the Mueller investigation found evidence of Israeli involvement, but largely redacted it.

    May 04th, 2020
    By Alison Weir @alisonweir
    https://www.mintpressnews.com/fbi-documents-israel-collusion-2016-trump-...

    Menifee, CA (IAK) -- Newly released FBI documents suggest that Israeli government officials were in contact with the 2016 Trump presidential campaign and offered "critical intel."

    In one of the extensively redacted documents, an official who appears to be an Israeli minister warns that Trump was "going to be defeated unless we intervene." He goes on to tell a Trump campaign official: "The key is in your hands."

    The previously classified documents were released in response to a lawsuit brought by the Associated Press, CNN, the New York Times, Politico, and the Washington Post. The unsealed documents suggest that rather than Russia, it was Israel that covertly interfered in the election.

    While all these media companies except one seem to have ignored the apparent Israeli connection revealed in the FBI documents, Israeli media have been quick to jump on it.

    Israel's i24 News reports:

    Newly released documents from the FBI suggest that Roger Stone, a senior aide in the 2016 Trump campaign, had one or more high-ranking contacts in the Israeli government willing to help the then-Republican Party nominee win the presidential election."

    Israel's Ha'aretz newspaper reports:

    Tantalizing hints" of "alleged clandestine contacts came to light in recent publication of redacted FBI documents."

    The Times of Israel (TOI) the first to report on this, states:

    The FBI material, which is heavily redacted, includes one explicit reference to Israel and one to Jerusalem, and a series of references to a minister, a cabinet minister, a minister without portfolio in the cabinet dealing with issues concerning defense and foreign affairs,' the PM, and the Prime Minister."

    TOI points out: "Benjamin Netanyahu was Israel's prime minister in 2016," and reports circumstantial evidence that the "PM" mentioned in the document refers to Netanyahu:

    One reference to the unnamed PM in the material reads as follows: 'On or about June 28, 2016, [NAME REDACTED] messaged STONE, "RETURNING TO DC AFTER URGENT CONSULTATIONS WITH PM IN ROME.MUST MEET WITH YOU WED. EVE AND WITH DJ TRUMP THURSDAY IN NYC.' Netanyahu made a state visit to Italy at the end of June 2016."

    TOI also notes that "the Israeli government included a minister without portfolio, Tzachi Hanegbi, appointed in May with responsibility for defense and foreign affairs."

    Ha'aretz also names Hanebi as the likely contact, and confirms that he "was in the United States on the dates mentioned, attending, among other things, a roll out of the first Israeli F-35 jet at a Lockheed Martin plant in Fort Worth, Texas."

    The previously classified FBI affidavit says: "On or about August 12, 2016, [name redacted] messaged STONE, "Roger, hello from Jerusalem. Any progress? He is going to be defeated unless we intervene. We have critical intell. The key is in your hands! Back in the US next week."

    Another section of the affidavit states: "On August 20, 2016, CORSI told STONE that they needed to meet with [name redacted] to determine "what if anything Israel plans to do in Oct." (Corsi refers to Jerome Corsi, a pro-Israel commentator and author known for extremist statements.)

    Roger Stone, a longtime confidant of President Trump who worked on the 2016 campaign, was convicted last year in the Robert Mueller investigation into alleged collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.

    Stone has denied wrongdoing, consistently criticizing the accusations against him as politically motivated. Numerous analysts have found the "Russiagate" theory unconvincing, and the American Bar Association reported that Mueller's investigation "did not find sufficient evidence that President Donald Trump's campaign coordinated with Russia to influence the United States' 2016 election."

    There have been previous suggestions that it was Israel that had most worked to influence the election.

    [MORE]

    The back story that's really significant here is that Mueller redacted evidence of Israeli interference in the U.S. election, and the Russiagate! scandal was a cover for that and other third-country meddling. Most of us here knew that a couple years ago .

    Comments

    Blue Republic on Tue, 05/05/2020 - 9:07am
    Thank for posting

    Mint Press has also reported on Israeli intelligence involvement/infiltration into critical US defense networks as well as their strong presence in social media.

    I'd be surprised if there was an election in recent decades that they weren't involved in.

    If Trump campaign people were actually soliciting Israeli help, that would be newsworthy and probably criminal. But Mueller throwing the book at Stone and Corsi over BS and covering what could actually be serious? That's twisted.

    leveymg on Tue, 05/05/2020 - 9:26am
    Laura Rozen who covers these things, has posted the FBI docs

    @Blue Republic and adds this:

    Laura Rozen
    @lrozen
    Profile picture
    https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1255347751153434624.html
    Apr 29th 2020, 5 tweets, 2 min read
    Stone arranged for meeting, but said in later email that a "fiasco" ensued after the associate brought a foreign military officer along
    Unroll available on Thread Reader

    https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1255344430443347969

    On Aug.20, 2016, CORSI told STONE they
    needed to meet w/[ ] to determine "what if anything Israel plans to do in Oct"courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco
    huh courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco
    courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco
    (One PM in Rome on June 27 2016 was Netanyahu) mfa.gov.il/MFA/PressRoom/

    Copy of FBI docs, including this, are linked at: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EWvp-fZWkAECFaN.jpg

    Mint Press has also reported on Israeli intelligence involvement/infiltration into critical US defense networks as well as their strong presence in social media.

    I'd be surprised if there was an election in recent decades that they weren't involved in.

    If Trump campaign people were actually soliciting Israeli help, that would be newsworthy and probably criminal. But Mueller throwing the book at Stone and Corsi over BS and covering what could actually be serious? That's twisted.

    leveymg on Tue, 05/05/2020 - 9:38am
    The entire Court filing and Order sealing the FBI warrant app

    @leveymg is reposted below, for those who want to read for themselves:

    UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
    for the
    District of Columbia
    In the Matter of the Search of
    (Briefly describe the property to be searched
    or identify the person by name and address)
    INFORMATION ASSOCIATED WITH THE GOOGLE
    ACCOUNT ,
    )
    Case: 1:18-sc-01518
    Assigned To : Howell, Beryl A.
    Assign. Date: 5/4/2018
    Description: Search & Seizure Warrant
    SEARCH AND SEIZURE WARRANT
    To: Any authorized law enforcement officer
    An application by a federal law enforcement officer or an attorney for the government requests the search
    of the following person or property located in the Northern District of California
    (identify the person or describe the property to be searched and give its location):
    See Attachment A.
    I find that the affidavit(s), or any recorded testimony, establish probable cause to search and seize the person or property
    described above, and that such search will reveal (identify the person or describe the property to be seized):
    See Attachment B.
    YOU ARE COMMANDED to execute this warrant on or before May 18, 2018 (not to exceed 14 days)
    ';$ in the daytime 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. 0 at any time in the day or night because good cause has been established.
    Unless delayed notice is authorized below, you must give a copy of the warrant and a receipt for the property taken to the
    person from whom, or from whose premises, the property was taken, or leave the copy and receipt at the place where the
    property was taken.
    The officer executing this warrant, or an officer present during the execution of the warrant, must prepare an inventory
    as required by law and promptly return this warrant and inventory to Hon. Beryl A. Howell
    (United States Magistrate Judge)
    0 Pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3103a(b), I find that immediate notification may have an adverse result listed in 18 U.S.C.
    § 2705 ( except for delay of trial), and authorize the officer executing this warrant to delay notice to the person who, or whose
    property, will be searched or seized (check the awropriate box)
    0 for __ days (not to exceed 30) 0 until, the facts justifying, the later specific date of
    Date and time issued:
    Judge 's signature
    City and state: Washington, DC Hon. Beryl A. Howell, Chief U.S. District Judge
    Printed name and title
    Case 1:19-mc-00029-CRC Document 29-7 Filed 04/28/20 Page 1 of 35
    AO 93 (Rev 11/13) Search and Seizure Warrant (Page 2)
    Return
    Case No.: Date and time warrant executed: Copy of warrant and inventory left with:
    Inventory made in the presence of :
    Inventory of the property taken and name of any person(s) seized:
    Certification
    I declare under penalty of pe1jury that this inventory is correct and was returned along with the original warrant to the
    designated judge.
    Date:
    Executing officer's signature
    Printed name and title
    Case 1:19-mc-00029-CRC Document 29-7 Filed 04/28/20 Page 2 of 35
    UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
    FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Cf erk, U.S. District & Bankrupicy
    Gourts for tirn District of Columbl&
    IN THE MATTER OF THE SEARCH OF
    INFORMATION ASSOCIATED WITH
    THE GOOGLE ACCOUNT
    ORDER
    Case: 1: 18-sc-01518
    Assigned To : Howell, Beryl A.
    Assign. Date: 5/4/2018
    Description: Search & Seizure Warrant
    The United States has filed a motion to seal the above-captioned warrant and related
    documents, including the application and affidavit in support thereof ( collectively the "Warrant"),
    and to require Google LLC, an electronic communication and/or remote computing services with
    headquarters in Mountain View, California, not to disclose the existence or contents of the Warrant
    pursuant to !8 U.S.C. § 2705(b).
    The Court finds that the United States has established that a compelling governmental
    interest exists to justify the requested sealing, and that there is reason to believe that notification
    of the existence of the Warrant will seriously jeopardize the investigation, including by giving the
    targets an opportunity to flee from prosecution, destroy or tamper with evidence, and intimidate
    witnesses. See 18 U.S.C. § 2705(b)(2)-(5).
    IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that the motion is hereby GRANTED, and that the
    warrant, the application and affidavit in support thereof, all attachments thereto and other related
    materials, the instant motion to seal, and this Order be SEALED until further order of the Court;
    and
    Page 1 of2
    Case 1:19-mc-00029-CRC Document 29-7 Filed 04/28/20 Page 3 of 35
    IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 2705(b), Google and its
    employees shall not disclose the existence or content of the Warrant to any other person ( except
    attorneys for Google for the purpose of receiving legal advice) for a period of one year unless
    otherwise ordered by the Court.
    Date 41/Y>lf
    THE HONORABLE BERYL A. HOWELL
    CHIEF UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
    Page 2 of2
    Case 1:19-mc-00029-CRC Document 29-7 Filed 04/28/20 Page 4 of 35
    AO 106 (Rev. 04/10) Application for a Search Warrant
    UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
    In the Matter of the Search of
    (Briefly describe the property to be searched
    or identify the person by name and address)
    for the
    District of Columbia
    MA\t !,
    •'II·\! • ·r 2018
    ,,t,c,rk, U.S. District & Bankruptcy
    C . ,,gurt~ lar 1hli-•D1strlctof Gollf/nh]•
    ase.1:18-sc-01518 ·'
    Ass!gned To: Howell, Beryl A
    INFORMATION ASSOCIATED WITH THE GOOGLE
    ACCOUNT
    )
    )
    )
    )
    )
    )
    Assign. Date: 5;412018 ·
    Description: Search & Seizure Warrant
    APPLICATION FOR A SEARCH WARRANT
    I, a federal law enforcement officer or an attorney for the government, request a search warrant and state under
    penalty of perjury that I have reason to believe that on the following person or property (identify the person or describe the
    property to be searched and give ifs location):
    See Attachment A.
    located in the Northern District of _____ C,-_a-,.l"'if.=o,..rn~ia.._ __ , there is now concealed (identijj, the
    person or describe the property to be seized):
    See Attachment B.
    The basis for the search under Fed. R. Crim. P. 4 l(c) is (check one or more):
    ~ evidence of a crime;
    ief contraband, fruits of crime, or other items illegally possessed;
    r'lf property designed for use, intended for use, or used in committing a crime;
    D a person to be arrested or a person who is unlawfully restrained.
    The search is related to a violation of:
    Code Section
    18 U.S.C. § 2
    · et al.
    The application is based on these facts:
    See attached Affidavit.
    r;/ Continued on the attached sheet.
    Offense Description
    aiding and abetting
    see attached affidavit
    D Delayed notice of __ days (give exact ending date if more than 30 days: ______ ) is requested
    under 18 U.S.C. § 3103a, the basis of which is set forth on the attached sheet.
    ~44 Reviewed by AUSA/SAUSA: Appbcant's signature
    •Aaron Zelinsky (Special Counsel's Office) Andrew Mitchell, Supervisory Special Agent, FBI
    Printed name and title
    Sworn to before me and signed in my presence.
    Date:
    City and state: Washington, D.C. Hon. Beryl A. Howell, Chief U.S. District Judge
    Printed name and title
    Case 1:19-mc-00029-CRC Document 29-7 Filed 04/28/20 Page 5 of 35
    UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
    FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
    MAY ·· ti 1018
    Clerk, LLS. District & Bar1i

    #1 and adds this:

    Laura Rozen
    @lrozen
    Profile picture
    https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1255347751153434624.html
    Apr 29th 2020, 5 tweets, 2 min read
    Stone arranged for meeting, but said in later email that a "fiasco" ensued after the associate brought a foreign military officer along
    Unroll available on Thread Reader

    https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1255344430443347969

    On Aug.20, 2016, CORSI told STONE they
    needed to meet w/[ ] to determine "what if anything Israel plans to do in Oct"courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco
    huh courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco
    courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco
    (One PM in Rome on June 27 2016 was Netanyahu) mfa.gov.il/MFA/PressRoom/

    Copy of FBI docs, including this, are linked at: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EWvp-fZWkAECFaN.jpg

    leveymg on Tue, 05/05/2020 - 9:54am
    The entire FBI affidavit supporting the FBI seizure order and

    @leveymg request for sealing of the record -- Case 1:19-mc-00029-CRC Document 29-7 Filed 04/28/20 Pages 3 to 35 for those who want to read for themselves:

    Judge's signature
    Hon. Bery[ A. Howell, Chief U.S. District Judge

    Printed name and title

    UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
    FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Glcrk, LL$. District & Bar1kruptcy
    Gourts tor tirn District of ColumtHa

    IN THE MATTER OF THE SEARCH OF INFORMATION ASSOCIATED WITH THE GOOGLE ACCOUNT

    Case: 1:18-sc-01518
    Ass!gned To : Howell, BerylA Assign. Date : S/4/20 18
    Description: Search & S izure Warrant

    AFFIDAVIT IN SUPPORT OF AN APPLICATION FOR A SEARCH WARRANT

    I, Andrew Mitchell, having been first duly sworn, hereby depose and state as follows:

    1. I make this affidavit in support of an application for a search warrant for

    information associated with the following Google Account: (hereafter

    the "Target Account 1"), that is stored at premises owned, maintained, controlled or operated by Google, Inc., a social networking company headquartered in Mountain View, California ("Google"). The information to be searched is described in the following paragraphs and in Attachments A and B. This affidavit is made in support of an application for a search warrant under 18 U.S.C. §§ 2703(a), 2703(b)(l)(A) and 2703(c)(l)(A)to require Google to disclose to the government copies of the information (including the content of communications) further described in Attachment A. Upon receipt of the information described. in Attachment A, government"authorized persons will review that information to locate the items described in Attachment B.
    2. I am a Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and have been since 2011. As a Special Agent of the FBI, I have received training and experience in investigating criminal and national security matters.
    3. The facts in this affidavit come from my personal observations, my training and experience, and information obtained from other agents and witnesses. This affidavit is intended

    to show merely that there is sufficient probable cause for the requested warrant and does not set fotth all of my knowledge about this matter.
    4. Based on my training and experience and the facts as set forth in this affidavit, there is probable cause to believe that the Target Accounts contain communications relevant to violations of 18 U.S.C. § 2 (aiding and abetting), 18 U.S.C. § 3 (accessory after the fact), 18
    U.S.C. § 4 (misprision of a felony), 18 U.S.C. § 371 (conspiracy), 18 U.S.C. § 1001 (making a

    false statement); 18 U.S.C. §1651 (pe1jury); 18 U.S.C. § 1030 (unauthodzed access of a protected computer); 18 U.S.C. § 1343 (wire fraud), 18 U.S.C. § 1349 (attempt and conspiracy to commit wire fraud), , and 52 U.S.C. § 30121 (foreign contribution ban) (the "Subject
    Offenses"). 1

    5. As set forth below, in May 2016, Jerome CORSI provided contact information for
    that there was an "OCTOBER SURPRISE COMING" and that Trump, ''[i]s going to be defeated unless we intervene. We have critical intel." In that same time period, STONE communicated directly via Twitter with WikiLeaks, Julian ASSANGE, and Guccifer 2.0. On July 25, 2016, STONE emailed instructions to Jerome CORSI to "Get to Assange" in person at the Ecuadorian Embassy and "get pending WikiLeaks emails[.]" On August 2, 2016, CORSI emailed STONE back that,"Word is friend in embassy plans 2 more dumps. One shortly after I1m back. 2nd in Oct. Impact planned to be very damaging." On August 20, 2016, CORSI told STONE that they
    needed to meet o determine "what if anything Israel plans to do in Oct."

    1 Federal law prohibits a foreign national from making, directly or indirectly, an expenditure or independent expenditure in connection with federal elections. 52 U.S.C. § 3012l(a)(l)(C); see also id. § 30101(9) & (17) (defining the terms "expenditure" and "independent expenditure").

    (the Target Account) is le Account, which

    sed to communicate with STONE and CORSI.

    JURISDICTION

    6. This Court has jurisdiction to issue the requested warrant because it is "a court of competent jurisdiction" as defined by 18 U.S.C. § 2711. Id. §§ 2703(a), (b)(l)(A), & (c)(l)(A). Specifically, the Court is "a district court of the United State (including a magistrate judge of such a court) ... that has jurisqiction over the offense being investigated." 18 U.S.C.
    § 2711(3)(A)(i). The offense conduct included activities in Washington, D.C., as detailed below, including in paragraph 8.
    PROBABLE CAUSE

    A. U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) Assessment of Russian Government­ Backed Hacking Activity during the 2016 Presidential Election

    7. On October 7, 2016, the U.S. Depa1tment of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a joint statement of an intelligence assessment of Russian activities and intentions during the 2016 presidential election. In the report, the USIC assessed the following, with emphasis added:
    8. The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e mails frorri US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations. The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts. These thefts and disclosures

    #1 and adds this:

    Laura Rozen
    @lrozen
    Profile picture
    https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1255347751153434624.html
    Apr 29th 2020, 5 tweets, 2 min read
    Stone arranged for meeting, but said in later email that a "fiasco" ensued after the associate brought a foreign military officer along
    Unroll available on Thread Reader

    https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1255344430443347969

    On Aug.20, 2016, CORSI told STONE they
    needed to meet w/[ ] to determine "what if anything Israel plans to do in Oct"courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco
    huh courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco
    courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco
    (One PM in Rome on June 27 2016 was Netanyahu) mfa.gov.il/MFA/PressRoom/

    Copy of FBI docs, including this, are linked at: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EWvp-fZWkAECFaN.jpg

    [May 05, 2020] I can do a lot Trump blames China for Covid-19 seeking to undermine his re-election -- RT USA News

    Notable quotes:
    "... The president has ramped up attacks on China in recent weeks, insisting it concealed information about the coronavirus in the early stages of the outbreak and has all but blamed the country for the health crisis. Asked whether he would use tariffs or debt write-offs to penalize Beijing, Trump refused to offer much detail, saying only that "we're looking for what happened" and how to respond to the alleged "cover-up." ..."
    "... There are many things I can do. ..."
    Apr 30, 2020 | www.rt.com
    US President Donald Trump believes China "will do anything they can" to make him lose his re-election bid, pointing to Beijing's handling of the coronavirus outbreak that has killed over 60,000 Americans already. Taking aim at Beijing, Trump told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday that the country would prefer to see his Democratic rival Joe Biden take the Oval Office in November, stating it would pull out all the stops to see him win – though the former VP would first need to secure his party's nomination.

    China will do anything they can to have me lose this race.

    Exclusive: Trump says China 'will do anything they can' to make him lose the re-election race in 2020 https://t.co/WB0zbWYZEkhttps://t.co/WB0zbWYZEk

    -- Reuters (@Reuters) April 30, 2020

    The president has ramped up attacks on China in recent weeks, insisting it concealed information about the coronavirus in the early stages of the outbreak and has all but blamed the country for the health crisis. Asked whether he would use tariffs or debt write-offs to penalize Beijing, Trump refused to offer much detail, saying only that "we're looking for what happened" and how to respond to the alleged "cover-up."

    There are many things I can do.

    Beijing has maintained that it tackled the pandemic appropriately and that it shared information about the virus with the international community as soon as it was available. Chinese officials have also hit back at the US accusations, suggesting Washington's handling of Covid-19 has been slow and ineffective, while warning against politicizing the global crisis.

    Also on rt.com Hello 'Chinagate': Why blaming Beijing is all the rage this US election cycle

    [May 05, 2020] I hope Trump gets everything he deserves.

    May 05, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    Walter , May 5 2020 13:48 utc | 158

    Circe , May 5 2020 14:09 utc | 159

    ...There's no New York Times before Covid and after Covid and intelligence was crooked before it was straight on no WMDs in Iraq before Zionists gave Bush the fake intelligence he wanted. Intelligence will be crooked and sometimes right depending, but more often it's a trained pitbull. None of that matters.

    I have long disliked the New York Times as a perfect example of Neo-liberal trash propaganda, and I really disagreed with b's whitewash of Trump until recently when his interpretation of Trump has become less clouded by his protect Russia bias and more cognizant of the avalanche of proof that Trump is a Zionist fascist in service of 1% power and specifically chosen for his unflinching loyalty to the peak of the corruption pyramid.

    Now, what I mean by this is that when your loyalty is to the unbiased truth, you don't and shouldn't care from whence it emerges cause the truth can emerge from a sewer dripping in filth as easily as it can fall out of the sky pure like driven snow. The vehicle means one iota to me; I only care about the truth, unlike some of you here who want to shoot the messenger cause right now the messenger can't help giving you the facts for whatever reason, and you can't handle the truth.

    Wise up! And learn to recognize the truth when you see it even if it's covered in what you consider shet.

    Now on the j'accuse Chine , Trump strategy. Very little of the virus travelled from China to the U.S. and what did land in the U.S. from China was mostly contained. The worst spread of infection came from Europe, but Trump being the asshole that he is got caught in his xenophobic trap, immediately shutting down flights from China but allowing hundreds of thousands of carriers from Europe to disembark for weeks. So now to cover that huge blunder that emanated from his racist skewed judgment, he's spewing fake intelligence and hate propaganda against China to cover his butt and salvage his poll numbers.

    The truth is that small and medium-sized farms are failing under the weight of his tariff blowback and now under Covid. He's starting to bleed support in rural areas so he needs to play the racist blame card to inflame patriotic loyalty to rally around him.

    I hope he also gets everything he deserves. A spectacular downfall might suffice.

    [May 03, 2020] Flynn told the investigators that he knew that the call was inevitably monitored and that a transcript existed. However, he did not recall discussing sanctions with Kislyak. There was no reason to hide such a discussion

    Highly recommended!
    For any intelligence professional, especially for a person who was the head of DIA, Flynn behaviour is unexplainably naive. The idea that he did not understand that he is dealing with Clinton mafia, as well as that Clinton mafia will try to implicate him is just absurd. So his behaviour is mystery. As well as the fact that he allowed them to come bypassing regular channels in President administration.
    As we do not have the whole picture we can only speculate. Probably he was already on the hook for his Turkish lobbing and that was exploited.
    May 03, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

    "New Documents Show Strzok Countermanded Closure Of Flynn Case For Lack Of Crime" [ Jonathan Turley ]. "It was previously known that the investigators who interviewed Flynn did not believe that he intentionally lied. That made sense. Flynn did not deny the conversations with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

    Moreover, Flynn told the investigators that he knew that the call was inevitably monitored and that a transcript existed. However, he did not recall discussing sanctions with Kislyak. There was no reason to hide such a discussion.

    Trump had publicly stated an intent to reframe Russian relations and seek to develop a more positive posture with them. It now appears that, on January 4, 2017, the FBI's Washington Field Office issued a 'Closing Communication' indicating that the bureau was terminating "CROSSFIRE RAZOR" -- the newly disclosed codename for the investigation of Flynn. That is when Strzok intervened." • Read on for detail, which is ugly.

    [May 03, 2020] I hope Comey, Strzok, and other goes to jail. But two sets of laws exist for the powerful.

    May 03, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    Tonymike , May 3 2020 17:55 utc | 42

    Ah, the FBI. The FBI no matter how much you look a their propaganda shows on the TV, the FBI has always been crooked, ergo the need for TV shows saying how great they are. Anyway, regarding Flynn, this was nothing new about setting him up. The FBI has a long sorted history with setting people up, but usually the poor, mentally deranged, or simply not intelligent.

    If you review the number of of anti terror cases where someone was going to blow up a hospital, a church or some other structure, the suspect always gets caught because of an FBI informant, who made up the plot, gave the person a fake bomb, money or materials to make the plot come true.

    I would venture a guess that 90% of arrests for terror are along those lines. So, the FBI as great crime fighters is a myth. I worked with them before and they were a joke.

    I hope Comey, Strzok, and et.al goes to jail. But two sets of laws exist for the powerful. Cheers!!

    Trailer Trash , May 3 2020 19:10 utc | 49

    >Anyway, regarding Flynn, this was nothing new about setting him up.

    There are only about three phrases to say to FBI:

    No Comment.

    Am I under arrest?

    I want a lawyer.

    The problem with people like Flynn is they think they are the smartest ones in the room and can outsmart the FBI. They forget that FBI doesn't record interrogations and the agents are free to write up the summaries however they like. In this case, they actually re-wrote the original interview months later.

    [May 03, 2020] Did FBI Operative's Lie Launch Flynn Investigation, And Did IG Horowitz Run Cover by Undercover Huber

    May 03, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    And as the case against Flynn continues to unravel, perhaps the most important dots have been connected by investigative researcher @JohnWHuber , better known as "Undercover Huber" on Twitter, who makes a cogent argument that Stefan Halper - the portly spy who the FBI used to conduct espionage on the Trump campaign during the 2016 US election - may have sparked the Flynn investigation after lying to the FBI .

    What's more, IG Michael Horowitz's report makes no mention of the lie, or the recently-learned fact that the FBI tried to close the Flynn case, dubbed 'Crossfire Razor', in Jan. 2017, only for agent Peter Strzok to go ' off the rails ' and demand it not be closed.

    Thread by Undercover Huber

    Why did the IG Report completely ignore Stefan Halper's lies to the FBI about @GenFlynn , and leave open the possibility that Halper may even have triggered the opening of the CI case against him?

    THREAD

    -- Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) May 3, 2020

    C ontinued (emphasis ours):

    • According to the IG, Stefan Halper (referred to as "Source 2") met with the Crossfire Hurricane team twice (in Aug 11 and 12, 2016) and told them "he had been previously acquainted with @GenFlynn". *This was immediately before the FBI opened a case on Flynn on Aug 15, 2016*
    • The IG report is silent on anything Source 2 might have said specifically about Flynn. It's also silent on the fact the Washington Field Office of the FBI tried to close the Flynn case on 01/04/2017. Both are going to be important in a second.
    • We now know from the FBI's draft "Electronic Communication" dated 01/04/2017 (trying to close the Flynn CI case, stopped by Strzok at the direction of Comey, McCabe or both) confirms the "CH" team "contacted an established FBI CHS to query about" Gen Flynn & held a "debriefing"

    This "event" very likely refers to when Flynn spoke at the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar in Feb 2014, and the suspicious Russian-linked person supposedly in the cab was @RealSLokhova (who also attended, and briefly spoke to Flynn)

    (Most of that's still redacted as well) pic.twitter.com/d7fCF2dGas

    -- Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) May 3, 2020
    • Except that story is a *lie*. Halper wasn't at that event . He witnessed nothin g, because he wasn't there. And the cab ride almost certainly didn't happen either, because @RealSLokhova says she was picked up from the event by her Husband . And she's willing to say that under oath.
    • There are multiple pictures of that Cambridge Seminar event (attended by about 20 people). Flynn was there, as was Richard Dearlove (former head of MI6), and Christopher Andrew (then mentor of @RealSLokhova and "unofficial" historian of MI5). But Halper wasn't. Not in any photos.

    "No one remembers Halper attending the event because, in truth, Halper was not there"

    -- sworn court filing of @RealSLokhova , in case filed against Halper himself pic.twitter.com/O2KeyevoIW

    -- Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) May 3, 2020
    • Halper's lawyers never challenged that statement . Even when the federal Judge dismissed @RealSLokhova's case (for other reasons), he did not challenge that claim, only saying that "even assuming it was false" that Halper "attended" the dinner, it wasn't defamatory to claim he did

    Halper's lawyers even noted @RealSLokhova 's claim it was a "falsehood" to say Halper attended the Feb, 2014 Cambridge event, and then NEVER defended it as *true*, just that it wasn't *defamatory*, and non-actionable.

    That's because it's not true: Halper wasn't there. pic.twitter.com/Dg22ww3EPu

    -- Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) May 3, 2020
    • And the FBI trying to close the case on Flynn is great evidence Halper's "attendance" at this event so he could see this suspicious cab ride is false . The FBI never tried to interview @RealSLokhova, or anyone at the dinner. Why? Because it would have proven their own source lied.
    • FYI, WaPo, WSJ and NYT have all published stories claiming that Halper attended that Feb 2014 event . None have any evidence that's true. All the stories are anonymously sourced to Halper or Halper's buddies. There never will be any evidence Halper was there, because he wasn't.
    • So when Halper told the FBI that he was "previously acquainted" with Flynn, and "witnessed" this suspicious cab ride, HE WAS LYING TO THE FBI . And at the time, he was a paid Confidential Human Source - the only one cited in the @carterwpage
      FISA, other than Steele.

      That's big.

    • But what's arguably bigger is WHEN Halper told this lie about Flynn. When else could Halper claimed to have been "acquainted" with Flynn if not this Feb 2014 dinner (the only time Flynn attended the Cambridge seminar Halper helped organize)?
    • Now, maybe Halper told the FBI about the dinner after the CI case was opened. But that's NOT in the IG report, despite Halper's other meetings with the FBI being in there. In fact the IG report says nothing about Halper and Flynn, other than what I quoted
    • In addition, FBI's Jan 4, 2017 draft Closing EC doesn't say when this "debriefing" with Halper happened either. The wording sort of implies it was after the case was opened, but never says it

      So it is possible that a lie from Halper actually triggered opening the case on Flynn?

    • What else did the FBI have? Their own laughable "predicate" appears to be that Flynn worked for Trump, attended an RT dinner (at the time, @RepAdamSchiff
      had previously appeared on RT!), and was "linked" to Russians (Er, he was the former head of DIA under "Russian reset" Obama)
    • Ah, but all of those things were already true between Aug 1 and Aug 10, 2016, which is when the FBI opened cases on Page, Papadopoulos and Manafort - BUT NOT FLYNN. That didn't happen until Aug 15. He's the odd one out.
    • Flynn obviously already worked for Trump. He already had these "links", and he'd already attended the RT dinner long ago. The thin gruel of Russian "links" and working for Trump was enough to open cases on all the others, but NOT Flynn.
    • But what did the FBI have extra before they opened the case? Stefan Halper telling them about being "previously acquainted" with Flynn - which almost certainly refers to that Feb 2014 Cambridge dinner, where he was never "acquainted" with Flynn at all.
    • Oh, & even if Halper told this lie *after* the case was opened on Flynn, the FBI mustn't have found it credible because they never tried to properly investigate it , and then even tried to close the case anyway. So that means at best the lie came between Aug 15, 2016 & Jan 4, 2017
    • What else was happening between Aug 16 & Jan 17? Oh yeah, the FBI was using a person they should have suspected of lying to dirty people up - Halper - as a CHS wearing a wire on @carterwpage, @GeorgePapa19 and others, AND relying on Halper as "Source #2" in the FISA warrant apps
    • Then, incredibly after their own source lies to them about Flynn to dirty him up, the FBI have the audacity to charge Flynn with lying to them! Corrupt dirty cops isn't an adequate description. And for all we know, Halper is STILL on Wray's FBI books as a paid confidential source
    • Finally, IG Horowitz blew this line of inquiry, and didn't mention anything about the FBI trying to close the case on Flynn in Jan 2017 . Horowitz also admitted hasn't seen any evidence that any of Halper's information was ever corroborated during his entire time as an FBI source
    • Durham can do what the IG didn't, and solve this mystery quite easily with a few interviews and record checks.

      Or, the DOJ/USG can keep Halper on his retainer and ignore this. Either way, we'll know what's up

      /ENDS

    UPDATE: It gets worse @SidneyPowell1 says that "SSA 1" (Joe Pientka) wrote that Jan 4, 2017 EC closing the Flynn case

    AND according to the IG report, Pientka personally approved those Aug 2016 meetings with Halper & his handler & was briefed on both meetings

    *Pientka knew* 🚨

    -- Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) May 3, 2020

    xxx 2 hours ago

    Yes. Intrigue and infighing among the deep state conspirators.

    Why would the government keep delaying Flynn's sentencing after he agreed to the deal?

    But I think another explanation is simply excellent legal representation by Sidney Powell.

    In order to make the whole corrupt charade go down, a lot of "looking the other way" on the part of the courts, the DOJ, and the media had to occur.

    Sidney Powell, I assume, was relentless and committed in pulling on every loose thread and questioning every alleged "fact" which led to the unravelling of the whole corrupt enterprise.

    At the end of the day, she will be one of the heroes in the movie about how the Republic was saved, along with NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers and Congressman Devin Nunes.

    xxx 2 hours ago

    I believe she has some eyes on the inside as well......She is good and she is making Sullivan have to walk a fine line.

    [May 03, 2020] The Case Of General Flynn Exposing Washington's Big Game Of Liars' Poker

    May 03, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    This is just a fight of two mafias. Flynn is far from hero anyway.

    Authored by 'Zman' via TheZman.com,

    The case of General Flynn, which has dragged on for years now, may finally be reaching a denouement. He was charged with and pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI during the Russian collusion hoax. For reasons that have not been clear, he was never sentenced. Now it appears he may never see jail and will instead see his case dropped and his guilty plea vacated. New evidence shows he was framed by members of the FBI and Department of Justice.

    As is standard procedure in this age, state media has been silent on the matter, but alternative media sources are reporting on the release of classified documents hidden by the government from Flynn's defense team in violation of the law. Thousands of documents held by his former defense team and hidden from Flynn and his new attorney's until now have also been released in what appears to be a damage control operation by the law firm Covington & Burling.

    What these new FBI documents reveal is the FBI and Department of Justice carefully planned to entrap General Flynn by tricking him into making inaccurate statements about his activities during the campaign. They did this because they wanted to remove him from his post in the White House and hoped he could be manipulated into making accusations against other administrative officials. Then they systematically lied about what Flynn said to them in his interview with the FBI.

    Compounding this is the fact that the FBI and Departmental of Justice systematically withheld all documents that could be used by Flynn in his defense. One way they did this was to hide them in the special counsel operation. This prevented anyone, not just Flynn's defense team, from discovering the plot. The sudden release of long withheld documents by Covington & Burling suggest they may have been part of the plot to entrap Flynn and get him to plead guilty to a crime.

    At this stage, only a partisan fanatic thinks the principals in this whole Russian collusion caper were operating in good faith. You could make the argument that their behavior was unethical, but not necessarily illegal. Even if their actions violated the law, you could argue they did so in the belief they were within the bounds of the law. With these new revelations, it is clear they knew they were breaking the law in an effort to frame General Flynn as part of a much larger conspiracy.

    One thing that is now confirmed with these new revelations is that the Special Counsel was always just part of a larger effort to cover-up this conspiracy. In fact, that was the whole point of it. The FBI and DOJ officials involved in the conspiracy would hide all of the evidence inside the counsel's operation. This would make it impossible for the defense lawyers to access and very difficult for Congress to access. It would also prevent the administration from looking into it.

    Another outrageous aspect to this case is that it appears that Flynn's original defense team, Covington & Burling, may have been in on the plot to frame him. It's not all that clear at this point, but the best that can be said of their actions on behalf of their client is they are the worst law firm in the country. They exist because they have resources and know how things work in Washington. Despite this, they made the sorts of errors TV writers would find too ridiculous for a legal drama.

    There's also the fact that this sort of behavior by the FBI and DOJ is business as usual, which underscores the corruption. This is not a couple of renegades. This is just how things are done by the government. They frame people for crimes then work to prevent them from getting a proper defense. The FBI has a long history of framing the innocent, but it was always confined to the field offices. Now it is clear that the institution is rotten from the head to the tail. It is hopelessly corrupt.

    It is also increasingly clear that the weaselly Rod Rosenstein was the man tasked with orchestrating the cover-up after the election. He manipulated Sessions and Trump into firing Comey and then agreeing to the Mueller charade. The only purpose to that operation was to cover up the illegal spying. Then there is Comey, who claimed under oath to be the guy who ordered the Flynn investigation. He may have arrogantly admitted to initiating multiple Federal crimes.

    Of course, the big question in all of this is whether Washington is so hopelessly corrupt that none of this amounts to anything. In banana republics, the judge in the case would be assassinated or intimidated into ignoring the facts and sentencing Flynn to jail. We may not be there yet, but the lack of any substantive investigation into the FBI corruption suggests no one will be charged with anything. The principals in this scandal are now in high six figure positions in Washington, living the good life.

    Now, it is possible that Bill Barr was not prepared for the scale of corruption that has been revealed in this case . He may have truly thought it was a few bad apples that went off on their own. Once the scale of the corruption was known, he had to change course and bring in outside help. It's just as possible that he is part of the problem. He is friends will most of these people. His role in this could simply be part of the how Washington is neutralizing Trump and preparing him for expulsion.

    There is one puzzle that gets no attention. Why would the government keep delaying Flynn's sentencing after he agreed to the deal? They said he was cooperating, but he had nothing to offer them and they knew it. Perhaps he was just a prop to maintain the greater narrative of the Russian hoax. By dragging out his process they could feed fake news to state media, claiming it was from Flynn. That's seems to be a too cute by half, given the reality in Washington, but it is possible.

    Ineptitude is always a possibility. There's also the fact that highly corrupt institutions tend to have lots of internal intrigue and conflict. The old line about thieves sticking together is a myth. The corrupt man has no honor. As a result, the last stage for the corrupt institution is when the people inside beginning to scheme against one another to the point where they undermined their mutual efforts. Maybe that's where things are in Washington now. It's just one big game of liar's poker.

    xxx Radiant. 3 minutes ago

    What did Flynn plead guilty to?

    "Now, it is possible that Bill Barr was not prepared for the scale of corruption that has been revealed in this case."

    Really? Anyone who has been in Washington awhile must realize how things are there.

    Anyway, remove those people from their posts, allow them their benefits and pensions and let them keep their security clearance. That will teach them a lesson.

    [May 02, 2020] Those dastardly Russians!

    May 02, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

    Cortes April 27, 2020 at 10:24 pm

    I suppose that once in a while vital documentation (Apollo Moon missions, anyone?) goes astray, slipping down the back of the couch or misfiled on the wrong shelf in the library annexe. And occasionally the dog really did eat the homework.

    https://www.theblaze.com/news/christopher-steele-dossier-emails-documents-wiped

    Those dastardly Russians!

    Mark Chapman April 28, 2020 at 8:12 am
    Cretins like Steele openly flout the law, and are let away with it. There must be a law that directs government personnel – and he was government – to take such steps as are reasonable to preserve records they know or should know would constitute evidence, whether condemnatory or exculpatory. Steele had to be well aware there was intense interest in this material, and it is not difficult to imagine what the western reaction would be if some pivotal Russian figure deleted all his records and then did the smiling palms-up thing in court, so sorry, all gone.

    It is likewise easy to imagine the information in the records was damning, because nobody willfully wipes evidence they know will put them in the clear. And he will be allowed to get away with it without any punishment because the people who would have to punish him are likely the same people who told him to get rid of it.

    Just like Hillary, and her self-appointed deletion of tens of thousands of emails she deemed 'personal', although they were government property. No ordinary mook would be allowed to get away with that. And they wonder – or pretend to – why the people are sick to death of western corruption.

    [May 02, 2020] Dossier Author Christopher Steele Had Previously Undisclosed Meetings With Lawyers for DNC, Clinton Campaign

    May 02, 2020 | www.legitgov.org

    Marc Elias . Steele disclosed the previously unreported meetings with Sussmann and Elias during testimony in a defamation lawsuit filed against him by the Alfa Bank founders, according to a court transcript obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

    [May 02, 2020] FBI found no 'derogatory' Russia evidence on Flynn, planned to close case before leaders intervened

    May 02, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

    et Al May 1, 2020 at 12:07 pm

    JusttheNewscom: FBI found no 'derogatory' Russia evidence on Flynn, planned to close case before leaders intervened
    https://justthenews.com/accountability/russia-and-ukraine-scandals/fbi-found-no-derogatory-russia-evidence-flynn-planned

    FBI memos show case was to be closed with a defensive briefing before a second interview with Flynn was sought.

    Evidence withheld for years from Michael Flynn's defense team shows the FBI found "no derogatory" Russia evidence against the former Trump National Security Adviser and that counterintelligence agents had recommended closing down the case with a defensive briefing before the bureau's leadership intervened in January 2017

    In the text messages to his team, Strzok specifically cited "the 7th floor" of FBI headquarters, where then-Director James Comey and then-Deputy Director Andrew McCane worked, as the reason he intervened.

    "Hey if you haven't closed RAZOR, don't do so yet," Strzok texted on Jan. 4, 2017
    ####

    JFC.

    Remember kids, the United States is a well oiled machine that dispenses justice equitably along with free orange juce to the tune of 'One Nation Under a Groove.'

    So, I think Mark asked about 'legal action', but as you can see Barr and others are going through this stuff with a fine tooth comb so it is as solid when it goes public. More importantly, it can be used as evidenec to reform such corruption and put some proper controls in place to stop it happening again at least for a few years

    Like Like

    Mark Chapman May 1, 2020 at 1:53 pm
    And meanwhile everybody who thinks they might be in the line of fire at some future moment is destroying evidence as fast as they can make it unfindable.

    [May 02, 2020] Michael Flynn case should be dismissed to preserve justice

    Notable quotes:
    "... Comey later publicly took credit when he had told an audience that he decided he could "get away" with sending "a couple guys over" to the White House to set up Flynn and make the case. ..."
    "... In his role as the national security adviser to the president elect, there was nothing illegal in Flynn meeting with Kislyak. To use this abusive law here was utterly absurd, although other figures such as former acting Attorney General Sally Yates also raised it. Nevertheless, the FBI had latched onto this abusive law to target the retired Army lieutenant general ..."
    "... Another newly released document is an email from former FBI lawyer Lisa Page to former FBI special agent Peter Strzok, who played the leadership role in targeting Flynn. In the email, Page suggests that Flynn could be set up by making a passing reference to a federal law that criminalizes lies to federal investigators. She suggested to Strzok that "it would be an easy way to just casually slip that in." So this effort was not about protecting national security or learning critical intelligence. It was about bagging Flynn for the case in the legal version of a canned trophy hunt. ..."
    Apr 30, 2020 | www.informationclearinghouse.info

    Previously undisclosed documents in the case of former national security adviser Michael Flynn offer us a chilling blueprint on how top FBI officials not only sought to entrap the former White House aide but sought to do so on such blatantly unconstitutional and manufactured grounds.

    These new documents further undermine the view of both the legitimacy and motivations of those investigations under former FBI director James Comey. For all of those who have long seen a concerted effort within the Justice Department to target the Trump administration, the fragments will read like a Dead Sea Scrolls version of a "deep state" conspiracy.

    One note reflects discussions within the FBI shortly after the 2016 election on how to entrap Flynn in an interview concerning his conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. According to Fox News, the note was written by the former FBI head of counterintelligence, Bill Priestap, after a meeting with Comey and his deputy director, Andrew McCabe.

    The note states, "What is our goal? Truth and admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?" This may have expressed an honest question over the motivation behind this targeting of Flynn, a decision for which Comey later publicly took credit when he had told an audience that he decided he could "get away" with sending "a couple guys over" to the White House to set up Flynn and make the case.

    The new documents also explore how the Justice Department could get Flynn to admit breaking the Logan Act, a law that dates back to from 1799 which makes it a crime for a citizen to intervene in disputes between the United States and foreign governments. It has never been used to convict a citizen and is widely viewed as flagrantly unconstitutional.

    In his role as the national security adviser to the president elect, there was nothing illegal in Flynn meeting with Kislyak. To use this abusive law here was utterly absurd, although other figures such as former acting Attorney General Sally Yates also raised it. Nevertheless, the FBI had latched onto this abusive law to target the retired Army lieutenant general .

    Another newly released document is an email from former FBI lawyer Lisa Page to former FBI special agent Peter Strzok, who played the leadership role in targeting Flynn. In the email, Page suggests that Flynn could be set up by making a passing reference to a federal law that criminalizes lies to federal investigators. She suggested to Strzok that "it would be an easy way to just casually slip that in." So this effort was not about protecting national security or learning critical intelligence. It was about bagging Flynn for the case in the legal version of a canned trophy hunt.

    It is also disturbing that this evidence was only recently disclosed by the Justice Department. When Flynn was pressured to plead guilty to a single count of lying to investigators, he was unaware such evidence existed and that the federal investigators who had interviewed him told their superiors they did not think that Flynn intentionally lied when he denied discussing sanctions against Russia with Kislyak. Special counsel Robert Mueller and his team changed all that and decided to bring the dubious charge. They drained Flynn financially then threatened to charge his son.

    Flynn never denied the conversation and knew the FBI had a transcript of it. Indeed, President Trump publicly discussed a desire to reframe Russian relations and renegotiate such areas of tensions. But Flynn still ultimately pleaded guilty to the single false statement to federal investigators. This additional information magnifies the doubts over the case.

    Various FBI officials also lied and acted in arguably criminal or unethical ways, but all escaped without charges. McCabe had a supervisory role in the Flynn prosecution. He was then later found by the Justice Department inspector general to have repeatedly lied to investigators. While his case was referred for criminal charges, McCabe was fired but never charged. Strzok was also fired for his misconduct in the investigation.

    Comey intentionally leaked FBI material, including potentially classified information but was never charged. Another FBI agent responsible for the secret warrants used for the Russia investigation had falsified evidence to maintain the investigation. He is still not indicted. The disconnect of these cases with the treatment of Flynn is galling and grotesque.

    Even the judge in the case has added to this disturbing record. As Flynn appeared before District Judge Emmet Sullivan for sentencing, Sullivan launched into him and said he could be charged with treason and with working as an unregistered agent on behalf of Turkey. Pointing to a flag behind him, Sullivan declared to Flynn, "You were an unregistered agent of a foreign country while serving as the national security adviser to the president of the United States. That undermines everything this flag over here stands for. Arguably, you sold your country out."

    Flynn was never charged with treason or with being a foreign agent. But when Sullivan menacingly asked if he wanted a sentence then and there, Flynn wisely passed. It is a record that truly shocks the conscience. While rare, it is still possible for the district court to right this wrong since Flynn has not been sentenced. The Justice Department can invite the court to use its inherent supervisory authority to right a wrong of its own making. As the Supreme Court made clear in 1932, "universal sense of justice" is a stake in such cases. It is the "duty of the court to stop the prosecution in the interest of the government itself to protect it from the illegal conduct of its officers and to preserve the purity of its courts."

    Flynn was a useful tool for everyone and everything but justice. Mueller had ignored the view of the investigators and coerced Flynn to plead to a crime he did not commit to gain damaging testimony against Trump and his associates that Flynn did not have. The media covered Flynn to report the flawed theory of Russia collusion and to foster the view that some sort of criminal conspiracy was being uncovered by Mueller. Even the federal judge used Flynn to rail against what he saw as a treasonous plot. What is left in the wake of the prosecution is an utter travesty of justice.

    Justice demands a dismissal of his prosecution. But whatever the "goal" may have been in setting up Flynn, justice was not one of them.

    Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. You can find his updates online @JonathanTurley . - " Source "

    [May 02, 2020] Political role of FBI is proven once again. What's next

    May 02, 2020 | www.rt.com

    The role of the FBI in instigating the prosecution of Michael Flynn, the criminality of its conduct, and the encouragement it received in doing so from senior Obama officials should offend everyone. LATEST: 'Get him to lie so we can prosecute him': New docs reveal FBI plan to set up General Flynn in perjury trap

    In a dramatic new turn of events, the legal team for Flynn, President Trump's former national security advisor, says the Department of Justice has turned over exculpatory evidence in his case. Flynn is defending against charges he lied to FBI agents in the course of their investigation into allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election.

    At a minimum, this information, which includes evidence that US government prosecutors illegally coerced a guilty plea by threatening Flynn's son with prosecution, warrants the withdrawal of that guilty plea. Whether or not the judge in the case, US District Court Judge Emmet G Sullivan, will dismiss the entire case against Flynn on the grounds of prosecutorial misconduct is yet to be seen. One fact, however, emerges from this sordid affair: the FBI, lauded by its supporters as the world's "premier law enforcement agency," is anything but.

    Also on rt.com 'Get him to lie so we can prosecute him': New docs reveal FBI plan to set up General Flynn in perjury trap

    Evidence of FBI misconduct during its investigation into alleged collusion between members of the Trump campaign team and the Russian government in the months leading up to the presidential election has been mounting for some time. From mischaracterizing information provided by former British MI6 officer Christopher Steele in order to manufacture a case against then-candidate Trump, to committing fraud against the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to authorize wiretaps on former low-level Trump advisor Carter Page, the FBI has a record of corruption that would make a third-world dictator envious.

    The crimes committed under the aegis of the FBI are not the actions of rogue agents, but rather part and parcel of a systemic effort managed from the very top – both former Director James Comey and current Director Christopher Wray are implicated in facilitating this criminal conduct. Moreover, it was carried out in collaboration with elements within the Department of Justice, and with the assistance of national security officials working for the Obama administration, making for a conspiracy that would rival any investigation conducted by the FBI under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

    The heart of the case against Michael Flynn – a flamboyant, decorated combat veteran, with 33 years of honorable service in the US Army – revolves around a phone call he made to the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak, on December 29, 2016. That was the same day then-President Obama ordered the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats from the US on charges of espionage. The conversation was intercepted by the National Security Agency as part of its routine monitoring of Russian communications. Normally, the identities of US citizens caught up in such surveillance are "masked," or hidden, so as to preserve their constitutional rights. However, in certain instances deemed critical to national security, the identity can be "unmasked" to help further an investigation, using "minimization" standards designed to protect the identities and privacy of US citizens.

    In Flynn's case, these "minimization" standards were thrown out the window: on January 12, 2017, and again on February 9, the Washington Post published articles that detailed Flynn's phone call with Kislyak. US Attorney John Durham, tasked by Attorney General William P Barr to lead a review of the actions taken by law enforcement and intelligence officials as part of the Russian collusion scandal, is currently investigating the potential leaking of classified information by Obama-era officials in relation to these articles.

    Read more Trump 'strongly considering' Michael Flynn pardon, points at FBI 'conveniently losing' his records Trump 'strongly considering' Michael Flynn pardon, points at FBI 'conveniently losing' his records

    Flynn's phone call with Kislyak was the central topic of interest when a pair of FBI agents, led by Peter Strzok, met with Flynn in his White House office on January 24, 2017. This meeting later served as the source of the charge levied against him for lying to a federal agent. It also provided grist for then acting-Attorney General Sally Yates to travel to the White House on January 26 to warn then-White House Counsel Michael McGahn that Flynn had lied to Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations with Kislyak, and, as such, was in danger of being compromised by the Russians.

    That Flynn lied, or otherwise misrepresented, his conversation with Kislyak to Pence is not in dispute; indeed, it was this act that prompted President Trump to fire Flynn in the first place. But lying to the Vice President, while wrong, is not a crime. Lying to FBI agents, however, is. And yet the available evidence suggests that not only did Flynn not lie to Strzok and his partner when interviewed on January 24, but that the FBI later doctored its report of the interview, known in FBI parlance as a "302 report," to show that Flynn had. Internal FBI documents and official testimony clearly show that a 302 report on Strzok's conversation with Flynn was prepared contemporaneously, and that he had shown no indication of deception. However, in the criminal case prepared against him by the Department of Justice, a 302 report dated August 22, 2017 – over seven months after the interview – was cited as the evidence underpinning the charge of lying to a federal agent.

    Also on rt.com Barr assigns outside prosecutor to review Russiagate's Michael Flynn's case – report

    The evidence of a doctored 302 report, when combined with the evidence that the US prosecutor conspired with Flynn's former legal counsel to "keep secret" the details of his plea agreement, in violation of so-called Giglio requirements (named after the legal precedent set in Giglio v. United States which holds that the failure to disclose immunity deals to co-conspirators constitutes a violation of due-process rights), constitutes a clear-cut case of FBI malfeasance and prosecutorial misconduct. Under normal circumstances, that should warrant the dismissal of the government's case against Flynn.

    Whether Judge Emmet G Sullivan will agree to a dismissal, or, if not, whether the Department of Justice would seek to retry Flynn, are not known at this time. What is known, however, is the level of corruption that exists within the FBI and elements of the Department of Justice, regarding their prosecution of a US citizen for purely political motive. Notions of integrity and fealty to the rule of law that underpin the opinions of many Americans when it comes to these two institutions have been shredded in the face of overwhelming evidence that the law is meaningless when the FBI targets you. If this could happen to a man with Michael Flynn's stature and reputation, it can happen to anyone.

    [May 02, 2020] For brevity, I always post that our IC (Intelligence Community) is masterful in shaping U.S. public opinion and causing problems for targeted countries but terrible in collecting and analyzing Intel that would benefit the U.S. The truth of course, is more complicated.

    Notable quotes:
    "... The person trying to tell the truth is forced to defend, 'Communist China' (Tom Cotton thinks that is one word), Russia, or Iran and to the U.S. public this is toxic. ..."
    "... Someday it just won't matter anymore. We will have deceived ourselves for so long that we have squandered so much of our power that no one will pay attention to us. ..."
    "... Intelligence is a rare commodity in American politics and diplomacy even more elusive so the consequences of malicious rumours are never weighed nor assessed ..."
    "... Intelligence is a rare commodity in American politics and diplomacy even more elusive so the consequences of malicious rumours are never weighed nor assessed ..."
    May 02, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    Christian J Chuba , May 1 2020 13:17 utc | 9

    Spy vs Spy

    For brevity, I always post that our IC (Intelligence Community) is masterful in shaping U.S. public opinion and causing problems for targeted countries but terrible in collecting and analyzing Intel that would benefit the U.S. The truth of course, is more complicated.

    There is a remnant that is doing their jobs properly but is shut out from higher level offices. But I cannot give long disclaimers at the start of my posts, (I'm not talking about the men and women ...) where 50 words later I finally start to make my point. It's boring, sounds insincere, and defensive.

    This is yet another effective defense mechanism that protects the troublemakers in our IC bureaucracy.
    1. The person trying to tell the truth is forced to defend, 'Communist China' (Tom Cotton thinks that is one word), Russia, or Iran and to the U.S. public this is toxic.

    2. These rogues get to use the remaining good people as human shields.

    3. They know their customers, it gives the politicians a way to turn themselves into wartime leaders rather than having to answer for their shortcomings.

    Someday it just won't matter anymore. We will have deceived ourselves for so long that we have squandered so much of our power that no one will pay attention to us.


    /div> Intelligence is a rare commodity in American politics and diplomacy even more elusive so the consequences of malicious rumours are never weighed nor assessed . The American public are easily enough fooled being constantly fed a racist diet, especially Sinophobia, Russophopia and Iranophobia and the drumbeats for war, financial or military, are easily banged to raise the public's blood pressure....but what about the consequences? America can win neither, even with he assistance of a few vassal states. What happens if, and when, normal service is resumed? If they managed to succeed with any of their hair-brained ideas, what are the consequences for American companies in China, rare earth minerals, the IT industries etc etc. Guard your words wisely for they can never be retracted.

    Posted by: Séamus Ó Néill , May 1 2020 13:46 utc | 13

    Intelligence is a rare commodity in American politics and diplomacy even more elusive so the consequences of malicious rumours are never weighed nor assessed . The American public are easily enough fooled being constantly fed a racist diet, especially Sinophobia, Russophopia and Iranophobia and the drumbeats for war, financial or military, are easily banged to raise the public's blood pressure....but what about the consequences? America can win neither, even with he assistance of a few vassal states. What happens if, and when, normal service is resumed? If they managed to succeed with any of their hair-brained ideas, what are the consequences for American companies in China, rare earth minerals, the IT industries etc etc. Guard your words wisely for they can never be retracted.

    Posted by: Séamus Ó Néill | May 1 2020 13:46 utc | 13

    dan of steele , May 1 2020 14:32 utc | 23
    GeorgeV

    I think there is very good intelligence in the US. so much data is collected and there are many analysts to go over the data and present their forecasts. The World Factbook is an example of collected intelligence made available to the unwashed masses.

    what you are thinking is that this information should be used to your benefit. that is where it goes wrong. the big players are able to access and exploit that mass of data and use it to their benefit.

    Billmon used to say that this is a feature, not a bug.

    Piero Colombo , May 1 2020 15:08 utc | 28
    s @19

    "Not precluded" are also a Fort Detrick origin and contagion taken to Wuhan by the US military, staying at a hotel where most of the first cluster of patients was identified. So why wouldn't you always mention both in the same breath?

    concerned , May 1 2020 15:27 utc | 31
    First hollywood movie I am aware of that deals with pandemics and has Fort Detrick front and center was "Outbreak" 1995. In this film, the "Expert" played by D. Huffman uncovers a plot by a rogue 2 star general sitting on the serum from another outbreak years ago, and how he witheld this information and the serum to "protect their bioweapon". There is also a very overt background sub-plot about Dod and CDC being at odds.

    DoD is not listed in the credits for Outbreak. Many of the scenes are supposed to take place in CDC and Fort Detrick.

    --

    Last hollywood movie was "Contagion" 2011. In this film, which pretty much anticipates Covid-19 madness but with an actually scary virus, the "Expert" in charge tells the DHS man that "Nature has already weaponized them!".

    So this lie about the little bitty part "function gain" man-made mutations being the critical bit for "weaponizing" viruses is turned on its head. It was "Nature" after all. A wet market, you know.

    Contagion does list DoD in its credits. Vincent C. Oglivie as US DoD Liason and Project Officer.

    Just some 'fun' trivia for us to while away our lives. Remember that consipirational thought is abberational thought. Have a shot of Victory Gin and relex!

    md , May 1 2020 15:34 utc | 32
    Ten questions the US needs to answer
    https://www.facebook.com/PeoplesDaily/posts/3243339602384501

    [May 01, 2020] Coutriers and coutisans vs neocon blobsters and blobstresses in State Department and elsewhere

    Blobsters are simply prostitute to the military industrial complex. No honesty, no courage required (Courage is replaced with arrogance in most cases.) Pompeo is a vivid example of this creatures of Washington swamp.
    Notable quotes:
    "... historically courtiers themselves led their troops on the battlefield and considered it a question of honor for one or both of their oldest sons pursuing a military career, while Renaissance courtesans were among the most intellectual and educated women of their epoch. Neither is true for blobsters and blobstresses. ..."
    "... In French and (I think) most other romance languages, the words for courtier and courtesan are the same. Something to think about. ..."
    May 01, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

    Alex (the one that likes Ike) 13 hours ago

    Courtiers and courtesans. That's rich.

    On the other hand, though, historically courtiers themselves led their troops on the battlefield and considered it a question of honor for one or both of their oldest sons pursuing a military career, while Renaissance courtesans were among the most intellectual and educated women of their epoch. Neither is true for blobsters and blobstresses.

    LFM Alex (the one that likes Ike) 5 hours ago
    In French and (I think) most other romance languages, the words for courtier and courtesan are the same. Something to think about.

    [May 01, 2020] The Blob Attacks Gaslighting or Just Gasbagging by Kelley Beaucar Vlahos

    Apr 30, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

    It's always fun to see the Washington foreign policy and Nat-Sec establishment get up on its hind legs at their critics. It doesn't happen often, and when it does it's usually when someone has touched a raw nerve, penetrating the bubble, if only momentarily. One time that comes to mind is when TAC's Andrew Bacevich -- he's really good at this -- called out elite bubble denizens Peter Feaver and Hal Brands for what he said was "close to being a McCarthyite smear" against realist thinkers in a Commentary piece entitled, "Saving Realism from the So-Called Realists."

    The two men (Feaver cut his teeth in George W. Bush's National Security Council during the height of the Iraq War; Brands is an academic with a perch at the neoconservative AEI) implored TAC to publish a response, writing: "The stakes of debates about American grand strategy are high, and so it is entirely proper that these debates be conducted with passion and intensity. But it is equally vital that they be conducted without resort to the sort of baseless ad hominem attacks that impede intellectual discourse rather than encouraging it."

    Hrumph. It is not surprising now that both Feaver and Brands (joined by William Inboden, also in Bush's wartime NSC), are at it again, this time with a longer treatise in Foreign Affairs , entitled, "In Defense of the Blob ." The last four years have been rough for the establishment. President Trump, after running on a platform of getting out of endless wars, is a Jacksonian who refuses to hide his contempt for this entrenched policy class and all of their attending courtiers and courtesans, most of whom are leftovers from the Obama, Bush and even Clinton Administrations. Their "accumulated" knowledge means nothing to this president, as he has plowed his own mercurial course in North Korea, Syria, Iran and the Middle East.

    If that wasn't bad enough, Trump's rip in the Washington Blob's time-space-continuum has allowed realists and restrainers to quantum leap into the space like no other administration before. Suddenly, conservatives of all stripes are talking TAC's language. Money is pouring into colleges and think tanks now, all with the goal of pursuing approaches outside the status quo of hyper-militarization and American hegemony. The wars have been largely maligned as failures of the two previous administrations and their "experts." The Quincy Institute, populated by scholars from both the Right and Left, has risen up to directly challenge the idea of a necessary militarized "liberal world order" to secure peace across the globe.

    "In Defense of the Blob" is filled with so many straw men, lies, and misdirections that the only takeaway is that we must have hit one hell of a nerve this time. The authors' peculiar attempt to gaslight their critics, suggesting that we are seeing things that aren't there, is weak. Like:

    Blob theorists view the establishment as a club of like-minded elite insiders who control everything, take care of one another, and brush off challenges to conventional wisdom. In reality, the United States actually has a healthy marketplace of foreign policy ideas. Discussion over American foreign policy is loud, contentious, diverse, and generally pragmatic -- and as a result, the nation gets the opportunity to learn from its mistakes, build on its successes, and improve its performance over time.

    No, no, and no. As a reporter in this ecosystem for more years than I care to admit, I can say with absolute certainty the reality is the opposite. The major policy think tanks in Washington are rife with three sources of funding: government, private defense companies, and very wealthy neoliberal and neoconservative foundations ( think Carnegie on the left , Scaife on the right ). The National Security and "Grand Strategy" programs at elite schools are no different. They all have one thing in common: the status quo. As a result, the output is hardly dynamic, it's little more than dogmatic, conventional thinking about world problems that keep bureaucrats in jobs and always meddling, the military amped up with more hammers and nails to hit, and politicians (and attending administrative class) favorable to either or both of these goals in Washington, preferably in power.

    This is a closed club that offers only gradations of diversity just like Democrats and Republicans during the war: No one argued about "liberating" Iraq, only about the tactics. That was why it was so easy for Hillary Clinton's Nat Sec team in-waiting to create the Center for a New American Security in 2008 and transition to an Obama think tank shop in 2009. Plug and play one for the other, counterinsurgency under Bush? Meh. Under Obama? Let's do this! They all had a plan for staying in Afghanistan, and they made sure we were, until this day.

    This doesn't even include the orbit of research centers like RAND and the Center for Naval Analysis, which actually get government funding to churn out reports and white papers, teach officer classes, lead war gaming, and put on conferences. Do you really think they call for less funding, killing programs, eliminating lily pads, or egads, pulling out of entrenched strategic relationships that might not make sense anymore? Never. The same players get the contracts and produce just what the government wants to hear, so they can get more money. If they don't get contracts they don't survive. It's how the swamp works.

    As for it being a cabal? This ecosystem -- the Blob -- is a revolving door of sameness, a multigenerational in-crowd of status-driven groupthink inhabiting a deep state that is both physical and of the mind. It's a lifestyle, and a class. To get anywhere in it, you not only have to have the right pedigree, but the right way of thinking. Ask anyone who has attempted to break in with the "wrong credentials," or marched off the reservation in the early years of Iraq only to be flung to the professional margins. Conference panels, sanctioned academic journals, all run by the same crowd. Check the Council on Foreign Relations yearbook, you'll catch the drift. You can be a neocon, you can be a "humanitarian" interventionist, but a skeptic of American exceptionalism and its role in leading the post-WWII international system? Ghosted.

    The worst element of the Feaver/Brands/Inboden protest is not so much their pathetic attempt to suggest that sure, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya "were misconceived and mishandled," but they were "no worse" than failures in the preceding decades, like the "bloody stalemate in Korea," or "catastrophic war in Vietnam." (This completely denies that the same consensus thinking has been leading our global and military policies for the last 75 years, therefore the same people who blundered us into Vietnam were also responsible for backing the contras in Nicaragua, and then blowing up wedding parties in Pakistan three decades later).

    No, the worst is the straw man they present when they suggest that "scrapping professionalism for amateurism would be a disaster." No one has ever suggested that was on offer. If anything, there has been every attempt, by TAC and the aforementioned new movements, to shift new voices -- academics, military strategists, politicians, policy wonks and journalists -- who represent fresh, outside thinking into the forefront, at the levers of power, to make a difference. People like Andrew Bacevich, Stephen Walt, Doug Macgregor, Chris Preble, Mike Desch, are hardly lightweights, but to the Borg, they are antibodies, therefore amateurs.

    But Bacevich, Walt, et. al, did not keep their mouths shut or try to obfuscate the truth during 18 years of failure in Afghanistan. That was left to the friends and colleagues of our esteemed Feaver, Brands, and Inboden. They cannot deny the Blob's sins because it's all in black & white in the Afghanistan Papers . That's what has really hit a nerve, the raw exposure. Still, they cry, the Blob is "not the problem," but the "solution." We think not. And we think they protest too much.

    Kelley Beaucar Vlahos is Executive Editor of TAC . Follow her on Twitter @Vlahos_at_TAC


    kouroi a day ago

    Three comments:
    1. Great article.
    2. When the world will see the back of US troops out of Afghanistan, the way the USSR troops pulled out, then I'll say that Trump really is different.
    3. "As a reporter in this ecosystem for more years than I care to admit". Actually, it doesn't show...
    Kent TheSnark 11 hours ago
    Most Russians would say that US foreign policy had nothing to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union. So while not being a failure, it wasn't in any way a victory either. And Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait after that country began side drilling into Iraqi reserves and stealing them. Hussein complained bitterly to the international community, and invaded only after nothing was done. How was our attack a good thing? We could of just forced the Kuwaiti's to stop stealing Iraqi oil.
    kouroi TheSnark 9 hours ago • edited
    Now wait a minute. The thing is that several narratives could be constructed here. You have the narrative that you are constructing here (to which usually one starts with the glorious beginning of how the US defeated the the evil Nazi Germany).

    The Cold War I and now the Cold War II is fundamentally the war between the idea that private property is paramount and the idea that commons/socialized property under the aegis of the state (preferably the nation state) is preferable. And from this perspective the Korean war was a draw and Vietnam war was a defeat for the Mammon. Cuba is also a shining example of the crappy US politics. Then you have the Pinochet dictatorship, installation of the Shah in 1953, Lumumba's killing and all kind of other shenanigans (i.e. Operation Gladius in Italy/Europe, etc.).

    And I wouldn't call the Yugoslav war a high mark either.

    The containment strategy worked initially because all the socialist countries started from the rubble of WWII, with minimal industrial base and massive population losses. The stupidity of the containment strategy is brought to light by the evolution of Vietnam after the war. Things are getting more and more relaxed there. Even Keenan admitted that this containment thing was/is fundamentally problematic.

    Now Cold War II (started by Obama with the TPP that had as its main pillar the destruction/privatization [for funny US money] of China's SOE) is being pursued as a continuation of the same basic idea driving CWI, but also because the technological genie was freed from its bottle. The ugly truth is that the US is really not that good at real, real competition (see the history of how inefficient and incapable of technological advancement the US Steel industry is compared with European Steel Industry; but fundamentally this is a disease of monopolies). US benefited tremendously of the European conflicts with a massive influx of educated people (i.e. check Einstein) and it still benefits from all the foreign graduate students (lots of Chinese) that are for research based academia the the main workhorses. The way medical research cannot be done without the lab mice, same research in general cannot be conducted without the graduate students.

    So, the fact that the US cannot withstand real, real competition (especially after the hollowing out of the industrial base due to finacialization), really scares the hell out of ruling elites. So all kind of malevolent narratives of the Manichean sorts are spun out and fed to hoi polloi.

    It is obviously that you and I live in parallel universes though...

    kouroi kouroi 3 hours ago
    Concerning the lack of US competitive prowess and bullying approaches (beside NS2, or punishing buyers of Russian weapons), fresh from the news:

    "Moscow is studying a report published by the US Department of Energy (DOE), which mentions Washington's intention to squeeze Russia out of nuclear technology markets, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

    "We are currently studying the report of the working group on nuclear fuel published by the US Department of Energy. A significant part of the report is devoted to pushing Russia and China from the international market for goods and services related to nuclear energy. Moreover, there is every reason to believe that not only subsidies of the relevant US industries will be used, but also non-economic methods", the ministry said, responding to a request for a comment on the report.

    In particular, the report outlines a possible strategy of seeking the "adaptation" of national legislation of some countries in order to ensure the privileged position of US suppliers with the active participation of Washington, the ministry said. "There is nothing new here", it added.

    Over the past decade, Washington has paid very little attention to the development of its own nuclear energy, and therefore lags behind leaders in most areas, from uranium mining to the construction of nuclear reactors and spent nuclear fuel management, the ministry added.

    "Now the US authorities apparently intend to improve the situation", it suggested, adding that this requires significant financial investments.

    In order to achieve it, it is necessary to occupy a significant share of the international nuclear energy market, and the US administration is well aware that it is impossible to do this through fair competition in an acceptable time because of the lag, the ministry said.

    "Therefore, Washington intends to use non-economic leverage. Such actions by the United States raise the question of what the principles of free trade advocated by Washington stand for and whether, in principle, one should adhere to any rules in relations with a state that itself does not comply with any rules and changes them in a way that is beneficial for it at the moment", it concluded.

    On 23 April, the US Department of Energy released a report from a nuclear fuel working group, established by President Donald Trump in July, to "outline a strategy to restore American nuclear energy leadership", according to the DOE's statement."

    Tradcon 20 hours ago • edited
    Its always funny how the "experts" and "professionals" are those who want to uphold the status quo. If you hold the opposite view you're a "amateur" or "demagogue".

    "What makes you more of an expert than them?"
    "I pushed for and oversaw three wars! I have far more experience!"

    Excellent article.

    EdMan 20 hours ago
    "The National Security and 'Grand Strategy' programs at elite schools are no different."

    I absolutely loved this bit because it's so true. Thank God for Kelley pointing this out. It's indicative of the broader malaise in higher education; they've become centers for political indoctrination. If you look at the people that comprise the faculty at these schools, many of them are establishment heavyweights; Eliot A. Cohen, arch-neoconservative, is Dean of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, for example, and served in the Bush administration. By comparison, Stephen Walt has never served in any administration.

    These schools charge unbelievable amounts of money to churn out more Eliot Cohens, more Samantha Powers, etc. Even the military officers who take a turn in policymaking circles or serve on a staff somewhere are staunch defenders of the institutions. In fact, the total lack of intellectual diversity is downright disturbing; it's like brainwashing.

    Worst of all? The folks who aren't establishment but still have representation in policymaking circles are all hardliners! Think Frank Gaffney, Fred Fleitz, so on.

    Bankotsu 18 hours ago • edited
    These people from the blob can't even get real jobs in private sector.

    They are unemployable.

    They have zero employment skills.

    Kent Bankotsu 14 hours ago
    Depends on whether you consider 100% government financed companies like Lockheed Martin to be private sector.
    Alex (the one that likes Ike) 13 hours ago
    Courtiers and courtesans. That's rich.

    On the other hand, though, historically courtiers themselves led their troops on the battlefield and considered it a question of honor for one or both of their oldest sons pursuing a military career, while Renaissance courtesans were among the most intellectual and educated women of their epoch. Neither is true for blobsters and blobstresses.

    LFM Alex (the one that likes Ike) 5 hours ago
    In French and (I think) most other romance languages, the words for courtier and courtesan are the same. Something to think about.
    Gio Con 9 hours ago
    When the voices against US hegemony and permanent war are loud and taken seriously, then we can hope for change. But if the same underlying assumptions about the need for military aggression to "promote democracy," and the targeting of Russia and China as convenient enemies, are transferred to the "new thinkers," then nothing will change. The question is, can an aggressive capitalist system, dependent on unlimited growth, survive in a peaceful world?
    Gio Con 9 hours ago
    When the voices against US hegemony and permanent war are loud and taken seriously, then we can hope for change. But if the same underlying assumptions about the need for military aggression to "promote democracy," and the targeting of Russia and China as convenient enemies, are transferred to the "new thinkers," then nothing will change. The question is, can an aggressive capitalist system, dependent on unlimited growth, survive in a peaceful world?
    Feral Finster 9 hours ago
    Let's not kid ourselves. Trump has proven too weak and easily manipulated to even pull a few troops out of Syria.
    Notfor Yu 4 hours ago
    The Bush era foreign policy model is over, its a failed policy and everyone knows it. Obama didn't have a foreign policy other than appeasement and capitulation.

    Trump has a new model, treat foreign policy more like business. Negotiate as is done in business, the goal is to get what you want and if the other guy gets something he wants than fine.

    Of course the Trump approach derails the entire US State Dept, security council, and all the media talking heads, so they will oppose it.

    kouroi Notfor Yu 3 hours ago
    Not really true. Trump seems to have a zero sum approach to business, a win/lose attitude rather than win/win or only some win on the parties. The exit from JPCOA and the maximalist approach to Iran, the way Austria-Hungary approached Serbia in August 1918, is actual Trump attitude.

    [May 01, 2020] Trump is a salesman first and foremost. As a former pharmaceutical rep I am well aware that most salesmen are suckers for most sales pitches as an intrinsic part of their personalities.

    The absence of sufficient state controls in a democracy enables the wealthy class to manipulate the economy, the press and elected representatives for its own gain. A widening gulf between poverty and affluence develops, gradually dragging the working class to ruin
    Notable quotes:
    "... Our economy is based on the wet dream of sycophants like Mnuchin who barely escaped prison for his games in the wake of devastation of the subprime loan disaster on 2008, and neoliberals who are much better at playing him then the opposite. So he's a puppet for Wall Street AND a closet neocon. Would the demonstrably senile Biden be any better? Not a chance, so once again the majority of Americans are left with a sham election whereby two flavors of the same shit are what's being fed to us. ..."
    May 01, 2020 | www.unz.com

    Gyre07 , says: Show Comment April 30, 2020 at 3:45 pm GMT

    @Priss Factor Assuming he's even motivated by a desire to make America a better Constitutional Republic, Trump is a salesman first and foremost. As a former pharmaceutical rep I am well aware that most salesmen are suckers for most sales pitches as an intrinsic part of their personalities.

    So as I watch Trump being manipulated continuously by a variety of slick and confident grifters inhabiting the world stage with their multitude of transparent agendas I can only go, "that figures". I mean, he's basically just a more alpha version of GW Bush, so the fact that we haven't gone full gonzo yet on another nation is something of a miracle. Instead he's waging war by collapsing economies he views as competitors OR those of countries he wants to invade to steal natural resources from. As for the health of America, we're fucked.

    Our economy is based on the wet dream of sycophants like Mnuchin who barely escaped prison for his games in the wake of devastation of the subprime loan disaster on 2008, and neoliberals who are much better at playing him then the opposite. So he's a puppet for Wall Street AND a closet neocon. Would the demonstrably senile Biden be any better? Not a chance, so once again the majority of Americans are left with a sham election whereby two flavors of the same shit are what's being fed to us.

    Digital Samizdat , says: Show Comment April 30, 2020 at 4:49 pm GMT
    @anon

    Government and big money seem to have formed a nexus, dominated by a very small number of people, who seem to be at war with us.

    I seem to agree.

    Emily , says: Show Comment April 30, 2020 at 9:34 pm GMT
    Until the American people demand electoral reform – you ain't going nowhere.
    You need another party and you need to vote for it.
    Stuff the neo lib or neo lib or neo lib – of the existing choice.
    You have a two headed hydra – in reality a one party state.
    Financed and controlled by puppet masters.
    The democracy in the US is a total sham
    A fraud and farce.
    And you need fair voting.
    Used by most democracies – PR – Proportional Representation.
    Where votes mean seats.
    A Ron Paul party would be a dream.
    But until America gets off its fat bots and seriously acts to become a democratic state – you are getting what you continue to vote for.
    Greed, corruption and elite rule – bought and paid for in the House and Senate down.
    Nothing but a puppet, pawn and tax collector for another foreign power.
    And you dare to mass murder and bomb in the name of 'regime change' and democracy to create your vile rule of law across the planet
    Gross, an abomination – a facist state.

    [May 01, 2020] Unsealed FBI Handwritten Notes And Emails Reveal Agents Plotted Perjury Trap On Flynn by Sara A. Carter

    May 01, 2020 | saraacarter.com

    Are we finally going to see some consequences for a deep state lackey? Shortly after the post below was completed, US Congresswoman Elise Stefanik tweeted the following :

    Devastating flashback clip of Comey just aired on @marthamaccallum show.

    When asked who went around the protocol of going through the WH Counsel's office and instead decided to send the FBI agents into White House for the Flynn perjury trap ...

    ...Comey smugly responds "I sent them."

    Here is the clip:

    @comey is preparing for prison and hoping to avoid the death penalty. Will Obama be brought down too?

    pic.twitter.com/Vai2s5xXwn

    -- 🇺🇸 Beyond Reproach 🇺🇸 (@BeyondReproach5) April 30, 2020

    Will Comey do time?

    Imagine having your life and reputation ruined by rogue US govt. officials. Then years later when the plot finally comes to light the first thing you do is post an American flag. This is the guy they wanted you to believe was a Russian asset. 🙄 https://t.co/TI768Vijn2

    -- Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) April 30, 2020
    * * *

    Via SaraACarter.com,

    U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan unsealed four pages of stunning FBI emails and handwritten notes Wednesday, regarding former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, which allegedly reveal the retired three star general was targeted by senior FBI officials for prosecution, stated Flynn's defense attorney Sidney Powell. Those notes and emails revealed that the retired three-star general appeared to be set up for a perjury trap by the senior members of the bureau and agents charged with investigating the now-debunked allegations that President Donald Trump's campaign colluded with Russia, said Sidney Powell, the defense lawyer representing Flynn.

    Moreover, the Department of Justice release 11 more pages of documents Wednesday afternoon, according to Powell.

    While we await Judge Sullivan's order to unseal the exhibits from Friday, the government has just provided 11 more pages even more appalling that the Friday production. We have requested the redaction process begin immediately. @GenFlynn @BarbaraRedgate pic.twitter.com/YPEjZWbdvo

    -- Sidney Powell 🇺🇸⭐⭐⭐ (@SidneyPowell1) April 29, 2020

    "What is especially terrifying is that without the integrity of Attorney General Bill Barr and U.S. Attorney Jensen , we still would not have this clear exculpatory information as Mr. Van Grack and the prosecutors have opposed every request we have made," said Powell.

    It appears, based on the notes and emails that the Department of Justice was determined at the time to prosecute Flynn, regardless of what they found, Powell said.

    "The FBI pre-planned a deliberate attack on Gen. Flynn and willfully chose to ignore mention of Section 1001 in the interview despite full knowledge of that practice," Powell said in a statement.

    "The FBI planned it as a perjury trap at best and in so doing put it in writing stating 'what is our goal? Truth/ Admission or to get him to lie so we can prosecute him or get him fired."

    The documents, reviewed and obtained by SaraACarter.com , reveal that senior FBI officials discussed strategies for targeting and setting up Flynn, prior to interviewing him at the White House on Jan. 24, 2017. It was that interview at the White House with former FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok and FBI Special Agent Joe Pientka that led Flynn, now 61, to plead guilty after months of pressure by prosecutors, financial strain and threats to prosecute his son.

    Powell filed a motion earlier this year to withdraw Flynn's guilty plea and to dismiss his case for egregious government misconduct. Flynn pleaded guilty in December 2017, under duress by government prosecutors, to lying to investigators about his conversations with Russian diplomat Sergey Kislyak about sanctions on Russia. This January, however, he withdrew his guilty plea in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. He stated that he was "innocent of this crime" and was coerced by the FBI and prosecutors under threats that would charge his son with a crime. He filed to withdraw his guilty plea after DOJ prosecutors went back on their word and asked the judge to sentence Flynn to up to six months in prison, accusing him of not cooperating in another case against his former partner. Then prosecutors backtracked and said probation would be fine but by then Powell, his attorney, had already filed to withdraw his guilty plea.

    The documents reveal that prior to the interview with Flynn in January, 2017 the FBI had already come to the conclusion that Flynn was guilty and beyond that the officials were working together to see how best to corner the 33-year military veteran and former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency. The bureau deliberately chose not to show him the evidence of his phone conversation to help him in his recollection of events, which is standard procedure. Even stranger, the agents that interviewed Flynn later admitted that they didn't believe he lied during the interview with them.

    Powell told this reporter last week that the documents produced by the government are "stunning Brady evidence' proving Flynn was deliberately set up and framed by corrupt agents at the top of the FBI to target President Trump.

    She noted earlier this week in her motion that the evidence "also defeats any argument that the interview of Mr. Flynn on January 24 was material to any 'investigation.' The government has deliberately suppressed this evidence from the inception of this prosecution -- knowing there was no crime by Mr. Flynn."

    Powell told this reporter Wednesday that the order by Sullivan to unseal the documents in Exhibit 3 in the supplement to Flynn's motion to dismiss for egregious government conduct is exposing the truth to the public. She said it's "easy to see that he was set up and that Mr. Flynn was the insurance policy for the FBI." Powell's reference to the 'insurance policy,' is based on one of the thousands of texts exchanged by former FBI lawyer Lisa Page and her then-lover former FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok.

    In an Aug. 15, 2016, text from Strzok to Page he states, "I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's (former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe) office -- that there's no way he gets elected -- but I'm afraid we can't take that risk. It's like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before 40."

    The new documents were turned over to Powell, by U.S. Attorney Timothy Shea. They were discovered after an extensive review by the attorneys appointed by U.S. Attorney General William Barr to review Flynn's case, which includes U.S. Attorney of St. Louis, Jeff Jensen.

    In one of the emails dated Jan. 23, 2017, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, who at the time was having an affair with Strzok and who worked closely with him on the case discussed the charges the bureau would bring on Flynn before the actual interview at the White House took place. Those email exchanges were prepared for former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who was fired by the DOJ for lying multiple times to investigators with DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz's office.

    Former FBI Director James Comey, who was fired by President Trump for his conduct, revealed during an interview with Nicolle Wallace last year that he sent the FBI agents to interview Flynn at the White House under circumstances he would have never done to another administration.

    "I probably wouldn't have done or maybe gotten away with in a more organized investigation, a more organized administration," Comey said. "In the George W. Bush administration or the Obama administration, two men that all of us, perhaps, have increased appreciation for over the last two years."

    In the Jan 23, email Page asks Strzok the day before he interviews Flynn at the White House:

    "I have a question for you. Could the admonition re 1001 be given at the beginning at the interview? Or does it have to come following a statement which agents believe to be false? Does the policy speak to that? (I feel bad that I don't know this but I don't remember ever having to do this! Plus I've only charged it once in the context of lying to a federal probation officer). It seems to be if the former, then it would be an easy way to just casually slip that in.

    "Of course as you know sir, federal law makes it a crime to "

    Strzok's response:

    I haven't read the policy lately, but if I recall correctly, you can say it at any time. I'm 90 percent sure about that, but I can check in the am.

    In the motion filed earlier this week, Powell stated "since August 2016 at the latest, partisan FBI and DOJ leaders conspired to destroy Mr. Flynn. These documents show in their own handwriting and emails that they intended either to create an offense they could prosecute or at least get him fired. Then came the incredible malfeasance of Mr. Van Grack's and the SCO's prosecution despite their knowledge there was no crime by Mr. Flynn."

    Attached to the email is handwritten notes regarding Flynn that are stunning on their face. It is lists of how the agents will guide him in an effort to get him to trip up on his answers during their questioning and what charges they could bring against him.

    "If we get him to admit to breaking the Logan Act, give facts to DOJ & have them decide," state the handwritten notes.

    "Or if he initially lies, then we present him (not legible) & he admits it, document for DOJ, & let them decide how to address it."

    The next two points reveal that the agents were concerned about how their interview with Flynn would be perceived saying "if we're seen as playing games, WH (White House) will be furious."

    "Protect our institution by not playing games," t he last point on the first half of the hand written notes state.

    From the handwritten note:

    Afterwards:

    • interview
    • I agreed yesterday that we shouldn't show Flynn (redacted) if he didn't admit
    • I thought @ it last night, I believe we should rethink this
    • What is (not legible) ? Truth/admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?
    • we regularly show subjects evidence, with the goal of getting them to admit their wrongdoing
    • I don't see how getting someone to admit their wrongdoing is going easy on him
    • If we get him to admit to breaking the Logan Act, give facts to DOJ & have them decide
    • Or if he initially lies, then we present him (not legible) & he admits it, document for DOJ, & let them decide how to address it
    • If we're seen as playing games, WH will be furious
    • Protect our institution by not playing games

    (Left column)

    • we have case on Flynn & Russians
    • Our goal is to (not legible)
    • Our goal is to determine if Mike Flynn is going to tell the truth or if he lies @ relationship w/ Russians
    • can quote (redacted)
    • Shouldn't (redacted

    Review (not legible) stand alone

    It appears evident from an email from former FBI agent Strzok, who interviewed Flynn at the White House to then FBI General Counsel James Baker, who is no longer with the FBI and was himself under investigation for leaking alleged national security information to the media.

    The email was a series of questions to prepare McCabe for his phone conversation with Flynn on the day the agents went to interview him at the White House. These questions would be questions that Flynn may ask McCabe before sending the agents over to interview him.

    Email from Peter Strzok, cc'd to FBI General Counsel James Baker: (January 24, 2017)

    I'm sure he's thought through these, but for DD's (referencing Deputy Director Andrew McCabe) consideration about how to answer in advance of his call with Flynn:

    Am I in trouble?

    Am I the subject of an investigation?

    Is it a criminal investigation?

    Is it an espionage investigation? Do I need an attorney? Do I need to tell Priebus? The President?

    Will you tell Priebus? The President? Will you tell the WH what I tell you?

    What happens to the information/who will you tell what I tell you? Will you need to interview other people?

    Will our interview be released publically? Will the substance of our interview be released?

    How long will this take (depends on his cooperation – I'd plan 45 minutes)? Can we do this over the phone?

    I can explain all this right now, I did this, this, this [do you shut him down? Hear him out? Conduct the interview if he starts talking? Do you want another agent/witness standing by in case he starts doing this?]

    Thanks,
    Pete

    [May 01, 2020] 'Dirty cop Comey got caught!' Trump unloads on FBI after documents reveal effort to set up General Flynn -- RT USA News

    May 01, 2020 | www.rt.com

    President Donald Trump has bashed former FBI Director James Comey, after unsealed documents revealed an agency plot to entrap Gen. Michael Flynn in a bid to take down the Trump presidency. "DIRTY COP JAMES COMEY GOT CAUGHT!" Trump tweeted on Thursday morning, in one of a series of tweets lambasting the FBI's prosecution of retired army general Michael Flynn, which he called a "scam."

    DIRTY COP JAMES COMEY GOT CAUGHT!

    -- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 30, 2020

    Flynn served as Trump's national security adviser in the first days of the Trump presidency, before he was fired for allegedly lying about his contact with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

    An FBI investigation followed, and several months later, Flynn pleaded guilty to Special Counsel Robert Mueller about lying during interviews with agents. He has since tried to withdraw the plea, citing poor legal defense and accusing the FBI and Obama administration of setting him up from the outset.

    Documents unsealed by a federal judge on Wednesday seem to support that argument. In one handwritten note, dated the same day as Flynn's FBI interview in January 2017, the unidentified note-taker jots down some potential strategies to use against the former general.

    "We have a case on Flynn + Russians," the note reads. "What's our goal? Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?"

    #FLYNN docs just unsealed, including handwritten notes 1/24/2017 day of Flynn FBI interview. Transcript: "What is our goal? Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?" Read transcript notes, copy original just filed. @CBSNews pic.twitter.com/8oqUok8i7m

    -- Catherine Herridge (@CBS_Herridge) April 29, 2020

    The unsealed documents also include an email exchange between former agent Peter Strzok and former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, in which the pair pondered whether to remind Flynn that lying to federal agents is a crime. Page and Strzok were later fired from the agency, after a slew of text messages emerged showing the pair's mutual disdain for Trump, and discussing the formulation of an "insurance policy" against his election.

    Flynn's discussions with Kislyak were deemed truthful by former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. Additionally, a Washington Post article published the day before Flynn's January 2017 interview revealed that the FBI had tapped his calls with the Russian ambassador and found "nothing illicit."

    Still, Section 1001 of the US Criminal Code, which makes it illegal to lie to a federal agent, is broad in its scope. Defense Attorney Solomon Wisenberg wrote that "even a decent person who tries to stay out of trouble can face criminal exposure under Section 1001 through a fleeting conversation with government agents."

    [May 01, 2020] Early January 2017 Recommendation To Close Case on General Flynn Rebuffed by FBI Leaders by Larry C Johnson - Sic Semper Tyrann

    May 01, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    Early January 2017 Recommendation To Close Case on General Flynn Rebuffed by FBI Leaders by Larry C Johnson

    The document dump from the Department of Justice on the Michael Flynn case continues and the information is shocking and damning. It is now clear why previous leaders of the Department of Justice (Sessions and Rosenstein) and current FBI Director Wray tried to keep this material hidden. There is now no doubt that Jim Comey and Andy McCabe help lead and direct a conspiracy to frame Michael Flynn for a "crime" regardless of the actual facts surrounding General Flynn's conduct.

    The most stunning revelation from today's document release is that the FBI agents who investigated Michael Flynn aka "Crossfire Razor" RECOMMENDED on the 4th of January 2017 that the investigation of Flynn be closed. Let that sink in. The FBI agents investigating Flynn found nothing to justify either a criminal or counter-intelligence investigation more than two weeks before Donald Trump was inaugurated as President. Yet, FBI Director Jim Comey and Deputy Director McCabe, with the help of General Counsel Jim Baker, Assistant Director for Counter Intelligence Bill Priestap, Lisa Page and Peter Strzok decided to try to manufacture a crime against Flynn.

    The documents released on Wednesday made clear that as of January 21st, the FBI Conspirators were scrambling to find pretext for entrapping and charging General Flynn. Here is the transcription of Bill Priestap's handwritten notes:

    Apologists for these criminal acts by FBI officials insist this was all routine. "Nothing to see here." "Move along." Red State's Nick Arama did a good job of reporting on the absurdity of this idiocy ( see here ). Former US Attorney Andy McCarthy cuts to the heart of the matter:

    "They did not have a legitimate investigative reason for doing this and there was no criminal predicate or reason to treat him [Flynn] like a criminal suspect," McCarthy explained.

    "They did the interview outside of the established protocols of how the FBI is supposed to interview someone on the White House staff. They are supposed to go through the Justice Department and the White House counsel's office. They obviously purposely did not do that and they were clearly trying to make a case on this."

    "For years, a number of us have been arguing that this looked like a perjury trap," McCarthy said.

    Today's (Thursday) document dump reinforces the validity of McCarthy's conclusion that this was a concocted perjury trap. The key document is the "Closing Communication" PDF dated 4 January 2017. It is a summary of the FBI's investigation of Crossfire Razor (i.e., Mike Flynn). The document begins with this summary:

    The FBI opened captioned case based on an articulable factual basis that Crossfire Razor (CR) may wittingly or unwittingly be involved in activity on behalf of the Russian Federation which may constitute a federal crime or threat to the national security. . . . Specifically, . . . CR had ties to various state-affiliated entities of the Russian Federation, as reported by open source information; and CR traveled to Russia in December 2015, as reported by open source information.

    The Agent conveniently fails to mention that Flynn's contacts with Russia in December 2015 were not at his initiative but came as an invitation from his Speaker's Bureau. Moreover, General Flynn, because he still held TS/SCI clearances, informed the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) of the trip, received permission to make the trip and, upon returning to the United States from Russia, was fully debriefed by DIA. How is that an indicator of posing a threat to the national security of the United States?

    The goal of the investigation is stated very clearly on page two of the document:

    . . . to determine whether the captioned subject, associated with the Trump campaign, was directed and controlled by and/or coordinated activities with the Russian federation in a manner which is a threat to the national security and/or possibly a violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, 18 U.S.C. section 951 et seq, or other related statutes.

    And what did the FBI find? NOTHING. NADA. ZIPPO. The Agent who wrote this report played it straight and the investigation in the right way. He or she concluded:

    The Crossfire Hurricane team determined that CROSSFIRE RAZOR was no longer a viable candidate as part of the larger CROSSFIRE HURRICANE umbrella case. . . . The FBI is closing this investigation. If new information is identified or reported to the FBI regarding the activities of CROSSFIRE RAZOR, the FBI will consider reopening the investigation if warranted.

    This document is dated 4 January 2017. But Peter Strzok sent a storm of text messages to the Agent who drafted the report asking him to NOT close the case.

    This is not how a normal criminal or counter-intelligence case would be conducted. Normally you would have actual evidence or "indicia" of criminal or espionage activity. But don't take me word for it. Jim Comey bragged about this outrageous conduct:

    https://www.youtube.com/embed/NxNhjFrjXqI

    Comey is a corrupt, sanctimonious prick. I suspect he may not think what he did was so funny in the coming months. He may have forgotten saying this stupidity, but the video remains intact.

    The documents being released over the last week provide great insight into Attorney General William Barr's strategy. He is not going to entertain media debates and back-and-forth with the apologists for treason. He is letting the documents speak for themselves and ensuring that US Attorneys--who are not part of the fetid, Washington, DC sewer--review the documents and procedures used to prosecute political figures linked to President Trump. Then those documents are legally and appropriately released. Barr is playing by the rules.

    We are not talking about the inadvertent discovery of an isolated mistake or an act of carelessness. The coup against Trump was deliberate and the senior leadership of the FBI actively and knowingly participated in this plot. Exposing and punishing them remains a top priority for Attorney General Barr, who understands that a failure to act could spell the doom of this Republic.


    Keith Harbaugh , 30 April 2020 at 07:49 PM

    My opinion on what the people who so vilely persecuted the American patriot General Flynn deserve;
    https://youtu.be/cHw4GER-MiE
    TV , 30 April 2020 at 08:20 PM
    No indictments.
    Not for this bunch of swamp rats.
    One set of laws for the swamp, another for America.
    And now the same swamp - the bureaucrat pinhead version - are destroying the economy and shutting down the country?.
    Why?
    Terrible decisions based on worse "data" AND tank the economy and Trump's re-election chances.
    blue peacock , 30 April 2020 at 08:22 PM
    Flynn has been bankrupted. He has fought valiantly to restore his honor ALONE. His fate is in many ways in the hands of Judge Sullivan.

    Trump other than tweet has done what for someone that brought military and national security cred to his campaign? Let's not forget that Flynn was fired ostensibly for lying to VP Pence. Exactly what the putschists wanted to accomplish.

    turcopolier , 30 April 2020 at 08:44 PM
    blue peacock
    Flynn is a nice Irish Catholic boy from Rhode Island whose father a retired MP staff sergeant and branch manager of a local bank successfully cultivated the ROTC staff at U of RI so that his two sons were given army ROTC scholarships in management, something their father could understand. Michael and his brother, both generals are NOT members of the WP club and therefore available for sacrifice. Michael Flynn occupied a narrow niche in Military Intelligence. He was a targeting guy in the counter-terrorism bidness and rode that train to the top without much knowledge or experience of anything else. He and his boss Stan McChrystal, soul mates. He was singularly unqualified to be head of one of the major agencies of the IC. IMO Martin Dempsey, CJCS (a member of the WP club) used Flynn to stand up to Brennan's CIA and the NSC nuts at the WH while standing back in the shade himself. That is why Obama cautioned Trump to be wary of North Korea and Michael Flynn. And this "innocent" was then mousetrapped by people he thought were patriots.
    Fred , 30 April 2020 at 08:48 PM
    Blue,

    True then, but what was not expected was Trump neither resigning nor being impeached nor getting a new AG who would launch the Durham investigation. I wonder what FISA warrants are out related to the Chinese virus and associated communications with US and Chinese nationals. At least we don't have Obama's cast of characters involved in that, unless we have his "j.v." team.

    Jack , 30 April 2020 at 10:27 PM
    Someone that doesn't show up much in The NY Times or the Washington Post now but was the central character in numerous scurrilous stories. Svetlana Lokhova was falsely slandered for having an affair with Gen.Flynn and accused as a Russian agent by CIA/FBI agent Stefan Halper.
    What we learned today from the STUNNING document release in the case of @GenFlynn 1. FBI opened a full-blown counterintelligence investigation in 2016 on the ex head of the Defense Intelligence Agency while he was working for a political campaign based on one piece of false intel

    https://twitter.com/realslokhova/status/1256026733377093643?s=21

    Its mind blowing the vast tentacles of this conspiracy at the highest levels of our law enforcement and intelligence agencies. It is even more mind blowing that the miscreants have profited so handsomely with book deals, media sinecures, GoFundMe campaigns. None have been prosecuted.

    Complete banana republic territory.

    [May 01, 2020] It Took COVID To Expose the Fraud of 'American Exceptionalism' by Daniel Larison

    Notable quotes:
    "... The New York Times ..."
    Apr 30, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com
    |

    12:01 am

    Our leaders were so preoccupied with remaking the world they failed to see that our country was falling apart around them. Has the time come to bury the conceit of American exceptionalism? In an article for the American edition of The Spectator , Quincy Institute President Andrew Bacevich concludes just that:

    The coronavirus pandemic is a curse. It should also serve as an opportunity, Americans at long last realizing that they are not God's agents. Out of suffering and loss, humility and self-awareness might emerge. We can only hope.

    The heart of the American exceptionalism in question is American hubris. It is based on the assumption that we are better than the rest of the world, and that this superiority both entitles and obligates us to take on an outsized role in the world.

    In our current foreign policy debates, the phrase "American exceptionalism" has served as a shorthand for justifying and celebrating U.S. dominance, and when necessary it has served as a blanket excuse for U.S. wrongdoing. Seongjong Song defined it in an 2015 article for The Korean Journal of International Studies this way: "American exceptionalism is the belief that the US is "qualitatively different" from all other nations." In practice, that has meant that the U.S. does not consider itself to be bound by the same rules that apply to other states, and it reserves the right to interfere whenever and wherever it wishes.

    American exceptionalism has been used in our political debates as an ideological purity test to determine whether certain political leaders are sufficiently supportive of an activist and interventionist foreign policy. The main purpose of invoking American exceptionalism in foreign policy debate has been to denigrate less hawkish policy views as unpatriotic and beyond the pale. The phrase was often used as a partisan cudgel in the previous decade as the Obama administration's critics tried to cast doubt on the former president's acceptance of this idea, but in the years since then it has become a rallying point for devotees of U.S. primacy regardless of party. There was an explosion in the use of the phrase in just the first few years of the 2010s compared with the previous decades. Song cited a study that showed this massive increase:

    Exceptionalist discourse is on the rise in American politics. Terrence McCoy (2012) found that the term "American exceptionalism" appeared in US publications 457 times between 1980 and 2000, climbing to 2,558 times in the 2000s and 4,172 times in 2010-12.

    The more that U.S. policies have proved "American exceptionalism" to be a pernicious myth at odds with reality, the more we have heard the phrase used to defend those policies. Republican hawks began the decade by accusing Obama of not believing in this "exceptionalism," and some Democratic hawks closed it out by "reclaiming" the idea on behalf of their own discredited foreign policy vision. There may be differences in emphasis between the two camps, but there is a consensus that the U.S. has special rights and privileges that other nations cannot have. That has translated into waging unnecessary wars, assuming excessive overseas burdens, and trampling on the rights of other states, and all the while congratulating ourselves on how virtuous we are for doing all of it.

    The contemporary version of American exceptionalism is tied up inextricably with the belief that the U.S. is the "indispensable nation." According to this view, without U.S. "leadership" other countries will be unable or unwilling to respond to major international problems and threats. We have seen just how divorced from reality that belief is in just the last few months. There has been no meaningful U.S. leadership in response to the pandemic, but for the most part our allies have managed on their own fairly well. In the absence of U.S. "leadership," many other countries have demonstrated that they haven't really needed the U.S. Our "indispensability" is a story that we like to tell ourselves, but it isn't true. Not only are we no longer indispensable, but as Micah Zenko pointed out many years ago, we never were.

    It was 22 years ago when then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright publicly declared the United States to be the "indispensable nation": "If we have to use force, it is because we are America; we are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future, and we see the danger here to all of us."

    In a recent interview with The New York T imes, Albright sounded much less sure of her old position: "There's nothing in the definition of indispensable that says "alone." It means that the United States needs to be engaged with its partners. And people's backgrounds make a difference." Albright's original statement was an aggressive assertion that America was both extraordinarily powerful and unusually farsighted, and that legitimized the frequent U.S. recourse to using force.

    After two decades of calamitous failures that have highlighted our weaknesses and foolishness, even she can't muster up the old enthusiasm that she once had. No one could look back at the last 20 years of U.S. foreign policy and still honestly say that "we see further" into the future than others. Not only are we no better than other countries at anticipating and preparing for future dangers, but judging from the country's lack of preparedness for a pandemic we are actually far behind many of the countries that we have presumed to "lead." It is impossible to square our official self-congratulatory rhetoric with the reality of a government that is incapable of protecting its citizens from disaster.

    The poor U.S. response to the pandemic has not only exposed many of the country's serious faults, but it has also caused a crisis of faith in the prevailing mythology that American political leaders and pundits have been promoting for decades. This found expression most recently in a rather odd article in The New York Times last week. The framing of the story makes it into a lament for a collapsing ideology:

    The pandemic sweeping the globe has done more than take lives and livelihoods from New Delhi to New York. It is shaking fundamental assumptions about American exceptionalism -- the special role the United States played for decades after World War II as the reach of its values and power made it a global leader and example to the world.

    The curious thing about this description is that it takes for granted that "fundamental assumptions about American exceptionalism" haven't been thoroughly shaken long before now. The "special role" mentioned here was never going to last forever, and in some respects it was more imaginary than real. It was a period in our history that we should seek to understand and learn from, but we also need to recognize that it was transitory and already ended some time ago.

    If American exceptionalism is now "on trial," as another recent article put it , it is because it offered up a pleasing but false picture of how we relate to the rest of the world. Over the last two decades, we have seen that picture diverge more and more from real life. The false picture gives political leaders an excuse to take reckless and disastrous actions as long as they can spin them as being expressions of "who we are" as a country. At the same time, they remain blind to the country's real vulnerabilities. It is a measure of how powerful the illusion of American exceptionalism is that it still has such a hold on so many people's minds even now, but it has not been a harmless illusion.

    While our leaders have been patting themselves on the back for the enlightened "leadership" that they imagine they are providing to the world, they have neglected the country's urgent needs and allowed many parts of our system to fall into disrepair and ruin. They have also visited enormous destruction on many other countries in the name of "helping" them. The same hubris that has warped foreign policy decisions over the decades has encouraged a dangerous complacency about the problems in our own country. We can't let that continue. Our leaders were so preoccupied with trying to remake other parts of the world that they failed to see that our country was falling apart all around them.

    American exceptionalism has been the story that our leaders told us to excuse their neglect of America. It is a flattering story, but ultimately it is a vain one that distracts us from protecting our own country and people. We would do well if we put away this boastful fantasy and learned how to live like a normal nation.

    [May 01, 2020] Deep State as Deep Corruption.

    May 01, 2020 | www.unz.com

    Priss Factor , says: Website Show Comment April 29, 2020 at 5:22 pm GMT

    Here's something to be disillusioned about. Deep State as Deep Corruption.

    https://www.youtube.com/embed/0tO11hclNv8?feature=oembed

    But what happened to the Trump who was going to drain the swamp? He filled it with more sewage.
    He murdered Soleimani and interferes in Venezuelan politics in ways that Russia has been accused(falsely) of interfering in US politics.

    AaronInMVD , says: Website Show Comment April 29, 2020 at 9:45 pm GMT
    @Priss Factor I suspect the true backbreaker when it comes to disillusioning for me was seeing how thoroughly Trump was disconnected from the levers of power except for those few cases when he'd been surrounded by war lobby shills.

    Whatever welcome change Trump could have brought has been completely negated by the fact everyone he hired or could have hired is too stuck in the status quo to welcome change. Even the people he though could have been the "rebels" on his side lead him down that path of seeing Iranian ballistic missiles hitting US troop positions in Iraq.

    The only thing that might have worked would have been firing everyone he could during the first 7 days and filling as many posts as he could with clean cut (as opposed to neck bearded) alt-right 20-somethings.

    I voted for Trump, but Trump still wasn't enough to keep me in the US.

    [Apr 30, 2020] 'Get him to lie so we can prosecute him' New docs reveal FBI plan to set up General Flynn in perjury trap -- RT USA News

    Apr 29, 2020 | www.rt.com

    Newly unsealed documents indicate that the FBI targeted former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn for prosecution, showing senior officials at the bureau discussing ways to ensnare him in a "perjury trap" before an interview.

    The four pages of documents were unsealed by US District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan on Wednesday, revealing in handwritten notes and emails that the FBI's goal in investigating Flynn may have been "to get him to lie so we can prosecute him or get him fired."

    "The FBI planned it as a perjury trap at best and in so doing put it in writing," Flynn's defense attorney Sidney Powell said in a statement.

    Sullivan also ordered another 11 pages of documents unsealed, which, according to Powell , may soon be redacted and published.

    How they planned to get Flynn removed:1) Get Flynn "to admit to breaking the Logan Act"; or2) Catch Flynn in a lie.Their end goal was a referral to the DOJ - not to investigate Flynn's contacts with the Russians. pic.twitter.com/Vty3FYaSt9

    -- Techno Fog (@Techno_Fog) April 29, 2020

    The potentially exculpatory documents were inexplicably denied to Flynn's defense team for years, despite numerous requests to the government.

    "What is especially terrifying is that without the integrity of Attorney General Bill Barr and US Attorney Jensen, we still would not have this clear exculpatory information as ... the prosecutors have opposed every request we have made," Powell said.

    Also on rt.com Even if Michael Flynn's case is dismissed, don't expect the FBI to stop its political abuse of power

    [Apr 30, 2020] Even if Michael Flynn's case is dismissed, don't expect the FBI to stop its political abuse of power

    Apr 30, 2020 | www.rt.com

    The role of the FBI in instigating the prosecution of Michael Flynn, the criminality of its conduct, and the encouragement it received in doing so from senior Obama officials should offend everyone. In a dramatic new turn of events, the legal team for Flynn, President Trump's former national security advisor, says the Department of Justice has turned over exculpatory evidence in his case.Flynn is defending against charges he lied to FBI agents in the course of their investigation into allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election.

    At a minimum, this information, which includes evidence that US government prosecutors illegally coerced a guilty plea by threatening Flynn's son with prosecution, warrants the withdrawal of that guilty plea. Whether or not the judge in the case, US District Court Judge Emmet G Sullivan, will dismiss the entire case against Flynn on the grounds of prosecutorial misconduct is yet to be seen. One fact, however, emerges from this sordid affair: the FBI, lauded by its supporters as the world's "premier law enforcement agency," is anything but.

    Evidence of FBI misconduct during its investigation into alleged collusion between members of the Trump campaign team and the Russian government in the months leading up to the presidential election has been mounting for some time. From mischaracterizing information provided by former British MI6 officer Christopher Steele in order to manufacture a case against then-candidate Trump, to committing fraud against the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to authorize wiretaps on former low-level Trump advisor Carter Page, the FBI has a record of corruption that would make a third-world dictator envious.

    The crimes committed under the aegis of the FBI are not the actions of rogue agents, but rather part and parcel of a systemic effort managed from the very top – both former Director James Comey and current Director Christopher Wray are implicated in facilitating this criminal conduct. Moreover, it was carried out in collaboration with elements within the Department of Justice, and with the assistance of national security officials working for the Obama administration, making for a conspiracy that would rival any investigation conducted by the FBI under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

    The heart of the case against Michael Flynn – a flamboyant, decorated combat veteran, with 33 years of honorable service in the US Army – revolves around a phone call he made to the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak, on December 29, 2016. That was the same day then-President Obama ordered the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats from the US on charges of espionage. The conversation was intercepted by the National Security Agency as part of its routine monitoring of Russian communications. Normally, the identities of US citizens caught up in such surveillance are "masked," or hidden, so as to preserve their constitutional rights. However, in certain instances deemed critical to national security, the identity can be "unmasked" to help further an investigation, using "minimization" standards designed to protect the identities and privacy of US citizens.

    In Flynn's case, these "minimization" standards were thrown out the window: on January 12, 2017, and again on February 9, the Washington Post published articles that detailed Flynn's phone call with Kislyak. US Attorney John Durham, tasked by Attorney General William P Barr to lead a review of the actions taken by law enforcement and intelligence officials as part of the Russian collusion scandal, is currently investigating the potential leaking of classified information by Obama-era officials in relation to these articles.

    Trump 'strongly considering' Michael Flynn pardon, points at FBI 'conveniently losing' his records

    Flynn's phone call with Kislyak was the central topic of interest when a pair of FBI agents, led by Peter Strzok, met with Flynn in his White House office on January 24, 2017. This meeting later served as the source of the charge levied against him for lying to a federal agent. It also provided grist for then acting-Attorney General Sally Yates to travel to the White House on January 26 to warn then-White House Counsel Michael McGahn that Flynn had lied to Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations with Kislyak, and, as such, was in danger of being compromised by the Russians.

    That Flynn lied, or otherwise misrepresented, his conversation with Kislyak to Pence is not in dispute; indeed, it was this act that prompted President Trump to fire Flynn in the first place. But lying to the Vice President, while wrong, is not a crime. Lying to FBI agents, however, is. And yet the available evidence suggests that not only did Flynn not lie to Strzok and his partner when interviewed on January 24, but that the FBI later doctored its report of the interview, known in FBI parlance as a "302 report," to show that Flynn had. Internal FBI documents and official testimony clearly show that a 302 report on Strzok's conversation with Flynn was prepared contemporaneously, and that he had shown no indication of deception. However, in the criminal case prepared against him by the Department of Justice, a 302 report dated August 22, 2017 – over seven months after the interview – was cited as the evidence underpinning the charge of lying to a federal agent.

    Barr assigns outside prosecutor to review Russiagate's Michael Flynn's case – report

    The evidence of a doctored 302 report, when combined with the evidence that the US prosecutor conspired with Flynn's former legal counsel to "keep secret" the details of his plea agreement, in violation of so-called Giglio requirements (named after the legal precedent set in Giglio v. United States which holds that the failure to disclose immunity deals to co-conspirators constitutes a violation of due-process rights), constitutes a clear-cut case of FBI malfeasance and prosecutorial misconduct. Under normal circumstances, that should warrant the dismissal of the government's case against Flynn.

    Whether Judge Emmet G Sullivan will agree to a dismissal, or, if not, whether the Department of Justice would seek to retry Flynn, are not known at this time. What is known, however, is the level of corruption that exists within the FBI and elements of the Department of Justice, regarding their prosecution of a US citizen for purely political motive. Notions of integrity and fealty to the rule of law that underpin the opinions of many Americans when it comes to these two institutions have been shredded in the face of overwhelming evidence that the law is meaningless when the FBI targets you. If this could happen to a man with Michael Flynn's stature and reputation, it can happen to anyone.

    Andrew McCabe's case shows hypocrisy of Democrats claiming 'No one is above the law'

    Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer. 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

    The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

    [Apr 24, 2020] Ted Arison, the Israeli-American founder of Carnival [Covid] Cruise Line is among those appointed to advise president Trump on how to open up the US economy.

    Apr 24, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    Paul , Apr 23 2020 20:14 utc | 53

    Ted Arison, the Israeli-American founder of Carnival [Covid] Cruise Line is among those appointed to advise president Trump on how to open up the US economy. Perhaps, as music to the ears of a seasoned New York real estate shark, he will advise Trump to blame China and then default on the China debt mountain. Litigation pays as Arison is about to find out.

    https://www.afr.com/companies/tourism/carnival-knew-it-had-a-problem-but-it-kept-the-party-going-20200420-p54lbb

    [Apr 22, 2020] Especially as the insane neoliberal economy we live in, we are ruled by a group of kleptocrats and vicious stooges. Which make allegations against Biden deserving a closer look but that does not make them automatically credible

    Highly recommended!
    Notable quotes:
    "... The Progressive ..."
    Apr 22, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

    "Evidence" means testimony, writings, material objects, or other things presented to the senses that are offered to prove the existence or nonexistence of a fact. -- California Evidence Code sec 140


    JTMcPhee , April 21, 2020 at 6:19 pm

    ... ... ...

    Even the NYT acknowledged (before it erased the text in its story on Reade that noted there were no other sexual misconduct charges pending against him other than that long history of assaults and sniffing and hands-on, text removed by the Times at the instance of the Biden campaign staff?

    Here's the original text: " The Times found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden, beyond the hugs, kisses and touching that women previously said made them uncomfortable." Waiting for the apologists to tell us why the edit to remove the last clause starting "beyond " is just "Good journalism."

    He and Trump are bad examples of the male part of the species. Nothing to choose that I can see, other than who among the people that revise those bribes to them will be the first in line at the MMT watering hole

    just_kate , April 21, 2020 at 8:54 pm

    i had a lengthy discussion about this with my brother and sil, it came down to her saying I DON'T CARE ABOUT THAT re bidens history of being a ttl letch plus possible rapist and my brother questioning what is obvious discomfort in multiple video evidence.

    They said defeating trump was paramount to anything against biden. i simply give up at this point.

    cm , April 21, 2020 at 3:28 pm

    No mention of Brett Kavanaugh or Christine Blasey Ford in the article

    michael99 , April 21, 2020 at 6:30 pm

    The Heart-Wrenching Trauma of the Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh Hearings
    It's difficult. It hurts. It's unfair. But women will keep telling our stories.
    By Joan Walsh
    September 28, 2018

    lyman alpha blob , April 21, 2020 at 5:46 pm

    Lots of partisan hackery and TDS going around in the last few years in once respectable lefty publications. Mother Jones has gone completely to hell rather than raising any, as was once their mission statement. I haven't read the Nation as much in recent years – I let my subscription lapse a while ago as I found I just couldn't keep up with reading it. Coincidentally I think that was about the time I started reading NC. The Nation has a history of sheepdogging lefties to rally behind bad Dem candidates, which was another reason I didn't feel bad letting my subscription go.

    I do still have my subscription to Harper's but they were getting on my nerves quite a bit to the point I considered cancelling them too. Rebecca Solnit wrote some truly cringe-worthy editorials for them after Trump's election. They seem to have removed her from writing the main editorial so maybe I wasn't the only one who felt she left a little to be desired. I'm quite fond of the newer woman they have doing editorials, Lionel Shriver. She seems like she'd fit in quite well here!

    sierra7 , April 21, 2020 at 3:39 pm

    I left (pun intended) the Nation pub in the dust way back in the 1990's and buried it post 9/11. Used to be a real good alternative press pub 30-40 years ago. Somewhere along the line it lost it's way and joined the wishy-washy "gatekeeper' society of "approved news."
    RIP

    urblintz , April 21, 2020 at 3:33 pm

    Joan Walsh is a partisan fraud and The Nation's worst hire since . forever.

    Olga , April 21, 2020 at 8:09 pm

    The Nation was a sanity saviour back in late 70s and through 1980s; then something happened. Not clear when or what, but I know I let my subscription lapse. Tried again later, but it was never the same. It's mostly unbearable now, except for Stephen Cohen. Walsh has been in the unbearable category for many years now.

    Voltaire Jr. , April 21, 2020 at 10:08 pm

    Subscribed to The Nation and The Progressive in 1971. Read and learned for a decade or so, moved on. Also read every Henry George book I could.

    marku52 , April 21, 2020 at 3:59 pm

    Leonard Pitts just had an editorial in my local paper where he opined that even if Biden had sexually assaulted Reade, it didn't really matter because we had to vote against Trump.

    I wrote this in reply:
    So Leonard Pitts thinks that Biden's alleged sexual attack on Tara Reade isn't disqualifying, even if true. Strange, he didn't think that way about Brett Kavanagh. I didn't want to attack the columnist as a hypocrite without being sure, so I looked it up. Here is what he wrote:

    "It's a confluence of facts that speak painfully and pointedly to just how unseriously America takes men's predations against women. You might disagree, noting that the Senate Judiciary Committee has asked Ford to testify. But if history is any guide, that will prove to be a mere formality – a sop to appearances – before the committee recommends confirmation."

    Looks very much like "Well, It's excusable when our guys do it."

    Not to me.

    ( Here is the link to his first opinion piece)
    https://www.pressherald.com/2018/09/19/leonard-pitts-fairness-statute-has-not-run-out-on-allegations-against-kavanaugh/#

    jo6pac , April 21, 2020 at 4:32 pm

    The late Alexzander Cockburn would be most proud of this take down of joan walsh.

    I don't read the nation and I'm sorry that LP feels that way.

    Thanks Lambert and NC

    I'll be voting Green again without Bernie in the race.

    Reply

    Watt4Bob , April 21, 2020 at 4:34 pm

    So disappointing.

    It was the Nation that helped wake me politically back in the early 1970s with their reporting on the Chilean coup, and later, the murder of Orlando Letelier, and Ronnie Moffet .

    Arguably, the first state-sponsored international terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

    It has has since morphed into cat box liner.

    Am I wrong to blame Katrina vanden Heuvel?

    kirk seidenbecker , April 21, 2020 at 5:43 pm

    Excuse me if this is a repeat –

    https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/04/evaluating-tara-reades-claims

    Reply

    OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL , April 21, 2020 at 5:46 pm

    Always had a crush on K v d Heuvel. (How's that for an opening to a post about misogyny and sexual misconduct)?

    But can't we disqualify Joe! as the craven proponent of the worst neo-lib policies that got us exactly where we are today? Or, in polite company, ask politely whether he is even in a mental state to hand over the keys to the to the family car, let alone the nuclear football?

    Let's take the Id out of IdPol, I don't care if the candidate has green skin and three eyes if the policies they would enact come within smelling distance of benefiting the 99% (or more precisely in Joe's case within hair smelling distance).

    We can use his personal conduct as a component in our judgement but pleeease can we focus on the stuff that would actually affect our lives. In his case, for the absolute worse.

    (Note: I sincerely doubt whether Joe is currently allowed to drive a car, please oh please Mr.God-Yahweh-Mohammed-Buddha-Obama can we not let him drive a nation).

    [Apr 21, 2020] A Government Against the People by Philip Giraldi

    Notable quotes:
    "... To be sure, Trump has good reason to hate the intelligence and national security community, which utterly rejected his candidacy and plotted to destroy both his campaign and, even after he was elected, his presidency ..."
    "... While it is not unusual for presidents to surround themselves with devoted yes-men, as Trump does with his spectacularly unqualified son-in-law Jared Kushner, his administration is nevertheless unusual in its tendency to apply an absolute loyalty litmus test to nearly everyone surrounding the president ..."
    "... Most damaging to consumer interests, the rot has also affected the so-called regulatory agencies that are supposed to monitor the potentially illegal activities of corporations and industries to protect the public. As University of Chicago economist George Stigler several times predicted, under both Obama and Trump advocates of ostensibly "regulated" corporations have taken over every U.S. federal regulatory agency . The captured U.S. government regulators now represent the interests of the corporations, not the public. This is more like government by a criminal oligarchy rather than of, by and for The People. ..."
    Apr 21, 2020 | www.unz.com

    The 24/7 intensified media coverage of the coronavirus story has meant that other news has either been ignored or relegated to the back pages, never to be seen again. The Middle East has been on a boil but coverage of the Trump administration's latest moves against Iran has been so insignificant as to be invisible. Meanwhile closer to home, the declaration by the ubiquitous Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that current president of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro is a drug trafficker did generate somewhat of a ripple, as did dispatch of warships to the Caribbean to intercept the alleged drugs, but that story also died.

    Of more interest perhaps is the tale of the continued purge of government officials, referred to as "draining the swamp," by President Donald Trump as it could conceivably have long-term impact on how policy is shaped in Washington. Prior to the virus partial lockdown, some of the impending shakeup within the intelligence community (IC) and Pentagon were commented on in the media, but developments since that time have been less reported, even when several inspectors-general were removed.

    To be sure, Trump has good reason to hate the intelligence and national security community, which utterly rejected his candidacy and plotted to destroy both his campaign and, even after he was elected, his presidency. Whether one argues that what took place was due to a "Deep state" or Establishment conspiracy or rather just based on personal ambition by key players, the reality was that a number of top officials seem to have forgotten the oaths they swore to the constitution when it came to Donald Trump.

    Be that as it may, beyond the musical chairs that have characterized the senior level appointments in the first three years of the Trump administration, there has been a concerted effort to remove "disloyal" members of the intelligence community, with disloyal generally being the label applied to holdovers from the Bush and Obama administrations. The February appointment of U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard "Ric" Grenell as interim Director of National Intelligence (DNI), a position that he will hold simultaneously with his ambassadorship, has been criticized from all sides due to his inexperience, history of bad judgement and partisanship. The White House is now claiming that he will be replaced by Texas Congressman John Ratcliffe after the interim appointment is completed.

    Criticism of Grenell for his clearly evident deficiencies misses the point, however, as he is not in place to do anything constructive. He has already initiated a purge of federal employees in the White House and national security apparatus considered to be insufficiently loyal, an effort which has been supported by National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Many career officers have been sent back to their home agencies while the new appointees are being drawn from the pool of neoconservatives that proliferated in the George W. Bush administration. Admittedly some prominent neocons like Bill Kristol have disqualified themselves for service with the new regime due to their vitriolic criticism of Trump the candidate, but many others have managed to remain politically viable by keeping their mouths shut during the 2016 campaign. To no one's surprise, many of the new employees being brought in are being carefully vetted to make sure that they are passionate supporters of Israel.

    While it is not unusual for presidents to surround themselves with devoted yes-men, as Trump does with his spectacularly unqualified son-in-law Jared Kushner, his administration is nevertheless unusual in its tendency to apply an absolute loyalty litmus test to nearly everyone surrounding the president, even several layers down into the administration where employees are frequently apolitical. As the Trump White House has not been renowned for its adroit policies and forward thinking, the loss of expertise will be hardly noticeable, but there will certainly be a reduction in challenges to group think while replacing officials in the law enforcement and inspector general communities will mean that there will be no one in a high enough position to impede or check presidential misbehavior. Instead, high officials will be principally tasked with coming up with rationalizations to excuse what the White House does.

    ... ... ...

    Subsequent to the defenestration of Atkinson, Trump went after another inspector general Glenn Fine, who was principal deputy IG at the Pentagon and had been charged with heading the panel of inspectors that would have oversight responsibility to certify the proper implementation of the $2.2 trillion dollar coronavirus relief package. As has been noted in the media, there was particular concern regarding the lack of transparency regarding the $500 billion Exchange Stabilizing Fund (ESF) that had been set aside to make loans to corporations and other large companies while the really urgently needed Small Business Loan allocation has been failing to work at all except for Israeli companies that have lined up for the loans. The risk that the ESF would become a slush fund for companies favored by the White House was real, and several investigative reports observed that Trump business interests might also directly benefit from the way it was drafted.

    Four days after the firing of Atkinson, Fine also was let go to be replaced by the EPA inspector general Sean O'Donnell, who is considered a Trump loyalist. On the previous day the tweeter-in-chief came down on yet another IG, the woman responsible for Health and Human Services Christi Grimm, who had issued a report stating that the her department had found "severe" shortages of virus testing material at hospitals and "widespread" shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare workers. Trump quipped to reporters "Where did he come from, the inspector general. What's his name?"

    On the following day, Trump unleashed the tweet machine, asking "Why didn't the I.G., who spent 8 years with the Obama Administration (Did she Report on the failed H1N1 Swine Flu debacle where 17,000 people died?), want to talk to the Admirals, Generals, V.P. & others in charge, before doing her report. Another Fake Dossier!"

    A comment about foxes taking over the hen house would not be amiss and one might also note that the swamp is far from drained. A concerted effort is clearly underway to purge anyone from the upper echelons of the U.S. government who in any way contradicts what is coming out of the White House. Inspectors general who are tasked with looking into malfeasance are receiving the message that if they want to stay employed, they have to toe the presidential line, even as it seemingly whimsically changes day by day. And then there is the irony of the heads at major agencies like Environmental Protection now being committed to not enforcing existing environmental regulations at all.

    Most damaging to consumer interests, the rot has also affected the so-called regulatory agencies that are supposed to monitor the potentially illegal activities of corporations and industries to protect the public. As University of Chicago economist George Stigler several times predicted, under both Obama and Trump advocates of ostensibly "regulated" corporations have taken over every U.S. federal regulatory agency . The captured U.S. government regulators now represent the interests of the corporations, not the public. This is more like government by a criminal oligarchy rather than of, by and for The People.

    Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected] .


    Exile , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 2:28 am GMT

    I yield to no one in my contempt for the fraud-failure of God Emperor Bush III but the author has to be aware that talk of "impeachable" offenses is meaningless in American politics.

    There has never been and never will be an impeachment effort that's not primarily political rather than process-motivated. It's an up-or-down vote based on a partisan head-counting and opportunism and public dissatisfaction. All the Article-this-and-that is Magic Paper Talmudry.

    Trump is a somewhat rogueish, somewhat rival Don and faction-head in the same criminal (((Commission))) that's been running America for well over a century. He's Jon Gotti to their Carlo Gambino, and his gauche nouveaux-elite style offends the sensibilities of the more snobbish Davoise, but he's just angling for a seat at the table and a cut of the spoils, not a return of power to the people.

    Impeachment would serve no purpose but what we've seen so far with Russiagate, etc.. – a sideshow distraction from the real backroom, long-knife action going down, ala the "settling scores" montage in Godfather III.

    Getaclue , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 5:48 am GMT
    "To be sure, Trump has good reason to hate the intelligence and national security community, which utterly rejected his candidacy and plotted to destroy both his campaign and, even after he was elected, his presidency." -- Yes to this. This is OBVIOUS to all but the dullest rubes or those who are in on it and trying to escape what they tried to do in attempting to over throw the US Government. The rest?

    Once you have this stated– that an actual Coup which was certainly plotted/sprung by the last occupant of the Presidency along with Clinton, Brennan, Comey, and many other NWO Globalists throughout the Government (FBI, CIA, DOJ ) and outside of it (the Globalist NWO MEDIA) the rest is drivel -- they tried to take him out–JFK they used a bullet, here not yet– so to say he shouldn't put in people he absolutely trusts at this time into any position he can? Are you kidding or what? You can't be serious– I've actually had someone try and kill me they were quite serious about it– my reaction after was not anything like what I see you suggesting or mirrored in your "analysis". This is how the CIA "counsels" in response to a murderous Coup -- an attempt to overthrow the duly elected Government?

    How do you overreact to a group of the most powerful people in the World getting together to try to murder you? That's your argument basically– he's over reacting to that? He shouldn't have "Loyalists". He needs to work with these other people -- the ones who want to murder him -- keep some of those "non-Loyalists" on board who time after time have plotted against him in every way possible during the last nearly 4 years?

    You seem to be one strange dude from my life's vantage point any way, what a perspective .Maybe you would actually deal with people of this magnitude trying to destroy you in the way you state but no sane/fairly intelligent person would -- I can't get past you have that sentence in there and then follow it with all the rest -- you seem to live in some alternate reality where when someone tries to murder you the right reaction is to blow it off and work with them– give them another few shots at you– say what? You learned this from your years at the CIA– this is how they train/advise things like this should be dealt with up at Langley? Or is it just wishful thinking on your part that they get another shot at him?

    mark green , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 6:33 am GMT

    While it is not unusual for presidents to surround themselves with devoted yes-men, as Trump does with his spectacularly unqualified son-in-law Jared Kushner, his administration is nevertheless unusual in its tendency to apply an absolute loyalty litmus test to nearly everyone surrounding the president

    True enough. Trump has also injected into Washington his own nest of swamp creatures and Wall St. bigwigs. However it is also true that Trump has been under unrelenting attack since the day he announced his candidacy. This is not fair. With the possible exception of Nixon, I've never seen a more ruthless campaign by political insiders to demean a public figure.

    But to whom must Trump show ceaseless and attentive loyalty to?–no matter what?

    https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/proclamation-days-remembrance-victims-holocaust-2020/

    chris , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 6:51 am GMT
    @onebornfree Absolutely!

    I can't get too worked up about the firing of the prison guards; I rather enjoy the charade.

    The real problem is that: 'It's the system, stupid!' and no amount of tinkering or puting the 'right' people in these positions will ever do anything more than just changing the illusion that something is being done.

    It reminds me a little of that late Soviet Union film "Burned by the Sun" about Stalin's purges of the criminals that had ridden his coat tails to power. Try as the movie makers did, I could not and would not feel an ounce of sorrow for those (these) scumbags who had wielded immoral, arbitrary, and disproportionate power over their subjects.

    gotmituns , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 10:17 am GMT
    The government has been against the people for my entire lifetime (I'm an old man now). One of the only glimmers of light in that time, JFK was snuffed out. After all, who did he think he was, trying to stop the elites from having their war in Vietnam?
    Z-man , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 10:24 am GMT
    He (Trump) should have purged all of the Obama appointees on day one.
    The Vindman twins are a perfect example of the Deep State.
    While I can understand your loathing of Trump's middle East policies, I do also, what he has blatantley done vis a vis the Zionist Entity is very little different than what slick Obama did under the table, outside of the Iran deal.
    And to tell you the truth, as much as I loathe Israel the Iran deal was definitely flawed and should have been more advantageous to America and the West. Iran should have seen the advantages of totally relinquishing nuclear weapons even with mad Zionists in their neighborhood. They could have still kept their ballistic missiles, sans nuclear tips.
    Realist , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 11:31 am GMT
    @Getaclue The idea that Trump is fighting the Deep State is ludacris this is a charade if the Deep State didn't want Trump to be President he wouldn't be. Trump is a Deep State minion. No matter the existential threat to the US the 1% get richer and the 99% get poorer.
    Realist , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 11:40 am GMT
    @Z-man

    He (Trump) should have purged all of the Obama appointees on day one.

    That supposes that Trump is not a Deep Stater as was Obama this is a poor supposition.

    Iran should have seen the advantages of totally relinquishing nuclear weapons even with mad Zionists in their neighborhood. They could have still kept their ballistic missiles, sans nuclear tips.

    Ballistic missiles, sans nuclear tips are useless. Did anybody care when North Korea had ballistic missiles before they had something worthwhile to put on the tip? Hell no.

    fatmanscoop , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 12:29 pm GMT
    Trump has had two open coup attempts in three years, and a constant barrage of leaks etc. His purges are clearly at least three years too late.

    Also, to an outsider, it's strange how some right-wing American journalists write in a way which indicates that they have faith in the due process, checks-and-balances etc afforded by the American system. I don't understand how any American right-winger could maintain their faith in the U.S. political system, it seems corrupt approaching the point that it is beyond-repair.

    A123 , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 12:51 pm GMT
    Barack Hussein was Against The People

    Trump's MAGA For The People efforts, must take steps to undo the damage done by the prior criminal admistration.

    Here is an detailed explanation of how Barack Hussein intentionally undermined the rule of law:(1)

    Aside from the date the important part of the first page is the motive for sending it. The DOJ is telling the court in July 2018: based on what they know the FISA application still contains "sufficient predication for the Court to have found probable cause" to approve the application. The DOJ is defending the Carter Page FISA application as still valid.

    However, it is within the justification of the application that alarm bells are found. On page six the letter identifies the primary participants behind the FISA redactions:

    DOJ needed to protect evidence Mueller had already extracted from the fraudulent FISA authority. That's the motive.

    In July 2018 if the DOJ-NSD had admitted the FISA application and all renewals were fatally flawed Robert Mueller would have needed to withdraw any evidence gathered as a result of its exploitation. The DOJ in 2018 was protecting Mueller's poisoned fruit.

    If the DOJ had been honest with the court, there's a strong possibility some, perhaps much, of Mueller evidence gathering would have been invalidated and cases were pending. The solution: mislead the court and claim the predication was still valid.

    I am not sure why Giraldi is defending Barack Hussein and Hillary Clinton's behaviour & staff choices. All rational human beings see the damage that Hillary created at the State Department.

    PEACE
    _______

    (1) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/04/17/declassified-doj-letter-to-fisa-court-highlights-severe-institutional-corruption-doj-blames-fbi-for-spygate/

    [Apr 19, 2020] His first and most precious redeeming feature is his crude, brazenly outspoken directness, which aggravates and strains psychopathic relations with close mafia colleagues (i.e. "allies"), opens the eyes of potential doubters, and stirs to a fever the passions of the US's many opponents and victims

    Apr 19, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    BM , Apr 18 2020 6:13 utc | 174

    A rant it certainly is.

    Whilst most of the text is basically true, it never at any point rises above the level of a rant. And whilst I agree that Trump is a malicious and incompetent psychopath and pathological liar, I disagree that he has no redeeming features.

    His first and most precious redeeming feature is his crude, brazenly outspoken directness, which aggravates and strains psychopathic relations with close mafia colleagues (i.e. "allies"), opens the eyes of potential doubters, and stirs to a fever the passions of the US's many opponents and victims.

    His second most important redeeming feature is his incompetence and his proclivity to surround himself by retarded idiots blinded by their hippocracy, bigotry and hubris.

    Together, these two valuable redeeming features serve to accelerate the high speed train leading to the inevitably and amply deserved collapse of Empire.

    In his maliciousness, his incompetence, his psychopathic behaviour, his pathological lying, his brutal scheming, his avidly undertaken crimes against humanity, and his gross inhumanity he differs not one single iota from all other US presidents in living memory if not beyond. All that differentiates him from those other presidents are his redeeming features. We would do well to bear that in mind when judging him. That is in sharp contrast to the slimy suave lies and crafty covering up of Obomber, from whom he differs in no other respect.

    It is very unfortunate about the Covid-19 outbreak, but that too may have a potential redeeming feature - maybe, just maybe, we will be able to see the collapse of Empire without war. Or even if there is a war initiated by these crazed psychopaths, in their drunken Covid-19 laden stupors, maybe the US military will simply fizzle out like a damp firework under their weight of gross incompetence, ineptitude and Covid-19 enstranglement.

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you a toast: to the collapse of Empire, may it be speedy and thorough, like a high speed train crashing headling into a cliff, and may it be without war!


    There, a rant in reply to a rant! Alas, MoA is not at its finest hour.

    [Apr 18, 2020] Endless NYT Propaganda War on Russia by Stephen Lendman

    Apr 18, 2020 | stephenlendman.org

    Endless NYT Propaganda War on Russia

    by Stephen Lendman ( stephenlendman.orgHome – Stephen Lendman )

    The Times long ago abandoned journalism the way it's supposed to be. All the news it claims fit to print isn't fit to read.

    Its daily editions feature state-approved managed news misinformation and disinformation -- notably against sovereign independent nations on the US target list for regime change.

    Russia notably has been a prime target since its 1917 revolution, ending its czarist dictatorship.

    Except during WW II and Boris Yeltsin's 1990s rule, Times anti-Russia propaganda was and remains relentless, notably throughout the Vladimir Putin era, the nation's most distinguished ever political leader.

    When Yeltsin died in April 2007, the Times shamefully called him "a Soviet-era reformer the country's democratic father and later a towering figure of his time as the first freely elected leader of Russia, presiding over the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the demise of the Communist Party (sic)."

    He presided over Russia's lost decade. Under him, over half the population became impoverished.

    His adoption of US shock therapy produced economic genocide. GDP plunged 50%. Life expectancy fell sharply.

    Democratic freedoms died. An oligarch class accumulated enormous wealth.

    Western interests profited at the expense of millions of exploited Russians.

    Yeltsin let corruption and criminality flourish. One scandal followed others. Grand theft became sport. So did money laundering.

    Billions in stolen wealth were secreted in Western banks and offshore tax havens.

    A critic reviled him, saying throughout much of his tenure, he "slept, drank, was ill, relaxed, didn't show his face before the people and simply did nothing," adding:

    "Despised by the majority of (Russians, he'll) go down in history as the first president of Russia, having corrupted (the country) to the breaking point, not by his virtues and or by his defects, but rather by his dullness, primitiveness, and unbridled power lust of a hooligan."

    He was a Western/establishment media favorite, notably by the Times, mindless of the human misery and economic wreckage he caused.

    Putin is a preeminent world leader, towering over his inferior Western counterparts, especially in the US, why the Times reviles him.

    On Monday, its propaganda machine falsely accused him of waging a long war on US science, claiming he's promoting disinformation to "encourage the spread of deadly illnesses (sic)."

    Not a shred of evidence was presented because none exists. The Times' disinformation report was slammed in a preceding article.

    On Wednesday, the self-styled newspaper of record was at it again -- reactivating the Big Lie that won't die, saying with no corroborating evidence that "Russia may have sown disinformation in a dossier used to investigate a former Trump campaign aide (sic)," adding:

    "Carter Page, a former Trump campaign aide with numerous links to Russia was probably a Russian agent (sic)."

    Disinformation the Times cited came from former UK intelligence agent Christopher Steele's dodgy dossier, financed by the DNC and Hillary campaign.

    Its spurious accusations were exposed as fake news, notably phony accusations of Russian US election interference that didn't happened.

    Probes by Robert Mueller, House and Senate committees found no credible evidence of an illegal or improper Trump campaign connection to Russia or election interference by the Kremlin -- because there was none of either.

    According to the Times, Steele's dodgy dossier "was potentially influenced by a 'Russian disinformation campaign to denigrate US foreign relations,' " citing FBI Big Lies as its source.

    Another article on Russia this week claimed "many people who don't work for the government or in deep-pocketed state enterprises face economic devastation," adding:

    Domestic violence increased because of social distancing and sheltering in place.

    Not mentioned in the article is that mass unemployment and other COVID-19 fallout affect Western and other countries adversely.

    Putin was slammed for sending COVID-19 aid to the US, calling it "a propaganda coup for the Kremlin -- tempered by an intensifying epidemic at home."

    Outbreaks in Russia are a small fraction of US numbers, around 21,000 through Wednesday -- compared to nearly 650,000 in the US and over 28,000 deaths.

    Spain, Italy, France, Germany and Britain have five-to-eightfold more outbreaks than Russia.

    NYC has over 110,000 cases. In the NY, NJ, CT tristate area, around 300,000 cases were reported, almost as many COVID-19 deaths as outbreaks in Russia -- through Wednesday.

    Putin is dealing with what's going on responsibly, stressing "we certainly must not relax, as long as outbreaks occur.

    A paid holiday is in effect through end of April for Russian workers, likely to be extended if needed.

    Essential workers continue on the job -- at home if able, otherwise operating as before.

    National efforts continue to control outbreaks, aid ordinary Russians at a time of duress, and work to restore more normal conditions.

    While dealing with outbreaks at home, Russia supplied Italy, Serbia, and the US with aid to combat the virus.

    Yet Pompeo falsely accused Russia, China, and Iran with spreading disinformation about COVID-19.

    Gratitude and good will aren't US attributes, just the opposite.

    [Apr 17, 2020] The WHO provided validated working test kits on 16th of January. The USA botched the delopyment due to CDC incompetence and NIH syndrom

    Highly recommended!
    The USA government was paralyzed by Ukrainegate and impeachment in January.
    Notable quotes:
    "... Another factor was that any real measures against the virus were a huge blow to the neoliberal globalization and the USA as the central force that pushed neoliberal globalization was vary to implement them. ..."
    "... Pentagon treatment of the USS Theodor Roosevelt epidemic was worse than incompetent because clearly, this was just the tip of the iceberg. Instead of looking into the core problem, they decided to find a scapegoat. Why they did not react as soon as problems on Diamond Princess surfaced are unclear to me. They failed even to provide masks. That's simply incredible. I think a bunch of perfumed princes of Pentagon needs to be fired. I wonder what is the situation on submarines. ..."
    Apr 17, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com
    Ulenspiegel | 17 April 2020 at 07:18 AM
    The WHO provided validated working test kits on 16th of January.

    Even if I am not happy with the Chinese policy overall, the main problem in most advanced western countries was and still is that the response of the governments are often poor:

    1. Not implementing a coherent communication strategy. It does not make sense when one minister tells that the virus situation is an real issue and another minister tell you at the same time that everything is not so bad.
    2. Downplaying the infection numbers for domestical political reasons. Complete lack of understanding of an exponential function or more precise the combination of an virus operating on an exponential function, while the own resources are more or less a constant.
    3. Too late start of testing, be it a result of faulty administrative structures, rooky mistakes during test kit development or combination of both.

    Fighting a virus is like warfare on the operational level, you start with incomplete information, but have to make important decisions, time is a very important resource, lost time is almost impossible to regain.

    likbez , 17 April 2020 at 12:22 PM

    @Ulenspiegel | 17 April 2020 at 07:18 AM

    Fighting a virus is like warfare on the operational level, you start with incomplete information, but have to make important decisions, time is a very important resource, lost time is almost impossible to regain.
    Very true. But we should not forget the role of Pelosi in this mess: Trump administration was partially paralyzed in January by impeachment proceedings. She acted like the fifth column in this respect.

    Another factor was that any real measures against the virus were a huge blow to the neoliberal globalization and the USA as the central force that pushed neoliberal globalization was vary to implement them.

    IMHO, Trump demonstrated some level of courage by closing flights from China on Jan 31. I guess pressure to postpone this measure further was tremendous. But they missed the time, and it was too late.

    3) Too late start of testing, be it a result of faulty administrative structures, rooky mistakes during test kit development, or a combination of both.
    That's true, and the CDC needs to be investigated for this blunder. But also implementing social distancing measures and the obligatory wearing of masks in large cities was completely botched.

    Retired persons can be quarantined without a major blow to the economy. And that should have been done first. The nursing homes are starkly vulnerable to the coronavirus. It was clear from the beginning. That means that the medical personnel in them need to be provided with full protection gear and isolated with patients. That was not done. On the contrary, they became hotspots that spread the disease.

    Treatment of medical personnel, who along with patients in nursing homes are the most vulnerable category, was abysmal. No free hotel stay (for those without children), no special transportation and free meals were provided for them. Even basic protection equipment was absent in home hospitals until late March.

    The USA did not have strategic storage of masks and, which is more important, equipment to make them and materials from which they are made. That was a big blunder for which previous administrations also share responsibility.

    Pentagon treatment of the USS Theodor Roosevelt epidemic was worse than incompetent because clearly, this was just the tip of the iceberg. Instead of looking into the core problem, they decided to find a scapegoat. Why they did not react as soon as problems on Diamond Princess surfaced are unclear to me. They failed even to provide masks. That's simply incredible. I think a bunch of perfumed princes of Pentagon needs to be fired. I wonder what is the situation on submarines.

    [Apr 17, 2020] Declassified Horowitz Footnotes Show Obama Officials Knew Steele Dossier Was Russian Disinfo Designed To Target Trump Zero He

    Highly recommended!
    Notable quotes:
    "... Authored by Sara Carter via SaraACarter.com, ..."
    "... "Having reviewed the matter, and having consulted the heads of the relevant Intelligence Community elements, I have declassified the enclosed footnotes." ..."
    "... , and that they were the product of RIS (Russian Intelligence Services) ..."
    Apr 17, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    Authored by Sara Carter via SaraACarter.com,

    Systemic FBI Effort To Legitimize Steele and Use His Information To Target POTUS

    Newly declassified footnotes from Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz's December FBI report reveals that senior Obama officials, including members of the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane team knew the dossier compiled by a former British spy during the 2016 election was Russian disinformation to target President Donald Trump.

    Further, the partially declassified footnotes reveal that those senior intelligence officials were aware of the disinformation when they included the dossier in the Obama administration's Intelligence Communities Assessment (ICA).

    As important, the footnotes reveal that there had been a request to validate information collected by British spy Christopher Steele as far back as 2015, and that there was concern among members of the FBI and intelligence community about his reliability. Those concerns were brushed aside by members of the Crossfire Hurricane team in their pursuit against the Trump campaign officials, according to sources who spoke to this reporter and the footnotes.

    The explosive footnotes were partially declassified and made public Wednesday, after a lengthy review by the Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell's office. Grenell sent the letter Wednesday releasing the documents to Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa and Sen. Ron Johnson, R- Wisconsin, both who requested the declassification.

    "Having reviewed the matter, and having consulted the heads of the relevant Intelligence Community elements, I have declassified the enclosed footnotes." Grenell consulted with DOJ Attorney General William Barr on the declassification of the documents.

    Grassley and Johnson released a statement late Wednesday stating "as we can see from these now-declassified footnotes in the IG's report, Russian intelligence was aware of the dossier before the FBI even began its investigation and the FBI had reports in hand that their central piece of evidence was most likely tainted with Russian disinformation."

    "Thanks to Attorney General Barr's and Acting Director Grenell's declassification of the footnotes, we know the FBI's justification to target an American Citizen was riddled with significant flaws," the Senator stated. "Inspector General Michael Horowitz and his team did what neither the FBI nor Special Counsel Mueller cared to do: examine and investigate corruption at the FBI, the sources of the Steele dossier, how it was disseminated, and reporting that it contained Russian disinformation."

    The Footnotes

    A U.S. Official familiar with the investigation into the FBI told this reporter that the footnotes "clearly show that the FBI team was or should have had been aware that the Russian Intelligence Services was trying to influence Steele's reporting in the summer of 2016, and that there were some preferences for Hillary; and that this RIS [Russian Intelligence Services] sourced information being fed to Steele was designed to hurt Trump."

    The official noted these new revelations also "undermines the ICA on Russian Interference and the intent to help Trump. It undermines the FISA warrants and there should not have been a Mueller investigation."

    https://www.scribd.com/embeds/456702034/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll&access_key=key-FfQY6LojXtyOnkGw6OiJ

    Russian's Appeared To Have Preferred Clinton

    The footnotes also reveal a startling fact that go against Brennan's assessment that Russia was vying for Trump, when in fact, the Russians appeared to be hopeful of a Clinton presidency.

    "The FBI received information in June, 2017 which revealed that, among other things, there were personal and business ties between the sub-source and Steele's Primary Sub-source, contacts between the sub-source and an individual in the Russian Presidential Administration in June/July 2016 [redacted] and the sub source voicing strong support for candidate Clinton in the 2016 U.S. election. The Supervisory Intel Analyst told us that the FBI did not have a Section 702 vicarage on any other Steele sub-source."

    Steele's Lies

    The complete four pages of the partially redacted footnotes paint a clear picture of the alleged malfeasance committed by former FBI Director James Comey, former DNI James Clapper and former CIA Director John Brennan, who were all aware of the concerns regarding the information supplied by former British spy Christopher Steele in the dossier. Steele, who was hired by the private embattled research firm Fusion GPS, was paid for his work through the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee. The FBI also paid for Steele's work before ending its confidential source relationship with him but then used Obama DOJ Official Bruce Ohr as a go between to continue obtaining information from the former spy.

    In footnote 205, for instance, payment documents show that Steele lied about not being a Confidential Human Source.

    "During his time as an FBI CHS, Steele received a total of $95,000 from the FBI," the footnote states. "We reviewed the FBI paperwork for those payments, each of which required Steele's Signed acknowledgement. On each document, of which there were eight, was the caption 'CHS payment' and 'CHS Payment Name.' A signature page was missing for one of the payments."

    Footnote 350

    In footnote 350, Horowitz describes the questionable Russian disinformation and the FBI's reliance on the information to target the Trump campaign as an attempt to build a narrative that campaign officials colluded with Russia. Further, the timeline reveals that Comey, Brennan and Clapper were aware of the disinformation by Russian intelligence when they briefed then President-elect Trump in January, 2017 on the Steele dossier.

    "[redacted] In addition to the information in Steele's Delta file documenting Steele's frequent contacts with representatives for multiple Russian oligarchs, we identified reporting the Crossfire Hurricane team received from [redacted] indicating the potential for Russian disinformation influencing Steele' election reporting," stated the partially declassified footnote 350. "A January 12, 2017 report relayed information from [redacted] outlining an inaccuracy in a limited subset of Steele's reporting about the activities of Michael Cohen. The [redacted] stated that it did not have high confidence in this subset of Steele's reporting and assessed that the referenced subset was part of a Russian disinformation campaign to denigrate U.S. foreign relations.

    A second report from the same [redacted] five days later stated that a person named in the limited subset of Steele's reporting had denied representations in the reporting and the [redacted] assessed that the person's denials were truthful. A USIC report dated February 27, 2017, contained information about an individual with reported connections to Trump and Russia who claimed that the public reporting about the details of Trump's sexual activities in Moscow during a trip in 2013 were false , and that they were the product of RIS (Russian Intelligence Services) 'infiltrate[ing] a source into the network' of a [redacted] who compiled a dossier of that individual on Trump's activities. The [redacted] noted that it had no information indicating that the individual had special access to RIS activities or information," according to the partially declassified footnote.

    Looming Questions

    Another concern regarding Steele's unusual activity is found in footnote 210, which states "as we discuss in Chapter Six, members of the Crossfire Hurricane Team were unaware of Steele's connections to Russian Oligarch 1."

    The question remains that "Steele's unusual activity with 10 oligarch's led the FBI to seek a validation review in 2015 but one was not started until 2017," said the U.S. Official to this reporter. "Why not? Was Crossfire Hurricane aware of these concerns? Was the court made aware of these concerns? Didn't the numerous notes about sub sources and sources having links or close ties to Russian intelligence so why didn't this set off alarm bells?"

    More alarming, it's clear, Supervisory Intelligence Agent Jonathan Moffa says in June 17, that he was not aware of reports that Russian Intelligence Services was aware of Steele's election reporting and influence efforts.

    "However, he should have been given the reporting by UCIS" which the U.S. Official says, goes back to summer 2016.

    Footnote 342 makes it clear that "in late January, 2017, a member of the Crossfire Hurricane team received information [redacted] that RIS [Russian Intelligence Services] may have targeted Orbis."

    [Apr 17, 2020] Barr just said the Russia collusion probe was a travesty, had no basis and was intended to sabotage Trump.

    Highly recommended!
    Apr 17, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    AMERICA-HYSTERICA. US Attorney General Barr just said the Russia collusion probe was a travesty, had no basis and was intended to sabotage Trump . All true of course. May we take this as a sign that at last (at last!) Durham is ready to go with indictments? Or will it prove to be another false alarm? There's certainly a lot to reveal: A recent investigation showed that every FISA application (warrant to spy on US citizens) examined had egregious deficiencies. It's not just Trump.

    MEANINGLESSNESS. Remember the Steele dossier? Now it's being spun as Russian disinformation . So we're now supposed to believe that Putin smeared Trump because he really wanted Clinton to win? Gosh, that Putin guy is so clever that it's impossible to figure out what he's doing!

    COVID BLAME I. Back in the day I read a certain amount of Soviet propaganda about the wicked West. And, while it was quite often over the top, pretty monotonous and probably – judging from what ex-Soviets have told me – not all that effective in the long run, it usually had, buried deep inside, a tiny kernel of reality. Western anti-Russia propaganda, on the other hand, is nothing but free-association nonsense. Take the NYT's latest: the headline alone tells you it's crap: " Putin's Long War Against American Science: A decade of health disinformation promoted by President Vladimir Putin of Russia has sown wide confusion, hurt major institutions and encouraged the spread of deadly illnesses ." Another difference was that Soviet propaganda at least ran on the assumption that the Soviet system was preferable: this, on the other hand, is a pitiful attempt to blame the US COVID failure on somebody else. Nonetheless, this is not rock-bottom for the NYT's anti-Russian fantasies: that target was hit a couple of years ago with " Trump and Putin: A Love Story ". (But, the goalposts keep moving: if you accuse a Dem of Trumpish grabbing, you're probably a Putinbot .) I guess it will only get more: " The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born; now is the time of monsters ."

    COVID BLAME II. Maybe it's not Putin or Xi who's to blame: maybe it's your own propaganda outlet: " VOA too often speaks for America's adversaries -- not its citizens... VOA has instead amplified Beijing's propaganda. "

    [Apr 11, 2020] Trump was Bill Clinton project which went wrong

    Apr 11, 2020 | off-guardian.org

    DunGroanin

    Trump isn't a Republican – he was NOT a politician before his presidency!

    If anything Donald was a Democrat supporter – one of these liberal New York types – so happilly derided by rednecks acroos that demented continent. A big supporter of Hillary and golfing buddy of Bill.

    Trump's job was to destroy the nominees of the Republican party and be installed as their candidate so that he would then easily lose against Hillary – by being obnoxious and populist and sexist!

    It was all part of her coronation – her right, she has been an operator all her life and her marriage was of a couple of psychopaths hot housed to attain the chief executive role for the Pathocracy – she started as a Republican.

    The whole pantomime was choreographed including the stalking on stage and the 'lock her up' shtick, probably by Bill with his mesmeric political sensibility; a lot of the potus' tweets too, with their simplistic genius.

    Unfortunately the plan didn't work because the Dems couldn't control their own grassroots and young activists – the leaks of the plot to steal the nomination. And because Psycho Hillary is no Bill and couldn't campaign her way out of a wet paper bag!

    She asked the mirror who the prettiest of them was?

    The reply was the Donald! He couldn't turn round and say he was only kidding and Hillary should get it could he?

    So he ended up being the Chair of the Board of American Interests!
    All the board positions taken by the ceo's of the lobby finance – no need for proxies when they could get in without political experience just like their President – Tillerson ceo of Exxon Mobile at State! Hell who needs Hillary when he can drive himself. All the neocon shithead psychos from the last 40 years. Bolton.

    BUT – something seems to have gone wrong in the grand setup – maybe how General Flynn was targeted immediately.

    Donald maybe realised that he was expected to put new blood on his hands – start new wars. He probably realised that the Clintons weren't as straight with him as they claimed, he probably understood that the neocons foisted upon him were the same and he probably got the gen on the fake plot of Russiagate and attacks on him personally being carried on in panic by the three lettered agencies to have him resign and let their man Pence in before it was too late to put the boots on the ground in Iran, Damascus and Ukraine – take on Russia! and incite the North Koreans causing a conflagration on that front and with the Uyghurs on the other front take in China!
    And send in the troops in Venezuela!

    A full on World War.

    He seemed a bit shaken when he came out of the long briefing with Obama at the White House and appears to have decided that – he wouldn't be rubber stamping the shitshows that his 'pals' the Clintons were deep into and he wouldn't be blackmailed by the western security services conspiracy against him and his family – so his inauguration speech was something unexpected and ought to be watched again !

    "That was some weird shit" dumb pres dubya got caught saying live, to his DS cold eyed assassin daddy president as they left the platform!

    Yup – Trumps the nearest thing to an Independent President the US has had since JFK (and maybe Carter).

    I'd only consider Paul and Gabbard as the only viable alternative non deep state owned politicians independents who could be the game changers from a hundred years of FED owned and run exceptionalism.

    Trump inadvertently has found himself to be in the right place at the right time – luckily for most of us in the world.

    ( I don't know whether the Clintons and Trumps are still great buddies or he fired them!)


    Eric McCoo ,

    Fantastic. Couldn't agree more..

    New York Times

    Did Bill (Clinton) tell you that you should run?" I asked.

    "He didn't say one way or the other," Trump replied, over a plate of meatballs.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/06/magazine/when-hillary-and-donald-were-friends.html

    Eric McCoo ,

    Donald Trump isn't a politician. He has mostly been a Democrat during his lifetime and given more money to them.

    "Until 2008, Trump Was a Big Democratic Donor

    He donated more than $10,000 to Hillary Clinton between 2002 and 2007, and Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., is his top beneficiary, raking in $18,350 over the years".

    https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/articles/2016-01-14/donald-trump-donated-to-democrats-until-2008

    Eric McCoo ,

    How the Hillary Clinton campaign deliberately "elevated" Donald Trump with its "pied piper" strategy

    An email released by WikiLeaks shows how the Democratic Party purposefully "elevated" Trump to "leader of the pack"

    "We need to be elevating the Pied Piper candidates so that they are leaders of the pack and tell the press to them seriously," the Clinton campaign concluded.

    http://www.salon.com/2016/11/09/the-hillary-clinton-campaign-intentionally-created-donald-trump-with-its-pied-piper-strate

    [Apr 06, 2020] Notwithstanding the current occupant of the White House, Crozier was correct

    Captain Crozier was in an untenable catch-22 situation. Would the USS Roosevelt have suffered a similar casualty if it's skipper stayed within his chain of command in attempting to address the burgeoning virus aboard that very well may have impacted it's crews ability to operate safely? Capt Crozier's naval career was damned if he did and damned if he didn't (ie catch-22). Capt Crozier made the right decision in putting the health/lives of sailors aboard the Roosevelt ahead of 7th Fleets need to check boxes.
    Notable quotes:
    "... I am circling around to the view that Crozier's actions were correct, honorable, and laudable, and that they also created a situation that made it impossible for the Navy, notwithstanding the current occupant of the White House, to keep him in his position. ..."
    "... The difference between a competent administration and the one we have is that Crozier would not have felt compelled to go outside the chain of command, the SecNav would not be "acting," and the Acting SecNav would not have been so terrified of his own President that he would have acted precipitously against the captain. ..."
    "... There is a disheartening present trend on who is promoted (and what comprises their value set) within organizations in America at present. ..."
    Apr 06, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

    Portland Sooner4 hours ago

    Robert Farley at LGM has an interesting post on Crozier,
    I am circling around to the view that Crozier's actions were correct, honorable, and laudable, and that they also created a situation that made it impossible for the Navy, notwithstanding the current occupant of the White House, to keep him in his position.

    The difference between a competent administration and the one we have is that Crozier would not have felt compelled to go outside the chain of command, the SecNav would not be "acting," and the Acting SecNav would not have been so terrified of his own President that he would have acted precipitously against the captain.

    But decisions with strategic consequences should lie firmly with the very senior leadership of the armed forces, and the civilians that the leadership serves.

    https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2020/04/crozier-considerations

    Tom Sadlowski Portland Sooneran hour ago
    Thank you for that link. I agree with that assessment, and I would extend that circumstance to other departments within our government, and into other sectors like business, education, and non-profits. There is a disheartening present trend on who is promoted (and what comprises their value set) within organizations in America at present.

    [Apr 05, 2020] Trump Fires Ukrainegate Inspector General Who Helped Initiate Impeachment

    Apr 05, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    President Trump on Friday fired the intelligence community inspector general, Michael Atkinson, who brought a hearsay whistleblower complaint to Congressional Democrats, kicking off President Trump's impeachment.

    Atkinson's closed-door testimony was so troubling to House Republicans that they launched an investigation into his role into what President Trump and his allies coined the 'impeachment hoax.'

    Ranking member of the House Intelligence Intelligence Committee Devin Nunes (R-CA) told SarahCarter.com that transcripts of Atkinson's secret testimony would expose that he either lied or needs to make corrections to his statements to lawmakers.

    Trump notified the Senate and House Intelligence Committees of his decision to fire Atkinson, according to Politico , citing two congressional officials and a copy of a letter dated April 3.

    "This is to advise that I am exercising my power as president to remove from office the inspector general of the intelligence community, effective 30 days from today," wrote Trump, who added that he "no longer" has the fullest confidence in Atkinson.

    "As is the case with regard to other positions where I, as president, have the power of appointment, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, it is vital that I have the fullest confidence in the appointees serving as inspectors general," Trump wrote. "That is no longer the case with regard to this inspector general."

    Trump knocked Atkinson on January, noting that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff's (D-CA) decision to withhold Atkinson's testimony was a "major problem."

    ....the Ukraine Hoax that became the Impeachment Scam. Must get the ICIG answers by Friday because this is the guy who lit the fuse. So if he wants to clear his name, prove that his office is indeed incompetent." @DevinNunes @MariaBartiromo @FoxNews The ICIG never wanted proof!

    -- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 12, 2020

    Democrats had a fit at the news, with Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D-VA) calling Atkinson's firing "unconscionable" while accusing Trump (with a straight face?) of an ongoing effort to politicize intelligence.

    "In the midst of a national emergency, it is unconscionable that the president is once again attempting to undermine the integrity of the intelligence community by firing yet another intelligence official simply for doing his job," wrote Warner in a statement.

    Warner's House counterpart, Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) called Atkinson's firing "retribution" in the "dead of night" - adding that it's "yet another blatant attempt by the president to gut the independence of the intelligence community and retaliate against those who dare to expose presidential wrongdoing."

    Senate Minority Leader Chuck 'six ways from Sunday' Schumer (D-NY) said Atkinson's firing was evidence that Trump "fires people for telling the truth," according to Politico .

    Whistleblower lawyer and Disneyland aficionado Mark Zaid - who once bragged about getting security clearances for pedophiles , called the firing "delayed retaliatory action" for Atkinson's "proper handling of a whistleblower complaint."

    "This action is disgraceful and undermines the integrity of the whistleblower system," said Zaid. "It is time GOP members of the Senate stand up for the rule of law and speak out against this president."

    The whistleblower complaint effectively kicked off the House's impeachment inquiry, which began in late September amid allegations that Trump had solicited foreign interference in the 2020 election when he asked Ukraine's president to investigate his political opponents, including Joe Biden.

    Atkinson opposed the decision by then-acting director of national intelligence Joseph Maguire to withhold the whistleblower complaint from the House and Senate intelligence committees -- in particular, Maguire's decision to seek guidance on the issue from the Justice Department, rather than turn it over to Congress as required by law. - Politico

    To learn more about Atkinson, read here and here .

    [Apr 02, 2020] Bloomberg spent north of $500 millions to become president with zero results, and you want me to believe that Russians spent 1% of that and got better results

    Highly recommended!
    Apr 02, 2020 | hub.jhu.edu

    PBO kenformerlyfromRI8 days ago ,

    There is no conspiracy, they didn't make up false documents to start a Russian investigation, oh wait they did.. I just read that Bloomberg spent north of $500,000,000.00 to become president and you want me to believe the Russians spent 1% of that and got better results.. You have to be a special kind of stupid.

    [Apr 02, 2020] Pelosi now looks completely idiotic with her impeachment trial

    In this case Trump is right: they really take the attention of Wuhan events. Pelosi should resign of be removed.
    Apr 02, 2020 | thehill.com

    Abron olepi 10 hours ago

    Trump is planning the blame game already. He's blaming Governors, stating that this is really a state and local issue.

    And he's blaming the impeachment trials, saying they took the focus off the virus, etc. etc.

    Always has to blame someone else. Oh, and Obama! Don't forget Obama!

    [Mar 29, 2020] 2020 election are the ultimate US Presidential election: the election in which people really have no one to vote for. Not even for fake choice like Trump and Hillary like in 2016. Absolutely none. It is "Perfect Election"

    Mar 29, 2020 | www.unz.com

    aandrews , says: Show Comment March 29, 2020 at 4:58 pm GMT

    " I always considered him a fraud for this (and many other) reasons. Now Tulsi Gabbard is doing the same thing ."

    There's really no one to vote for. I don't intend to bother. And they love it when people don't vote.

    [Mar 29, 2020] The essence of Trump's psychology is that he likes to dominate people. He accomplishes this by hiring incompetent psychopaths

    Mar 29, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    Timothy Hagios , Mar 28 2020 18:14 utc | 44

    The essence of Trump's psychology is that he likes to dominate people. He accomplishes this by hiring incompetent psychopaths who make him legitimately look good by comparison. This is why he's constantly overruling their worst plans. But once every so often, his incompetent underlings convince him to do something exceptionally stupid. This is because occasionally going along with them allows him to feel like a wise, discerning ruler who occasionally follows his advisors' guidance and occasionally overrules them.

    [Mar 27, 2020] Trump's about as innocent in the coronavirus fiasco as jack the ripper

    Mar 27, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    Miss Lacy , Mar 26 2020 20:32 utc | 35

    PS to vk # 1. Please think again. Trump has been in a trade war with China for what? a couple of years? AND, he specifically banned imports of medical supplies from China. Other posters wave supplied links for this idiocy.

    Trump's about as innocent as jack the ripper. You may just be seeing things relatively, as ghouls like Elliot Abrahms and disgusting Pomposity make Trump seen like an amateur.

    [Mar 26, 2020] The face of Trump in foreign policy is Pompeo and it is wicked, ungly face of a gangster

    Yet another Gofgather
    Notable quotes:
    "... The more I watch these moves by Pompeo the more sympathetic I become to the most sinister theories about COVID-19, its origins and its launch around the world. Read Pepe Escobar's latest to get an idea of how dark and twisted this tale could be . ..."
    March 24, 2020 < Older
    No Respite for the Wicked, Pompeo Unleashed Written by Tom Luongo Tuesday

    There are few things in this life that make me more sick to my stomach than watching Secretary of State Mike Pompeo talking. He truly is one of the evilest men I've ever had the displeasure of covering.

    Into the insanity of the over-reaction to the COVID-19 outbreak, Pompeo wasted no time ramping up sanctions on firms doing any business with Iran, one of the countries worse-hit by this virus to date.

    It's a seemingly endless refrain, everyday, more sanctions on Chinese, Swiss and South African firms for having the temerity in these deflating times to buy oil from someone Pompeo and his gang of heartless psychopaths disapprove of.

    This goes far beyond just the oil industry. Even though I'm well aware that Russia's crashing the price of oil was itself a hybrid war attack on US capital markets. One that has had, to date, devastating effect.

    While Pompeo mouths the words publicly that humanitarian aid is exempted from sanctions on Iran, the US is pursuing immense pressure on companies to not do so anyway while the State Dept. bureaucracy takes its sweet time processing waiver applications.

    Pompeo and his ilk only think in terms of civilizational warfare. They have become so subsumed by their big war for the moral high ground to prove American exceptionalism that they have lost any shred of humanity they may have ever had.

    Because for Pompeo in times like these to stick to his talking points and for his office to continue excising Iran from the global economy when we're supposed to be coming together to fight a global pandemic is the height of soullessness.

    And it speaks to the much bigger problem that infects all of our political thinking. There comes a moment when politics and gaining political advantage have to take a back seat to doing the right thing.

    I've actually seen moments of that impulse from the Democratic leadership in the US Will wonders never cease?!

    Thinking only in Manichean terms of good vs. evil and dehumanizing your opponents is actually costlier than reversing course right now. Because honey is always better at attracting flies than vinegar.

    But, unfortunately, that is not the character of the Trump administration.

    It can only think in terms of direct leverage and opportunity to hold onto what they think they've achieved. So, until President Trump is no longer consumed with coordinating efforts to control COVID-19 Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper are in charge of foreign policy. They will continue the playbook that has been well established.

    Maximum pressure on Iran, hurt China any way they can, hold onto what they have in Syria, stay in Iraq.

    To that end Iraqi President Barham Salei nominated Pompeo's best choice to replace Prime Minister Adil Abdel Mahdi to throw Iraq's future into complete turmoil. According to Elijah Magnier, Adnan al-Zarfi is a US asset through and through .

    And this looks like Pompeo's Hail Mary to retain US legal presence in Iraq after the Iraqi parliament adopted a measure to demand withdrawal of US troops from the country. Airstrikes against US bases in Iraq continue on a near daily basis and there have been reports of US base closures and redeployments at the same time.

    This move looks like desperation by Pompeo et.al. to finally separate the Hashd al-Shaabi from Iraq's official military. So that airstrikes against them can be carried out under the definition of 'fighting Iranian terrorism.'

    As Magnier points out in the article above if al-Zarfi puts a government together the war in Iraq will expand just as the US is losing further control in Syria after Turkish President Erdogan's disastrous attempt to remake the front in Idlib. That ended with his effective surrender to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

    The more I watch these moves by Pompeo the more sympathetic I become to the most sinister theories about COVID-19, its origins and its launch around the world. Read Pepe Escobar's latest to get an idea of how dark and twisted this tale could be .

    It is sad that, to me, I see no reason to doubt Pompeo and his ilk in the US government wouldn't do something like that to spark political and social upheaval in those places most targeted by US hybrid war tactics.

    But, at the same time, I can see the other side of it, a vicious strike back by China against its tormentors. And China's government does itself, in my mind, no favors threatening to withhold drug precursors and having officials run their mouths giving Americans the excuse they need to validate Trump and Pompeo's divisive rhetoric.

    Remaining on the fence about this issue isn't my normal style. But everyone is dirty here and the reality may well be this is a natural event terrible people on both sides are exploiting.

    And I can only go by what people do rather than what they say to assess the situation. Trump tries to buy exclusive right to a potential COVID-19 vaccine from a German firm and his administration slow-walks aid to Iran.

    China sends aid to Iran and Italy by the container full. Is that to salve their conscience over its initial suppression of information about the virus? Good question. But no one covers themselves in glory by using the confusion and distraction to attempt further regime change and step up war-footing during a public health crisis, manufactured or otherwise.

    While Pompeo unctuously talks the talk of compassion and charity, he cannot bring himself to actually walk the walk. Because he is a despicable, bile-filled man of uncommon depravity. His prosecuting a hybrid war during a public health crisis speaks to no other conclusion about him.

    It's clear to me that nothing has changed at the top of Trump's administration. I expect COVID-19 will not be a disaster for Trump and the US. It can handle this. But the lack of humanity shown by its diplomatic corps ensures that in the long run the US will be left to fend for itself when the next crisis hits.

    Reprinted with permission from Strategic Culture Foundation .


    Related

    [Mar 24, 2020] Trump owns hotels and casinos which will be devastated. that might explain his position on the virus and initial downplaying of the danger

    Mar 24, 2020 | www.unz.com

    Tor597 , says: Show Comment March 22, 2020 at 3:30 pm GMT

    Actually, Trump was downplaying Corona Virus as late as March 9th.

    https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1237027356314869761

    One thing I think played a role that is not mentioned is Trumps business that he owns. He owns hotels and casinos which will be devastated. Trump wont rule out government assistance for himself.

    For Trump to shut down the economy and produce an effective containment, he would have had to do this knowing that his own business would be devastated.

    https://mol.im/a/8138335

    [Mar 22, 2020] Best Coronavirus Trump Statements Timeline Synopsis Ever Put Together

    1 minute 22 second video with Trump statements in chonological order @ https://twitter.com/i/videos/tweet/1240985096838053889
    There is a saying the you fight the war with the army you have, not with the army you want.
    Notable quotes:
    "... Ok. Let me start by stating that I am not a "staunch" Trump supporter. However, I just really despise the constant visceral negative, hatred towards our Country's President. ..."
    "... As I am sure you are aware, it is a tremendously difficult job, especially in today's crisis. I would think it would be better serve of your time and efforts to be constructive and optimistic, and hopeful. Rather than pinpointed every single steps and missteps he makes. He is certainly no perfect - but his goal is the same as all of ours: to defeat this virus in the best manner possible with the resources available. ..."
    "... For the entire Trump Presidency it was all about the stock market. So, here we are. ..."
    Mar 22, 2020 | moneymaven.io

    Please play this.

    Anthony Scaramucci @Scaramucci

    I hope this is played everyday everywhere until Nov 8. Unless ⁦ @ realDonaldTrump ⁩ resigns as he should immediately.

    https://twitter.com/i/videos/tweet/1240985096838053889

    35.6K 8:54 AM - Mar 20, 2020 Twitter Ads info and privacy

    23.6K people are talking about this

    Mish

    20 hours ago Here is a 1 minute 22 second video timeline of Trump's amazing handling of the coronavirus.

    Please play this.

    It will take less than two minutes of your time.

    One missing key quote is a statement Trump made bragging about having natural talent coupled with a proclamation that he could have been a scientist instead of president.

    More Questions:

    • And where are the tests? The ventilators?
    • Who at the CDC or in the administration insisted the US needs to develop its own test instead of using an accurate test the rest of the world was already using?
    • What about Trump increasing sanction pressure on Iran in the midst of the biggest global humanitarian crisis since world war II?
    • And what about Trump's rating his administration's handling of this as "excellent".

    Mike "Mish" Shedlock

    njbr 20 hrs

    The dumb-asses in DC still don't get it. "Top" leaders crowding around a single microphone in a stage no larger than a public restroom. Working toward a 1 time $1200 check that probably wont be issued/delivered for another couple weeks. What about the weeks after that--are they going to spend the next couple weeks going around about the next check?? Has the production of ventilators actually been accelerated-who could tell from what has been said? Why are nurses and doctors in my area asking the public for donations of PPE at the very beginning of the serious phase? What happens when the doctors and nurses start tipping over? Two partially ready hospital ships may help in one spot each on the coast, but what about everywhere else? Has anyone even checked on the production capacity for the maybe helpful malaria medicine--has anyone been directed to begin proactive super-production of this product? On and on.

    DeeDee3 20 hrs

    hard to prove deliberate neglect when you eliminate all of the evidence. No testing means "no virus" and sadly supported the hoax theory.

    Another doc died in the city today. ER's are unprotected. what conclusion can we draw from all of this?

    Zardoz 20 hrs

    Thousands will die because of his incompetence... and his followers will blame the Chinese

    egilkinc 20 hrs

    There should be a tracker of the number of cases [among medical personnle] in the US along with this

    Sechel 20 hrs

    Oh my g-d. This is excellent! I think Trump has learned some bad lessons from Goebbels. Repeat the lie and repeat it often and people will take your version of events. This really serves to correct the record! Good work!

    PecuniaNonOlet 20 hrs

    And yet there will be an avalanche of Trump supporters defending the idiot. It is truly beyond me.

    michiganmoon 20 hrs

    Actually, Trump should resign and give the GOP a chance this November.

    Had Trump not downplayed this and had tests ready, he could have played on a loop Biden on January 31st saying travel restrictions from Wuhan were racist and xenophobic.

    thesaint0013 20 hrs

    Ok. Let me start by stating that I am not a "staunch" Trump supporter. However, I just really despise the constant visceral negative, hatred towards our Country's President.

    As I am sure you are aware, it is a tremendously difficult job, especially in today's crisis. I would think it would be better serve of your time and efforts to be constructive and optimistic, and hopeful. Rather than pinpointed every single steps and missteps he makes. He is certainly no perfect - but his goal is the same as all of ours: to defeat this virus in the best manner possible with the resources available.

    To criticize previous tweets, interviews, and depict his flaws and errors does not help the common goal. The nature of some of the questions posed to him during the press conferences should be a bit more respectful and again, it doesn't serve any positive outcome to try and "catch" him in a lie, and how he may have said something that was not factual or false.

    Again, he's not perfect and neither are anyone of us. However he is our President and we should support his and all of our common goal to defeat this virus.

    Russell J 20 hrs

    Not making excuses for Trump at all but he/we have people who are specialists and are responsible for being ready at all times for something like this and are responsible for being on the look out for this. Somebody should have came forward, even as a whistleblower. I've been aware for about 2 months now.

    Thank you WWW.PEAKPROSPERITY.COM, MISH and WWW.ZEROHEDGE.COM

    This was an epic failure of Trump, his administration and America in general.

    ghoffa 20 hrs

    Hi,
    @MishTalk @Mish
    I wanted to sincerely thank you MISH from my whole extended family. I have been reading you since 2007 when Ron Paul removed the scales from my eyes on the Fed and govt., Jekyll Island book, the "financial markets" (all modern day money changers). Every picture I see of Fed chairpersons, their eyes look dead black sharks eyes (to quote a famous book which I subscribe, the eyes are the windows to the soul).

    In addition our mob style duolopoly govt and for the most part complicit MSM (all with significant influencing billionaire ownership to control the news - easily searched). I've learned so much from this blog and the many commentors in this space ( a personal fav is @Stuki ) . Nothing short of brilliant and reminds me of my fav news source Zerohedge and it's articles and commentors.

    A special thanks for pointing us to Chris Martenson (peakprosperity.com) as my wife and I have watched every day his free daily videos since JAN @24th and our extended family is as prepared as we can be. God help us all with what's coming.

    For those who haven't watched it, Dr. Martenson has a great 3 min video on exponential growth on YTube. Search his name and exponential. It will help you prepare for what our govt knows is coming in enourmous exponential growth in fatalities. Even knowing, it will be an emotional thing to prepare for. Prepping home supplies is one thing, prepping emotionally is also important per Dr. Martenson. HCWs be damned.

    As this impacts people personally, I expect insider leaks to come from many fronts. We're working with neighbors to get prepared as we're all on our own now as the money changers (evil) bail out the money changers (evil) amidst a system that is so debt leveraged it can't likely be bailed out. "everything's a nail and the Fed has a hammer".

    Lastly this brings a famous quote to mind as the people rise up against corrupt govt, corp bailouts after stock buy backs, etc. Let alone the monsters upon monsters creating lab viruses (regardless of the source of this virus), and unregulated GMOs changing the fabric of life.....

    "All it takes for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing". Margaret Mead
    G

    QE2Infinity 20 hrs

    Come on! First off, anyone can be made to look bad by taking snippets out of context and stringing them together. That said, Trump does tend towards braggadocio. If that is off putting to you, he can be annoying. I much prefer a transparent fool to the more sly variety that plays the part well while sticking a knife in your back.

    But let's be honest here. The president can do very little. The bureaucracy of the government is a jobs program for the less ambitious and politically inclined. It's staffed with incompetent bureaucrats that show up, surf the web and may get around to an hour or two of honest work. Public unions guarantee they can't be fired.

    Obama converted the CDC into a PC jobs program for lefties, just like he converted NASA into a Muslim outreach program.

    May one ask: why is a self proclaimed libertarian screaming for more government action? Wouldn't it be great if one of the outcomes of this crisis is that local communities became more self reliant and more self sufficient!

    Sechel 20 hrs

    that's from a website called therecount.com looks interesting.

    Greggg 20 hrs

    For the entire Trump Presidency it was all about the stock market. So, here we are.

    numike 20 hrs

    while we all point fingers lets look at a useful guide regarding the mess we are ALL in now https://www.seriouseats.com/2020/03/food-safety-and-coronavirus-a-comprehensive-guide.html

    Food Safety and Coronavirus: A Comprehensive Guide Questions about COVID-19 and food safety, answered. www.seriouseats.com

    Tengen 20 hrs

    The graphic at the end of the video already looks out of date and shows how rapid the spread has been. For March 2020 it shows 5,002 cases in the US (and counting) but right now I'm seeing 24,137 cases.

    So much for "in a couple of days the 15 is going to be down close to zero".

    njbr 20 hrs

    What can the President do?

    Force and organize the production of necessary goods.

    • Act as impartial hub for the distribution of new and stocked items.
    • Force/fund the emergency super-production of even possibly helpful items such as the malarial drug.
    • Turn every possible research dollar onto the research into the disease, it's treatments and vaccines.
    • Fund and distribute tests. Make a way to track the progress of the disease, as opposed to waiting for regional medical systems collapse under load.
    • Activate whatever resources are possible to pre-position and set-up field hospitals now.
    • Develop uniform best-practices for quarantine and treatment.
    • Prepare the population for the realistic probability of multiple months of the crisis.

    Mish Editor 19 hrs

    May one ask: why is a self proclaimed libertarian screaming for more government action? Wouldn't it be great if one of the outcomes of this crisis is that local communities became more self reliant and more self sufficient!

    • I said what I would do
    • I would remove tariffs. I would not have had them in the first place.
    • I would expect our president to act to increase supplies not insist on Made in America.
    • I would expect our president to behave like an emphatic human being, not a total moron

    Mish Editor 19 hrs

    Trump did not Drain the Swamp. He IS the swamp

    Mish Editor 19 hrs

    Anyone who still supports this President's actions is a TDS-inflicted fool.

    Jim Bob 19 hrs

    I've followed Mish for ~ 12 years online and on the radio for brilliant economic analysis. Lately his work has been undermined by irrational political opinion. Mish has turned into Krugman. I won't be back.

    abend237-04 19 hrs

    The Donald is obviously afflicted with the same narcissistic megalomania prerequisite for a successful run at any elective office above County Coroner, anywhere in this country.

    That said, he can apparently read a graph, and he's right: The two drug combination of Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin are working to treat this damn thing, BUT:

    It is, indeed, not a Covid-19 preventative.

    If you get it, and you dink around at home too long waiting for improvement, arriving at ICU needing ventilation leaves you with roughly the odds of Russian roulette of surviving, especially if you're older.

    Lacking testing, the only remaining means available to knock the transmission rate down quickly is social distancing/lockdown. But, enough of that prevention can leave us wishing we were dead anyway.

    Unfortunately, all the college kids jamming the bars and beaches is setting the stage for continued exponential growth by hordes of asymptomatic spreaders.

    The march of folly continues.

    I like what I'm seeing of Cuomo. He'd be a good guy to have in the room in a serious fight; This qualifies.

    DBG8489 19 hrs

    As someone who hates all politicians, there is zero love lost between Trump and myself. I had hopes when he was elected that he would make a difference but it was clear based on how he looked after his private meeting with Obama on inauguration day that he was in over his head.

    Having said that, I will say this:

    From at least the "major" state level up, it would appear that not one single elected official or the top advisors and bureaucrats who work for them have shown anything but complete and utter failure in their handling of this emergency.

    You have senators selling off piles of stock while either saying nothing or telling the rest of us that it was bullshit. And trust me - they were not the only ones. If anyone cares to investigate, they will likely find this problem rampant. Elected officials should not even be allowed to trade stocks when they control the entire economy - not even through alleged "blind trusts" - it's bullshit. But that's a conversation for another time.

    You have congressional reps and senators blaming each other and/or the other party and passing laws and bailouts without even reading the bills they are passing.

    You have the Treasury and the Fed printing money and throwing it at every hole that opens up without the slightest regard for what the unintended consequences of those actions may entail.

    You have governments of the "major" states (CA, NY, NJ...etc) who know they can't simply print money being exposed using any extra money they had (along with taxes based on tourism that have now disappeared) to fund God knows what now demanding that everyone else pony up to pay for their failure to plan...

    The lack of leadership in the major states and at the Federal level is abysmal ACROSS THE BOARD.

    And that includes members of BOTH parties and nearly every single bureaucratic agency involved.

    You can single Trump out if you want, but he's not alone. He's just an easy target because 49% of the population hated him before this started.

    njbr 18 hrs

    ....Top health officials first learned of the virus's spread in China on January 3, US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Friday. Throughout January and February, intelligence officials' warnings became more and more urgent, according to the Post -- and by early February, much of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA's intelligence reports were dedicated to warnings about Covid-19.

    All the while, Trump downplayed the virus publicly, telling the public the coronavirus "is very well under control in our country," and suggesting warm weather would neutralize the threat the virus poses....

    ...The administration did begin taking some limited action about a month after Azar says the administration first began receiving warnings, blocking non-citizens who had been to China in the last two weeks from entering the country on February 3 -- a move public experts have argued at best bought the US time to ramp up its testing capabilities, which it did not use, and at worst had no beneficial effects at all.

    Trump finally assembled a task force to address the virus, putting Vice President Mike Pence in charge of the effort on February 26, and declared a national emergency on March 13. And, just this week -- nearly three months after first receiving warnings from his intelligence officials -- the president's public tone about the crisis shifted: "I've always known this is a real -- this is a pandemic," he said Tuesday as he admitted, "[the virus is] not under control for any place in the world."....

    Realist 18 hrs

    I have been watching political leaders in my own country get on television daily. They have all done a great job of informing the public about the dangers of this virus. They have all relied on the experts to relay information to the public about what the government is doing, and what individuals should be doing. This is true at the national, regional, and local levels.

    In addition businesses have been sending out emails, radio announcements and tv messages explaining what they are doing in regard to this pandemic.

    In fact, I am amazed at what a good job everyone is doing.

    I am also watching what is happening in the US. Every US state governor and city mayor I have seen on tv has done a wonderful job of presenting the facts to the public and provided instructions as to what they are doing and what the public should be doing.

    Then there is the gong show that is Trump. I could not imagine that anyone could be as bad as he is; months of lies, denials, suppression of the truth, and a complete and utter lack of preparation for something he was warned about many times. Denying one day that the virus was a pandemic; only to claim the very next day that he had known it was a pandemic for months; and then the very next day say that no one could have seen this coming; and finally saying that his response to the virus rates a 10 out of 10.

    Worst President ever. Sadly, many, many Americans are going to suffer and die because America had this moron in charge.

    Mish keeps referring to worldometer to get stats from. Their numbers seem to match up with numbers I see in my own country and in the US.

    Disturbingly, today, the mortality rate for closed cases ticked up 1% to 12%. 12978 deaths and 94674 recovered. That is not the direction I expected it to go.

    daveyp 17 hrs

    You get what you vote for. To have such a malignant narcissist of such profoundly limited intellectual honesty and capacity "leading" your nation through this is truly tragic for your country. Even the hideously vile ultimate Washington insider Hilary would have done a better job.

    truthseeker 17 hrs

    Mish I agree with much of the criticism of Trump, yet had he done everything you and others suggest, there is this implied assumption that everything would have worked out perfectly. You know I am impressed the way the country seems to be uniting to such a great degree, that I think there is at least some hope for our country's future though there are huge challenges that lay ahead absolutely!

    abend237-04 17 hrs

    I will now proceed, once again, to bitch about the root cause of our current pandemic, which is causing many to experience cosmic scale frustration with The Donald, which I share:

    Civilization has now been hit squarely in the head with three killer coronavirus outbreaks in 18 years, yet still has no unified global new viral antigen detection system. We could have if our world "leaders" would make it happen.

    Local supercomputers, however massive, will never crack this nut, but the billions of powerful, web-accessible smartphones could if linked and used by a parallelized, intelligent scheduler to raise the alarm when a new antibody/pathogen is discovered in human blood anywhere.

    Such a system could have lifted the burden from a lonely doctor struggling to raise the alarm in Wuhan, before Covid-19 killed him, and placed it squarely in front of disease control experts, worldwide. It can be done; We must do it.

    Sars cov-3/4/5/6/7/8/9/n could kill us all if we don't.

    [Mar 22, 2020] Opinion - A Tale of Two Foreign Policies The Train-Wreck Abroad Is Bipartisan by Philip Giraldi

    Notable quotes:
    "... It is widely believed that the abrupt withdrawal of candidates Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg on the eve of Super Tuesday that targeted Sanders was arranged through an intervention by ex-President Barack Obama who made a plea in support of "party unity," offering the two a significant quid pro quo down the road if they were willing to leave the race and throw their support to Biden, which they dutifully did ..."
    "... Trump might be described as both paranoid and narcissistic, meaning that he sees himself as surrounded by enemies and that the enemies are out to get him personally. When he is criticized, he either ridicules the source or does something impulsive to deflect what is being said. He attacked Syria twice based on false claims about the use of chemical weapons when a consensus developed in the media and in congress that he was being "weak" in the Middle East. Those attacks were war crimes as Syria was not threatening the United States. ..."
    "... Biden is on a different track in that he is an establishment hawk. As head of the Senate Foreign Affairs committee back in 2002-2003 he green lighted George W. Bush's plan to attack Iraq. Beyond that, he cheer-leaded the effort from the Democratic Party benches, helping to create a consensus both in Washington and in the media that Saddam Hussein was a threat that had to be dealt with. He should have known better as he was privy to intelligence that was suggesting that the Iraqis were no threat at all. He did not moderate his tune on Iraq until after 2005, when the expected slam-dunk quick victory got very messy. ..."
    "... Biden was also certainly privy to the decision making by President Barack Obama, which include the destruction of Libya and the killing of American citizens by drone. Whether he actively supported those policies is unknown, but he has never been challenged on them. What is clear is that he did not object to them, another sign of his willingness to go along with the establishment, a tendency which will undoubtedly continue if he is elected president. ..."
    Mar 22, 2020 | www.informationclearinghouse.info

    Now that the Democratic Party has apparently succeeded in getting rid of the only two voices among its presidential candidates that actually deviated from the establishment consensus, it appears that Joe Biden will be running against Donald Trump in November. To be sure, Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard are still hanging on, but the fix was in and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) made sure that Sanders would be given the death blow on Super Tuesday while Gabbard would be blocked from participating in any of the late term debates.

    It is widely believed that the abrupt withdrawal of candidates Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg on the eve of Super Tuesday that targeted Sanders was arranged through an intervention by ex-President Barack Obama who made a plea in support of "party unity," offering the two a significant quid pro quo down the road if they were willing to leave the race and throw their support to Biden, which they dutifully did. Rumor has it that Klobuchar might well wind up as Biden's vice president. An alternative tale is that it was a much more threatening "offer that couldn't be refused" coming from the Clintons.

    ... ... ...

    Both Trump and Biden might reasonably described as Zionists, Trump by virtue of the made-in-Israel foreign policy positions he has delivered on since his election, and Biden by word and deed during his entire time in politics. When Biden encountered Sarah Palin in 2008 in the vice-presidential debate, he and Palin sought to outdo each other in enthusing over how much they love the Jewish state. Biden has said that "I am a Zionist. You don't have to be a Jew to be a Zionist" and also, ridiculously, "Were there not an Israel, the U.S. would have to invent one. We will never abandon Israel -- out of our own self-interest. [It] is the best $3 billion investment we make." Biden has been a regular feature speaker at the annual AIPAC summit in Washington.

    Trump might be described as both paranoid and narcissistic, meaning that he sees himself as surrounded by enemies and that the enemies are out to get him personally. When he is criticized, he either ridicules the source or does something impulsive to deflect what is being said. He attacked Syria twice based on false claims about the use of chemical weapons when a consensus developed in the media and in congress that he was being "weak" in the Middle East. Those attacks were war crimes as Syria was not threatening the United States.

    Trump similarly reversed himself on withdrawing from Syria when he ran into criticism of the move and his plan to extricate the United States from Afghanistan, if it develops at all, could easily be subjected to similar revision. Trump is not really the man who as a candidate indicated that he was seriously looking for a way out of America's endless and pointless wars, no matter what his supporters continue to assert.

    Biden is on a different track in that he is an establishment hawk. As head of the Senate Foreign Affairs committee back in 2002-2003 he green lighted George W. Bush's plan to attack Iraq. Beyond that, he cheer-leaded the effort from the Democratic Party benches, helping to create a consensus both in Washington and in the media that Saddam Hussein was a threat that had to be dealt with. He should have known better as he was privy to intelligence that was suggesting that the Iraqis were no threat at all. He did not moderate his tune on Iraq until after 2005, when the expected slam-dunk quick victory got very messy.

    Biden was also certainly privy to the decision making by President Barack Obama, which include the destruction of Libya and the killing of American citizens by drone. Whether he actively supported those policies is unknown, but he has never been challenged on them. What is clear is that he did not object to them, another sign of his willingness to go along with the establishment, a tendency which will undoubtedly continue if he is elected president.

    And Biden's foreign policy reminiscences are is subject to what appear to be memory losses or inability to articulate, illustrated by a whole series of faux pas during the campaign. He has a number of times told a tale of his heroism in Afghanistan that is complete fiction , similar to Hillary Clinton's lying claims of courage under fire in Bosnia.

    So, we have a president in place who takes foreign policy personally in that his first thoughts are "how does it make me look?" and a prospective challenger who appears to be suffering from initial stages of dementia and who has always been relied upon to support the establishment line, whatever it might be. Though Trump is the more dangerous of the two as he is both unpredictable and irrational, the likelihood is that Biden will be guided by the Clintons and Obamas. To put it another way, no matter who is president the likelihood that the United States will change direction to get away from its interventionism and bullying on a global scale is virtually nonexistent. At least until the money runs out. Or to express it as a friend of mine does, "No matter who is elected we Americans wind up getting John McCain." Goodnight America!

    Philip Giraldi Ph.D., Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest. A former CIA Case Officer and Army Intelligence Officer who spent twenty years overseas in Europe and the Middle East working terrorism cases. He holds a BA with honors from the University of Chicago and an MA and PhD in Modern History from the University of London. " Source "

    [Mar 22, 2020] Liberal NPCs Hate Russia, Conservative NPCs Hate China

    Mar 22, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    Jackrabbit , Mar 21 2020 23:10 utc | 54

    Caitlin Johnstone also sees the response being manipulated to focus hate on China: Liberal NPCs Hate Russia, Conservative NPCs Hate China

    But she sees this China-bashing as mostly a political reaction:

    In reality these people are rallying behind the campaign to blame China for the health crisis they're now facing because they understand that otherwise the blame will land squarely on the shoulders of their president, who's running for re-election this year.
    instead of a deliberate Deep-State strategy (which is my view).

    We can argue who created the virus (I'm still looking for any rebuttal to the Chinese claim that USA must be the source because it has all five strains of the virus), but the Empire's gaming of the virus outbreak seems very clear to me.

    !!

    [Mar 21, 2020] When reading any article concerning current events (ie. Ukraine, Syria, Iran, Venezuela, or Coronavirus) consider how the The Seven Principles of Propaganda may apply

    Highly recommended!
    Mar 22, 2020 | https://www.moonofalabama.org

    Dick | Mar 22 2020 0:48 utc | 66

    When reading any article concerning current events (ie. Ukraine, Syria, Iran, Venezuela, or Coronavirus) consider how the The Seven Principles of Propaganda may apply. (repost):

    1. Avoid abstract ideas - appeal to the emotions. When we think emotionally, we are more prone to be irrational and less critical in our thinking. I can remember several instances where this has been employed by the US to prepare the public with a justification of their actions. Here are four examples:

      The Invasion of Grenada during the Reagan administration was said to be necessary to rescue American students being held hostage by Grenadian coup authorities after a coup that overthrew the government. I had a friend in the 82nd airborne division that participated in the rescue. He told me the students said they were hiding in the school to avoid the fighting by the US military, and had never been threatened by any Grenadian authority and were only hiding in the school to avoid all the fighting. Film of the actual rescue broadcast on the mainstream media was taken out of context; the students were never in danger.

      The invasion of Panama in the late 80's was supposedly to capture the dictator Manual Noriega for international crimes related to drugs and weapons. I remember a headline covered by all the media where a Navy lieutenant and his wife were detained by the police. His wife was sexually assaulted while in custody, according to the story. Unfortunately, it never happened. It was intended to get the public emotionally involved to support the action.

      The invasion of Iraq in the early 90's was preceded by a speech by a girl describing the Iraqi army throwing babies out of incubators so the equipment could be transferred to Iraq. It turns out the girl was the daughter of one of the Kuwait's ruling sheiks and the event never occurred. However, it served its purpose by getting the American public involved emotionally supporting the war.

      During the build up to the bombing campaign by NATO against Libya, a woman entered a hotel where reporters were staying claiming she was raped by several police officers of the Gaddafi security services. The report was carried by most media outlets as representative of the brutality of the Gaddafi regime. I was not able to verify if this story was true or not, but it fits the usual method employed to gain public support through propaganda for military interventions.

      The greatest emotion in us is fear and fear is used extensively to make us think irrationally. I remember growing up during the cold war having the fear of nuclear war or 'The Russians are coming!' After the cold war without an obvious enemy, it was Al Qaeda even before 911, so we had 'Al Qaeda is coming!' Now we have 'ISIS is coming!' with media blasting us with terrorist fears. Whenever I hear a government promoting an emotional issue or fear mongering, I ignore them knowing there is a hidden Truth behind the issue.

    2. Constantly repeat just a few ideas. Use stereotyped phrases. This could be stated more plainly as 'Keep it simple, stupid!' The most notorious use of this technique recently was the Bush administration. Everyone can remember 'We must fight them over there rather than over here' or my favourite 'They hate us for our freedoms'. Neither of these phrases made any rational sense despite 911. The last thing Muslims in the Middle East care about is American's freedoms, maybe it was all the bombs the US was dropping on them.
    3. Give only one side of the argument and obscure history. Watching mainstream media in the US, you can see all the news is biased to the American view as an example. This is prevalent within Australian commercial media and newspapers giving only a western view, but fortunately, we have the SBS and the ABC that are very good, certainly not perfect, at providing both sides of a story. In addition, any historical perspective is ignored keeping the citizenry focused on the here and now. Can any of you remember any news organisation giving an in depth history of Ukraine or Palestine? I cannot.
    4. Demonize the enemy or pick out one special "enemy" for special vilification. This is obvious in politics where politicians continuously criticise their opponents. Of course, demonization is more productively applied to international figures or nations such as Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Gaddafi in Libya, Assad in Syria, the Taliban and just recently Vladimir Putin over the Ukraine, Crimea and Syria. It establishes a negative emotional view of either a nation (i.e. Iran) or a known figure (i.e. Putin) making us again think emotionally, rather than rationally, making it easier to promote evil acts upon a nation or a known figure. Certainly some of these groups or individuals were less than benign, but not necessarily demons as depicted in the west.
    5. Appear humanitarian in work and motivations. The US has used this technique often to validate foreign interventions or ongoing conflicts where the term 'Right to Protect' is used for justification. Everyone should remember the many stories about the abuse of women in Afghanistan or Saddam Hussein's supposed brutality toward his people. The recent attack on Syria by the US, UK, and France was depicted as an Humanitarian intervention by the UK Government, which was far from the truth. One thing that always amazes me is when the US sends humanitarian aid to a country it is accompanied by the US military. In Haiti some years back, the US sent troops with no other country doing so. The recent Ebola outbreak in Africa saw US troops sent to the area. How are troops going to fight a medical outbreak? No doubt, they are there for other reasons.

    6. Obscure one's economic interests. Who believes the invasion of Iraq was for weapons of mass destruction? Or the constant threats against Iran are for their nuclear program? Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and no one has presented firm evidence Iran intends to produce nuclear weapons. The West has been interfering in the Middle East since the British in the late 19th century. It is all about oil and the control over the resources. In fact, if one researches the cause of wars over the last hundred years, you will always find economics was a major component driving the rush to war for most of them.

    7. Monopolize the flow of information. This is the most important principle and mainly entails setting the narrative by which all subsequent events can be based upon or interpreted in such a way as to reinforce the narrative. The narrative does not need to be true; in fact, it can be anything that suits the monopoliser as long as it is based loosely on some event. It is critical to have at least majority control of media and the ability to control the message so the flow of information is consistent with the narrative. This has been played out on mainstream media concerning the Ukrainian conflict, Syrian conflict, and the Skirpal affair. Just over the last couple of years, we have all been subjected to propaganda in one form or another. Remember the US wanting to bomb Syria because of the sarin gas attack, it was later determined to be false (see Seymour Hersh 'Whose Sarin'). The shoot down of MH17 was immediately blamed on Russia by the west without any convincing proof (setting the narrative). It amazes me just how fast the story died after the initial saturation in the media. When I awoke that morning in July, I heard on the news PM Tony Abbot blaming Russia for the incident only hours afterward. How could he know Russia shot down the plane? The investigation into the incident had not even begun, so I suspect he was singing from the West's hymnbook in a standard setting the narrative scenario.

    [Mar 21, 2020] Why Is CrowdStrike Confused On 11 Key Details About The DNC 'Hack'

    Mar 21, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    Why Is CrowdStrike Confused On 11 Key Details About The DNC 'Hack'? by Tyler Durden Sat, 03/21/2020 - 21:20 Authored by Larry Johnson via Sic Semper Tyrannis blog,

    Here is the bottom-line - despite being hired in late April (or early May) of 2016 to stop an unauthorized intrusion into the DNC, CrowdStrike, the cyber firm hired by the DNC's law firm to solve the problem, failed abysmally. More than 30,000 emails were taken from the DNC server between 22 and 25 May 2016 and given to Wikileaks. Crowdstrike blamed Russia for the intrusion but claimed that only two files were taken. A nd CrowdStrike inexplicably waited until 10 June 2016 to reboot the DNC network.

    CrowdStrike, a cyber-security company hired by a Perkins Coie lawyer retained by the DNC, provided the narrative to the American public of the alledged hack of the DNC, But the Crowdstrike explanation is inconsistent, contradictory and implausible. Despite glaring oddities in the CrowdStrike account of that event, CrowdStrike subsequently traded on its fame in the investigation of the so-called Russian hack of the DNC and became a publicly traded company. Was CrowdStrike's fame for "discovering" the alleged Russian hack of the DNC a critical factor in its subsequent launch as a publicly traded company?

    The Crowdstrike account of the hack is very flawed. There are 11 contradictions, inconsistencies or oddities in the public narrative about CrowdStrike's role in uncovering and allegedly mitigating a Russian intrusion (note--the underlying facts for these conclusions are found in Ellen Nakashima's Washington Post story , Vicki Ward's Esquire story , the Mueller Report and the blog of Crowdstrike founder Dmitri Alperovitch):

    1. Two different dates -- 30 April or 6 May -- are reported by Nakashima and Ward respectively as the date CrowdStrike was hired to investigate an intrusion into the DNC computer network.
    2. There are on the record contradictions about who hired Crowdstrike. Nakashima reports that the DNC called Michael Sussman of the law firm, Perkins Coie, who in turn contacted Crowdtrike's CEO Shawn Henry. Crowdstrike founder Dmitri Alperovitch tells Nakashima a different story, stating our "Incident Response group, was called by the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
    3. CrowdStrike claims it discovered within 24 hours the "Russians" were responsible for the "intrusion" into the DNC network.
    4. CrowdStrike's installation of Falcon (its proprietary software to stop breaches) on the DNC on the 1st of May or the 6th of May would have alerted to intruders that they had been detected.
    5. CrowdStrike officials told the Washington Post's Ellen Nakashima that they were, "not sure how the hackers got in" and didn't "have hard evidence."
    6. In a blog posting by CrowdStrike's founder, Dmitri Alperovitch, on the same day that Nakashima's article was published in the Washington Post, wrote that the intrusion into the DNC was done by two separate Russian intelligence organizations using malware identified as Fancy Bear (APT28) and Cozy Bear (APT29).
    7. But, Alperovitch admits his team found no evidence the two Russian organizations were coordinating their "attack" or even knew of each other's presence on the DNC network.
    8. There is great confusion over what the "hackers" obtained. DNC sources claim the hackers gained access to the entire database of opposition research on GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump. DNC sources and CrowdStrike claimed the intruders, "read all email and chat traffic." Yet, DNC officials insisted, "that no financial, donor or personal information appears to have been accessed or taken." However, CrowdStrike states, "The hackers stole two files."
    9. Crowdstrike's Alperovitch, in his blog posting, does not specify whether it was Cozy Bear or Fancy Bear that took the files.
    10. Wikileaks published DNC emails in July 2016 that show the last message taken from the DNC was dated 25 May 2016. This was much more than "two files."
    11. CrowdStrike, in complete disregard to basic security practice when confronted with an intrusion, waited five weeks to disconnect the DNC computers from the network and sanitize them.

    Let us start with the very contradictory public accounts attributed to Crowdstrke's founder, Dmitri Alperovitch. The 14 June 2016 story by Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post and the October 2016 piece by Vicki Ward in Esquire magazine offer two different dates for the start of the investigation:

    When did the DNC learn of the "intrusion"?

    Ellen Nakashima claims it was the end of April:

    "DNC leaders were tipped to the hack in late April . Chief executive Amy Dacey got a call from her operations chief saying that their information technology team had noticed some unusual network activity... That evening, she spoke with Michael Sussmann, a DNC lawyer who is a partner with Perkins Coie in Washington. Soon after, Sussmann, a former federal prosecutor who handled computer crime cases, called Henry, whom he has known for many years. Within 24 hours, CrowdStrike had installed software on the DNC's computers so that it could analyze data that could indicate who had gained access, when and how.

    Ward's timeline, citing Alperovitch, reports the alert came later, on 6 May 2016:

    At six o'clock on the morning of May 6, Dmitri Alperovitch woke up in a Los Angeles hotel to an alarming email. . . . late the previous night, his company had been asked by the Democratic National Committee to investigate a possible breach of its network. A CrowdStrike security expert had sent the DNC a proprietary software package, called Falcon, that monitors the networks of its clients in real time. Falcon "lit up," the email said, within ten seconds of being installed at the DNC: Russia was in the network.

    This is a significant and troubling discrepancy because it marks the point in time when CrowdStrike installed its Falcon software on the DNC server. It is one thing to confuse the 30th of April with the 1st of May. But Alperovitch gave two different reporters two different dates.

    What did the "hackers" take from the DNC?

    Ellen Nakashima's reporting is contradictory and wrong. Initially, she is told that the hackers got access to the entire Donald Trump database and that all emails and chats could be read. But then she is assured that only two files were taken. This was based on Crowdstrike's CEO's assurance, which was proven subsequently to be spectacularly wrong when Wikileaks published 35,813 DNC emails. How did Crowdstrike miss that critical detail? Here is Nakashima's reporting:

    Russian government hackers penetrated the computer network of the Democratic National Committee and gained access to the entire database of opposition research on GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, according to committee officials and security experts who responded to the breach.

    The intruders so thoroughly compromised the DNC's system that they also were able to read all email and chat traffic, said DNC officials and the security experts. . . .

    The DNC said that no financial, donor or personal information appears to have been accessed or taken, suggesting that the breach was traditional espionage, not the work of criminal hackers.

    One group, which CrowdStrike had dubbed Cozy Bear, had gained access last summer (2015) and was monitoring the DNC's email and chat communications, Alperovitch said.

    The other, which the firm had named Fancy Bear, broke into the network in late April and targeted the opposition research files. It was this breach that set off the alarm. The hackers stole two files, Henry said. And they had access to the computers of the entire research staff -- an average of about several dozen on any given day. . . .

    CrowdStrike is continuing the forensic investigation, said Sussmann, the DNC lawyer. "But at this time, it appears that no financial information or sensitive employee, donor or voter information was accessed by the Russian attackers," he said.

    The DNC emails that are posted on the Wikileaks website and the metadata shows that these emails were removed from the DNC server starting the late on the 22nd of May and continuing thru the 23rd of May. The last tranche occurred late in the morning (Washington, DC time) of the 25th of May 2016. Crowdstrike's CEO, Shawn Henry, insisted on the 14th of June 2016 that "ONLY TWO FILES" had been taken. This is demonstrably not true. Besides the failure of Crowdstrike to detect the removal of more than 35,000 emails, there is another important and unanswered question -- why did Crowdstrike wait until the 10th of June 2016 to start disconnecting the DNC server when they allegedly knew on the 6th of May that the Russians had entered the DNC network?

    Crowdstrike accused Russia of the DNC breach but lacked concrete proof.

    Ellen Nakashima's report reveals that Crowdstrike relied exclusively on circumstantial evidence for its claim that the Russian Government hacked the DNC server. According to Nakashima:

    CrowdStrike is not sure how the hackers got in. The firm suspects they may have targeted DNC employees with "spearphishing" emails. These are communications that appear legitimate -- often made to look like they came from a colleague or someone trusted -- but that contain links or attachments that when clicked on deploy malicious software that enables a hacker to gain access to a computer. " But we don't have hard evidence, " Alperovitch said.

    There is a word in English for the phrases, "Not sure" and "No hard evidence"--that word is, "assumption." Assuming that the Russians did it is not the same as proving, based on evidence, that the Russians were culpable. But that is exactly what CrowdStrike did.

    The so-called "proof" of the Russian intrusions is the presence of Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear?

    At first glance, Dmitri Alperovitch's blog postin g describing the Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear "intrusions" appears quite substantive. But cyber security professionals quickly identified a variety of shortcomings with the Alperovitch account. For example, this malware is not unique nor proprietary to Russia. Other countries and hackers have access to APT28 and have used it.

    Skip Folden offers one of the best comprehensive analyses of the problems with the Alperovitch explanation :

    No basis whatsoever :

    APT28, aka Fancy Bear, Sofacy, Strontium, Pawn Storm, Sednit, etc., and APT29, aka Cozy Bear, Cozy Duke, Monkeys, CozyCar,The Dukes, etc., are used as 'proof' of Russia 'hacking' by Russian Intelligence agencies GRU and FSB respectively.

    There is no basis whatsoever to attribute the use of known intrusion elements to Russia, not even if they were once reverse routed to Russia, which claim has never been made by NSA or any other of our IC.

    On June 15, 2016 Dmitri Alperovitch himself, in an Atlantic Council article, gave only "medium-level of confidence that Fancy Bear is GRU" and "low-level of confidence that Cozy Bear is FSB." These assessments, from the main source himself, that either APT is Russian intelligence, averages 37%-38% [(50 + 25) / 2].

    Exclusivity :

    None of the technical indicators, e.g., intrusion tools (such as X-Agent, X-Tunnel), facilities, tactics, techniques, or procedures, etc., of the 28 and 29 APTs can be uniquely attributed to Russia, even if one or more had ever been trace routed to Russia. Once an element of a set of intrusion tools is used in the public domain it can be reverse-engineered and used by other groups which precludes the assumption of exclusivity in future use. The proof that any of these tools have never been reverse engineered and used by others is left to the student - or prosecutor.

    Using targets :

    Also, targets have been used as basis for attributing intrusions to Russia, and that is pure nonsense. Both many state and non-state players have deep interests in the same targets and have the technical expertise to launch intrusions. In Grizzly Steppe, page 2, second paragraph, beginning with, "Both groups have historically targeted ...," is there anything in that paragraph which can be claimed as unique to Russia or which excludes all other major state players in the world or any of the non-state organizations? No.

    Key-Logger Consideration :

    On the subject of naming specific GRU officers initiating specific actions on GRU Russian facilities on certain dates / times, other than via implanted ID chips under the finger tips of these named GRU officers, the logical assumption would be by installed key logger capabilities, physical or malware, on one or more GRU Russian computers.

    The GRU is a highly advanced Russian intelligence unit. It would be very surprising were the GRU open to any method used to install key logger capabilities. It would be even more surprising, if not beyond comprehension that the GRU did not scan all systems upon start-up and in real time, including key logger protection and anomalies of performance degradation and data transmissions.

    Foreign intelligence source :

    Other option would be via a foreign intelligence unit source with local GRU access. Any such would be quite anti-Russian and be another nail in the coffin of any chain of evidence / custody validity at Russian site.

    Stated simply, Dmitri Alperovitch's conclusion that "the Russians did it" are not supported by the forensic evidence. Instead, he relies on the assumption that the presence of APT28 and APT29 prove Moscow's covert hand. What is even more striking is that the FBI accepted this explanation without demanding forensic evidence.

    Former FBI Director James Comey and former NSA Director Mike Rogers testified under oath before Congress that neither agency ever received access to the DNC server. All information the FBI used in its investigation was supplied by CrowdStrike. The Hill reported :

    The FBI requested direct access to the Democratic National Committee's (DNC) hacked computer servers but was denied, Director James Comey told lawmakers on Tuesday.

    The bureau made "multiple requests at different levels," according to Comey, but ultimately struck an agreement with the DNC that a "highly respected private company" would get access and share what it found with investigators.

    The foregoing facts raise major questions about the validity of the Crowdstrike methodology and conclusions with respect to what happened on the DNC network. This is not a conspiracy theory. It is a set of facts that, as of today, have no satisfactory explanation. The American public deserve answers.

    [Mar 21, 2020] To be fair to Trump

    Mar 21, 2020 | caucus99percent.com

    @Snode

    "The Obama-Biden Administration set up the White House National Security Council Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense to prepare for future pandemics like covid-19. Donald Trump eliminated it -- and now we're paying the price."

    -- Former vice president Joe Biden, in a tweet, March 19

    BUT!!! OBAMA DID, TOO!!! (As did Dubya)

    After Barack Obama became president in 2009, he eliminated the White House Health and Security Office, which worked on international health issues. But after grappling with the 2014 Ebola epidemic, Obama in 2016 established a Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense at the NSC. A directorate has its own staff, and it is headed by someone who generally reports to the national security adviser.

    One can see the dueling narratives here, neither entirely incorrect. The office -- as set up by Obama in 2016 -- was folded into another office. Thus, one could claim the office was eliminated. But the staff slots did not disappear and at least initially the key mission of team remained a priority. So one can also claim nothing changed and thus Biden's criticism is overstated.

    Source: Washington Post -- Was the White House office for global pandemics eliminated?


    Marie on Sat, 03/21/2020 - 4:35pm

    What did the GWB and Obama Administrations

    @edg
    have against the large and presumably highly skilled public health agencies under HHS? If they had flubbed, then they should have been ordered to fix the problem; reorganize and/or replace the incompetents so that such flubs don't happen again. The Asst Secretary for Public Health, a physician, oversees those agencies and reports to the HHS Secretary who in turn reports to the POTUS.

    Why set up a WH office overseen by a person with no public health expertise or experience to report to the NSC director?

    Steven D on Sat, 03/21/2020 - 8:50am
    Yes

    One big clusterfuck isn't it.

    leveymg on Sat, 03/21/2020 - 8:56am
    "Nobody could foresee airliners used as missiles." But, who

    remembers that, too?

    Bush got away with that excuse. He even got several glorious wars out of it. Why shouldn't Trump?

    [Mar 20, 2020] This policy is unconscionable and flagrantly against international law. It is imperative that the U.S. lift these immoral and illegal sanctions to enable Iran and Venezuela to confront the epidemic as effectively and rapidly as possible

    Mar 20, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    Mao , Mar 19 2020 23:25 utc | 225

    A group of economists and policy experts on Wednesday called on President Donald Trump to immediately lift the United States' crippling sanctions against Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and other countries, warning that the economic warfare -- in addition to being cruel in itself -- is "feeding the coronavirus epidemic" by hampering nations' capacity to respond.

    "This policy is unconscionable and flagrantly against international law. It is imperative that the U.S. lift these immoral and illegal sanctions to enable Iran and Venezuela to confront the epidemic as effectively and rapidly as possible," Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs said in a statement just hours after the Trump administration intensified sanctions against Iran, which has been devastated by COVID-19.

    https://truthout.org/articles/economists-demand-trump-immediately-lift-iran-cuba-venezuela-sanctions/

    Mao , Mar 19 2020 23:37 utc | 229

    Promising to "smash" Venezuela's government during a "maximum pressure March," Trump has imposed crushing sanctions that force Venezuela to spend three times as much as non-sanctioned countries on coronavirus testing kits.

    https://thegrayzone.com/2020/03/17/us-sanctions-venezuelas-health-sector-coronavirus/

    [Mar 19, 2020] Comedian Lee Camp: "America's two-party oligarchy can't relate to those in need"

    Mar 19, 2020 | www.rt.com

    As the US teeters on the edge of abyss amid a Covid-19 pandemic, the crisis has revealed systemic flaws brought by years of two-party plutocracy that go far beyond a single president, says Lee Camp, host of RT's Redacted Tonight. While President Donald Trump bears a good portion of the blame for the sluggish US response to Covid-19, he is only one piece of a larger puzzle. America's structural defects long predate Trump's time in office, the comedian argued.

    "The fact that so many millions of Americans don't have paid sick leave, or hardly make minimum wage and therefore can't afford an emergency – that kind of system was set up under a two-party apparatus that basically agreed: 'Let's create an America where people are completely exploited,'" Camp said.

    [Mar 19, 2020] Trump has reached peak incompetence with this one. All the gains of his 'legacy' have been wiped out, but he always has his (((trusted advisers))) ready to steer him into the rocks.

    Mar 19, 2020 | www.unz.com

    Sick of Orcs , says: Show Comment March 18, 2020 at 9:17 pm GMT

    @Poco Globalism is not harmed at all. The machine didn't blow up, it simply shut off. Unfortunately, it supplies life-giving goods and services to billions, regardless of Globohomo using it to spread FOURTH-worlders everywhere in the West (US Southern order remains wide open.)

    Trump has reached peak incompetence with this one. All the gains of his 'legacy' have been wiped out, but he always has his (((trusted advisers))) ready to steer him into the rocks. Time to reminisce about record low black unemployment numbers.

    [Mar 19, 2020] Trump administration pandemic priorities

    Mar 19, 2020 | caitlinjohnstone.com

    Pandemic priorities:

    Priority #1 – Make sure everyone is aware that this virus indisputably originated in China. China, China, China. Call it the China virus or the Wuhan virus so everyone knows. China is very, very bad and we must say so over and over and over again.

    Priority #2 – Deal with virus if we have time.

    [Mar 19, 2020] Here s a link to a video of the President saying he is not responsible for the closing of the pandemic office

    Mar 19, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

    gnt sglovera day ago

    You should know by now that repeating the actual words of administration officials, including the President, is clear evidence of irrational partisan bias. The surgeon general chided the press on Saturday for writing stories about the past.

    Here's a link to a video of the President saying he is not responsible for the closing of the pandemic office, linked to a video of the press conference in which he explained why he closed the pandemic office:

    Play Hide
    engineerscotty gnta day ago
    Obviously a deep fake. Dear Leader would never say such a thing, and even if he did, if he says he didn't, he didn't. If you bout this, please report to Room 101.
    TISO_AX2 gnt14 hours ago • edited
    No, the White House Didn't 'Dissolve' Its Pandemic Response Office
    gnt TISO_AX29 hours ago
    As near as I can interpret the article you reference, the leading experts on global pandemics were fired. The remaining staff responsible for building the response to global pandemics were assigned new duties. The function of dealing with global pandemics was assigned to an existing department that was also assigned other new responsibilities at the same time. In that sense, there is still an office that is responsible for dealing with global pandemics. But that office no longer has the same resources for doing that, and has many other responsibilities.
    TISO_AX2 gnt6 hours ago
    When I joined the National Security Council staff in 2018, I inherited a
    strong and skilled staff in the counterproliferation and biodefense
    directorate. This team of national experts together drafted the National Biodefense Strategy of 2018 and an accompanying national security presidential memorandum to implement it; an executive order to modernize influenza vaccines; and coordinated the United States' response to the Ebola epidemic in Congo, which was ultimately defeated in 2020.

    Seems pretty open to obvious interpretation. This was post the so-called firing that is being blamed on the president. And if you have evidence that the administration medical team is not today staffed at a level even higher than before 2017, let's see it.

    gnt TISO_AX22 hours ago
    So the bureaucrat who picked up the extra responsibilities writes an editorial saying that he had the whole thing handled all along. He doesn't have much credibility; he's got no future as a Republican apparatchik if he doesn't say something here. He ran the office with the responsibility, but there's still no evidence of having kept anyone with expertise in pandemics. Expertise still matters.
    TISO_AX2 sglover15 hours ago
    No, one wouldn't. But public hypocritical comments (like here) is not the remedy. It's just hypocrisy.
    sglover TISO_AX211 hours ago
    OK, I'm guessing everybody can use a giggle. So please tell me what "the remedy" is. This should be good.
    TISO_AX2 sglover11 hours ago • edited
    You could start by not trafficking in falsehoods such as your "pandemic team" claim. And then you should stop whining about division while sowing division.
    sglover TISO_AX211 hours ago
    I don't understand what "claim" you're referring to. Have you got your lines crossed, managing all the Trump apologetics? I know it's a full-time job.

    But actually, Trump, via his surrogate Bolton (you know, the guy Trump appointed as part of "draining the swamp") *did* gut that office. Senior staff left, other staff got reassigned, and the whole shop was reduced to something like two people.

    See? I knew you'd be good for a laugh!

    TISO_AX2 sglover11 hours ago
    Asked and answered. You should read the thread..all of it.
    sglover TISO_AX210 hours ago
    You are objecting to a video in which Trump admits to the very thing that you claim didn't happen. Truly you're living up to your messiah's words: I take no responsibility .

    Aren't you embarrassed? Even a little?

    TISO_AX2 sglover10 hours ago
    Are you embarrassed to contradict yourself? What are you trying to say...did the President admit to the very thing ...or take no responsibility ?
    gnt TISO_AX28 hours ago
    The problem is that the President tries to have it both ways. When he thought he was just getting rid of excess staff, he was proud to take responsibility for his choice. When it later became clear that there were bad consequences for that same choice, the President denied responsibility for that specific action.

    Trump routinely makes statements that contradict each other, leaving it to his supporters to decide which ones they want to hear. Maybe you're comfortable with the changes in direction, but many of us have memories that go back more than a few hours.

    TISO_AX2 gnt7 hours ago • edited
    Whatever happened at the NSC was planned long ago. Even Obama knew that it was an overbloated bureaucracy. And your assertion that the reorganization resulted in "bad consequences is just that..a claim. You have not established it as a fact or common knowledge. Based on those conclusions your narrative is uncompelling.

    https://www.realclearpoliti...

    sglover TISO_AX28 hours ago
    My God you are beyond parody. Your big score, the point that you believe is going to show me what's what, is -- My Messiah walked back one of his lies, and you don't want to give him credit . Most people hold toddlers to a higher standard -- do you understand that?
    TISO_AX2 sglover7 hours ago
    If he's anyone's messiah it's yours. You expect him to walk on water, or save you from coronavirus. I don't expect that of him at all. There's your parody.

    [Mar 17, 2020] DOJ drops charges against Russian trolls after they dared demand evidence in US court -- RT USA News

    Highly recommended!
    Notable quotes:
    "... "promotes neither the interests of justice nor the nation's security," ..."
    "... "recent events and a change in the balance of the government's proof due to a classification determination, ..."
    "... "information warfare against the United States of America ..."
    "... The DOJ rationalizes the motion to dismiss by arguing that Concord is "a Russian company with no presence in the United States and no exposure to meaningful punishment in the event of a conviction." That has always been the case, however. What really changed since the indictment was filed is the complete implosion of Mueller's case, helped in part by Concord fighting the case in court. ..."
    "... The motion inadvertently reveals that Mueller's prosecutors never intended the case against Concord, two other entities and 13 individuals to actually go to trial, otherwise they would have anticipated what ended up happening: Concord's lawyers demanding discovery documents from the DOJ, which the US authorities say risks "exposure of law enforcement's tools and techniques." ..."
    "... Mueller's team tried to fight the discovery proceedings by arguing in January 2019 that Concord was leaking them to "discredit " the investigation. Within two months, however, the investigation discredited itself, by having to admit there was no "collusion " between US President Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election. ..."
    Mar 17, 2020 | www.rt.com

    The US is dropping the much-hyped indictment for 'election meddling' against a company supposedly behind the so-called Russian troll farm, closing the opening chapter of special counsel Robert Mueller's Russiagate investigation. Further pursuing the case against Concord Management & Consulting LLC, "promotes neither the interests of justice nor the nation's security," the Department of Justice wrote to the federal judge overseeing the case on Monday, in a motion to drop the charges.

    DOJ lawyers cited "recent events and a change in the balance of the government's proof due to a classification determination, " saying only that they submitted further details in a classified addendum.

    Wow.The DOJ moves to dismiss the charges against the Russian Company (Concord) who conducted the alleged "information warfare against the US"The troll case will be dismissed w/ prejudice.How embarrassing for Team Mueller. pic.twitter.com/wfZ78EWgKc

    -- Techno Fog (@Techno_Fog) March 16, 2020

    Concord was one of the three companies – the Internet Research Agency is another – and 13 individuals charged in February 2018 with waging "information warfare against the United States of America " using social media.

    Also on rt.com US indicts 13 Russians for 2016 election meddling, but 'no allegations' they influenced outcome

    The DOJ rationalizes the motion to dismiss by arguing that Concord is "a Russian company with no presence in the United States and no exposure to meaningful punishment in the event of a conviction." That has always been the case, however. What really changed since the indictment was filed is the complete implosion of Mueller's case, helped in part by Concord fighting the case in court.

    The motion inadvertently reveals that Mueller's prosecutors never intended the case against Concord, two other entities and 13 individuals to actually go to trial, otherwise they would have anticipated what ended up happening: Concord's lawyers demanding discovery documents from the DOJ, which the US authorities say risks "exposure of law enforcement's tools and techniques."

    But the Russians *did* show up, got to claim they were innocent until proven guilty, availed themselves of discovery, tied up the court in time, cost hundreds of thousands of $ in legal bills for DOJ, and gave Mueller a few black eyes in the process, and ended up victorious

    -- Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) March 17, 2020

    Mueller's team tried to fight the discovery proceedings by arguing in January 2019 that Concord was leaking them to "discredit " the investigation. Within two months, however, the investigation discredited itself, by having to admit there was no "collusion " between US President Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election.

    Also on rt.com Another nail in Russiagate coffin? Federal judge destroys key Mueller report claim

    They still insisted that Russia had "meddled " in the election, but there too the case proved a problem. Concord successfully petitioned Judge Dabney L. Friedrich in May last year to rebuke the prosecutors for presenting their allegations as facts.

    This is not to say that the DOJ is ready to disavow 'Russiagate' as a debunked conspiracy theory, however. Though the Concord case was dropped, the charges against the Internet Research Agency and the 13 Russian individuals were not. Given that none of them have a presence in the US, and have not dignified the indictment with a response, it is unclear how – if at all – the DOJ intends to proceed with the case.

    Keeping it on the books may keep the flames of 'Russiagate' alive, though, which is very convenient for the media and others heavily invested in the narrative of Moscow somehow menacing US elections, despite not a shred of actual evidence being presented to back it up.

    For a snapshot in time, this was the NYT homepage after the Russian troll farm indictment back in February 2018. Russia, we were told, "is engaged in a virtual war against the United States." pic.twitter.com/Z0xXCZoT9P

    -- Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) March 16, 2020

    Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!

    [Mar 14, 2020] Trump rightly announced a national emergency, marking a sharp shift in his approach to the greatest crisis of his presidency. by Jacob Heilbrunn

    Mar 13, 2020 | nationalinterest.org

    It was a somber Donald Trump who spoke at the White House today to declare a "national emergency" and that "we're doing a great job." Gone was his language about exaggerated fears and a "hoax" surrounding the coronavirus. His own daughter, Ivanka, stayed home rather than visit the White House because of her exposure to an Australian official who has the coronavirus.

    Not only was the shift in tone marked, but Trump also referred constantly to the numerous public health experts and corporate CEOs flanking him as he faced the biggest crisis of his presidency. Dr. Anthony Fauci indicated that the coronavirus may remain virulent for another eight to nine weeks: "I can't give you a number. It depends how successful we are." Trump himself sought to convey confidence by emphasizing that his administration had moved quickly to impede the spread of the coronavirus, including quickly ordering travel bans. How effective will his emergency declaration prove?

    The most important thing that the administration can do is work to remove the uncertainty surrounding the extent of the spread of the virus. Until there is more clarity, economic activity will be hobbled as investors and businesses retreat from incurring any additional risk. In this regard, Trump's decision to announce an emergency was a case of better late than never. Failure is not an option. Left unchecked, the worst-case estimates are that the coronavirus could kill up to 1.5 million people and turn America into Italy writ large. Writing in the Washington Post today, the Italian journalist Monica Maggioni underscores just how grim that prospect would be: "I find myself confined in a place where time is suspended. All the shops are closed, except for groceries and pharmacies. All the bars and restaurants are shuttered. Every tiny sign of life has disappeared. The streets are totally empty; it is forbidden even to take a walk unless you carry a document that explains to authorities why you have left your house. The lockdown that began here in Lombardy now extends to the entire country."

    Some of the most important pledges Trump made were that he would offer up to $50 billion in federal funding to states to battle the coronavirus. He indicated that hospitals can now "do as they want. They could do as they have to." He added, "I'm urging every state to set up emergency operations centers effective immediately." He indicated, in response to a question after his opening statement, that he himself would undergo a coronavirus test, something that he had previously resisted. Trump also said that up to five million tests would be available by the end of the month-a lofty goal. The danger for Trump is that, as is his wont, he is overpromising. Still, the move to establish drive-thru testing at places like Walgreens and Walmart parking lots makes good sense. Trump's weakest moment by far came when he responded to a question about the lack of testing that until now has badly hampered efforts to stop the virus-"No, I don't take responsibility at all."

    To help prop up the economy, he indicated that government purchases for the strategic reserve would be increased. Wall Street responded positively to Trump's remarks as the stock market rose, ending up almost two thousand points on Friday. But Trump also pooh-poohed a multi-billion dollar bill backed by House Democrats to address the coronavirus crisis, remarking that they "are not doing what's right for the country." Among other things, it does not include the payroll tax relief that Trump is supporting. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is vowing to vote on the bill.

    For now, the measures that Trump announced today will mark a significant shift in his administration's approach to the pandemic. Former Food and Drug Administration head Scott Gottlieb tweeted, "Actions by White House today to sharply increase testing capacity and access, declare a national emergency, implement new steps to protect vulnerable Americans, support assistance for those hardest hit by mitigation steps, all very important. Will meaningfully improve readiness."

    [Mar 13, 2020] Trump's Coronavirus Address, Blooper Reel Included The Daily Show - YouTube

    Mar 13, 2020 | www.youtube.com

    https://youtu.be/BWO6i8cH8SA


    Dan L , 4 hours ago (edited)

    "As calming as a firecracker dropped into a bag of cocaine" lmao I lost it there.. Hilariously accurate.

    berlineczka , 4 hours ago

    Fun fact: the European Union actually has no authority over health issues whatsoever. This is a strict Member State prerogative. The countries can coordinate voluntarily (which is what is currently arranged by the European Commission, but since there is no precedence it takes time) - but there was no way to make any decision about that in Brussels.

    KingM , 5 hours ago (edited)

    Greetings from Europe. In these hard times I'd like to thank Trump for providing such gold comedy material from just being a moron and reminding us all that it could always be worse.

    [Mar 13, 2020] Some freedom with facts: pease note that the current COVID-18 coronavirus was discovered in January 2020 and compare this fact with the White House statement

    That might be a different coronavirus ;-)
    Mar 13, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

    Doug Chance engineerscotty 8 hours ago

    Oh, they have. This is from the email I got from the White House listserv:

    "Some 150,000 illegal immigrants from 72 nations with cases of the coronavirus have been apprehended or deemed inadmissible from entering the United States since November," according to officials. These apprehensions underscore the need for border security and proper vetting. Read more from Paul Bedard in the Washington Examiner.

    [Mar 13, 2020] In 2018, Trump fired the entire US pandemic response team.

    Notable quotes:
    "... The New New Deal ..."
    Mar 13, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

    deplorado , March 12, 2020 at 2:17 pm

    From Twitter:

    Judd Legum @JuddLegum

    WORTH REPEATING: In 2018, Trump fired the entire US pandemic response team.
    These were the experts with decades of experience dealing with precisely the kind of situation we are in today.

    Trump did not replace them.

    He eliminated the positions.

    https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1238108656950001666?s=20

    allan , March 12, 2020 at 3:10 pm

    Another fun fact from Twitter:

    Michael Grunwald @MikeGrunwald
    I had forgotten my own reporting that @SenatorCollins
    stripped $870M for pandemic preparations out of the 2009 stimulus.

    [page image from Grunwald's book, The New New Deal ]

    11:30 AM · Mar 12, 2020· Twitter for iPhone

    There was some discussion here the other day about who's responsible for the sorry state of the CDC
    and pandemic preparation in particular. Now, the Dems controlled all the WH, Senate and House in 2009,
    so obviously they share some of the blame, but if Collins hadn't demanded this,
    it probably wouldn't have happened.

    I'm very disappointed with Susan Collins.

    Louis Fyne , March 12, 2020 at 3:26 pm

    Typical modern, bipartisan American short-termism.

    In my opinion, things would not have been not better under a Hillary admin. -- -but at least we'd have a no-fly zone in Syria. USA!

    ambrit , March 12, 2020 at 5:42 pm

    Now we have a no fly zone in Continental Europe!

    [Mar 13, 2020] Mounting backlush against Trump admnistration handling of the coronavirus epidemic will affect elections

    Mar 13, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    Clueless Joe , Mar 13 2020 14:11 utc | 2

    Curious to read your thoughts about the impact.

    Considering how pretty much all Western governments fucked up big time, I expect a backlash against current governing parties, if not a serious questioning of the ways current "liberal" democracies are working. And they won't be able to blame it on Putin's or Xi's troll army; everyone can see they brought this upon themselves.

    This is the time where the Four Stages system from Yes Minister - which is blatantly used by our political leaders - is out in the open, because the consequences won't appear decades in the future but will be obvious before this year is over.

    Of couse, globalization of trade, free-trade, free movement of people will have to be reconsidered. And last but not least, if people have to live for months under lockdown or quarantine, it might have an impact on the economic and productive system -- and also on the environment --, because our societies will have to focus on what's truly needed for them to survive as societies, and not on the fanciful bullshit like marketing, spin doctors, traders and countless bureaucratic jobs.

    [Mar 13, 2020] In Ancient Greek Thought, Plagues Follow on Bad Leadership

    Notable quotes:
    "... Myths help their audiences understand the causes of things. As narrative theorists like Mark Turner and specialists in memory like Charles Fernyhough emphasize, people learn how to behave from stories and concepts of cause and effect in childhood. The linear sequence of before, now and after communicates the relationships between things and how we, as human beings, understand our own responsibility in the world. ..."
    Mar 13, 2020 | www.truthdig.com
    Zeus, the head Greek god, who lamented humans' tendency to bring suffering upon themselves. (Carole Raddato/Flickr, CC BY-SA)
    Zeus, the head Greek god, who lamented humans' tendency to bring suffering upon themselves. (Carole Raddato/Flickr, CC BY-SA)
    In the fifth century B.C., the playwright Sophocles begins " Oedipus Tyrannos " with the title character struggling to identify the cause of a plague striking his city, Thebes. (Spoiler alert: It's his own bad leadership.)

    As someone who writes about early Greek poetry, I spend a lot of time thinking about why its performance was so crucial to ancient life. One answer is that epic and tragedy helped ancient storytellers and audiences try to make sense of human suffering.

    From this perspective, plagues functioned as a setup for an even more crucial theme in ancient myth: a leader's intelligence. At the beginning of the "Iliad," for instance, the prophet Calchas – who knows the cause of a nine-day plague – is praised as someone " who knows what is, what will be and what happened before ."

    This language anticipates a chief criticism of Homer's legendary King Agamemnon: He does not know " the before and the after ."

    The epics remind their audiences that leaders need to be able to plan for the future based on what has happened in the past. They need to understand cause and effect. What caused the plague? Could it have been prevented?

    People's recklessness

    Myths help their audiences understand the causes of things. As narrative theorists like Mark Turner and specialists in memory like Charles Fernyhough emphasize, people learn how to behave from stories and concepts of cause and effect in childhood. The linear sequence of before, now and after communicates the relationships between things and how we, as human beings, understand our own responsibility in the world.

    Plague stories provide settings where fate pushes human organization to the limit. Human leaders are almost always crucial to the causal sequence, as Zeus observes in Homer's "Odyssey," saying, as I've translated it, "Humans are always blaming the gods for their suffering / but they experience pain beyond their fate because of their own recklessness."

    The problems humans create go beyond just plagues: The poet Hesiod writes that the top Greek god, Zeus, showed his disapproval for bad leaders by burdening them with military failures as well as pandemics . The consequences of human failings are a refrain in the ancient critique of leaders, with or without plagues: The "Iliad," for instance, describes rulers who " ruin their people through recklessness ." The "Odyssey" phrases it as " bad shepherds ruin their flocks ."

    Devastating illness

    Plagues were common in the ancient world, but not all of them were blamed on leaders. Like other natural disasters, they were frequently blamed on the gods.

    But historians, like Polybius in the second century B.C. and Livy in the first century B.C., also frequently recount epidemics striking armies and people in swamps or cities with poor sanitation. Philosophers and physicians also searched for rational approaches – blaming the climate , or pollution .

    When the historian Thucydides recounts how a plague with alleged origins in Ethiopia hit Athens in 430 B.C., he vividly describes patients suffering a sudden high fever , shortness of breath and an array of sickly discharges. Those who survived the sickness had endured such delirious fevers that they might have no memory of it all.

    Athens as a state was unprepared to meet the challenge of that plague. Thucydides describes the futility of any human response: Appeals to the gods and the work of doctors – who died in droves – were equally useless . The disease wreaked havoc because the Athenians were massed within the city walls to wait out the Spartan armies during the Peloponnesian War.

    Yet despite the plague's terrible nature, Thucydides insists that the worst part was the despair people felt from fear and the " horror of human beings dying like sheep ."

    Sick people died of neglect, of the lack of proper shelter and of disease spreading from improper burials in an unprepared and overcrowded city, followed by looting and lawlessness.

    Athens, set up as a fortress against its enemies, brought ruin upon itself.

    Making sense out of human flaws

    Left out of plague accounts are the names of the multitudes who died in them. Homer, Sophocles and Thucydides tell us that masses died. But plagues in ancient narratives are usually the beginning, not the end of the story. A plague didn't stop the Trojan War, prevent Oedipus' sons from waging civil war or give the Athenians enough reasons to make peace.

    For years after the ravages of the plague, Athens still suffered from in-fighting, toxic politics and selfish leaders. Popular politics led to the disastrous Sicilian Expedition of 415 B.C., killing thousands of Athenians – but still Athens survived.

    A decade later, the Athenians again broke into civil factions and eventually prosecuted their own generals after a naval victory in 406 B.C. at Arginusae . In 404 B.C., after a siege, Sparta defeated Athens. But, as we learn from Greek myth, it was – again – really Athens' leaders and people who defeated themselves.

    Joel Christensen , Associate Professor of Classical Studies, Brandeis University

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article .

    [Mar 12, 2020] Did Joe Biden's Former IT Guy Masquerade as Guccifer 2.0 by Larry C Johnson

    Highly recommended!
    Notable quotes:
    "... The computer used to create the original Warren Document (dated 2008) was a US Government computer issued to the Obama Presidential Transition Team by the General Services Administration. ..."
    "... The Warren Document and the 1.DOC were created in the United States using Microsoft Word software (2007) that is registered to the GSA. ..."
    "... The author of both 1.doc and the PDF version is identified as "WARREN FLOOD." ..."
    "... "Russian" fingerprints were deliberately inserted into the text and the meta data of "1.doc." ..."
    "... This begs a very important question. Did Warren Flood actually create these documents or was someone masquerading as Warren Flood? Unfortunately, neither the Intelligence Community nor the Mueller Special Counsel investigators provided any evidence to show they examined this forensic data. More troubling is the fact that the Microsoft Word processing software being used is listed as a GSA product. ..."
    "... If this was truly a Russian GRU operation (as claimed by Mueller), why was the cyber spy tradecraft so sloppy? ..."
    "... The name of Warren Flood, an Obama Democrat activist and Joe Biden's former Director of Information Technology, appears in at least three iterations of these documents. Did he actually masquerade as Guccifer 2.0? If so, did he do it on his own or was he hired by someone else? These remain open questions that deserve to be investigated by John Durham, the prosecutor investigating the attempted coup against Donald Trump, and/or relevant committees of the Congress. ..."
    "... There are other critical unanswered questions. Obama's Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, sent a letter to James come on July 26, 2016 about the the DNC hack. Lynch wrote concerning press reports that Russia attacked the DNC: ..."
    "... A genuine investigation of the DNC hack/leak should have included interviews with all DNC staff, John Podesta, Warren Flood and Ellen Nakashima, The Washington Post reporter who broke the story of the DNC hack. Based on what is now in the public record, the FBI failed to do a proper investigation. ..."
    "... Resolving who was behind Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks seems to me to be a rather simple investigative exercise. That is, somebody registered and bought the names of G2 and DCL. One can't have a Wordpress blog without purchasing a url. So, there is a record of this registration, right? Simply subpoena the company who sold/rented the url. ..."
    "... It's now obvious that we don't have a functioning intel/justice apparatus in the U.S. This is the message sent and received by the intel/justice shops over and again. They no longer work for Americans rather they work against us. ..."
    Mar 12, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    Why does the name of Joe Biden's former Internet Technology guru, Warren Flood, appear in the meta data of documents posted on the internet by Guccifer 2.0? In case you do not recall, Guccifer 2.0 was identified as someone tied to Russian intelligence who played a direct role in stealing emails from John Podesta. The meta data in question indicates the name of the person who actually copied the original document. We have this irrefutable fact in the documents unveiled by Guccifer 2.0--Warren Flood's name appears prominently in the meta data of several documents attributed to "Guccifer 2.0." When this transpired, Flood was working as the CEO of his own company, BRIGHT BLUE DATA. (brightbluedata.com). Was Flood tasked to masquerade as a Russian operative?

    Give Flood some props if that is true--he fooled our Intelligence Community and the entire team of Mueller prosecutors into believing that Guccifer was part of a Russian military intelligence cyber attack. But a careful examination of the documents shows that it is highly unlikely that this was an official Russian cyber operation. Here's what the U.S. Intelligence Community wrote about Guccifer 2.0 in their very flawed January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment:

    We assess with high confidence that the GRU used the Guccifer 2.0 persona, DCLeaks.com, and WikiLeaks to release US victim data obtained in cyber operations publicly and in exclusives to media outlets.

    • Guccifer 2.0, who claimed to be an independent Romanian hacker, made multiple contradictory statements and false claims about his likely Russian identity throughout the election. Press reporting suggests more than one person claiming to be Guccifer 2.0 interacted with journalists.
    • Content that we assess was taken from e-mail accounts targeted by the GRU in March 2016 appeared on DCLeaks.com starting in June.

    The laxity of the Intelligence Community in dealing with empirical evidence was matched by a disturbing lack of curiosity on the part of the Mueller investigators and prosecutors. Here's the tall tale they spun about Guccifer 2.0:

    On June 14, 2016, the DNC and its cyber-response team announced the breach of the DNC network and suspected theft of DNC documents. In the statements, the cyber-response team alleged that Russian state-sponsored actors (which they referred to as "Fancy Bear") were responsible for the breach. Apparently in response to that announcement, on June 15, 2016, GRU officers using the persona Guccifer 2.0 created a WordPress blog. In the hours leading up to the launch of that WordPress blog, GRU officers logged into a Moscow-based server used and managed by Unit 74455 and searched for a number of specific words and phrases in English, including "some hundred sheets," "illuminati," and "worldwide known." Approximately two hours after the last of those searches, Guccifer 2.0 published its first post, attributing the DNC server hack to a lone Romanian hacker and using several of the unique English words and phrases that the GRU officers had searched for that day.

    [Apelbaum note--According to Crowdstrike and Special Counsel Mueller, both were present, APT28 AKA "Fancy Bear" and APT29 AKA "Cozy Bear".]

    The claims by both the Intelligence Community and the Mueller team about Guccifer 2.0 are an astounding, incredible denial of critical evidence pointing to a U.S. actor, not a Russian or Romanian. No one in this "august" group took the time to examine the metadata on the documents posted by "Guccifer 2.0" to his website on June 15, 2016.

    I wish I could claim credit for the following forensic analysis, but the honors are due to Yaacov Apelbaum. While there are many documents in the Podesta haul that match the following pattern, this analysis focuses only on a document originally created by the DNC's Director of Research, Lauren Dillon. This document is the Trump Opposition Report document.

    According to Apelbaum , the Trump Opposition Report document, which was "published" by Guccifer 2.0, shows clear evidence of digital manipulation:

    1. A US based user (hereafter referred to as G2 ) operating initially from the West coast and then, subsequently, from the East coast, changes the MS Word 2007 and Operating System language settings to Russian.
    2. G2 opens and saves a document with the file name, "12192015 Trump Report - for dist-4.docx". The document bears the title, "Donald Trump Report" (which was originally composed by Lauren Dillon aka DILLON REPORT) as an RTF file and opens it again.
    3. G2 opens a second document that was attached to an email sent on December 21, 2008 to John Podesta from [email protected]. This WORD document lists prospective nominees for posts in the Department of Agriculture for the upcoming Obama Administration. It was generated by User--Warren Flood--on a computer registered to the General Services Administration (aka GSA) named "Slate_-_Domestic_-_USDA_-_2008-12-20-3.doc", which was kept by Podesta on his private Gmail account. (I refer to this as the "WARREN DOCUMENT" in this analysis.)
    4. G2 deletes the content of the 2008 Warren Document and saves the empty file as a RTF, and opens it again.
    5. G2 copies the content of the 'Dillon Report' (which is an RTF document) and pastes it into the 2008 Warren Document template, i.e. the empty RTF document.
    6. G2 user makes several modifications to the content of this document. For example, the Warren Document contained the watermark--"CONFIDENTIAL DRAFT". G2 deleted the word "DRAFT" but kept the "CONFIDENTIAL" watermark.
    7. G2 saves this document into a file called "1.doc". This document now contains the text of the original Lauren Dillon "Donald Trump Report" document, but also contains Russian language URL links that generate error messages.
    8. G2's 1.DOC (the Word version of the document) shows the following meta data authors:
      • Created at 6/15/2016 at 1:38pm by "WARREN FLOOD"
      • Last Modified at 6/15/2016 at 1:45pm by "Феликс Эдмундович" (Felix Edmundovich, the first and middle name of Dzerzhinsky, the creator of the predecessor of the KGB. It is assumed the Felix Edmundovich refers to Dzerzhinsky.)
    9. G2 also produces a pdf version of this document almost four hours later. It is created at 6/15/201`6 at 5:54:15pm by "WARREN FLOOD."
    10. G2 first publishes "1.doc" to various media outlets and then uploads a copy to the Guccifer 2.0 WordPress website (which is hosted in the United States).

    There are several critical facts from the metadata that destroy the claim that Guccifer 2.0 was a Romanian or a Russian.

    • The computer used to create the original Warren Document (dated 2008) was a US Government computer issued to the Obama Presidential Transition Team by the General Services Administration.
    • The Warren Document and the 1.DOC were created in the United States using Microsoft Word software (2007) that is registered to the GSA.
    • The author of both 1.doc and the PDF version is identified as "WARREN FLOOD."
    • The copy of "1.doc" was uploaded to a server hosted in the United States.
    • "Russian" fingerprints were deliberately inserted into the text and the meta data of "1.doc."

    This begs a very important question. Did Warren Flood actually create these documents or was someone masquerading as Warren Flood? Unfortunately, neither the Intelligence Community nor the Mueller Special Counsel investigators provided any evidence to show they examined this forensic data. More troubling is the fact that the Microsoft Word processing software being used is listed as a GSA product.

    If this was truly a Russian GRU operation (as claimed by Mueller), why was the cyber spy tradecraft so sloppy? A covert cyber operation is no different from a conventional human covert operation, which means the first and guiding principle is to not leave any fingerprints that would point to the origin of the operation. In other words, you do not mistakenly leave flagrant Russian fingerprints in the document text or metadata. A good cyber spy also will not use computers and servers based in the United States and then claim it is the work of a hacker ostensibly in Romania.

    None of the Russians indicted by Mueller in his case stand accused of doing the Russian hacking while physically in the United States. No intelligence or evidence has been cited to indicate that the Russians stole a U.S. Government computer or used a GSA supplied copy of Microsoft Word to produce the G2 documents.

    The name of Warren Flood, an Obama Democrat activist and Joe Biden's former Director of Information Technology, appears in at least three iterations of these documents. Did he actually masquerade as Guccifer 2.0? If so, did he do it on his own or was he hired by someone else? These remain open questions that deserve to be investigated by John Durham, the prosecutor investigating the attempted coup against Donald Trump, and/or relevant committees of the Congress.

    There are other critical unanswered questions. Obama's Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, sent a letter to James come on July 26, 2016 about the the DNC hack. Lynch wrote concerning press reports that Russia attacked the DNC:

    If foreign intelligence agencies are attempting to undermine that process, the U.S. government should treat such efforts even more seriously than standard espionage. These types ofcyberattacks are significant and pernicious crimes. Our government must do all that it can to stop such attacks and to seek justice for the attacks that have already occurred.

    We are writing to request more information on this cyberattack in particular and more information in general on how the Justice Department, FBI, and NCIJTF attempt to prevent and punish these types ofcyberattacks. Accordingly, please respond to the following by August 9, 2016:

    1. When did the Department of Justice, FBI, and NCIJTF first learn of the DNC hack? Was the government aware ofthe intrusion prior to the media reporting it?
    2. Has the FBI deployed its Cyber Action Team to determine who hacked the DNC?
    3. Has the FBI determined whether the Russian government, or any other foreign
      government, was involved in the hack?
    4. In general, what actions, if any, do the Justice Department, FBI, and NCIJTF take to prevent cyberattacks on non-governmental political organizations in the U.S., such as campaigns and political parties? Does the government consult or otherwise communicate with the organizations to inform them ofpotential threats, relay best practices, or inform them ofdetected cyber intrusions.
    5. Does the Justice Department believe that existing statutes provide an adequate basis for addressing hacking crimes of this nature, in which foreign governments hack seemingly in order to affect our electoral processes?

    So far no document from Comey to Lynch has been made available to the public detailing the FBI's response to Lynch's questions. Why was the Cyber Action Team not deployed to determine who hacked the DNC? A genuine investigation of the DNC hack/leak should have included interviews with all DNC staff, John Podesta, Warren Flood and Ellen Nakashima, The Washington Post reporter who broke the story of the DNC hack. Based on what is now in the public record, the FBI failed to do a proper investigation.

    Recent Comments

    h | 12 March 2020 at 12:08 PM

    Of course sleepy Joe was in on the overall RussiaGate operation. And now another reasonable question by sleuth extraordinaire will fall into the memory hole b/c no one who has the authority and the power in DC is ever going to address, let alone, clean up and hold accountable any who created this awful mess.

    Resolving who was behind Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks seems to me to be a rather simple investigative exercise. That is, somebody registered and bought the names of G2 and DCL. One can't have a Wordpress blog without purchasing a url. So, there is a record of this registration, right? Simply subpoena the company who sold/rented the url.

    What's troubling to me is that even the most simplest investigative acts to find answers never seems to happen. Instead, more than three years later we're playing 'Whodunit.'

    It's been over 3 years now and if we had a truly functioning intel/justice apparatus this simple act would have been done long ago and then made public. Yet, here we are more than three years later trying to unravel, figure out or resolve the trail of clues via metadata the pranksters left behind.

    It's now obvious that we don't have a functioning intel/justice apparatus in the U.S. This is the message sent and received by the intel/justice shops over and again. They no longer work for Americans rather they work against us.

    [Mar 12, 2020] Trump's Botched Coronavirus Speech

    If comments reflect sentiments of moderate Republicans, Trump has no chances in November.
    Notable quotes:
    "... What over the last three years - and specifically in the last three weeks made you think Trump was going to come out of this on top? That would require him to actually be on top of things, which he never has been. Ever. And you thinking he's just doing 'poorly' just highlights your delusion that he is capable of being even mildly competent. ..."
    "... Trump spent the first years of his presidency doing favors for Wall Street, Israel, and Saudi Arabia instead of focusing on the America First promises that got him elected. The trillions he wasted on advancing foreign interests was badly needed to rebuild American infrastructure, including America's disease testing capacity. ..."
    "... Fair enough, we Americans may be stumbling along somewhat unsteadily into unchartered territory, but the important thing is we're now stumbling in the right general direction. We'll make it through this, people - most of us at least. All we can do as we enter into this miasma is our level best as responsible, compassionate humans, keeping a stiff upper lip and a stoic constitution. Amor fati : as precious as life is, death is always and evermore its close companion. ..."
    "... All the hallmarks of a Trump operation, offensive, ineffective, poorly thought out and will be retracted in the end. The travel ban against China, did help when China was the only source of the disease, so kudos to Trump. However now the monster is in the castle so pulling up the drawbridge won't help anymore. ..."
    Mar 12, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

    engineerscotty 11 hours ago

    Before the speech, I opined on Dreher's blog that Trump still had a chance of coming out of this crisis on top politically--that he might demonstrably use the bully pulpit of his office in a constructive manner, and be able to claim credit for a successful outcome.

    After the speech... well, it was widely panned in the more liberal sectors of the media, and FOX News has this bit of tripe as its current headline: https://www.foxnews.com/us/... The speech is mentioned in a sidebar, without commentary. When the friendly media outlets ignore you, it's a good sign you've done poorly.

    Matthew Kuhl engineerscotty 10 hours ago
    What over the last three years - and specifically in the last three weeks made you think Trump was going to come out of this on top? That would require him to actually be on top of things, which he never has been. Ever. And you thinking he's just doing 'poorly' just highlights your delusion that he is capable of being even mildly competent.
    marku52 Matthew Kuhl 10 hours ago
    When you base your team selection on political loyalty, you get fawning toadies. Mr Redfield (CDC), a homophobe associated with a group that regards HIV as God's judgement on gay people, was never going to be competent at epidemic control. He doesn't even believe in it.
    engineerscotty Matthew Kuhl 9 hours ago
    Note, I said "still had a chance". Such an observation should not be interpreted as any sort of praise for Trump, but as an observation that should he manage to string a couple coherent sentences together on the teevee, more than a few talking heads in the newsmejia will offer unto him hosannas about being "presidential".

    Lots of people, still, grade him on the curve. And that's including a fair number that aren't die-hard partisans... but would rather have an exciting horse race to write about this November.

    But other than that, I agree with you. He's an imbecile, and isn't going to stop being an imbecile over this. But lots of people will offer up the tiniest shreds to argue otherwise.

    IanDakar engineerscotty 6 hours ago
    Don't feel bad. That's where I was when he declared we were leaving Syria the first time (when nothing happened). I thought "Well if he carries this out he has a chance of doing something good."

    By the other time he said we were leaving Syria (when we did....not and decided to let a wast start and steal oil fields) I was done. Now I don't even trust the afgan deal to work out.

    The raw mess up speech is a new low. He's normally good at reading a script.

    Feral Finster 10 hours ago
    Correct me if I am wrong, but we can still travel to South Korea, etc. all we want?

    Also, I know that Trump owns numerous properties in the UK, but how does that stack up to Ireland (also, IIRC, not subject to the ban) and the rest of Europe? Does that explain anything, or is it just a way of supporting his fellow imbecile BoJo?

    Good thing that the UK doesn't get any foreign travelers.

    engineerscotty Feral Finster 10 hours ago
    Boris Johnson's government, to his credit, appears to be handling the crisis well, or at least competently. While there is much that BoJo and Trump have in common, there is also much they do not.
    KevinS engineerscotty 10 hours ago
    Boris can be a bit clownish at times....but he is not a stupid person, unlike you know who....
    HenionJD KevinS 8 hours ago
    Neither leader is stupid. One is simply unprincipled and the other suffers from a profound personality disorder. One can rise to the crisis when it's in his interest to do so and the other thinks the crisis is a plot to make him look bad.
    Per engineerscotty 7 hours ago
    i think you should recheck your sources on that topic and widen the search to other sources too. The brit bobs i have spoken with say the response there is a joke.. I will not bet my life on this tho, bc i am in Norway..

    The response here have been slow but it seems to get better, no mass testing yet so we dont know the real number of sick at all yet..

    JonF311 engineerscotty 6 hours ago
    Johnson may be a bombastic boob at times, but he's been in government for a while and knows his way around the place.
    Rkramden66 Feral Finster 9 hours ago
    No kidding. 1M foreign visitors on any given day in London, I seem to remember. Makes no sense at all, except in crude political terms.
    failure 10 hours ago
    "The U.S. has the lowest per capita testing of any country."

    Trump spent the first years of his presidency doing favors for Wall Street, Israel, and Saudi Arabia instead of focusing on the America First promises that got him elected. The trillions he wasted on advancing foreign interests was badly needed to rebuild American infrastructure, including America's disease testing capacity.

    Brasidas 10 hours ago
    This is the problem and it has always been the problem with an uncurious President who doesn't read and who works off hunches and believes he's a "stable genius". He can't even be bothered to understand the contours of his own policies. After all, it's just a game show.
    Nomuka Brasidas 8 hours ago
    In a few short lines, you've captured the situation perfectly. Our president is worse than ineffectual....
    John Achterhof 10 hours ago
    Fair enough, we Americans may be stumbling along somewhat unsteadily into unchartered territory, but the important thing is we're now stumbling in the right general direction. We'll make it through this, people - most of us at least. All we can do as we enter into this miasma is our level best as responsible, compassionate humans, keeping a stiff upper lip and a stoic constitution. Amor fati : as precious as life is, death is always and evermore its close companion.
    IanDakar John Achterhof 7 hours ago • edited
    A travel ban when the disease is here [makes no sense]. When infected citizens can travel from and TO infected areas:

    Where some countires are exempt so infected foreigners can just go to one of those countries then come here:

    Is not the right direction. It would be a half step forward in January. Now it's [like] installing a faulty smoke detector in the middle of a roaring fire. We screwed up. We are still screwing up. Acting like It's ok and we will be fine is not helping.

    We don't need motivation posters. We don't need panic. We need the public to realize this is NOT ok and to get these people at the top to realize this is Not Ok behavior.

    THEN, we can buckle down and hope for the best with that poster

    I Am Sorry 10 hours ago
    I voted for him. I still don't know whether HRC would have been worse, but this is really, really bad.
    john 9 hours ago
    All the hallmarks of a Trump operation, offensive, ineffective, poorly thought out and will be retracted in the end. The travel ban against China, did help when China was the only source of the disease, so kudos to Trump. However now the monster is in the castle so pulling up the drawbridge won't help anymore.
    engineerscotty john 9 hours ago
    I'm surprised Mexicans haven't been blamed for this yet.
    Doug Chance engineerscotty 8 hours ago
    Oh, they have. This is from the email I got from the White House listserv:

    "Some 150,000 illegal immigrants from 72 nations with cases of the coronavirus have been apprehended or deemed inadmissible from entering the United States since November," according to officials. These apprehensions underscore the need for border security and proper vetting. Read more from Paul Bedard in the Washington Examiner.

    engineerscotty Doug Chance 7 hours ago
    It's one of those carefully-constructed sentences that can be ambiguously parsed.

    If you read it as "Some 150,000 illegal immigrants from (72 nations with cases of the coronavirus) have been apprehended", it's likely true but unremarkable. Many nations now have coronovirus cases.

    If you read it as "Some 150,000 (illegal immigrants from 72 nations) with cases of the coronavirus have been apprehended", it would be remarkable if true, but is absolutely false based on what we currently know.

    And the November reference is particularly cheeky.

    FL Transplant john 7 hours ago
    But the travel ban wasn't against China--meaning anyone there who could have been exposed--it was against Chinese from anywhere in the country. Americans and others potentially infected were free to enter the US from impacted areas with no restrictions--quarantines, etc.

    Just like the current ban against Europe. US citizens/permanent residents are free to travel to/from without restriction. We're only banning nationals from European countries. And there's going to be a massive influx of those eligible returning from Europe in the next couple of days--do you think any of them might, just might, be bring Covid 19 back along with themselves?

    Name 9 hours ago
    When is the next MAGA Rally?
    Chris Chuba Name 7 hours ago
    Don't worry, just keep watching FOX and you'll see it broadcasted on prime time.
    Old Man Shadow 8 hours ago
    Before I watched his speech, I thought that this was a serious situation, but we should avoid panic.

    After I watched his speech, my impulse was to run out, start hording, and lock myself and my family in our home for the next six months.

    This was not a good speech is what I'm saying.

    Donna Saggia 7 hours ago
    Health care under uber-capitalism. We seem to have all the money in the world to throw at military toys, but very little for the health of the nation. If Americans keep voting for these priorities, the inevitable consequences will prevail. The US may be just a bad social experiment.
    Chris Chuba 7 hours ago
    As others have stated, no mention of paid sick leave which would go a long way towards encouraging infected people to self-quarantine rather than go to work and keep spreading the virus.

    On an even more dire topic, a U.S. General is blaming Iran for a rocket attack in Iraq that killed two U.S. serviceman. This is Trump's 'red line', if everyone does what they have publicly stated then Trump just gave ISIS the golden key to force us into a war with Iran.

    IanDakar Chris Chuba 7 hours ago
    The US House has a bill to offer paid leave among other measures. Republicans have said it goes beyond the scope of what's needed. The Senate has said that they aren't reviewing anything until after the week long break they are about to have.

    So yeah.

    Ken T Feral Finster 2 hours ago
    True market insiders easily make just as much money in a downward moving market as in an upward moving market. As long as it is moving , that is all that matters. That means that people are buying and selling, and Wall Street is profiting from every transaction. The people being hurt the most by the market losses are the middle class folks whose 401k's are losing value.
    PeerReview 4 hours ago
    Trump is much better at doing stuff for Israel and Saudi Arabia. He always has plenty of time, money, and focus for doing what they want him to do. If he spent as much time controlling our borders and defending the lives, health, and economic well-being of Americans as he does on fighting wars for Israel and Saudi Arabia, we'd be better prepared for this virus.

    [Mar 09, 2020] The Coronavirus Debacle by Daniel Larison

    Right the major fiasco was with CDC testing kits. I do not see any other. Exaggerating the threat would only make hoarding panic that engult the USA worse. Of source Trump desire to protect stock market at any human or other cost was cruel and silly, but Trump is cruel and silly in many other areas as well.
    Quarantine for retired persons might really help in areas with high number of infections.
    Notable quotes:
    "... For the last several weeks, we have seen the president and top administration officials presenting the public with misleading and outright false information in an effort to conceal the magnitude of the problem and the extent of their initial failures. The president has been unwilling to tell the public the truth about the situation because he evidently cares more about the short-term political implications than he does about protecting the public: ..."
    Mar 07, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

    The AP reports on more of the Trump White House's bungling of the coronavirus response:

    The White House overruled health officials who wanted to recommend that elderly and physically fragile Americans be advised not to fly on commercial airlines because of the new coronavirus, a federal official told The Associated Press.

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention submitted the plan this week as a way of trying to control the virus, but White House officials ordered the air travel recommendation be removed, said the official who had direct knowledge of the plan. Trump administration officials have since suggested certain people should consider not traveling, but they have stopped short of the stronger guidance sought by the CDC.

    There is no good reason for the White House to prevent this recommendation from being made public. This is another example of how the president and his top officials are trying to keep up the pretense that the outbreak is much less dangerous than it actually is, and in doing so they are helping to make the outbreak worse than it has to be.

    For the last several weeks, we have seen the president and top administration officials presenting the public with misleading and outright false information in an effort to conceal the magnitude of the problem and the extent of their initial failures. The president has been unwilling to tell the public the truth about the situation because he evidently cares more about the short-term political implications than he does about protecting the public:

    Even as the government's scientists and leading health experts raised the alarm early and pushed for aggressive action, they faced resistance and doubt at the White House -- especially from the president -- about spooking financial markets and inciting panic.

    "It's going to all work out," Mr. Trump said as recently as Thursday night. "Everybody has to be calm. It's going to work out."

    Justin Fox comments on the president's terrible messaging:

    The biggest problem, though, is simply the way that the president talks about the disease. His instinct at every turn is to downplay its danger and significance.

    Minimizing the danger and significance of the outbreak ensured that the government's response was less urgent and focused than it could have been. It encouraged people to take it less seriously and thus made it more likely that the virus would spread. Then when the severity of the problem became undeniable, the earlier discredited happy talk makes it easier for people to disbelieve what the government tells them in the future.

    The administration had time to prepare a more effective response, but as I said last week the administration frittered away the time they had. They were still preoccupied with keeping the virus out rather than trying to manage its spread once it arrived here, as it was inevitably going to do:

    "We have contained this. I won't say airtight but pretty close to airtight," White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said in a television interview on Feb. 25, echoing Trump's tweeted declaration that the virus was "very much under control" in the United States.

    But it wasn't, and the administration's rosy messaging was fundamentally at odds with a growing cacophony of alarm bells inside and outside the U.S. government. Since January, epidemiologists, former U.S. public health officials and experts have been warning, publicly and privately, that the administration's insistence that containment was -- and should remain -- the primary way to confront an emerging infectious disease was a grave mistake.

    The initial response and the stubborn refusal to adapt to new developments have meant that the U.S. is in a much worse position in handling this outbreak than many other countries. Max Nisen comments on the lack of testing in the U.S.:

    Don't cheer just yet. The lower case count doesn't mean Americans are doing a better job of containing the virus; rather, it reflects the fact that the U.S. is badly behind in its ability to test people. The Centers for Disease Control stopped disclosing how many people it has tested as of Monday, but an analysis by The Atlantic could only confirm 1,895 tests. Switzerland, a country with fewer residents than New Jersey, has tested nearly twice as many people. The U.K., which has far fewer cases, has tested over 20,000. This gap is particularly worrisome given evidence of community spread in a number of different states and a high death count, both of which suggest the number of cases will jump as more tests are conducted.

    Capacity is finally ramping up, but only after weeks of delays prompted by unforced errors and botched early test kits from the CDC. The continuing inability to test broadly is leading to missed cases, more infections, and an outbreak that will be bigger than it needed to be.

    The administration not only bungled their initial response, but they have also been extremely resistant to admitting error. Trump's appointees are reluctant to contradict the president when he spouts nonsense about the outbreak, and that in turn makes it more difficult for them to communicate clearly and consistently with the public. All of this serves to undermine public trust in the government's response, and it prevents health officials from being able to do their jobs without political interference. The federal government's response has been hampered by a president who wants to make people think that the problem isn't that bad and is already being dealt with successfully:

    At the White House, Trump and many of his aides were initially skeptical of just how serious the coronavirus threat was, while the president often seemed uninterested as long as the virus was abroad. At first, when he began to engage, he downplayed the threat -- "The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA," he tweeted in late February -- and became a font of misinformation and confusion, further muddling his administration's response.

    On Friday, visiting the CDC in Atlanta, the president spewed more falsehoods when he claimed, incorrectly: "Anybody that needs a test, gets a test. They're there. They have the tests. And the tests are beautiful."

    When the president lies about such a serious matter, he is causing unnecessary confusion and he is sending exactly the wrong message that remedying earlier failures is not an urgent priority. Because Trump's primary concern is making himself look good in the short term, he is willing to risk a worse outbreak. During his visit to the CDC, the president went on in an even more bizarre vein to praise the tests by comparing them to his "perfect call" with the Ukrainian president last summer that led to his impeachment:

    In an attempt to express confidence in the CDC's coronavirus test (the agency's second attempt after the first one it developed failed), Trump offered an unorthodox comparison from the last enormous crisis to swamp his presidency. The tests are just like his impeachment-causing attempt to pressure a foreign government to help him get reelected. "The tests are all perfect like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect. Right? This was not as perfect as that but pretty good," Trump told reporters after falsely stating, again, that anyone who needed a test right now could get one.

    This morning the president was back at it this morning with more self-serving misinformation:

    We have a perfectly coordinated and fine tuned plan at the White House for our attack on CoronaVirus. We moved VERY early to close borders to certain areas, which was a Godsend. V.P. is doing a great job. The Fake News Media is doing everything possible to make us look bad. Sad!

    -- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 8, 2020

    The president needs people to think that everything he does is perfect, so he is incapable of acknowledging his failures and prefers to vilify accurate reporting about those failures. He cannot help but mismanage the government response because he cannot put the national interest ahead of his own selfishness. An untold number of Americans will be paying a steep price for the president's unfitness for office in the weeks and months to come.

    − +

    Englewood12 hours ago

    "An untold number of Americans will be paying a steep price for the president's unfitness for office in the weeks and months to come."

    We've been paying it for a while. It's just more obvious now. I wish I never voted for him.

    SFBay1949 Englewood6 hours ago • edited
    I wish you had thought a bit into the future before you voted him. Did you really think things wouldn't turn out EXACTLY the way they have? Honestly, it's to rime tell the truth here.
    Englewood SFBay19495 hours ago
    It's the Democrats who should have thought a bit into the future. It was the identity and known character and policies of Trump's opponent that tipped my vote to Trump. And no, obviously I didn't think things would turn out "exactly" this way. I thought if I put up with his repulsive manner I'd get maybe a third of his main campaign promises and that the GOP establishment would get the hiding it deserves. Boy, was I wrong.
    SFBay1949 Englewood3 hours ago
    I take you believe Hillary Clinton was worse than Trump. Fair enough, but do you still think our country would be in the state it is now? In what way could she possibly be worse than what we have now with Trump?
    Brandon Falusi SFBay19494 hours ago
    It's better for Trumpism to have burst like a zit onto the mirror, no matter how disgusting, because it was all there anyway under Bush and Cheney, it was there alongside "Barack the magic... birth certificate!" You can fairly easily wash off the stain of Bush and Rumsfeld, you can sort of start to forget their sublime horror, the exact same level of lies and utter mismanagement, but you can't wash off a man like Trump, ever. His portrait will be in the White House so future Americans can see what we're capable of, and hopefully be more vigilant about the subtle and polished lies and civilized outrages. We needed this barbaric display to get some clarity.
    King George12 hours ago
    "The president has been about the situation because he evidently cares more about the
    short-term political implications than he does about protecting the public"

    It's no different from the first two years of his presidency. He already betrayed those of us who voted for the America First promises on immigration and ending the wars. He spent most of his doing favors for Wall Street, Israel, and Saudi Arabia instead. Now he's going to betray the many vulnerable elders who voted for him, risking their illness and even death by his selfish evasions and lies. He's a con artist. A fake.

    [Mar 09, 2020] President Trump's (and by extension, prayerful Vice President Pence's) incompetence and his self-serving, empathy-free approach to the coronavirus

    Notable quotes:
    "... This article first appeared NewVandal . ..."
    Mar 09, 2020 | www.counterpunch.org

    As COVID-19 begins its inevitable "community transmission" phase around the United States, the purveyors of the conventional wisdom are largely focused on President Trump's (and by extension, prayerful Vice President Pence's) incompetence and his self-serving, empathy-free approach to the coronavirus. And it is true that, as with all things Trump, it seems that all he really cares about is the stock market and its effect on his reelection bid. But Trump's narcissism obscures something both far more pernicious and far more permanent than his oft-televised obsession with himself and that's the fact that he's been busily making Milton Friedman's "Supply Side/The Bottom Line Is The Only Line" dream an intractable reality.

    It was a dream that first took flight when Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980. The dream was often made manifest by the neoliberal lurch and deregulatory impulses of President Bill Clinton. But it is Trump who's come closest to fully realizing the dream of ending responsive government. It should come as no surprise, though. Trump lifted, among other things , his " Make America Great Again " slogan from the Gipper. He's also taken Reagan's anti-FDR pitch about the dangers of government (see "The Deep State") and, with the help of a motley crew of Tea Partiers, Evangelicals and corporate Republicans, transformed it into, as Steve Bannon calls it, a " War on the Administrative State ."

    Since taking office and taking complete control of the news-cycle, Trump has been systematically starving Federal agencies of resources, personnel and attention. He has, through the sycophants and lobbyists he's installed around the Executive Branch, been pushing out career professionals and barely replacing them with also-rans. And he is dismantling every aspect of government he cannot use to reward his corporate clients or punish political apostates.

    The idea is to cripple the Federal government from within instead of doing the hard legislative work of changing the laws that legally compel government action. As a result, many of the regulations on the books are becoming functionally irrelevant . Some laws are being rewritten by the lobbyists who used to lobby against 'em, but mostly the Executive Branch is being systematically emaciated by the political equivalent of chronic wasting disease.

    It's an approach first pioneered by Reagan devotee Grover Norquist, who advocated " starving the beast " of government down to a manageable size before "drowning it" in a bathtub. It's an idea currently being implemented with wide-ranging effect by Trump, who, like Reagan before him , is accelerating the bankrupting of the already debt-laden treasury with a combo of tax cuts and massive spending on a world-dwarfing defense industry. Eventually, the theory goes, the "safety net," a.k.a. "entitlements," and other "common good" spending will collapse under the weight of the financial limitations generated by profuse borrowing to fund market-distorting tax cuts and to dole out subsidies and tax gifts to cronies and key corporations. All the while, the ever-less regulated chemical, oil, defense, agricultural and (most importantly of all) financial industries will continue to hoard assets through the rinsing and repeating of the supply side boom-and-bust scheme, a.k.a. the business cycle.

    Frankly, this all looks like the endgame of a long plan to undo the demand side economy created by the New Deal. Along with the seemingly (but not) contradictory spike in Unitary Executive power (which is about protecting rackets, shielding enforcers from prosecution and about enforcing political compliance), this is a transformation decades in the making and Trump is the perfect salesman for this final episode even better than Reagan or Clinton because his "flood the zone" narcissism is the ultimate, 24/7 distraction for a people addicted to binge watching, inured to scripted reality shows and motivated by belligerent infotainment.

    Reagan was the first actor to hit his marks on a stage set for him by the interlocking forces of Big Oil, Big Defense and Wall Street. Not coincidentally, this same Venn Diagram of power has profited mightily from Trump's Presidency. Rather than an actor, though, Trump is the barking emcee of the final season of the American Dream Gameshow a program that was initially cancelled in 1980, but somehow kept running in syndication on one of the two crappy channels a "free" people have been given to chose from. But now, the final credits are closer to rolling that ever before.

    As such, Trump is the omega to Reagan's alpha. And any coronavirus-related "incompetence" you see being reported is a feature, not a bug, of this Re-Great'd America. And that's because Trump is not an outlier. He is a culmination.

    This article first appeared NewVandal .

    JP Sottile is a freelance journalist, published historian, radio co-host and documentary filmmaker (The Warning, 2008). His credits include a stint on the Newshour news desk, C-SPAN, and as newsmagazine producer for ABC affiliate WJLA in Washington. His weekly show, Inside the Headlines w/ The Newsvandal, co-hosted by James Moore, airs every Friday on KRUU-FM in Fairfield, Iowa. He blogs under the pseudonym " the Newsvandal ".

    [Mar 09, 2020] About intelligence againces influence on the USA politicians and elections and such.

    We still do not know to what intelligence agency Epstein reported...
    Mar 09, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
    Sunny Runny Burger , Mar 9 2020 10:00 utc | 88
    About politicians and elections and such.

    In my opinion one should assume that anyone at all anywhere close to either power, genuine opposition, or something interesting (which could be anything) has a nice collection of different and (at least in some places) pretty hefty "files" available at all the different "powers (plural) that be" (who all try to keep an eye one each other to see what the competition seems interested in).

    That includes the janitors in various government buildings and more. It's called "security clearance" and doesn't only look at the individual :)

    They're the bureaucratic equivalent of $10000 hammers and are always "a lot of work" to cover/pay for all the unrelated unofficial non-public effort in places and systems that supposedly don't exist and thus can't be reviewed and can't be subjected to any pesky laws :P

    Our modern world is a DDR clone only with super-human abilities and the evolutionary pressure it generates is intense, perhaps simply too intense for the (or any?) systems to survive.

    [Mar 09, 2020] U.S. Foreign Policy and the Return to Normalcy

    Notable quotes:
    "... The "normalcy" to which Biden would return the U.S. is rather different. There would be a restoration of sorts, but the restoration would be that of the bankrupt bipartisan foreign policy consensus, among other things. As Emma Ashford suggested in a recent discussion , Biden's foreign policy could be described as "Make American Exceptionalism Great Again." ..."
    "... Biden's rhetoric is full of the tired boilerplate rhetoric about U.S. global leadership. Biden's new article for Foreign Affairs includes quite a bit of this: ..."
    "... As president, I will take immediate steps to renew U.S. democracy and alliances, protect the United States' economic future, and once more have America lead the world. This is not a moment for fear. This is the time to tap the strength and audacity that took us to victory in two world wars and brought down the Iron Curtain. ..."
    "... basically, a Biden foreign policy would be "Obama but worse" https://t.co/wIZwch5Bmk ..."
    "... Inasmuch as Biden is much more comfortable with the nostrums of the foreign policy establishment and with their assumptions about the U.S. role in the world than Obama was, that seems like the right conclusion. A foreign policy that is like Obama's but more conventional probably doesn't sound that bad, but we should remember that this is the same foreign policy that left the U.S. engaged in more than one illegal war and normalized illegal warfare without Congressional authorization. ..."
    "... Returning to an era of "normalcy" characterized by repeated policy failures, lack of accountability, and open-ended warfare is not the kind of restoration that Americans need. It might be good enough to win the election, but it isn't going to fix what ails U.S. foreign policy. ..."
    "... I hope that Sanders really takes it to Biden on the horrendous failures of the Obama/Clinton foreign policy, particularly the wrecking of Libya, Syria, and Yemen, the sheer scale of human misery that Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Biden caused, including unleashing millions of terrified refugees into Europe. I find Sanders' dalliance with communist dictatorships during the Cold War disgusting, but Biden's responsibility for implementing the Obama/Clinton foreign policy horrors is far worse. ..."
    "... Unfortunately, most voters don't seem to care much about foreign policy--which is really outrageous considering it is the area in which Presidents have the greatest latitude to act unilaterally. But that is the world we live in. ..."
    "... Even if he does publicly recant it, my view is that talk is cheap. Politicians will say what they think the voters want to hear. It doesn't mean they'll do it. ..."
    "... Wasn't Biden the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the person that maybe has done more than VP Dick C. in 2002 to start and legitimize the Iraq war? ..."
    "... Bottom line is Biden is fraud and everything he and his handlers say or write must be viewed as such. ..."
    Mar 09, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

    oe Biden's candidacy is defined by the idea that he will "restore" things to the way they were four years ago and that he will preside over a "return to normalcy" after the Trump years. The phrase "return to normalcy" has been linked to the Biden campaign for the better part of the last year. TAC 's Curt Mills commented on this after Biden's recent primary wins:

    Biden then, not Trump, would be the candidate of the centennial. Like Warren Harding, he promises a return to normalcy.

    The Harding comparison is quite useful because it shows how Biden's "return to normalcy" will be quite different from the one Harding proposed a century ago. Harding contrasted normalcy with "nostrums." This was a shot at the ideological fantasies of the Wilson era and the upheaval that had come with U.S. entry into WWI. This is the full quote :

    America's present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise; not submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality.

    The "normalcy" to which Biden would return the U.S. is rather different. There would be a restoration of sorts, but the restoration would be that of the bankrupt bipartisan foreign policy consensus, among other things. As Emma Ashford suggested in a recent discussion , Biden's foreign policy could be described as "Make American Exceptionalism Great Again."

    Where Harding's "normalcy" represented the repudiation of Wilsonian fantasies, Biden's would be an attempt to revive them at least in part. Harding contrasted "normalcy" with Wilson's "nostrums," but Biden's rhetoric is full of the tired boilerplate rhetoric about U.S. global leadership. Biden's new article for Foreign Affairs includes quite a bit of this:

    As president, I will take immediate steps to renew U.S. democracy and alliances, protect the United States' economic future, and once more have America lead the world. This is not a moment for fear. This is the time to tap the strength and audacity that took us to victory in two world wars and brought down the Iron Curtain.

    The Cold War ended thirty years ago, and it is telling that Biden does not point to any victories for the U.S. in the decades that have followed. Proponents of U.S. global "leadership" have to keep reaching farther and farther back in time to recall a time when U.S. "leadership" was successful, and they have remarkably little to say about the thirty years when they have been running things. That is what they want to "restore," but it's not clear why Americans should want to go back to a status quo ante that produced such staggering and costly failures as the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Like the early 19th century Bourbon restoration, it would be a return to power for those who had learned nothing and forgotten nothing.

    John Carl Baker comments on an op-ed co-authored last year by Robert Kagan and Anthony Blinken. Blinken is now Biden's main foreign policy adviser, and that leads Baker to draw this conclusion:

    So basically, a Biden foreign policy would be "Obama but worse" https://t.co/wIZwch5Bmk

    -- John Carl Baker (@johncarlbaker) March 7, 2020

    Inasmuch as Biden is much more comfortable with the nostrums of the foreign policy establishment and with their assumptions about the U.S. role in the world than Obama was, that seems like the right conclusion. A foreign policy that is like Obama's but more conventional probably doesn't sound that bad, but we should remember that this is the same foreign policy that left the U.S. engaged in more than one illegal war and normalized illegal warfare without Congressional authorization.

    Returning to an era of "normalcy" characterized by repeated policy failures, lack of accountability, and open-ended warfare is not the kind of restoration that Americans need. It might be good enough to win the election, but it isn't going to fix what ails U.S. foreign policy.


    Gaithers a day ago

    "Return to normalcy" better not mean squandering any more blood or money on the Middle East. If that's what he has in mind, Biden can forget my vote.
    Ellerton a day ago
    I hope that Sanders really takes it to Biden on the horrendous failures of the Obama/Clinton foreign policy, particularly the wrecking of Libya, Syria, and Yemen, the sheer scale of human misery that Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Biden caused, including unleashing millions of terrified refugees into Europe. I find Sanders' dalliance with communist dictatorships during the Cold War disgusting, but Biden's responsibility for implementing the Obama/Clinton foreign policy horrors is far worse.

    I'm one of those poor saps who was taken in by Trump in 2016, and I want a Democrat I can vote for. I can't see voting for someone with Biden's appalling foreign policy record. If he doesn't recant it publicly and convincingly then he will likely lose to Trump.

    Clyde Schechter Ellerton a day ago
    "If he doesn't recant it publicly and convincingly then he will likely lose to Trump."

    I don't know about that. Unfortunately, most voters don't seem to care much about foreign policy--which is really outrageous considering it is the area in which Presidents have the greatest latitude to act unilaterally. But that is the world we live in.

    Even if he does publicly recant it, my view is that talk is cheap. Politicians will say what they think the voters want to hear. It doesn't mean they'll do it. The only recantation I would find somewhat persuasive (I don't think anything would "convince" me) is if he were to state that he will appoint somebody like Sanders or Rand Paul as secretary of State and someone like Tulsi Gabbard as secretary of Defense, and staff his national security council by recruiting from the Quincy Institute. (To actually capture my vote would require additional personnel commitments, such as Elizabeth Warren for secretary of the Treasury--but that's off topic for this thread.)

    Right now, I would vote for Sanders if he gets the nomination and doesn't do something between now and November to alienate me. If Biden is the nominee, barring something really drastic, I'll do my usual and find a third party candidate to vote for.

    kouroi a day ago
    Wasn't Biden the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the person that maybe has done more than VP Dick C. in 2002 to start and legitimize the Iraq war? Just accusing Biden of voting for the Iraq war is nothing. About 70 other senators have voted for it. Biden was the legislative Architect that paved the way for the Iraq War, and in my books (keeping the UN Charter as the legal standard), he is a War Criminal.
    Alan Vanneman a day ago
    I realize that almost everything Biden has to say about foreign policy is abysmal, and both Sanders and Warren were much better, but neither were electable (and both were abysmal on domestic policy and trade policy). Biden may be banal, but he is not vicious, as Trump so clearly is.

    Furthermore, I think the otherwise estimable Mr. Larison fails to realize that the general public does set some vague parameters for what is and what is not acceptable foreign policy, though often without knowing it. I think it quite likely that Donald Trump will "abandon" Afghanistan, just as Max Boot et al. fear, and no one who can't name the Acela stops between New York and DC will care. Trump, when he isn't assassinating people, is much less aggressive than the Obama/Clinton administration. Although he talks about regime change, he doesn't follow through. He can be talked out of withdrawing troops, but so far hasn't tried sending them in. Early in his administration he was widely praised for firing Tomahawk missiles into Syria. Why hasn't he done it again? There is nothing Trump likes so much as praise. Why abandon what seemed like a sure-fire applause line?

    cka2nd Alan Vanneman a day ago
    We have four years of polling saying that Sanders could beat Trump. Not every single poll, but a great majority of them.
    kouroi Alan Vanneman 12 hours ago
    The "electability" concept is something mostly constructed by the media. Only a very small percentage of voters come in direct contact and hear and observe the candidates. The very brief TV debates, much choreographed and controlled are no good. As such, media starts and keeps repeating this notion of electability.

    As a person, presence, message, I think the most charismatic individual to show up for this presidential cycle is Tulsi Gabbard. Her showing is off the charts compared with everyone else. Beside her anti regime change message (she is not necessarily anti-war), her charisma is such a threat that she had to be excluded from the consciousness and awareness of people. And what was implanted in people's mind is that she is an Assad apologist and that she met with the blood thirsty Assad.

    Mark Krvavica a day ago
    I enjoy some good nostalgia, but it has no place in foreign policy.
    Taras77 a day ago
    Good article! Bottom line is Biden is fraud and everything he and his handlers say or write must be viewed as such.
    NGPM 19 hours ago
    How about restoration of the "normalcy" of bipartisan consensus on "comprehensive immigration reform" AKA a general amnesty which will likely benefit some 25 to 35 million illegal aliens plus their descendants, in practice?

    It doesn't seem to make much sense harping about restoring sanity to American foreign policy when America might not even exist in 20 years.

    [Mar 08, 2020] The art of betrail or ordinary voters: CIA democrats or how Dems establishment focused on cultivating ever greater ties with the military and intelligence services

    This actually started with Clintons, who also can be viewed as CIA democrats. (especially Hillary)
    In no way Sanders supporters will vote for Biden. They will stay home or vote for the third party candidate. This is kind of mini-civil war withing the Dem Party and while Clinton wing won, this is a Pyrrhic victory.
    Notable quotes:
    "... There are the CIA Democrats who were elected in the last mid-terms. There was the obscene, degrading veneration of first James Comey and then Robert Mueller. ..."
    "... There is Adam Schiff and the endless Russiagate black hole of mental resources, money, time and political capital. ..."
    "... What they all have in common is the Democrats pressuring Trump for being insufficiently imperialist and warmongering. ..."
    Mar 07, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

    tempestteacup , , March 7, 2020 at 8:38 am

    This is what I was thinking. It was obvious from 2015 that one of Trump's most effective messages was his criticism of the Iraq War, of Nato, Syria and the endless occupation of Afghanistan. We can also set aside the fact that he has largely failed to do much of what he implied in his campaign. The point is that he campaigned to the left of the Democrats on these issues and did it knowingly -- and that this was a message that resonated with, as you say, voters connected in some way to the military.

    Also significant in this context is that since his election, the mainstream Washington Dems have focused (besides their interminable obsession with 'civility') on cultivating ever greater ties with the military and intelligence services.

    There are the CIA Democrats who were elected in the last mid-terms. There was the obscene, degrading veneration of first James Comey and then Robert Mueller.

    There is Adam Schiff and the endless Russiagate black hole of mental resources, money, time and political capital.

    What they all have in common is the Democrats pressuring Trump for being insufficiently imperialist and warmongering. In this context, too, it is significant that the Dem mandarins have chosen Joe Biden, probably the most right wing of all the remaining opponents facing off against Bernie -- definitely worse than Obama (remember that when he chose Biden as VP it was viewed rightly as throwing a bone to the Blue Dogs and other Dem reactionaries!) and almost certainly worse even than HRC herself.

    But it doesn't have to be that way. As you suggest, an anti-war message can reach voters in special ways and unite, for example, groups that would otherwise view themselves as miles apart -- e.g. radicalised young people and rural working class families with military connections. That is exactly the type of solidarity we need. And therefore almost as exactly the sort of thing that Democrats minus Bernie will do all they can to prevent coming to pass!

    tempestteacup , March 7, 2020 at 8:22 am

    Yes, I didn’t mean to suggest that direct exposure to the often tragic consequences of serving the American Empire inevitably leads those affected to critical insights into how it operates or sustains itself – there is a difference between experience and insight, feeling and knowing. But I believe it does mean there is a very fertile ground for anti-war sentiments in precisely those groups most frequently dismissed by mainstream Democrats or the media as irredeemably…ahem…deplorable.

    Not sure I agree that internationally minded socialism died in the trenches of WWI. It was quite literally murdered in that war’s aftermath through the brutal suppression of working class struggles like the Spartacist uprising and political assassinations of figures like Rosa Luxermburg and Karl Liebknecht. And it was ideologically murdered by the capital-assisted rise of fascism and national chauvinism at precisely the moment when global capitalism was entering a period of potentially terminal crisis. In that broad sweep of events I would go so far as to include the ascension to power of Stalin in the Soviet Union and his socialism-in-one-country, which effectively ended the internationalism unleashed by the 1917 Revolution.

    After WWII, the capitalist West of course responded to these crises by ceding more ground to workers than they had ever done before. Socialised healthcare in Europe, the welfare state, access to education, state-led investment. They rightly feared the consequences of a resurgent international socialism and opted to head things off at the pass (I hate that cliche, to quote Hedley Lamarr!). But no less influential was the Stalinist Soviet Union’s cynical manipulation of liberation struggles and the various Communist Parties they funded across the West and Latin America. Their sabotage of the Spanish Republican struggle was here the template, as they evolved various “popular front” tactics to lead various working-class movements down strategically (for them) useful blind alleys.

    In fact, the list of betrayals committed by the Soviet Union with regard to their international ‘comrades’ bears comparison with the Democratic Party’s own patented ability to bury social movements in the US – leading bravely and courageously…from behind.

    As for Bernie/AOC, their plan to ‘deal with domestic problems first’ is exactly what I take issue with. In the first place, I see no evidence that the ruling class will allow even their modest policies to be enacted. This is not the Depression Era. Unions are weak, corrupt or worse. Political consciousness may be growing but remains relatively low compared to the 20th century. There is no broad mass movement beyond Washington DC which political leaders can use as leverage in the struggles that would inevitably need to be fought over policies like Medicare for All. Maybe they will emerge once the struggles gain momentum, but for now the disposition of social forces and political power is very different from the context in which the New Deal was (partially) executed or the Civil Rights Era in the 60s.

    More importantly, though, and what I’ve been trying to get at is the idea that you can effectively decouple domestic from foreign issues is a mirage. Particularly in a period of unparalleled interconnection where global capital and finance have themselves eroded the integrity of nation states or their sovereignty. And besides that, Trump’s election has brought into the open the enormous political power that has been amassed by the military and intelligence services – and which will without doubt be brought to bear on any Bernie or AOC attempting to bring about domestic reforms opposed by the oligarchy.

    I just don’t think it is possible to confront one set of issues without confronting the other – their interrelationship requires them to be faced at the same time. And that is of course before we talk about the moral imperative to do so.

    One last thing – a lesson learned painfully from Labour under Corbyn. His constant capitulations over mainly foreign issues – Israel, Trident, the Skripal case, Syria, Julian Assange – didn’t free up space or energy to fight for domestic reform. It didn’t satisfy his opponents in the media or on the right wing of his own party. It signalled his weakness and encouraged them to press on with ever more insistent demands. And, crucially, it demotivated and demobilised the very popular support on which his insurgent movement relied. It disillusioned, confused and depressed the energies of those who had powered him to the leadership. And, finally, it exposed him as weak or vacillating to voters he needed to convince or galvanise.

    Now Bernie is a much, much more skilled political operator than Jeremy Corbyn, but on the other hand the Democratic Party is far more corrupt and corporatist, far more detached from and unaccountable to its base of support. The Labour Party, at least, is a mass membership party with continued trade union links. The Dems are a mafia cartel/protection racket based around no more than perpetuating the privileges of those they call their own (elected officials, consultants, media cheerleaders etc). As I said in my first post, I acknowledge he is fighting a very particular fight for the nomination/presidency – and he is kept constantly busy fending off dishonest attacks from all sides – but if not him, then others, like AOC, need in my view to stop putting off confrontation over foreign issues for another day – the struggle needs to combine domestic and international otherwise it will end up sacrificing both.

    Bazarov , March 7, 2020 at 1:46 pm

    I don’t think Bernie is a much more skilled political operator than Jeremy Corbyn–I think he’s about as bad, so bad that he’s about to get defeated by a Joe Biden, a pudding brained old man with a terrible record.

    But Bernie is going to do a great service (I hope) by losing and that’s to turn the nascent left away from electoralism and more toward the street, organizing the masses in the manner that the right wing has: by emphasizing propaganda to radicalize the normies (radio/podcasts/youtube), by siloing cadres into a parallel culture, and by growing tendencies toward revolutionary action by encouraging socialization with specific political content (in the right wing world these are gun/religious groups).

    Out of these social formations, electoral success organically follows. The left ought to build the secular equivalent of evangelical churches (a Socialist Meeting Hall in every town!) and gun groups (left wing boy scouts and also…left wing gun groups?). Get the people out of their homes to meet one another in a specific political context. When someone identifies as “Socialist,” it should be a shorthand for a kind of “social” existence that is notably separate from the “normal” (as it is right now for the Right Wing–a strong reason, in my view, for the successful rightward political seduction of such a large portion of the masses, who ought to be easy pickings for the left).

    Lambert Strether Post author , March 7, 2020 at 3:36 am

    > The overextension of empire is always going to provide its weakest points.

    Exhibit A at least in terms of visibility: The supply chain.

    It would surely be possible to frame, and possibly even to conceptualize, the combination of gutting manufacturing in this country and moving it to China as a bad case of Imperial overstretch….

    [Mar 08, 2020] Looks like Trump is opening himself up to defeat.

    Mar 08, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    Pft , Mar 7 2020 0:07 utc | 54

    When Trump was first elected I figured it was a 1 term deal. After all, why does a billionaire want to waste all of his twighlight years as President for any longer. But the Dems failed to run anyone that could relieve him from duty. What to do? Well Covid-19. Knowing how fearful Americans are, not taking a overhyped health care crisis seriously is political suicide. Yet he chooses to do so. If politicians know nothing they know the people demand "to be kept safe". Yet Trump seems oblivious, opening himself up to defeat.

    ... ... ...

    Otherwise I guess people might vote for Biden if they get scared enough, and if they get the chance to vote. Stay tuned though.

    [Mar 07, 2020] Donald Trump was always only about himself, even when the Twin Towers fell

    Mar 07, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

    So it goes. I cannot for the life of me understand why, leaving aside the public health aspects of the president's response, people cannot see what a political disaster he's making for himself and the GOP. He doesn't have to act like the zombie apocalypse is upon us. He only has to behave like Rudy Giuliani did as Mayor of New York City in the fall of 2001. But then, as we know, Donald Trump saw the Twin Towers fall, and thought about himself:

    https://www.youtube.com/embed/PcKlPhFIE7w?start=105


    Hmmm a day ago

    I just watched that 9/11 clip. I'd never seen or heard it and I figured, oh boy, what asinine, self-centered things did he say back then. That's what I've come to expect from him. But -- I don't really see the problem. They asked him about his nearby tower, and his observation that it was the second tallest downtown after the WTC is typical of him. But he didn't dwell on that. And the rest of the interview was just fine, typical platitudes of that day, in response to some typical stupid (and obsequious) questions from the reporters. If he sounded like that more often over the last 3 years, I'd be much happier.
    AlfredEN Hmmm a day ago
    Despite his many faults, Trump was once a much better, more articulate communicator. There's an old recording of a Larry King interview in which he sounds like an entirely different person from what we see today.
    Hmmm AlfredEN 7 hours ago
    That's my impression as well. I haven't seen this remarked on much, in all the virtual ink spilled about Trump. Sometimes in old age, one's distinguishing traits and habits become more pronounced (or as my mother says, one becomes "the same but more so"). Not sure if that's the case with Trump. It could also be that his cognitive and verbal abilities have declined, or that he hit on a winning formula and has stuck with it.

    If nothing else, this election will give us a lot of opportunity to think about what old men are like.

    [Mar 05, 2020] Swamp russsiagators at work again: Apparent US Intel Meddling in US Election, With 'Report' Russia is Aiding Sanders Consortiumnews

    Looks like Putin have always been eating CIA homework...
    Notable quotes:
    "... The New York Times ..."
    "... Washington Post ..."
    "... The New York Times ..."
    "... Consortium News ..."
    Feb 21, 2020 | consortiumnews.com
    Apparent US Intel Meddling in US Election, With 'Report' Russia is Aiding Sanders

    96 Comments

    Without any proof, The New York Times and Washington Post run "Russia helping Sanders" stories, and Sanders responds by bashing Russia, writes Joe Lauria.

    By Joe Lauria
    Special to Consortium News

    W ith Democratic frontrunner Bernie Sanders spooking the Democratic establishment, The Washington Post Friday reported damaging information from intelligence sources against Sanders by saying that Russia is trying to help his campaign.

    If the story is true and if intelligence agencies are truly committed to protecting U.S. citizens, the Sanders campaign would have been quietly informed and shown evidence to back up the claims.

    Instead the story wound up on the front page of the Post , "according to people familiar with the matter." Zero evidence was produced to back up the intelligence agencies' assertion.

    "It is not clear what form that Russian assistance has taken," the Post reported. That would tell any traditional news editor that there was no story until it is known.

    Instead major U.S. media are again playing the role of laundering totally unverified "information" just because it comes from an intelligence source. Reporting such assertions without proof amounts to an abdication of journalistic responsibility. It shows total trust in U.S. intelligence despite decades of deception and skullduggery from these agencies.

    Centrist Democratic Party leaders have expressed extreme unease with Sanders leading the Democratic pack. Politico reported Friday that former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg's entry into the race is explicitly to stop Sanders from winning on the first ballot at the party convention.

    A day after The New York Times reported , also without evidence, that Russia is again trying to help Donald Trump win in November, the Post reports Moscow is trying to help Sanders too, again without substance. Both candidates whom the establishment loathes were smeared on successive days.

    In a Tough Spot

    The Times followed the Post report Friday by making it appear that Sanders himself had chosen to make public the intelligence assessment about "Russian interference" in his campaign.

    But Sanders had known for a month about this assessment and only issued a statement after the Post asked him for comment before publishing its uncorroborated story based on anonymous sources.

    Sanders was put in a difficult spot. If he said, "Show me the proof that Russia is trying to help me," he ran the risk of being attacked for disbelieving (even disloyalty to) U.S. intelligence, and, by default, defending the Kremlin.

    So politician that he is, and one who is trying to win the White House, Sanders told the Post :

    "I don't care, frankly, who Putin wants to be president. My message to Putin is clear: Stay out of American elections, and as president I will make sure that you do. In 2016, Russia used Internet propaganda to sow division in our country, and my understanding is that they are doing it again in 2020."

    The Times quoted Sanders as calling Russian President Vladimir Putin an "autocratic thug." The paper reported Sanders saying in a statement: "Let's be clear, the Russians want to undermine American democracy by dividing us up and, unlike the current president, I stand firmly against their efforts and any other foreign power that wants to interfere in our election."

    Responding to a cacophony of criticism that Sanders' supporters are especially vicious online, as opposed to the millions of other vicious people online, Sanders attempted to use Russia as a scapegoat, the way the Clinton campaign did in 2016. He said: "Some of the ugly stuff on the Internet attributed to our campaign may well not be coming from real supporters."

    But no matter how strong Sander's denunciations of Russia, his opponents will now target him as being a tool of the Kremlin.

    Mission accomplished.

    Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former correspondent for T he Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe , Sunday Times of London and numerous other newspapers. He can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @unjoe .


    Juan M Escobedo , February 24, 2020 at 10:55

    Let`s face it,even though Bernie is a moderate Social Democrat,at best.He`s the only one capable of beating "the Orange"version of Hitler.But he sounds as if the DNC,big wigs,decide to deny him the nomination;he`d go along with it.Just like before;when he even campaigned for the"Crooked One(Hillary).I guess we`ll see.

    Kim Dixon , February 24, 2020 at 04:31

    The most-important element missed in this piece is this: Sanders is helping the DNC and the MIC gin up fear of, and hatred for, the only other nuclear superpower on earth.

    If you were around during the McCarthy years, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the '73 Arab/Israeli war, and all the other almost-Armageddon crises of Cold War One, you know that nothing could be stupider and more-dangerous than that. The missiles still sit in their silos, waiting for the next early-warning misunderstanding or proxy-war miscalculation to send them flying.

    Sanders lived through it all. He's supposed to be the furthest-Left pol in Congress. So how can he possibly advocate for anything but detente and disarmament?

    SteveK9 , February 24, 2020 at 20:18

    I would really like to support Bernie, but statements like this make me shake my head. It's more a reflection of America today I guess. Politicians believe to a man (or woman) that they must put the hate on Putin and Russia or they have no chance. It doesn't matter that the Russia garbage is 100% false. And, I don't mean they 'interfered' only a little there was nothing, nothing at all. Even Trump has to go along with this propaganda. I don't know how anyone can believe this idiotic (and incredibly dangerous, as you point out) rubbish at this point. But you can't call your friends blanking morons.

    J Gray , February 25, 2020 at 02:55

    I think he successfully dodged a bullet but set himself up to offer comprehensive election reform if he pulls out a victory .

    or it is an early sign that he, the DNC & MIC are coming to terms. It doesn't have that ring to it to me, like when Trump called for regime-change war in Venezuela & defunding schools to build a space army. That was a clear on-the-record sell-out & got him off the Impeachment hook the next day. Similar to when the Clinton signed the Telecom Act to get off his.

    They are still coming after Sanders too hard w/their McCarthiast attacks to feel like he is siding with them. I think he has to do this because they are bundling his movement, Venezuela and Russia into the new Red Scare.

    Tony Kevin , February 23, 2020 at 21:49

    "#JoeLauria's piece in #ConsortiumNews is excellent. He calmly sets out #Sanders' political dilemma. The latest line from US intelligence agency stenographer media like #NYTimes is that #Russians are helping both #Trump and Sanders because they simply want to sow discord and cynicism about US democracy , they do not care who wins. #CaitlinJohnstone neatly satirises this by writing a spoof article claiming that US intelligence agencies have discovered #Bloomberg is being helped by Russians because he has two Russian grandfathers.

    It has reached the point , as Lauria shows, where any criticism of such US MSM nonsense leaves the speaker open to the allegation that he is soft on/ naive about/complicit in Russian election meddling. Without being a Trump supporter, one can understand Trump's rage and contempt for what is going on .

    Justin Glyn. Consortium News. Joe Lauria. Tony Kevin"

    Tony Kevin , February 23, 2020 at 21:32

    Sanders and Trump will survive this Deep State manipulation and attempted blackmail . They will see off the Clintonistas and Deep State moles, and will go on to fight a tough but fair election. Americans are sick of Russophobia.

    jack , February 24, 2020 at 15:25

    agreed – the Russiagate psyop is past its shelf life – BUT Deep State will carry on – it's a global entity and they're into literally everything – no idea how any known, normal governing structure can deal with it

    Susan J Leslie , February 23, 2020 at 10:40

    Enough with the "Russia" BS already! It is clear to me the wealthy corporate Dems and the MSM are behind all of the smear tactics against Bernie and anyone else who serves the people

    Susan J Leslie , February 23, 2020 at 10:40

    Enough with the "Russia" BS already! It is clear to me the wealthy corporate Dems and the MSM are behind all of the smear tactics against Bernie and anyone else who serves the people

    Dfnslblty , February 23, 2020 at 09:07

    Front page drama plus zero evidence began long ago with 'anonymous sources said "!
    Complete lack of accountability on the part of the sources and on the part of the reporters.
    Thus we receive a "reality teevee " potus , and we are pleased to be hypnotised and titillated.
    A true revolution would demand CN-quality reportage and reject msm pablum.

    JohnDoe , February 23, 2020 at 03:43

    It's enough to look at the news on mainstream media to understand who's, as usual, meddling in the elections. In the latest period for the first time I saw a lot of enthusiastic comments and articles about Bernie Sanders. It's clear they are pushing him. But why those who isolated him in during the primaries against Clinton are now supporting him? It's obvious, that they want to get rid of Elizabeth Warren, first push ahead the weaker candidates, then they'll switch their support towards another candidate, probably Bloomberg.

    delia ruhe , February 23, 2020 at 00:14

    Well, thank you Joe Lauria! I am in trouble in several comment threads for suggesting that the intel community is at it again, trying to ruin two campaigns by identifying the candidates with Putin and the Kremlin. Now I can quote you. Excellent piece, as usual.

    Deniz , February 22, 2020 at 22:44

    Imagine Sanders and Trump, putting their differences aside and declaring war on the deep state during a debate. They have the same enemies.

    The same people who planted Steele's dirty dosier are going to try to steal Sanders election from him. It wont be Trump and the Republicans who rigs the election against Sanders.

    SteveK9 , February 24, 2020 at 20:21

    Trump actually seemed to want to help Bernie a bit (well, he keeps calling him 'Crazy Bernie as well). He put out some tweet calling this latest rubbish, Hoax #7. But Bernie would rather say something stupid, like 'I'm not a friend of Putin he is' talk about 5-year olds.

    Deniz , February 25, 2020 at 00:49

    Its disappointing. Sanders heart seems to be in the right place, but when it comes time to face the sinister forces that run the country for their own benefit, he will be absolutely crushed.

    Linda Jean Doucett , February 22, 2020 at 21:32

    This will never end.
    No president will ever change anything.
    The deep state tentacles will eventually kill us all.
    I am going to go and enjoy what's left.

    Marko , February 22, 2020 at 20:24

    " But Sanders had known for a month about this assessment and only issued a statement after the Post asked him for comment before publishing its uncorroborated story based on anonymous sources Sanders was put in a difficult spot. If he said, "Show me the proof that Russia is trying to help me," he ran the risk of being attacked for disbelieving (even disloyalty to) U.S. intelligence, and, by default, defending the Kremlin. "

    I suspect that Sanders was given a classified briefing a month ago , which he couldn't disclose to the public. If so , and given that he didn't make this clear immediately after being accused of withholding this information , he has only himself to blame for the resulting "bad look".

    JWalters , February 22, 2020 at 19:06

    The corporate media has revealed itself to be a monopoly behind the scenes, working in unison to trash Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard. Even though Gabbard is only at a few percent in the polls, her message is potentially devastating to the war profiteers who own America's Vichy MSM.

    "Congressman Oscar Callaway lost his Congressional election for opposing US entry into WW 1. Before he left office, he demanded investigation into JP Morgan & Co for purchasing control over America's leading 25 newspapers in order to propagandize US public opinion in favor of his corporate and banking interests, including profits from US participation in the war."
    war * profiteerstory. * blogspot. * com/p/war-profiteers-and-israels-bank.html

    Thankfully, there is still a free American press, of which Consortium News is a stellar example.

    elmerfudzie , February 22, 2020 at 13:25

    The CIA and DIA (it has about a dozen agencies under it and is much larger than any other Intel agency) are supposed to monitor threats to our national security, that originate abroad. Aside from a few closed door sessions with a select group of congresspersons, our Intel agencies have practically no real democratic oversight and remain, for all intents and purposes, a parallel government(s) well hidden from public view. In particular how they are financed and what their actual annual budgets really are. How these agencies every managed to seep into any electioneering process what so ever, is beyond me, since they are all intentionally very surreptitious- by design. We ask questions and these Intel agencies are quick to tout the usual phrase; that subject area is secret and needs to be addressed in closed session, blah, blah, blah. Of course "secrecy" translates into, we do what we want when we want and use information any way we want because our parallel governments represent the best example(s) of a perpetual motion machine that does not require outside monitoring. The origins of these "parallel entities" can be traced to the Rockefeller brothers and their associated international corporations. There's the rub folks. Our citizens at large will never overtake for the purposes of real monitoring, this empire and elephant in the room, directly. However we do have one avenue left and it requires a rank and file demand from the people to their state representatives demanding two long standing issues, they remain unresolved and until a solution is found, will permit dark powers to side step every level of democratic governments-anywhere.

    The first is true campaign finance reform and the second is assigning, or rather, removing the status of person-hood to corporate entities. The Rockefeller's used their corporate power and wealth to influence legislative, judicial and executive bodies. They cannot help but do as the puppet master commands! Be it some form of, corporatism, fascism, feudalism, monarchy, oligarchy, even bankster-ism or any other "ism We as citizens at large must make every effort to again, obtain true campaign finance reform and remove the lobbying presence inside the beltway. Today, the corporate entity has risen to a level that completely overtakes and smothers any authentic democratic representation, of and by the people. Originally (circa the early1800's) American corporations were permitted to exist and papers were drawn based on the specific duties they were about to perform, this for the benefit of the local community for example, building a bridge. Once the job was completed, the incorporation was either liquidated or remanded over to the relevant governing body for the purposes of reevaluating the necessity of re-certifying the original incorporation papers. Old man Rockefeller changed the governance and oversight privilege by forcing and promulgating legislation(s) such as limited liability clauses, strategies to oppose competition, tax evasion schemes and (eventually) assigning person-hood to corporate entities, thus creating a parallel government within the government. It all began in Delaware and until we clear our heads and assign names to the actual problems, as I've itemized here, our citizenry will never experience the freedom to fashion our destiny. Please visit TUC radio's two part expose' by Richard Grossman. It will help CONSORTIUMNEWS readers to understand just what a monumental task is ahead for all of us. Work for a fair and equitable future in America, demand campaign finance reform and kick the hustling lobbyists out of our government. Voters being choked to death with senseless debates and useless candidates.

    Jeff Harrison , February 22, 2020 at 12:36

    The real threats to our democracy are our unaccountable surveillance state and the craven politicians in Washington, DC. And, no, Ben, we can't keep our republic because we don't have a sufficient mass of critical thinkers to run it. If we did, this kind of BS, having been shot full of holes once, wouldn't get any air.

    Alan Ross , February 22, 2020 at 10:37

    Sanders may win the nomination and the election but he cannot get a break from some purists on the left. His reaction may have been quite astute. When Sanders says that we should station troops on the borders of Russia or arm the Ukrainians, then you can say he really is anti-Russian. I have not heard all that he has said, but what I have heard sounds so much like hot air put out by a left politician trying to deal with the ages-old establishment and right wing smear that he is a pawn of the commies, a fellow traveler, a pinko, and now an agent of a foreign power, a Russian asset and so on. There is real criticism of Sanders, but his statements about Putin and Russia do not add up to much.

    Skip Scott , February 22, 2020 at 09:51

    Anyone who is still under the influence of the MSM hypnosis of RussiaGate, led by Rachel Madcow, needs to think long and hard about this latest propaganda campaign. The real message here is unless you support corporate sponsored warmonger from column A or B, you are a tool of the "evil Rooskies". And the funny thing is, Sanders is "weak tea" when it comes to issues of war and peace, and the feeding of the war machine at the government trough with no limits.

    The purpose of this BIG LIE of the "Intelligence" agencies is to make it impossible for someone to be against the Forever War without being tarred as a "Foreign Agent", or at least a "useful idiot", of the "EVIL ROOSKIES". To simply want peaceful coexistence on its own merits is impossible.

    Imagine if Sanders dared to mention that Putin enjoys substantial majority support inside Russia, and seeks peaceful coexistence in a multi-polar world, instead of calling him an "autocratic thug". Often for politicians, speaking the truth is a "bridge too far". I wonder if Sanders (like Hillary) finds it necessary to hold "private" positions that differ from his "public" positions? Or does he really believe his own BS?

    Jacquelynn Booth , February 22, 2020 at 09:19

    I had not seen Mr Joe Lauria's article when I commented on Mr Ben Norton's story, but my reply could fit here as well.
    The idiot American public dismays me. To them, the "MSM news" and "celebrity gossip reports" are equal and both to be wholeheartedly believed.
    There is no point in trying to educate a resistant public in the differences between data and gossip -- public doesn't care.
    I weep for what we have lost -- a Constitution, a nation of free thinkers. My heart breaks for the world's people, and what my country tries to do to them, with only a few resistant other countries confronting and challenging America.
    It is so difficult to know the truth of a situation and yet to know that almost no one (statistically speaking) believes you.

    Jim Hartz , February 23, 2020 at 12:04

    A better distinction might be, concerning the intelligence of the American public, the one Chomsky has used, rooted in Ancient Greek culture, that between KNOWLEDGE and OPINION. Americans, of course, have OPINIONS about everything, but little KNOWLEDGE about much of anything. And it seems their idea of FREEDOM is related to, bound up with, their having OPINIONS about virtually EVERYTHING.

    So much for our being a HIGHER life form.

    We're in the process of destroying EVERYTHING, not just HIGHER LIFE FORMS [us], but all flora and fauna, water and air on the planet–as I said, EVERYTHING. To paraphrase from memory a citation by Perry Anderson from the work of heterodox Italian Marxist, Sebastiano Timpanaro, "What we are witnessing is not the triumph of man over history, but the victory of nature over man."

    Tony , February 22, 2020 at 07:40

    The Trump administration has pulled out of the INF missile treaty citing totally unproven claims of Russian violations.
    It also looks like allowing the START treaty on strategic nuclear missiles to lapse if we do not stop it.

    And so, in what sense would Putin want Trump to get re-elected?

    Van Jones of CNN once described the original allegations of Russian meddling in US elections as a 'great big nothing burger'.

    Sounds right to me.

    Sam F , February 22, 2020 at 07:24

    When the secret agencies and mass media stop manipulating public opinion, despite their oligarchy masters' ability to control election results anyway, we will know that they no longer need deception to control the People. Simple force will do the job, with a few marketing claims to assist in hiring goons to suppress any popular movement. Democracy is completely lost, and the pretense of democracy will soon follow.

    michael , February 22, 2020 at 07:03

    Another foray into domestic politics by the CIA, with anonymous sources and no evidence shown (as no evidence exists). Perhaps the CIA (which probably works for Putin, or Bloomberg, or anyone who pays them best, but they are loyal to the US dollar only; and maybe heroin?) is even now making up another Chris Steele/ Fusion GPS/ CrowdStrike dossier, getting that Russian caterer to the Kremlin to pump out clickbait and sink both Trump and Sanders. Because RUSSIANS!!! are "genetically driven" to interfere in American democracy. Next we'll have the DNC (CIA) pushing Superpredator tropes such as "this enormous cohort of black and Latino males" who "don't know how to behave in the workplace" and "don't have any prospects." With this Clintonian (and Biden and Bloomberg) mindset, America will be increasing incarceration once again. That $500,000 bribe the Clintons took from Putin in 2010 when Hillary was Secretary of State probably plays a role.
    Meanwhile, the Pentagon and Defense Secretary Mark Esper have surprisingly noted that China, not Russia, is America's #1 concern: "America's concerns about Beijing's commercial and military expansion should be your concerns as well." Since Bill Clinton's Chinagate fiasco in 1996, Communist China, for a measly $million or so in illegal campaign donations, gained permanent trade status, took millions of American jobs, and suddenly were allowed access to advanced, even military technologies. This was the impetus for China's rise to be the strongest nation in the world. There are no doubt statues of the Clintons all over China, and soon to Hunter Biden, if his Chinese backed hedge funds do well. There are some rumors that Bloomberg has transacted business with China, although doubtful he tried to build a hotel in Beijing or Moscow, or the CIA would be all over it (for a cut)!

    Realist , February 24, 2020 at 00:22

    Esper is a dangerously deranged man who seems, at least to me, to be telegraphing his intent, and certainly his desire, to get into a kinetic war with both Russia and China (Washington already has most of the hybrid war tactics already fully operational), unless English usage has changed so drastically that insults, overt threats and unrestrained bombast are now part of calm, rational cordial diplomacy. I would not be surprised if neocon mouthpieces like Esper are not secretly honing their rhetorical style to emulate the exaggerated volume and enunciation of der ursprüngliche Führer.

    Ma Laoshi , February 22, 2020 at 06:04

    "So politician that he is" -- isn't this already on the slippery slope towards double standards, that is, would say Hillary get a similar pass for making McCarthyite statements like this? Isn't a dispassionate reading of the situation that Bernie is an inveterate liar , and moreover specializing in the particular brand of lies that could get us all into nuclear war? Whether it's character or merely age, haven't we seen enough to conclude that Mr. Sanders would be much weaker still vis-a-vis the Deep State than Donald Trump turned out to be?

    For those without a dog in this fight, shouldn't it cause great merriment if the various RussiaGaters devour each other? Mr. Sanders has seen for years that the "muh Putin" hoax will be turned against him whenever needed. If he nonetheless persists, doesn't that show his resignation that his role in this election circus is a very temporary one, like in '16? How was that definition of insanity again?

    If you want to fix America, then the Empire and Zionism are your enemies; so is the Dem party that is inextricably wedded to these forces. Play along with them and–well what can you expect.

    aNanyMouse , February 22, 2020 at 13:29

    Yeah, and Bernie sucked up to the Dem brass on the impeachment crap, even tho Tulsi had the stones to at least abstain. How sad.

    GMCasey , February 21, 2020 at 22:33

    Dear DNC:
    KNOCK IT OFF! The only person I am voting for President is the only one who is capable -- and that is Bernie Sanders.
    And really, with NATO breaking the agreement where they agreed to NOT go up to Russia's border : it is getting very sad and embarrassing to be an American because the elected ones make agreements and yet break so many. What with Turkey and Israel and Saudi Arabia trying to disrupt the area, I am sure that Russia is too busy to bother disrupting America . Lately America seems to disrupt itself for many ridiculous reasons. I am sorry that the gossip rags, which used to be important newspapers have failed in supporting their First Amendment right of Free speech . I just finished reading "ALL the Presidents Men. " What has happened to you, Washington Post, because as a newspaper, you really used to be somebody. Please review your past and become what you once were, a real genuine news source.

    Sam F , February 23, 2020 at 09:18

    Wikipedia: "In October 2013, the paper's longtime controlling family, the Graham family, sold the newspaper to Nash Holdings, a holding company established by Jeff Bezos, for $250 million in cash."

    Jim Hartz , February 23, 2020 at 12:37

    One of the craziest ongoing media phenomena, prevalent in the Impeachment Hearings, is the repeated claim that RUSSIA IS AT WAR WITH UKRAINE.

    What kind of "Higher Life Form" enthusiastically EATS IT'S OWN SHIT?

    Sam F , February 21, 2020 at 22:10

    Mass media denouncing politicians based upon "information" from secret agencies are propaganda operations, and should be sued for proof of their claims. But of course the judiciary are tools of oligarchy as much as the mass media. No one has constitutional rights in the US under our utterly corrupt judiciary, only paid party privileges.

    Eddie S , February 21, 2020 at 21:55

    Hmmm.. so those oh-so-clever Russkies (I mean they MUST-BE if they were able to outwit ALL the US politicos -- who are immersed in the US political culture 24/7 as well as having grown-up in this country and having billions of $ to spend -- in 2016 with a mere $100k of Facebook ads) messed-up this time! They're supporting OPPOSING candidates, effectively canceling-out their efforts ? Kinda strange, unless that whole 'Russia meddling' thing was a vastly exaggerated distraction by a losing hawkish candidate and her party, further inflated by a sensationalistic media and a predictably antagonistic military & intelligence community??

    dale t hood , February 21, 2020 at 22:42

    There is NO "intel"; plenty of un-intel, shameless mendacity from these info=dictators zionazi NYT and Wapoop drivel; hopefully the insouciant public is starting to see what a sham these rats are. Hearst outdistanced.

    Daniel , February 22, 2020 at 10:45

    "Kinda strange, unless that whole 'Russia meddling' thing was a vastly exaggerated distraction by a losing hawkish candidate and her party, further inflated by a sensationalistic media and a predictably antagonistic military & intelligence community??"

    Exactly. Shame on Hillary Clinton and all who view the electorate with such disdain as to have pushed this propaganda on us for the last three years, and continue to do so, obviously. If either Hillary Clinton or the "sensationalistic media and a predictably antagonistic military & intelligence community" had any integrity at all, they would have beaten Trump handily in 2016, just as they condescendingly told us they would. They did not, though, and have been outraged to have been exposed as the frauds they are ever since.

    When your political party is nothing more than a marketing scheme designed to fool the population, that population will turn on you. Imagine that. And no amount of Russia-gating will save you. Shame on all who would continue this charade.

    John Drake , February 21, 2020 at 21:33

    Gosh I wish those so called intel people could make up their mind about whom the big bad Ruskies are trying to help. One week its Trump, the next it is Sanders. Frankly on the face, it sounds like bad intel to me.
    But fortunately I am a regular reader of this site and Ray McGovern; and know it's all, to put it politely , disinformation; or less politely a pile of diarrhea invented by Hillarybots after a really really bad election day three years ago.
    The only thing that disturbs me is the way Bernie buys into this Russiagate thing himself. Maybe you all could send him a trove of articles debunking the whole mess, especially Ray and Bill's forensics.

    Fred Dean , February 23, 2020 at 03:52

    When Durham starts indicting people and the story of the Deep State coup against the President becomes common knowledge, Bernie's statements on Russiagate will be a liability. Trump's people are digging up whatever videos they can of Bernie talking smack about Trump/Russia. It is a crack in Bernie's armor and we can expect Trump to exploit. Bernie has been such a toadie to the DNC. He cowers to the Democratic establishment because he fears they will pull his credentials to run as a Democrat.

    OlyaPola , February 23, 2020 at 08:08

    "Gosh I wish those so called intel people could make up their mind about whom the big bad Ruskies are trying to help."

    Output is a function of framing and consequently the intelligence community/opponents are helping others including the Russians who encourage such help by doing nothing.

    KiwiAntz , February 21, 2020 at 21:26

    What a shambolic mess of a Nation that America is! Nothing more than a Billionaire's Banana Republic? A International laughingstock ruled by a Oligarchy, masquerading as a Democracy? And if all else fails to get rid of Bernie Saunders by vote rigging or gerrymandering or other nefarious acts of sabotage with Superdelegates stealing the nominations then resurrect the bogus Russiagate Conspiracy, a ridiculous failed & faked experiment to gaslight, spook & confuse the population again? Wouldn't it be delicious if Russiagate was actually TRUE, it would be payback for the USA, a Nation that meddles in the affairs & politics of every other Country on Earth, overthrowing & regime changing everyone who doesn't "bend the knee" to America, the most corrupt & evil Nation on Earth since Nazi Germany! I've never seen a more propagandised or mindf**ked People on Earth than the American people! It must be soul destroying to live in this Country & have to put up with this nonsense, day in, day out?

    Ian , February 22, 2020 at 02:47

    Yes, it is. Living with the infuriating unreality and militaristic worldview that is so cultivated here takes a personal emotional and intellectual toll. No place is perfect, but when I travel to Europe I feel a weight lifted.

    Broompilot , February 22, 2020 at 03:50

    Kiwi you may have a point.

    ML , February 22, 2020 at 09:19

    Yep. But for those of us with our critical thinking skills intact, we won't let it be soul destroying, Kiwi. Still, the daily crapload of bs we are fed in the "legacy" press is aggravating beyond the beyonds. Cheers, fellow Earthling.

    Daniel , February 22, 2020 at 11:09

    I hear you, KiwiAntz. It IS soul destroying to withstand this onslaught of disinformation each and every day. There is a rhythm to it that is undeniable, too. One can almost predict when the next propaganda hit will come, as here – after their latest would-be savior, Mike Bloomberg, imploded on live TV, and with Bernie looking more and more inevitable.

    Our reality in the US today is that we have to fight against our own media to approach anything resembling a reasonable discussion about what is important to vast majorities (mean tweets and fake memes aren't it) or to champion candidates who display even the slightest integrity. But, of course, it is not 'our' media. It is 'theirs.' And they will continue to abuse us with it until we reject it completely.

    robert e williamson jr , February 23, 2020 at 20:31

    I see things pretty clearly for what they are and the billionaire democrats are heading for a train wreck and I hate to admit I cannot look away.

    Trump is just another self serving U.S. president leaving a stain in America's underwear adding to the humongous pile of America's dirty laundry.

    When the demographics finally dictate it change will come and likely not before. On that note I wold like to reach out here. Justin King, who goes as Beau on the net runs a site called the Fifth Column News and does a ton of informative and educational videos on many various topics. .

    If you go to youtube, search and watch each of the videos I'm about to list here you stand to learn quite a lot about how Americans got screwed by the two party system without really realizing it. Plenty of blame to go around , no doubt though. You will also learn of the changing demographics in American politics. Many of the poor, minorities and youth of the country are coming into politics for they stand to lose everything if they don't change the status quo.

    Feb 11 2020 runs 6:21 minutes and seconds- Search terms, Beau Lets talk about the parties switching and the party of trump

    Feb 15 2020 runs 4:11 Search terms, Beau Lets talk about dancing left and dancing right

    Feb 20 2020 runs 10:44 Search terms, Beau Lets talk about misunderstanding Bernie's supporters

    This last video is a long video by Justin's standards. Most of his videos are under 7 minutes.

    Much thanks to CN this site and the Fifth Column New site give me strength and bolster my courage by allowing me to know that there are those of us who know what gong on and know things must change.

    [Mar 05, 2020] Who needs the Russians to meddle in the US elections when the DNC is much better at undermining the democratic process?

    NY Times is citing "people familiar with the situation." How the mighty have fallen. What about Shadow, and the Iowa caucuses, and Buttigieg? That was real. This is absolute horseshit.
    Mar 05, 2020 | consortiumnews.com

    jmg , February 22, 2020 at 11:32

    > Apparent US Intel Meddling in US Election With 'Report' Russia is Aiding Sanders

    It looks like the CIA is short of ideas on how to meddle in the elections. Trump had a very similar briefing on January 6, 2017 -- with Brennan, Clapper, Rogers, and Comey -- on Russia allegedly aiding his campaign. As well without any evidence.

    Charlene Richards , February 22, 2020 at 14:47

    Russia couldn't possibly do the damage to Sanders that the DNC and Democrat Establishment elites are doing out in the open every day with the MSM as their prime propagandists.

    As they say in wrestling, it's all "a work".

    richard baker , February 22, 2020 at 10:55

    Bart Hansen , February 22, 2020 at 18:27

    Looking at the comments at the Post and Times, I'd say you are on target. Oh, for the Kool Aid contract at those organs of misinformation and omission.

    [Mar 04, 2020] Russiagate should be viewed as classic, textbook case of gaslighting and projecting election interference

    Highly recommended!
    Notable quotes:
    "... I tried to sorta warm people on other sites that while they were looking for Russians at the front door, the gop was coming in the bad door for some rather nasty election interference. ..."
    "... Of course what we are seeing now is democrats cheating other democrats. But that reality will never be acknowledged because, hey, it never happened before. Just unintentional mistakes like in Iowa (farm folk cheating -- no way) or Brooklyn. ..."
    Mar 04, 2020 | caucus99percent.com

    MrWebster on Wed, 03/04/2020 - 1:00pm

    What you describe is probably why Russiagate spread so easily to so many people. Nothing happened in previous elections? Everything you describe never happened as you point out. The American electoral system was and is pristine and virginal.

    Until the Russians came and destroyed American democracy through social media themes, memes, and retweets.

    The American electoral system was never brutally corrupted by rigged votes, voter suppression on the scale of hundreds of thousands, deliberately miscounted votes, voter fraud, etc. Americans never did to each other anything as bad as what the Russians did to Americans.

    Of course, for me never worked as I worked in primaries of a democratic machine dominated city. I tried to sorta warm people on other sites that while they were looking for Russians at the front door, the gop was coming in the bad door for some rather nasty election interference.

    Of course what we are seeing now is democrats cheating other democrats. But that reality will never be acknowledged because, hey, it never happened before. Just unintentional mistakes like in Iowa (farm folk cheating -- no way) or Brooklyn.

    [Mar 03, 2020] Whacking Rich is a reminder to Sanders what the party establishmen is capable of

    Highly recommended!
    Mar 03, 2020 | www.unz.com

    An alternative view that has been circulating for several years suggests that it was not a hack at all, that it was a deliberate whistleblower-style leak of information carried out by an as yet unknown party, possibly Rich, that may have been provided to WikiLeaks for possible political reasons, i.e. to express disgust with the DNC manipulation of the nominating process to damage Bernie Sanders and favor Hillary Clinton.

    There are, of course, still other equally non-mainstream explanations for how the bundle of information got from point A to point B, including that the intrusion into the DNC server was carried out by the CIA which then made it look like it had been the Russians as perpetrators. And then there is the hybrid point of view, which is essentially that the Russians or a surrogate did indeed intrude into the DNC computers but it was all part of normal intelligence agency probing and did not lead to anything. Meanwhile and independently, someone else who had access to the server was downloading the information, which in some fashion made its way from there to WikiLeaks.

    Both the hack vs. leak viewpoints have marshaled considerable technical analysis in the media to bolster their arguments, but the analysis suffers from the decidedly strange fact that the FBI never even examined the DNC servers that may have been involved. The hack school of thought has stressed that Russia had both the ability and motive to interfere in the election by exposing the stolen material while the leakers have recently asserted that the sheer volume of material downloaded indicates that something like a higher speed thumb drive was used, meaning that it had to be done by someone with actual physical direct access to the DNC system. Someone like Seth Rich.

    ... ... ...

    Given all of that back story, it would be odd to find Trump making an offer that focuses only on one issue and does not actually refute the broader claims of Russian interference, which are based on a number of pieces of admittedly often dubious evidence, not just the Clinton and Podesta emails.

    Which brings the tale back to Seth Rich. If Rich was indeed responsible for the theft of the information and was possibly killed for his treachery, it most materially impacts on the Democratic Party as it reminds everyone of what the Clintons and their allies are capable of.

    It will also serve as a warning of what might be coming at the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee in July as the party establishment uses fair means or foul to stop Bernie Sanders. How this will all play out is anyone's guess, but many of those who pause to observe the process will be thinking of Seth Rich.


    plantman , says: Show Comment February 29, 2020 at 9:35 pm GMT

    Excellent roundup.

    I don't ascribe to the idea that the intel agencies kill American citizens without a great deal of thought, but in Rich's case, they probably felt like they had no choice. Think about it: The DNC had already rigged the primary against Bernie, the Podesta emails had already been sent to Wikileaks, and if Rich's cover was blown, then he would publicly identify himself as the culprit (which would undermine the Russiagate narrative) which would split the Democratic party in two leaving Hillary with no chance to win the election.

    I can imagine Hillary and her intel connections looking for an alternative to whacking Rich but eventually realizing that there was no other way to deflect responsibility for the emails while paving the way for an election victory.

    If Seth Rich went public, then Hillary would certainly lose.

    I imagine this is what they were thinking when they decided there was really only one option.

    james charles , says: Show Comment February 29, 2020 at 11:14 pm GMT
    "I have watched incredulous as the CIA's blatant lie has grown and grown as a media story – blatant because the CIA has made no attempt whatsoever to substantiate it. There is no Russian involvement in the leaks of emails showing Clinton's corruption."
    https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/12/cias-absence-conviction/

    "The FBI Has Been Lying About Seth Rich"
    https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/

    niteranger , says: Show Comment March 1, 2020 at 12:08 am GMT
    @plantman It's more than Hillary losing. It would have been easy to connect the dots of the entire plot to get Trump. Furthermore, it would have linked Obama and his cohorts in ways that the country might have exploded. This was the beginning of a Coup De'tat that would have shown the American political process is a complete joke.

    ... ... ...

    Carlton Meyer , says: Website Show Comment March 1, 2020 at 1:04 am GMT
    To understand why the DNC mobsters and the Deep State hate him, watch this great 2016 interview where Assange calmly explains the massive corruption that patriotic FBI agents refer to as the "Clinton Crime Family." This gang is so powerful that it ordered federal agents to spy on the Trump political campaign, and indicted and imprisoned some participants in an attempt to pressure President Trump to step down. It seems Trump still fears this gang, otherwise he would order his attorney general to drop this bogus charge against Assange, then pardon him forever and invite him to speak at White House press conferences.

    https://www.youtube.com/embed/_sbT3_9dJY4?feature=oembed

    Ron Unz , says: Show Comment March 1, 2020 at 3:18 am GMT
    Well, here was my own take on the controversy a couple of years ago, and I really haven't seen anything to change my mind:

    Well, DC is still a pretty dangerous city, but how many middle-class whites were randomly murdered there that year while innocently walking the streets? I wouldn't be surprised if Seth Rich was just about the only one.

    Julian Assange has strongly implied that Seth Rich was the source of the DNC emails that cost Hillary Clinton the presidency. So if Seth Rich died in a totally random street killing not long afterward, isn't that just the most astonishing coincidence in all of American history?

    Consider that the leaks effectively nullified the investment of the $2 billion or so that her donors had provided, and foreclosed the flood of good jobs and appointments to her camp-followers, not to mention the oceans of future graft. Seems to me that's a pretty good motive for murder.

    Here's my own plausible speculation from a couple of months ago:

    Incidentally, I'd guess that DC is a very easy place to arrange a killing, given that until the heavy gentrification of the last dozen years or so, it was one of America's street-murder capitals. It seems perfectly plausible that some junior DNC staffer was at dinner somewhere, endlessly cursing Seth Rich for having betrayed his party and endangered Hillary's election, when one of his friends said he knew somebody who'd be willing to "take care of the problem" for a thousand bucks

    https://www.unz.com/announcement/new-software-releaseopen-thread/#comment-1959442

    https://www.unz.com/isteve/was-seth-rich-murdered-by-the-russians-the-democratic-elite-or-the-democratic-base/#comment-2069185

    Let's say a couple of hundred thousand middle-class whites lived in DC around then, and Seth Rich was about the only one that year who died in a random street-killing, occurring not long after the leak.

    Wouldn't that seem like a pretty unlikely coincidence?

    Mustapha Mond , says: Show Comment March 1, 2020 at 3:45 am GMT
    "If Rich was indeed responsible for the theft of the information and was possibly killed for his treachery ."

    Heroism is the proper term for what Seth Rich did. He saw the real treachery, against Bernie Sanders and the democratic faithful who expect at least a modicum of integrity from their Party leaders (even if that expectation is utterly fanciful, wishful thinking), and he decided to act. He paid for it with his life. A young, noble life.

    In every picture I've seen of him, he looks like a nice guy, a guy who cared. And now he's dead. And the assholes at the DNC simply gave him a small plaque over a bike rack, as I understand it.

    Seth Rich: American Hero. A Truth-Teller who paid the ultimate price.

    Great reporting, Phil. Another home run.

    (And thanks to Ron for chiming in. Couldn't agree more. As a Truth-Teller extraordinaire, please watch your back, Bro. And Phil, too. You both know what these murderous scum are capable of.)

    Biff , says: Show Comment March 1, 2020 at 3:46 am GMT
    When the FBI doesn't fully investigate a crime(DNC-emails/9-11/JFK-murder) the only conclusion is " coverup ".
    John Chuckman , says: Website Show Comment March 1, 2020 at 7:31 am GMT
    I suppose American security services could have been involved.

    That would explain the poor police investigation and lack of information and questions answered.

    But Hillary and her dirty associates were quite capable of hiring a hit.

    That would also explain the lack of information, since DC, unlike any other city, is literally controlled by the Federal government.

    This is a very vicious woman despite her clownishly made-up face.

    Her words after Gaddafi's murder were chilling.

    She is said to have been responsible too for pressuring for the final push to get Waco out of the headlines. 80 folks incinerated.

    She also joked about Assange, "can't we just drone him or something?"

    And there was the dirty business at Benghazi.

    She is indeed a woman capable of anything. A contemporary Borgia.

    Daniel Rich , says: Show Comment March 1, 2020 at 9:33 am GMT
    Because the {real} killers of JFK, MLK and RFK were never detained and jailed/hanged, why would one expect a lesser known, more ordinary individual's murder [Seth] to be solved?
    hobo , says: Show Comment March 1, 2020 at 10:27 am GMT
    Seymour Hersh, in a taped phone conversation, claimed to have access to an FBI report on the murder. According to Hersh, the report indicated tha FBI Cyber Unit examined Rich's computer and found he had contacted Wikileaks with the intention of selling the emails.

    Seymour Hersh discussing Wikileaks DNC leaks Seth Rich & FBI report ( 7 min)

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

    Antiwar7 , says: Show Comment March 1, 2020 at 10:33 am GMT
    Another reason Assange may not want to reveal it, if Seth Rich was a source for Wikileaks, could be that Seth Rich didn't act alone, and revealing Seth's involvement would compromise the other(s).

    Or it could simply be that Wikileaks has promised to never reveal a source, even after that source's death, as a promise to future potential sources, who may never want their identities revealed, to avoid the thought of embarrassment or repercussions to their associates or families.

    Incidentally, they only started really going after Assange after the Vault 7 leaks of the CIA's active bag of software tricks. I think, for Assange's sake, they should instead have held on to that, and made it the payload of a dead man's switch.

    Chet Roman , says: Show Comment March 1, 2020 at 11:05 am GMT
    I'm not sure how credible the source is but Ellen Ratner, the sister of Assange's former lawyer and a journalist, told Ed Butowsky that Assange told her that it was Seth Rich. She asked Butowsky to contact Rich's parents. She confirms the Assange meeting in an interview, link below. Butowsky does not seem to be a credible source but Ratner does. If it was Seth Rich then I have no doubt that his brother knows the details and the family does not want to lose another son.

    https://www.youtube.com/embed/_YyuWpjTbg0?feature=oembed

    The story has gone nowhere.

    Chet Roman , says: Show Comment March 1, 2020 at 11:42 am GMT
    "According to Assange's lawyers, Rohrabacher offered a pardon from President Trump if Assange were to provide information that would attribute the theft or hack of the Democratic National Committee emails to someone other than the Russians."

    Not to quibble on semantics but Rohrabacher met with Assange to ask if he would be willing to reveal the source of the emails then Rohrabacher would contact Trump and try to make deal for Assange's freedom. Rohrabacher clarified that he never talked to Trump or that he was authorized by Trump to make any offer.

    The MSM has been using the "amnesty if you say it was not the Russians" narrative to hint at a coverup by Russian agent Trump. Normal for the biased MSM.

    Giraldi's link "Assange did not take the offer" has nothing to do with Rohrabacher's contact. It's just a general piece on Assange acting as a journalist should act.

    https://www.rohrabacher.com/news/my-meeting-with-julian-assange

    Alfred , says: Show Comment March 1, 2020 at 12:01 pm GMT
    @plantman I can imagine Hillary and her intel connections looking for an alternative to whacking Rich

    Have you never had to deal with a psychopath? That is not the way they reason.

    She would have done it in the "national interest"

    DaveE , says: Show Comment March 1, 2020 at 2:21 pm GMT
    I'm of the opinion Ron Unz seems to share, that Rich was not a particularly "big hitter" in the DNC hierarchy and that his murder was more likely the result of a very nasty inter-party squabble. I seem to recall a LOT of very nasty talk between the Jewish neocons in the Bush era and the decent, traditional "small-government" style Republicans who greatly resented the neocons' hijacking of the GOP for their demonic zionist agenda.

    Common sense would suggest that the zionist types who have (obviously) hijacked the DNC are at least as nasty and ruthless as the neocons who destroyed any decency or fair-play within the GOP. It's not exactly hard to believe that these Murder, Inc. types (also lefties of their era) wouldn't hesitate to whack someone like Rich for merely uttering a criticism of Israel, for example.

    Hell, Meyer Lansky ordered the hit-job on Bugsy Seigel for forgetting to bring bagels to a sit-down ! There was a great web-site by a mobster of that era, long since taken down, who described the story in detail. I forget the names .. but I'll see if I can't find a copy of some of the pieces posted at least a decade ago .

    It's not exactly hard to imagine some very nasty words being exchanged between the Rahm Emmanuel types and decent Chicago citizens, for example, who genuinely cared for their city and weren't afraid of The Big Jew and his mobster cronies . to their detriment I'm sure.

    We're talking about organized crime, here, folks. The zionists make the so-called (mostly fictitious) Sicilian Mafia look like newborn puppies. They wouldn't hesitate to whack a guy like Rich for taking their favorite space in the bicycle rack.

    Rev. Spooner , says: Show Comment March 1, 2020 at 3:27 pm GMT
    @John Chuckman A long time ago I read in the London Guardian ( before it's reputation was in tatters) that the witch kept a list of all who pissed her off and updated it every night.
    A quick search and here it is https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/jan/14/hillary-clinton-hitlist-spreadsheet-grudge
    Altai , says: Show Comment March 1, 2020 at 3:33 pm GMT
    My only trouble with the Seth Rich thing is, it seems a bit extreme, they seem quite callous in murdering foreigners but US citizens in the US who are their staffers? If they really were prepared to go out and kill in this way, they're be a lot more suspicious deaths.

    What makes the case most compelling is the very quick investigation by police that looks like they were told by somebody concerned about how the whole thing looked to close up the case nice and quickly. That and the fact that he was shot in the back, which doesn't make sense for an attempted robbery turned murder.

    However, it may also be that as in so many cities in the US, murder clearance rates for street shootings (Little forensic evidence, can only go by witness accounts or through poor alibis from usual suspects and their associates. In this case there is also no connection between Rich and any possible shooter with no witnesses.) are just so very low that DC police don't bother and Seth Rich's death just happened to be one such case that attracted some scrutiny.

    But then maybe for the reasons above a place like DC is perfect to just murder somebody on the street and that's why they were so brazen about it.

    Ron Unz , says: Show Comment March 1, 2020 at 3:47 pm GMT
    @Altai

    Seth Rich's death just happened to be one such case that attracted some scrutiny.

    Well, upthread someone posted a recording of a Seymour Hersh phone call that confirmed Seth Rich was the fellow who leaked the DNC emails to Wikileaks, thereby possibly swinging the presidential election to Trump and overcoming $2 billion of Democratic campaign advertising.

    Shortly afterwards, he probably became about the only middle-class white in DC who died in a "random street killing" that year. If you doubt this, see if you can find any other such cases that year.

    I think it is *extraordinarily* unlikely that these two elements are unconnected and merely happened together by chance.

    [Mar 03, 2020] The "Russian meddling" fraud: Tulsi Gabbard denounces election interference by US intelligence agencies by Patrick Martin

    Notable quotes:
    "... Washington Post ..."
    "... Washington Post, ..."
    "... World Socialist Web Site ..."
    "... The author also recommends: ..."
    Mar 03, 2020 | www.wsws.org

    In a remarkable statement that has gone virtually unreported in the American media, Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, publicly denounced US intelligence agencies for interfering in the presidential contest and attempting to sabotage the campaign of Democratic frontrunner Bernie Sanders.

    In an opinion column published February 27 by the Hill , Gabbard attacked the article published by the Washington Post on February 21, the eve of the Nevada caucuses, which claimed that Russia was intervening in the US election to support Sanders. She also criticized the decision of billionaire Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, to repeat the anti-Russia slander against Sanders during the February 25 Democratic presidential debate in South Carolina.

    Gabbard is a military officer in a National Guard medical unit who has been deployed to Iraq and Kuwait and has continuing and close contact with the Pentagon. She is obviously familiar with the machinations of the US military-intelligence apparatus and knows whereof she speaks. Her harsh and uncompromising language is that much more significant.

    She wrote:

    Enough is enough. I am calling on all presidential candidates to stop playing these dangerous political games and immediately condemn any interference in our elections by out-of-control intelligence agencies. A "news article" published last week in the Washington Post, which set off yet another manufactured media firestorm, alleges that the goal of Russia is to trick people into criticizing establishment Democrats. This is a laughably obvious ploy to stifle legitimate criticism and cast aspersions on Americans who are rightly skeptical of the powerful forces exerting control over the primary election process.

    We are told the aim of Russia is to "sow division," but the aim of corporate media and self-serving politicians pushing this narrative is clearly to sow division of their own -- by generating baseless suspicion against the Sanders campaign. It's extremely disingenuous for "journalists" and rival candidates to publicize a news article that merely asserts, without presenting any evidence, that Russia is "helping" Bernie Sanders -- but provides no information as to what that "help" allegedly consists of.

    Gabbard continued:

    If the CIA, FBI or any other intelligence agency is going to tell voters that "Russians" are interfering in this election to help certain candidates -- or simply "sow discord" -- then it needs to immediately provide us with the details of what exactly it's alleging.

    After pointing out that the Democratic Party establishment and the corporate media have had little interest in measures to actually improve election security, such as requiring paper ballots or some other form of permanent record of how people vote, Gabbard demanded:

    The FBI, CIA or any other intelligence agency should immediately stop smearing presidential candidates with innuendo and vague, evidence-free assertions. That is antithetical to the role those agencies play in a free democracy. The American people cannot have faith in our intelligence agencies if they are pushing an agenda to harm candidates they dislike.

    As socialists, we do not share Gabbard's belief that the intelligence agencies have a positive role to play or that the American people need to have faith in them. As her military career demonstrates, she is a supporter of American imperialism and of the capitalist state. However, her opposition to the "dirty tricks" campaign against Sanders is entirely legitimate and puts the spotlight on a deeply anti-democratic operation by the military-intelligence apparatus.

    Gabbard denounces this "new McCarthyism" and calls on her fellow candidate to rebuff the CIA smears and "defend the freedoms enshrined in our Constitution." Not a single one of the remaining candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination -- including Sanders himself -- has responded to her appeal.

    Her statement concludes that the goal of the "mainstream corporate media and the warmongering political establishment" was either to block Sanders from winning the nomination, or, if he does become the nominee, to "force him to engage in inflammatory anti-Russia rhetoric and perpetuate the new Cold War and nuclear arms race, which are existential threats to our country and the world."

    Despite Gabbard's appeal for the Democratic candidates not to be "manipulated and forced into a corner by overreaching intelligence agencies," the Democratic Party establishment has been working in lockstep with the intelligence agencies in the anti-Russia campaign against Trump, which began even before election day in 2016, metastasized into the Mueller investigation and then the effort to impeach Trump over his delay in the dispatch of military aid to Ukraine for its war with Russian-backed separatist forces.

    Her comments are a complete vindication of what the World Socialist Web Site has written about the anti-Russia campaign and impeachment: these were efforts by the Democratic Party, acting as the representative of the military-intelligence apparatus, to block the emergence of genuine left-wing popular opposition to Trump, and to channel popular hostility to this administration in a right-wing and pro-imperialist direction.

    Gabbard herself was the only House Democrat to abstain on impeachment, although she did not voice any principled grounds for her vote, such as opposition to the intelligence agencies. She has based her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination largely on an appeal to antiwar sentiment, particularly opposing US intervention in Syria. She has also said that if elected, she would drop all charges against Julian Assange and pardon Edward Snowden.

    These views led to a vicious attack by Hillary Clinton, the defeated Democratic presidential candidate in 2016, who last October called Gabbard "a Russian asset," claiming that she was being groomed by Russia to serve as a third-party candidate in 2020 who would take votes away from the Democratic nominee and help re-elect President Trump. "She's the favorite of the Russians," Clinton claimed.

    Since Clinton's attack, the Democratic National Committee has excluded Gabbard from its monthly debates, manipulating the eligibility requirements so that billionaire Michael Bloomberg would qualify even for debates held in states where he was not on the ballot but Gabbard was, such as Nevada and South Carolina.

    The author also recommends:

    Democratic Party deploys Russian meddling smear against Sanders
    [24 February 2020]

    US intelligence agencies meddle in Nevada primary to sabotage Sanders
    [22 February 2020]

    Hillary Clinton slanders Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, Green Party candidate Jill Stein as Russian spies

    [Mar 03, 2020] Americans "must remain aware that foreign actors continue to try to influence public sentiment and shape voter perceptions

    Is not this a direct attempt of intelligence agencies to influence election by delegitimizing Sanders and Tulsi ?
    Mar 03, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
    Mao , Mar 3 2020 22:20 utc | 57
    NBC News:

    JUST IN: State Dept., DOJ, FBI and others issue joint statement ahead of #SuperTuesday:

    Americans "must remain aware that foreign actors continue to try to influence public sentiment and shape voter perceptions."

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ESImtGRWoAYJyus.jpg

    [Mar 02, 2020] Trump already under fire for Coronarovirus response. More to come

    Mar 02, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

    bumbershoot 7 hours ago • edited

    Trump closed the White House office of pandemic control simply because Obama started it. That fact alone should tell you all you need to know about the competence of Trump and his merry band of bootlickers.
    Springfield 6 hours ago
    For nearly two months Trump did nothing while it spread.

    All that crap about "America First", but after three years there's no wall, immigrants still pouring in, illegals, foreign workers, and foreign students everywhere you look, and we're still dependent on foreign supply chains and manufacturing.

    And we wonder how the disease got here and why we are economically vulnerable to it. Making matters worse, while he was doing all those favors for Wall Street and foreign countries and spending trillions on the wars he was elected to end, he was also gutting government departments and programs that do stuff for actual Americans, like protect them from plagues.

    Chris Chuba 6 hours ago • edited
    "The federal agency shunned the World Health Organization test guidelines used by other countries and set out to create a more complicated test of its own"

    I know we are in full information war against China and we already have senators drafting sanctions against them but if we really wanted to treat this as a medical and not a political issue we would copy the Chinese test kits.

    ZizaNiam 2 hours ago • edited
    People who vote for Trump don't believe in science, logic or mathematics.
    fuow ZizaNiam 38 minutes ago
    They also don't believe in the US Constitution.
    fuow 38 minutes ago • edited
    The CDC today deleted essential information on the outbreak's spread from their website.You conservatives are going to be blamed for this. Try, just try telling a grieving parent or child that this is somehow the 'cost of freedom' or 'the Democrats are to blame (Hillary is really at fault).
    You did this to our country, don't count on people forgetting about it by November.

    [Mar 01, 2020] Prof. Pamela Karlan did an excellent job of laying out what the impeachment "inquiry" has been all about

    Mar 01, 2020 | off-guardian.org

    There were two major themes in the House impeachment testimony of Prof. Pamela Karlan of Stanford Law School that bear further discussion.

    One of these themes is the extension of what I call "State Feminist" and "State Identity Politics" methods beyond academia into U.S. society and legal structures broadly.
    The other theme, which goes to what is supposedly the most "urgent" reason to remove Trump, feeds into the Russia narrative -- and this was underlined again in Schiff's Jan. 22 speech.

    Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the United States and NATO have been pressing ever-closer to Russia with high-powered weapons systems, something that presidents since George H. W. Bush have said they would not do. President Trump has distinguished himself from both Democrats and Republicans on this question. In his typically-craven style, Schiff said,

    Russia is not a threat to Eastern Europe alone. Ukraine has become the de facto proving ground for just the types of hybrid warfare that the twenty-first century will become defined by: cyberattacks, disinformation campaigns, efforts to undermine the legitimacy of state institutions, whether that is voting systems or financial markets. The Kremlin showed boldly in 2016 that with the malign skills it honed in Ukraine, they would not stay in Ukraine. Instead, Russia employed them here to attack our institutions, and they will do so again."

    Schiff also quoted Prof. Karlan's statement that the Ukrainians are "fighting the Russians so that we don't have to."

    Schiff argued that any inquiry into what Joe and Hunter were doing in Ukraine and with Burisma now has to be set aside, and cannot be a part of the impeachment hearings, not only because it is "completely-debunked conspiracy theory," but also because Russia will "weaponize" the results of any such inquiry and deploy it against presidential candidate Joe Biden.

    (Obviously we can note once again the crazy irony of the fact that, apparently, being a presidential candidate -- against Trump, that is, though certainly against Bernie Sanders as well -- is an excellent cover for abusing the Vice-President's office, but being President does not confer enough status to ask about this abuse and corruption.)

    As Daniel Lazare writes at AntiWar.com:

    We must all put such sentiments behind us now Russia is seeking to "weaponize" such information, according to Schiff, and deploy it "against Mr. Biden just like it did against Hillary Clinton in 2016 when Russia hacked and released emails from her presidential campaign." If Russia wants to weaponize it, then it's best for the rest of us not to breathe a word of it lest people think we've been weaponized as well.

    Bottom line: we must impeach Trump, according to Schiff's epic presentation, not only because he's overstepped his proper constitutional bounds, but because he's part of a grand Russian conspiracy to spread disinformation, undercut US security, undermine faith in US intelligence agencies, and "remake the map of Europe by dent of military force."

    In order to counter this all-encompassing threat, it is our patriotic duty to do the opposite by believing the CIA and redoubling US defense. If anyone tells us that Biden was guilty of a flagrant conflict of interest, we must stop up our ears because that's what Moscow wants us to think. If anyone says that the entire Russian-interference narrative is just a silly conspiracy theory based on a paucity of facts and an abundance of paranoid speculation, we must do likewise because it's just the Kremlin trying to worm its way into our minds."

    "Adam Schiff's Very Scary Warmongering Speech," January 24, 2020; originalantiwar.com

    *

    To further emphasize, Prof. Pamela Karlan did an excellent job of laying out what the impeachment "inquiry" has been all about:

    America is not just 'the last best hope,' it's also the shining city on a hill. We can't be the shining city on a hill and promote democracy around the world if we're not promoting it here at home. This is not just about our national interests to protect elections or make sure Ukraine stays strong and fights the Russians so we don't have to fight them here, but it's in our national interest to promote democracy worldwide."

    The aforementioned point of no return has arrived when one has to try to explain to Democrats and leftists what is wrong with this reactionary crap -- and finding that one cannot do it. For most Democrats, in fact, there is nothing wrong with the content of this statement; what is incredibly shameful is that leftists do know what is wrong here, but they go along (trail along, that is) with the Democrats because no price is too high to pay for getting rid of Trump -- especially when they are not the people paying the price. Once again, the moving line of bullshit.

    An added bit of reactionary garbage here is that Democrats and some who at least call themselves "leftists" are hailing Prof. Karlan as a feminist and Identity-Politics hero, because she is a woman and, apparently, bisexual or lesbian or something. I state this last part a bit glibly because one might wonder how this matters. But of course it does matter if you are using Identity Politics to advance both the agenda of trying to get rid of Trump, and at the same time using the impeachment agenda to put the "procedural" methods of Identity Politics on display, in the hope that contempt for and abrogation of due process can become the way things are done in general, just as they have been done in academia since the "Dear Colleagues" (Title IX) letter of 2011.

    Prof. Karlan scored a brilliant point with the IdPol Left with her stunning analysis of the difference between a name and a title: "President Trump can name his son Barron, but he cannot make him a baron." To any ordinary working person Karlan simply demonstrated that it doesn't seem to take much to make one a respected genius-scholar at Yale (from which Karlan has her law degree) and Stanford. I'm sure, though, that Prof. Karlan is so smart that she knows that ordinary, deplorable people are in no position to judge what counts as wisdom in elite institutions.

    Of the three constitutional scholars who were brought in to make their case for impeaching President Trump (yes, clearly, their case), the other two besides Karlan were white males -- so why people should listen to them, it's hard to know. The other scholar, Jonathan Turley from George Washington University (sniff), testified that, while he is no fan of Trump, did not vote for him, and champions a "socially liberal agenda" (his term), the case for impeachment was very weak.

    Prof. Turley characterized the Democratic case against Trump as "pointillism." As a critical instrument, this seems a good deal more powerful than fomenting confusion between names and titles. (My parents named me "Bill," but they weren't expecting your waiter to bring me to you -- or were they?!) Turley argued that the dots in the Democrats' "painting" are too few and too far apart to really create a coherent picture. This had to be a horrible blow to Adam Schiff, who undoubtedly considers himself to be a veritable Courbet of politics, whereas he'd be doing good to duct tape a banana to a wall somewhere. (See Turley's editorial in the Los Angeles Times, Dec. 9, 2019.)

    Note, significantly, that Turley repeatedly called for George W. Bush- administration officials to be prosecuted for war crimes, which is another way that he is out of step with the Democratic impeachers, and almost all of the Republican Party too. Prof. Turley didn't stop with the Bush II administration (that is, the Cheney/Bush administration); in a 2013, editorial, titled "Fire Eric Holder," Turley wrote:

    For Obama, there has been no better sin eater than Holder. When the president promised CIA employees early in his first term that they would not be investigated for torture, it was the attorney general who shielded officials from prosecution. When the Obama administration decided it would expand secret and warrantless surveillance, it was Holder who justified it. When the president wanted the authority to kill any American he deemed a threat without charge or trial, it was Holder who went public to announce the "kill list" policy.

    Last week, the Justice Department confirmed that it was Holder who personally approved the equally abusive search of Fox News correspondent James Rosen's e-mail and phone records in another story involving leaked classified information. In the 2010 application for a secret warrant, the Obama administration named Rosen as "an aider and abettor and/or co-conspirator" to the leaking of classified materials. The Justice Department even investigated Rosen's parents' telephone number, and Holder was there to justify every attack on the news media."

    – USA Today, May 29, 2013.

    Prof. Turley is far out of step with the neoconservative/neoliberal compact well-represented by the chummy relationship among the Bushes, Clintons, and Obamas (and nowadays Dick Cheney is more likely to be seen on CNN than Fox), in their anti-Trump coalition.

    And let's remember, please let's remember, that during the 2016 campaign Trump did a truly great thing in taking Jeb Bush, G. W. Bush, and their horrible family down for lying the United States into war with Iraq. That is the kind of fire -- that is, the CIA and the "intelligence community" -- that Trump has been playing with since he entered the presidential race, and this is the heart of why he has been under very serious attack since Nov. 9, 2016, and why this impeachment nonsense occurred.

    Incidentally, what Prof. Turley politely called "pointillism" is, by other names, death by a thousand cuts, or simply throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks. While Turley is out of step with the Democratic Party agenda on impeachment, there is a way in which his criticisms of the "impeachment process" were fairly mild.

    In the pointillism/duct-tape banana editorial, Turley says that he "encouraged the Democrats to wait and build a more complete case." This has led to his being pilloried by anti-Trumpers, because he is not fully in lockstep. Turley said that the Democrats have to go beyond their "impressionistic case" and build instead a "realistic case":

    As it stands now, with so much in the Democrats' case relying on inference, how one views the impeachment is entirely based on one's view of the president. That is the trouble with impressionistic impeachments: They leave too much in the eye of the beholder."

    One would think that, with all of the surveillance capabilities that Adam Schiff apparently has access to, he would have been all set to go photorealist on Trump. That Schiff isn't even remotely a David Hockney of politics tells us two things about the Democratic agenda on impeachment:

    that, apparently, they don't really have the goods on Trump (as Turley said, "This would be the first presidential impeachment to go forward with no credible (or at least uncontested) crime at its heart" ); none of this is about removing Trump from office, it is about doing as much damage to Trump as can be done on the way to November 2020. Certainly, neither of these things is any kind of revelation.

    What could really be said, though, is that the system has now made a qualitative shift, toward openly declaring feelings, impressions, and unsubstantiated third-hand accounts from interested and shadowy parties, as even more of a substantive basis for important legal findings than what we used to call "evidence."

    Donald (and Melania, one assumes) named their kid "Barron," clearly a sign that Trump considers himself a king or emperor figure. Who knows, maybe he does think of himself that way -- though most royal figures are not even remotely as good at connecting with ordinary people through humor as Trump is; then again, neither are most regular comedians these days, infected with TDS as they are.

    But this Title IX-style theater of power cannot be what is really going on, not any more than Bill Clinton was impeached for having been orally-serviced in the Oval Office and then "lying about it." For the moment I will leave this scene with the observation that it really does seem like so much regarding the Trump phenomena comes down to whether it is really the case that there is something like the Deep State, with the CIA at its core, with an effective hold on how power operates throughout the system.

    *

    Lastly, on Identity Politics/Title IX-style power-plays: Okay, I felt bad about the "bisexual or lesbian or whatever" remark; it may be fair in the way I am using it, but it wasn't nice to my lesbian friends, especially. Apparently Karlan's self-description is "snarky bisexual," as reported with great excitement at pinknews.co.uk on Dec. 5 .

    They lauded her as having "stole[n] the show at Donald Trump's impeachment hearing with her scathing and quick-witted put-downs." There is no end of women of actual brilliant accomplishments, and I'm sure many of them are lesbian or otherwise non-binary. Some of them are even brilliant legal scholars.

    We do nothing but take away from these women (and, yes, men too, a few of whom occasionally do something worthwhile as well) when the Identity Politics path to power and fame is allowed to displace the hard work and creativity that actually makes a contribution to humanity.

    [Mar 01, 2020] That the whistleblower works for the CIA is a matter of public record, not some conspiracy theory

    Notable quotes:
    "... The Democrats did not want Adam Schiff to have to answer questions about the whistleblower, and they don't want the whistleblower's identity to be officially revealed. Such things do not contribute to the greatest cause of our time, the destruction of Donald Trump. ..."
    "... The whole point of having the House impeachment investigation proceed from the House Intelligence Committee, headed by Adam Schiff, was to send the signal that Trump is unacceptable to the nefarious powers that make up the Deep State, especially the intelligence agencies, especially the CIA. ..."
    "... What a world, then, when OP Democrats are cheering on John Bolton, hoping again for a savior to their sacred resistance cause, and meanwhile they aren't too excited about Rand Paul's intervention. For sure, it is a sign that a "resistance" isn't real when it needs a savior; it's not as if the French Resistance sat back waiting for Gen. de Gaulle. In any case, in the procession of horrible reactionary figures that Democrats have embraced, Bolton is probably the worst, and that's saying quite a lot. ..."
    "... People are even talking about "getting used to accepting the help of the CIA with the impeachment," and the like. (I realize I'm being repetitious here, but this stuff blows my mind, it is so disturbing.) At least they are recognizing the reality -- at least partially; that's something. But then what they do with this recognition is something that requires epic levels of TDS -- and, somehow, a great deal of the Left is going down this path. ..."
    "... The USA Deep State is a Five Eyes partner and as such Trump must be given the proverbial boot for being an uneducated boor lacking political gravitas & business gravitas with his narcissistic Smoot-Hawley II 2019 trade wars. Screw the confidence man-in-chief. He is a liability for the USA and global business. Trump is not an asset. ..."
    "... Almost as a by product of his 2016 victory, Trump showed up the MSM hacks for what they were, lying, partisan shills utterly lacking in any integrity and credibility. The same applies to the intrigues and corruption of the Dirty Cops and Spookocracy. They had to come out from behind the curtain and reveal themselves as the dirty, lying, seditious, treasonous, rabid criminal scum they are. The true nature of the State standing in the spotlight for all the world to see. This cannot be undone. ..."
    Mar 01, 2020 | off-guardian.org

    First , the whistleblower was ruled out as a possible witness -- this was essentially done behind the scenes, and in reality can be called a Deep State operation, though one exposed to some extent by Rand Paul. This has nothing to do with protecting the whistleblower or upholding the whistleblower statute, but instead with the fact that the whistleblower was a CIA plant in the White House.

    That the whistleblower works for the CIA is a matter of public record, not some conspiracy theory. Furthermore, for some time before the impeachment proceedings began, the whistleblower had been coordinating his efforts to undermine Trump with the head of the House Intelligence Committee, who happens to be Adam Schiff. It is possible that the connections with Schiff go even further or deeper. Obviously the Democrats do not want these things exposed.

    ... ... ...

    In this regard, there was a very special moment on January 29, when Chief Justice John Roberts refused to allow the reading of a question from Sen. Rand Paul that identified the alleged whistleblower. Paul then held a press conference in which he read his question.

    The question was directed at Adam Schiff, who claims not to have communicated with the whistleblower, despite much evidence to the contrary. (Further details can be read at here .) A propos of what I was just saying, Paul is described in the Politico article as "a longtime antagonist of Republican leaders." Excellent, good on you, Rand Paul.

    Whether this was a case of unintended consequences or not, one could say that this episode fed into the case against calling witnesses -- certainly the Democrats should not have been allowed to call witnesses if the Republicans could not call the whistleblower. But clearly this point is completely lost on those working in terms of the moving line of bullshit.

    One would think that Democrats would be happy with a Republican Senator who antagonizes leaders of his own party, but of course Rand Paul's effort only led to further "outrage" on the part of Democratic leaders in the House and Senate.

    The Democrats did not want Adam Schiff to have to answer questions about the whistleblower, and they don't want the whistleblower's identity to be officially revealed. Such things do not contribute to the greatest cause of our time, the destruction of Donald Trump.

    However, you see, there is a complementary purpose at work here, too. The whole point of having the House impeachment investigation proceed from the House Intelligence Committee, headed by Adam Schiff, was to send the signal that Trump is unacceptable to the nefarious powers that make up the Deep State, especially the intelligence agencies, especially the CIA.

    The only way these machinations can be combatted is to pull the curtain back further -- but the Republicans do not want this any more than the Democrats do, with a few possible exceptions such as Rand Paul. (As the Politico article states, Paul was chastised publicly by McConnell for submitting his question in the first place, and for criticizing Roberts in the press conference.)

    What a world, then, when OP Democrats are cheering on John Bolton, hoping again for a savior to their sacred resistance cause, and meanwhile they aren't too excited about Rand Paul's intervention. For sure, it is a sign that a "resistance" isn't real when it needs a savior; it's not as if the French Resistance sat back waiting for Gen. de Gaulle. In any case, in the procession of horrible reactionary figures that Democrats have embraced, Bolton is probably the worst, and that's saying quite a lot.

    ... ... ...

    Now we are at a moment when "the Left" is recognizing the role that the CIA and the rest of the "intelligence community" is played in the impeachment nonsense. This "Left" was already on board for the "impeachment process" itself, perhaps at moments with caveats about "not leaving everything up to the Democrats," "not just relying on the Democrats," but still accepting their assigned role as cheerleaders and self-important internet commentators. (And, sure, maybe that's all I am, too -- but the inability to distinguish form from content is one of the main problems of the existing Left.)

    Now, though, people on the Left are trying to get comfortable with, and trying to explain to themselves how they can get comfortable with, the obvious role of the "intelligence community" (with, in my view, the CIA in the leading role, but of course I'm not privy to the inner workings of this scene) in the impeachment process and other efforts to take down Trump's presidency.

    People are even talking about "getting used to accepting the help of the CIA with the impeachment," and the like. (I realize I'm being repetitious here, but this stuff blows my mind, it is so disturbing.) At least they are recognizing the reality -- at least partially; that's something. But then what they do with this recognition is something that requires epic levels of TDS -- and, somehow, a great deal of the Left is going down this path.

    They might think about the "help" that the CIA gave to the military in Bolivia to remove Evo Morales from office. They might think about the picture of Donald Trump that they find necessary to paint to justify what they are willing to swallow to remove him from office. They might think about the fact that ordinary Democrats are fine with this role for the CIA, and that Adam Schiff and others routinely offer the criticism/condemnation of Donald Trump that he doesn't accept the findings of the CIA or the rest of the intelligence agencies at face value.

    The moment for the Left, what calls itself and thinks of itself as that, to break with this lunacy has passed some time ago, but let us take this moment, of "accepting the help of the CIA, because Trump," as truly marking a point of no return.

    MASTER OF UNIVE ,

    The USA Deep State is a Five Eyes partner and as such Trump must be given the proverbial boot for being an uneducated boor lacking political gravitas & business gravitas with his narcissistic Smoot-Hawley II 2019 trade wars. Screw the confidence man-in-chief. He is a liability for the USA and global business. Trump is not an asset.

    paul ,

    Trump, Sanders and Corbyn were all in their own way agents of creative destruction. Trump tapped into the popular discontent of millions of Americans who realised that the system no longer even pretended to work in their interests, and were not prepared to be diverted down the Identity Politics Rabbit Hole.

    The Deep State was outraged that he had disrupted their programme by stealing Clinton's seat in the game of Musical Chairs. Being the most corrupt, dishonest and mendacious political candidate in all US history (despite some pretty stiff opposition) was supposed to be outweighed by her having a vagina. The Deplorables failed to sign up for the programme.

    Almost as a by product of his 2016 victory, Trump showed up the MSM hacks for what they were, lying, partisan shills utterly lacking in any integrity and credibility. The same applies to the intrigues and corruption of the Dirty Cops and Spookocracy. They had to come out from behind the curtain and reveal themselves as the dirty, lying, seditious, treasonous, rabid criminal scum they are. The true nature of the State standing in the spotlight for all the world to see. This cannot be undone.

    For all his pandering to Adelson and the Zionist Mafia, for all his Gives to Netanyahu, Trump has failed to deliver on the Big Ticket Items. Syria was supposed to have been invaded by now, with Hillary cackling demonically over Assad's death as she did over Gaddafi, and rapidly moving on to the main event with Iran. They will not forgive him for this.

    They realise they are under severe time pressure. It took them a century to gain their stranglehold over America, and this is a wasting asset. America is in terminal decline, and may soon be unable to fulfil its ordained role as dumb goy muscle serving Zionist interests. And the parasite will find it difficult to find a replacement host.

    George Mc ,

    Haven't you just agreed with him here?

    He thinks the left died in the 1960s, over a half century ago. It's pretty simple to identify a leftist: anti-imperialist/ anti-capitalist. The Democrats are imperialists. People who vote for the Democrats and Republicans are imperialists. This article is a confused mess, that's my whole point;)

    If the Democrats and Republicans (and those who vote for them) are imperialists (which they are) then the left are indeed dead – at least as far as political representation goes.

    Koba ,

    He's sent more troops to Iraq and Afghanistan he staged several coups in Latin America and wanted to take out the dprk and thier nukes and wants to bomb Iran! Winding down?!

    sharon marlowe ,

    First, an attempted assassination-by-drone on President Maduro of Venezuela happened. Then Trump dropped the largest conventional bomb on Afghanistan, with a mile-wide radius. Then Trump named Juan Guido as the new President of Venezuela in an overt coup. Then he bombed Syria over a fake chemical weapons claim. He bombed it before even an investigation was launched. Then the Trump regime orchestrated a military coup in Bolivia. Then he claimed that he was pulling out of Syria, but instead sent U.S. troops to take over Syrian oil fields. trump then assassinated Gen. Solemeni. Then he claimed that he will leave Iraq at the request of the Iraqi government, the Iraqi government asked the U.S. to leave, and Trump rejected the request. The Trump regime has tried orchestrating a coup in Iran, and a coup in Hong Kong. He expelled Russian diplomats en masse for the Skripal incident in England, before an investigation. He has sanctioned Russia, Iran, North Korea, China, and Venezuela. He has bombed Yemen, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Those are the things I'm aware of, but what else Trump has done in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and South America you can research if you wish. And now, the claim of leaving Afghanistan is as ridiculous as when he claimed to be leaving Syria and Iraq.

    Dungroanin ,

    Yeah yeah and 'he' gave Maduro 7 days to let their kid takeover in Venezuela! And built a wall. And got rid of obamacare and started a nuke war with Rocketman and and and ...

    sharon marlowe ,

    There were at least nine people killed when Trump bombed Douma.

    Only a psychopath would kill people because one of its spy drones was shot down. You don't get points for considering killing people for it and then changing your mind.

    People should get over Hillary and pay attention to what Trump has been doing. Why even mention what Hillary would have done in Syria, then proceed to be an apologist for what Trump has done around the world in just three years? Trump has been quite a prolific imperialist in such a short time. A second term could well put him above Bush and Obama as the 21st century's most horrible leaders on earth.

    Dungroanin ,

    ...If you think that the potus is the omnipotent ruler of everything he certainly seems to be having some problems with his minions in the CIA, NSA, FBI..State Dept etc.

    Savorywill ,

    Yes, what you say is right. However, he did warn both the Syrian and Russian military of the attack in the first instance, so no casualties, and in the second attack, he announced that the missiles had been launched before they hit the target, again resulting in no casualties. When the US drone was shot down by an Iranian missile, he considered retaliation. But, when advised of likely casualties, he called it off saying that human lives are more valuable than the cost of the drone. Yes, he did authorize the assassination of the Iranian general, and that was very bad. His claims that the general had organized the placement of roadside bombs that had killed US soldiers rings rather hollow, considering those shouldn't have been in Iraq in the first place.

    I am definitely not stating that he is perfect and doesn't do objectionable things. And he has authorized US forces to control the oil wells, which is against international law, but at least US soldiers are not actively engaged in fighting the Syrian government, something Hillary set in motion. However, the military does comprise a huge percentage of the US economy and there have to be reasons, and enemies, to justify its existence, so his situation as president must be very difficult, not a job I would want, that is for sure.

    The potus is best described (by Assad actually) as a CEO of a board of directors appointed by the shareholders who collectively determine their OWN interests.

    Your gaslighting ain't succeeding round here – Regime! So desperate, so so sad 🤣

    [Mar 01, 2020] A Very Stable Genius book excerpt Inside Trump s stunning tirade against generals by Carol D. Leonnig & Philip Rucker

    This book "A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America, looks like the second volume of Wolff. And probably has the same set of flaws
    Jan 17, 2020 | www.washingtonpost.com

    This article is adapted from "A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America," which will be published on Jan. 21 by Penguin Press.

    'You're a bunch of dopes and babies': Inside Trump's stunning tirade against generals

    There is no more sacred room for military officers than 2E924 of the Pentagon, a windowless and secure vault where the Joint Chiefs of Staff meet regularly to wrestle with classified matters. Its more common name is "the Tank." The Tank resembles a small corporate boardroom, with a gleaming golden oak table, leather swivel armchairs and other mid-century stylings. Inside its walls, flag officers observe a reverence and decorum for the wrenching decisions that have been made there.

    Hanging prominently on one of the walls is The Peacemakers, a painting that depicts an 1865 Civil War strategy session with President Abraham Lincoln and his three service chiefs -- Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant, Major General William Tecumseh Sherman, and Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter. One hundred fifty-​­two years after Lincoln hatched plans to preserve the Union, President Trump's advisers staged an intervention inside the Tank to try to preserve the world order.

    By that point, six months into his administration, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Director of the National Economic Council Gary Cohn, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had grown alarmed by gaping holes in Trump's knowledge of history, especially the key alliances forged following World War II. Trump had dismissed allies as worthless, cozied up to authoritarian regimes in Russia and elsewhere, and advocated withdrawing troops from strategic outposts and active theaters alike.

    [ New book portrays Trump as erratic, 'at times dangerously uninformed' ]

    Trump organized his unorthodox worldview under the simplistic banner of "America First," but Mattis, Tillerson, and Cohn feared his proposals were rash, barely considered, and a danger to America's superpower standing. They also felt that many of Trump's impulsive ideas stemmed from his lack of familiarity with U.S. history and, even, where countries were located. To have a useful discussion with him, the trio agreed, they had to create a basic knowledge, a shared language.

    So on July 20, 2017, Mattis invited Trump to the Tank for what he, Tillerson, and Cohn had carefully organized as a tailored tutorial. What happened inside the Tank that day crystallized the commander in chief's berating, derisive and dismissive manner, foreshadowing decisions such as the one earlier this month that brought the United States to the brink of war with Iran. The Tank meeting was a turning point in Trump's presidency. Rather than getting him to appreciate America's traditional role and alliances, Trump began to tune out and eventually push away the experts who believed their duty was to protect the country by restraining his more dangerous impulses.

    The episode has been documented numerous times, but subsequent reporting reveals a more complete picture of the moment and the chilling effect Trump's comments and hostility had on the nation's military and national security leadership.

    Just before 10 a.m. on a scorching summer Thursday, Trump arrived at the Pentagon. He stepped out of his motorcade, walked along a corridor with portraits honoring former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs, and stepped inside the Tank. The uniformed officers greeted their commander in chief. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Joseph F. Dunford Jr. sat in the seat of honor midway down the table, because this was his room, and Trump sat at the head of the table facing a projection screen. Mattis and the newly confirmed deputy defense secretary, Patrick Shanahan, sat to the president's left, with Vice President Pence and Tillerson to his right. Down the table sat the leaders of the military branches, along with Cohn and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon was in the outer ring of chairs with other staff, taking his seat just behind Mattis and directly in Trump's line of sight.

    Mattis, Cohn, and Tillerson and their aides decided to use maps, graphics, and charts to tutor the president, figuring they would help keep him from getting bored. Mattis opened with a slide show punctuated by lots of dollar signs. Mattis devised a strategy to use terms the impatient president, schooled in real estate, would appreciate to impress upon him the value of U.S. investments abroad. He sought to explain why U.S. troops were deployed in so many regions and why America's safety hinged on a complex web of trade deals, alliances, and bases across the globe.

    An opening line flashed on the screen, setting the tone: "The post-war international rules-based order is the greatest gift of the greatest generation." Mattis then gave a 20-minute briefing on the power of the NATO alliance to stabilize Europe and keep the United States safe. Bannon thought to himself, "Not good. Trump is not going to like that one bit." The internationalist language Mattis was using was a trigger for Trump.

    "Oh, baby, this is going to be f---ing wild," Bannon thought. "If you stood up and threatened to shoot [Trump], he couldn't say 'postwar rules-based international order.' It's just not the way he thinks."

    For the next 90 minutes, Mattis, Tillerson, and Cohn took turns trying to emphasize their points, pointing to their charts and diagrams. They showed where U.S. personnel were positioned, at military bases, CIA stations, and embassies, and how U.S. deployments fended off the threats of terror cells, nuclear blasts, and destabilizing enemies in places including Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, the Korea Peninsula, and Syria. Cohn spoke for about 20 minutes about the value of free trade with America's allies, emphasizing how he saw each trade agreement working together as part of an overall structure to solidify U.S. economic and national security.

    Trump appeared peeved by the schoolhouse vibe but also allergic to the dynamic of his advisers talking at him. His ricocheting attention span led him to repeatedly interrupt the lesson. He heard an adviser say a word or phrase and then seized on that to interject with his take. For instance, the word "base" prompted him to launch in to say how "crazy" and "stupid" it was to pay for bases in some countries.

    Trump's first complaint was to repeat what he had vented about to his national security adviser months earlier: South Korea should pay for a $10 billion missile defense system that the United States built for it. The system was designed to shoot down any short- and medium-range ballistic missiles from North Korea to protect South Korea and American troops stationed there. But Trump argued that the South Koreans should pay for it, proposing that the administration pull U.S. troops out of the region or bill the South Koreans for their protection.

    "We should charge them rent," Trump said of South Korea. "We should make them pay for our soldiers. We should make money off of everything."

    Trump proceeded to explain that NATO, too, was worthless. U.S. generals were letting the allied member countries get away with murder, he said, and they owed the United States a lot of money after not living up to their promise of paying their dues.

    "They're in arrears," Trump said, reverting to the language of real estate. He lifted both his arms at his sides in frustration. Then he scolded top officials for the untold millions of dollars he believed they had let slip through their fingers by allowing allies to avoid their obligations.

    "We are owed money you haven't been collecting!" Trump told them. "You would totally go bankrupt if you had to run your own business."


    (Penguin Press)

    Mattis wasn't trying to convince the president of anything, only to explain and provide facts. Now things were devolving quickly. The general tried to calmly explain to the president that he was not quite right. The NATO allies didn't owe the United States back rent, he said. The truth was more complicated. NATO had a nonbinding goal that members should pay at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product on their defenses. Only five of the countries currently met that goal, but it wasn't as if they were shorting the United States on the bill.

    More broadly, Mattis argued, the NATO alliance was not serving only to protect western Europe. It protected America, too. "This is what keeps us safe," Mattis said. Cohn tried to explain to Trump that he needed to see the value of the trade deals. "These are commitments that help keep us safe," Cohn said.

    Bannon interjected. "Stop, stop, stop," he said. "All you guys talk about all these great things, they're all our partners, I want you to name me now one country and one company that's going to have his back."

    Trump then repeated a threat he'd made countless times before. He wanted out of the Iran nuclear deal that President Obama had struck in 2015, which called for Iran to reduce its uranium stockpile and cut its nuclear program.

    "It's the worst deal in history!" Trump declared.

    "Well, actually . . .," Tillerson interjected.

    "I don't want to hear it," Trump said, cutting off the secretary of state before he could explain some of the benefits of the agreement. "They're cheating. They're building. We're getting out of it. I keep telling you, I keep giving you time, and you keep delaying me. I want out of it."

    Before they could debate the Iran deal, Trump erupted to revive another frequent complaint: the war in Afghanistan, which was now America's longest war. He demanded an explanation for why the United States hadn't won in Afghanistan yet, now 16 years after the nation began fighting there in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Trump unleashed his disdain, calling Afghanistan a "loser war." That phrase hung in the air and disgusted not only the military leaders at the table but also the men and women in uniform sitting along the back wall behind their principals. They all were sworn to obey their commander in chief's commands, and here he was calling the war they had been fighting a loser war.

    "You're all losers," Trump said. "You don't know how to win anymore."

    Trump questioned why the United States couldn't get some oil as payment for the troops stationed in the Persian Gulf. "We spent $7 trillion; they're ripping us off," Trump boomed. "Where is the f---ing oil?"

    Trump seemed to be speaking up for the voters who elected him, and several attendees thought they heard Bannon in Trump's words. Bannon had been trying to persuade Trump to withdraw forces by telling him, "The American people are saying we can't spend a trillion dollars a year on this. We just can't. It's going to bankrupt us."

    "And not just that, the deplorables don't want their kids in the South China Sea at the 38th parallel or in Syria, in Afghanistan, in perpetuity," Bannon would add, invoking Hillary Clinton's infamous "basket of deplorables" reference to Trump supporters.

    Trump mused about removing General John Nicholson, the U.S. commander in charge of troops in Afghanistan. "I don't think he knows how to win," the president said, impugning Nicholson, who was not present at the meeting.

    Dunford tried to come to Nicholson's defense, but the mild-mannered general struggled to convey his points to the irascible president.

    "Mr. President, that's just not . . .," Dunford started. "We've been under different orders."

    Dunford sought to explain that he hadn't been charged with annihilating the enemy in Afghanistan but was instead following a strategy started by the Obama administration to gradually reduce the military presence in the country in hopes of training locals to maintain a stable government so that eventually the United States could pull out. Trump shot back in more plain language.

    "I want to win," he said. "We don't win any wars anymore . . . We spend $7 trillion, everybody else got the oil and we're not winning anymore."

    Trump by now was in one of his rages. He was so angry that he wasn't taking many breaths. All morning, he had been coarse and cavalier, but the next several things he bellowed went beyond that description. They stunned nearly everyone in the room, and some vowed that they would never repeat them. Indeed, they have not been reported until now.

    "I wouldn't go to war with you people," Trump told the assembled brass.

    Addressing the room, the commander in chief barked, "You're a bunch of dopes and babies."

    For a president known for verbiage he euphemistically called "locker room talk," this was the gravest insult he could have delivered to these people, in this sacred space. The flag officers in the room were shocked. Some staff began looking down at their papers, rearranging folders, almost wishing themselves out of the room. A few considered walking out. They tried not to reveal their revulsion on their faces, but questions raced through their minds. "How does the commander in chief say that?" one thought. "What would our worst adversaries think if they knew he said this?"

    This was a president who had been labeled a "draft dodger" for avoiding service in the Vietnam War under questionable circumstances. Trump was a young man born of privilege and in seemingly perfect health: six feet two inches with a muscular build and a flawless medical record. He played several sports, including football. Then, in 1968 at age 22, he obtained a diagnosis of bone spurs in his heels that exempted him from military service just as the United States was drafting men his age to fulfill massive troop deployments to Vietnam.

    Tillerson in particular was stunned by Trump's diatribe and began visibly seething. For too many minutes, others in the room noticed, he had been staring straight, dumbfounded, at Mattis, who was speechless, his head bowed down toward the table. Tillerson thought to himself, "Gosh darn it, Jim, say something. Why aren't you saying something?"

    But, as he would later tell close aides, Tillerson realized in that moment that Mattis was genetically a Marine, unable to talk back to his commander in chief, no matter what nonsense came out of his mouth.

    The more perplexing silence was from Pence, a leader who should have been able to stand up to Trump. Instead, one attendee thought, "He's sitting there frozen like a statue. Why doesn't he stop the president?" Another recalled the vice president was "a wax museum guy." From the start of the meeting, Pence looked as if he wanted to escape and put an end to the president's torrent. Surely, he disagreed with Trump's characterization of military leaders as "dopes and babies," considering his son, Michael, was a Marine first lieutenant then training for his naval aviator wings. But some surmised Pence feared getting crosswise with Trump. "A total deer in the headlights," recalled a third attendee.

    Others at the table noticed Trump's stream of venom had taken an emotional toll. So many people in that room had gone to war and risked their lives for their country, and now they were being dressed down by a president who had not. They felt sick to their stomachs. Tillerson told others he thought he saw a woman in the room silently crying. He was furious and decided he couldn't stand it another minute. His voice broke into Trump's tirade, this one about trying to make money off U.S. troops.

    "No, that's just wrong," the secretary of state said. "Mr. President, you're totally wrong. None of that is true."

    Tillerson's father and uncle had both been combat veterans, and he was deeply proud of their service.

    "The men and women who put on a uniform don't do it to become soldiers of fortune," Tillerson said. "That's not why they put on a uniform and go out and die . . . They do it to protect our freedom."

    There was silence in the Tank. Several military officers in the room were grateful to the secretary of state for defending them when no one else would. The meeting soon ended and Trump walked out, saying goodbye to a group of servicemen lining the corridor as he made his way to his motorcade waiting outside. Mattis, Tillerson, and Cohn were deflated. Standing in the hall with a small cluster of people he trusted, Tillerson finally let down his guard.

    "He's a f---ing moron," the secretary of state said of the president.

    The plan by Mattis, Tillerson, and Cohn to train the president to appreciate the internationalist view had clearly backfired.

    "We were starting to get out on the wrong path, and we really needed to have a course correction and needed to educate, to teach, to help him understand the reason and basis for a lot of these things," said one senior official involved in the planning. "We needed to change how he thinks about this, to course correct. Everybody was on board, 100 percent agreed with that sentiment. [But] they were dismayed and in shock when not only did it not have the intended effect, but he dug in his heels and pushed it even further on the spectrum, further solidifying his views."

    A few days later, Pence's national security adviser, Andrea Thompson, a retired Army colonel who had served in Afghanistan and Iraq, reached out to thank Tillerson for speaking up on behalf of the military and the public servants who had been in the Tank. By September 2017, she would leave the White House and join Tillerson at Foggy Bottom as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security affairs.

    The Tank meeting had so thoroughly shocked the conscience of military leaders that they tried to keep it a secret. At the Aspen Security Forum two days later, longtime NBC News correspondent Andrea Mitchell asked Dunford how Trump had interacted during the Tank meeting. The Joint Chiefs chairman misleadingly described the meeting, skipping over the fireworks.

    "He asked a lot of hard questions, and the one thing he does is question some fundamental assumptions that we make as military leaders -- and he will come in and question those," Dunford told Mitchell on July 22. "It's a pretty energetic and an interactive dialogue."

    One victim of the Tank meeting was Trump's relationship with Tillerson, which forever after was strained. The secretary of state came to see it as the beginning of the end. It would only worsen when news that Tillerson had called Trump a "moron" was first reported in October 2017 by NBC News.

    [Mar 01, 2020] Hollywood Goes Full Blacklist and Fails to Grasp the Irony by Larry C Johnson

    Notable quotes:
    "... It is especially galling to see how the Hollywood Community has embraced the era of red-baiting Joseph McCarthy as the new standard for what is acceptable. There was a time that a few brave souls in Hollywood (I am thinking Lucille Ball, Kirk Douglas and Gregory Peck), spoke out against the blacklisting of actors, writers and directors for their past political ties to the Soviet Union. ..."
    "... This was an ugly, awful and evil time in America. It was a period of time fed by fear and ignorance. While it is true that there were Americans who identified as Communists and embraced the politics of the Soviet Union, we scared ourselves into believing that communist subversion was everywhere and that America was teetering on the brink of being submerged in a red tide. ..."
    "... Hillary Clinton's crazy rant accusing U.S. Army Major and Member of Congress, Tulsi Gabbard, as a Kremlin puppet is not a deviation from the norm. Clinton exemplifies the terrifying norm of the political and cultural elite in this country. Accusing political opponents of being controlled by foreign enemies, real or imagined, is an old political tactic. Makes me wonder what Edward R. Murrow or Dalton Trumbo would say if we could bring them back from the dead. ..."
    "... "Hillary Clinton's crazy rant accusing U.S. Army Major and Member of Congress, Tulsi Gabbard, as a Kremlin puppet is not a deviation from the norm." ..."
    "... Ms. President is the closest facsimile to Lady Macbeth that American politics has been able to produce. She'd have murdered her own husband if she had thought succession would have fallen to her. As it was, the only thing that kept him alive was that she needed him for the run she had in mind for herself. The debris that this woman has left in her wake boggles the mind. That she came within a whisker of the job where she would perhaps have left the country in that debris field is a sobering thought to think about what American presidential politics has become in the 21st c. Alas, what passes for her failure and the Country's good fortune, her loved ones in the Arts are still not over. And so they are left commiserating and caterwauling over the Donald this, and the Donald that, while all this good material and their celebrity goes down the tube. Good riddance to them both. ..."
    "... Trump campaigned on Drain the Swamp in 2016. The Swamp attempted to take him down with the Russia Collusion hoax that included Spygate and the Mueller special counsel investigation. ..."
    Feb 14, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    In the wake of the latest Hollywood buffoonery displayed at the Oscars, I think it is time for the American public to denounce in the strongest possible terms the rampant hypocrisy of sanctimonious cretins who make their living pretending to be someone other than themselves. Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix and Barbara Streisand pop to mind as representative examples. All three are eager to lecture the American public on the need for equality and non-discrimination. Yet, not one of the recipients of the Oscar gift bags worth $225,000 spoke out against that extraordinary excess nor demanded that the money spent purchasing these "gifts" be used to benefit the poor and the homeless. Nope, take the money and run.

    It is especially galling to see how the Hollywood Community has embraced the era of red-baiting Joseph McCarthy as the new standard for what is acceptable. There was a time that a few brave souls in Hollywood (I am thinking Lucille Ball, Kirk Douglas and Gregory Peck), spoke out against the blacklisting of actors, writers and directors for their past political ties to the Soviet Union.

    Now I have lived long enough to see the so-called liberals in Hollywood rail against Donald Trump and his supporters as "agents of Russia." Many in Hollywood, who weep crocodile tears over the abuses of the Hollywood Blacklist, are now doing the same damn thing without a hint of irony.

    If you are a film buff (and I consider myself one) you should be familiar with these great movies that remind the viewer of the horrors visited upon actors, writers and directors during the Hollywood Blacklist:

    • The Front -- a 1976 comedy-drama film set against the Hollywood blacklist in the 1950s. It was written by Walter Bernstein, directed by Martin Ritt, and stars Woody Allen and Zero Mostel.
    • Good Night, and Good Luck -- a 2005 historical drama film directed by George Clooney, tells the story of Edward R. Murrow fighting back against the hysterical red-baiting of Senator Joseph McCarthy.
    • Trumbo -- a 2015 American biographical drama film directed by Jay Roach that follows the life of Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who was blacklisted but continued to write award winning movies in alias (e.g. Spartacus).

    This was an ugly, awful and evil time in America. It was a period of time fed by fear and ignorance. While it is true that there were Americans who identified as Communists and embraced the politics of the Soviet Union, we scared ourselves into believing that communist subversion was everywhere and that America was teetering on the brink of being submerged in a red tide.

    Thirty years ago I reflected on this era and wondered how such mass hysteria could happen. Now I know. We have lived with the same kind of madness since Donald Trump was tagged as a Russian agent in the summer of 2016. And the irony is extraordinary. The very same Hollywood elite that heaped opprobrium on Director Elia Kazan for naming names in Hollywood in front of the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, are now leading the charge in labeling anyone who dares speak out against the failed coup as "stooges" of the Kremlin or Putin.

    Hillary Clinton's crazy rant accusing U.S. Army Major and Member of Congress, Tulsi Gabbard, as a Kremlin puppet is not a deviation from the norm. Clinton exemplifies the terrifying norm of the political and cultural elite in this country. Accusing political opponents of being controlled by foreign enemies, real or imagined, is an old political tactic. Makes me wonder what Edward R. Murrow or Dalton Trumbo would say if we could bring them back from the dead.


    Bill H , 11 February 2020 at 10:20 AM

    Very well said. And I would extend the same opprobrium to those who label as "racist" anyone who does not agree with their open border policies. Etc.
    plantman , 11 February 2020 at 10:32 AM
    Trump Derangement Syndrome is a vast understatement. You never could have convinced me 4 years ago that virtually all of my liberal friends would have completely lost touch with reality due to their visceral hatred of one man.

    It no longer matters if you agree with people on social policy, entitlements, student loans, homelessness, drug addiction or even wealth distribution.

    If you do not share their irrational hatred of Trump, you're going to be lambasted, shunned and treated like a pariah.

    I've never seen anything like it. It's whacko!

    Jim Henely , 11 February 2020 at 10:34 AM
    Hillary Clinton has become the poster child for the corruption that has captured and paralyzed our political parties and government institutions. Why is she above prosecution? Is the corruption complete? Can we look to any individual or group to restore our Republic? Wake me when the prosecutions begin.
    Flavius , 11 February 2020 at 11:35 AM
    "Hillary Clinton's crazy rant accusing U.S. Army Major and Member of Congress, Tulsi Gabbard, as a Kremlin puppet is not a deviation from the norm."

    Ms. President is the closest facsimile to Lady Macbeth that American politics has been able to produce. She'd have murdered her own husband if she had thought succession would have fallen to her. As it was, the only thing that kept him alive was that she needed him for the run she had in mind for herself. The debris that this woman has left in her wake boggles the mind. That she came within a whisker of the job where she would perhaps have left the country in that debris field is a sobering thought to think about what American presidential politics has become in the 21st c. Alas, what passes for her failure and the Country's good fortune, her loved ones in the Arts are still not over. And so they are left commiserating and caterwauling over the Donald this, and the Donald that, while all this good material and their celebrity goes down the tube. Good riddance to them both.

    Dave Schuler , 11 February 2020 at 12:32 PM
    I agree that HUAC's conduct was excessive but you really ought to show the other side of the coin as well.
    1. Communism was genuinely awful. To this day we don't know how many people died, murdered by their own governments, in Soviet Russia and Communist China.
    2. The U. S. government was infiltrated at the very pinnacle of government (as in presidential advisors) by Soviet agents. We know this from Kremlin documents.
    3. We now know (based on Kremlin documents) that the American Communist Party was run by knowing Soviet agents and was funded by the Soviet Union.
    4. The motion picture industry had been heavily infiltrated by Communists including some actual Soviet agents (while Reagan was head of SAG he rooted them out).

    We resolved those issues the wrong way but they desperately needed to be resolved.

    Vegetius , 11 February 2020 at 02:04 PM
    >This was an ugly, awful and evil time in America

    This is self-righteous baby boomer nonsense. It was a brief and slightly uncomfortable time for a handful of people in Hollywood, after which the subversion of American culture and institutions chugged along merrily along to the present day.

    But this episode has been re-purposed and often reduced to caricature as part of a long ideological project aimed at convincing generations of otherwise intelligent white people that their past is a shameful parade of villains.

    They don't call it 'programming' for nothing.

    optimax , 11 February 2020 at 03:53 PM
    Kirk Douglas bravely defied the blacklist by giving Dalton Trumbo credit on Spartacus under his real name, effectively breaking the blacklist.

    I saw part of the Academy Awards and all I heard over and over again were the words race and gender, no female directors nominated.

    On a side note, this being Black History month, teevee is usually filled with the appropriate programing. But because it is the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Aushwitz the Jews are stealing the Blacks thunder by hogging the programming. When the oppressed collide.

    Fred , 11 February 2020 at 04:02 PM
    Just how big is the carbon footprint on a $225,000 swag bag? So nice to see Hollywood integrity in action. I wonder what the Bernie Tax will be on them in 2021?
    bjd , 11 February 2020 at 04:16 PM
    Chills run down my spine that you start your list with 'The Front'.

    Woody Allen's 'The Front', a 'film noir' about the beast and about courage in trying to slay it, is an absolute masterpiece, its end is unmeasurably spectacular and encouraging, and... somehow the movie never got the acclaim it deserves, and lives as one of those quiet orphans.

    But it is highly actual, and that is why you must have come to place it first.

    Thank you for naming it. Extremely recommended.

    blue peacock , 11 February 2020 at 07:26 PM
    Trump campaigned on Drain the Swamp in 2016. The Swamp attempted to take him down with the Russia Collusion hoax that included Spygate and the Mueller special counsel investigation.

    Rep. Devin Nunes uncovered many of the shenanigans while he investigated the claims of Russian interference in the 2016 election. He implored Trump to use his prerogative as POTUS to declassify many documents and communications. Trump instead took the advice of Rod Rosenstein acting as AG who initiated the Mueller investigation and did not declassify. He then passed the buck to AG Barr, who has yet to declassify.

    The question that needs to be asked in light of this: Is Trump a conman who has duped the electorate with Drain the Swamp as he has not used his exclusive powers of classification to present to the voter all the documents and communications about the actions of law enforcement and intelligence agencies relating to claims about Russian influence operations during the 2016 election?

    Fred , 11 February 2020 at 08:13 PM
    Blue,

    Maybe Trump conned the swamp into outing themselves, which hasn't proven that hard since they have even bigger ego's than he.

    D , 11 February 2020 at 09:39 PM
    Blue Peacock, the question that needs to be asked is do you blow your wad all at once on one play. Or do you drip, drip, drip it out strategically. I suggest the latter in this endless game of gotcha politics. Yes, Trump is a con man. That is how he made his billions - selling sizzle. One quality that does translate well into the political arena. No one is surprised - his life has been on the front pages for decades.

    The only newly revealed quality that I find remarkable is his remarkable staying power - the most welcome quality of all. It takes ego maniacs to play this game. Surprised anyone still thinks politics is an avocation for normal people. It isn't. And we the people are the ones that demand this to be the case.

    Sol Invictus , 11 February 2020 at 10:30 PM
    I left the american sh*thole a long time ago and my choice never felt better. I look forward to seeing 50% of americans trying to slaughter the other 50% over socialism. Here we're doing just fine with socialist medecine, and social programs for just about everyting. The Commons are still viable where common sense resides... Oligarchs love cartels, socialism and piratization: it's all about privatizing the gains and socializing the losses to the hoi polloi.
    james , 12 February 2020 at 12:35 AM
    blue peacock... does an alligator want to drain the swamp? the answer is no... that is just a lot of hokum for the naive or illiterate...
    james , 12 February 2020 at 12:36 AM
    @ sol... your first sentence is pretty harsh and more of a reflection on you then anything else..
    anon , 12 February 2020 at 02:26 AM
    Great movie "the front". As to draining the swamp, well trump has to finish the job and here lies the problem. Once done what do you put in its place.

    Bernie of course.

    Diana Croissant , 12 February 2020 at 10:11 AM
    I wonder if Hollywood knows how small some of the audiences in actual movie theaters are now. It's always surprising to me that I am sitting in almost empty theaters now when I decide I want actual movie theater popcorn and so will pay to watch a movie that I have read about and heard about from friends who have already seen the movie. I don't attend unless I've heard good things from my friends about the movie.


    I am constantly surprised that some people even consider watching the Oscars now. I feel the same about professional sports.

    You would be surprised at how good high school plays are and how good high school bands, orchestras, choirs are. The tickets are cheap, and a person actually gets to greet the performers.

    I feel the same about my local university (my Alma Mater). It's Performing Arts departments are excellent. As a student long ago, my student pass allowed me to attend wonderful performances.

    The Glory Days of Hollywood are no more. The actors and directors need to be humbled by having to go to towns across the country to see how sparse the audience in a movie theater is now. It's not at all as I remember as a child when there were long lines at the ticket window.

    [Feb 29, 2020] CrowdStrike s Dmitri Alperovitch by William F. Jasper

    Highly recommended!
    Notable quotes:
    "... Clinton and her Democratic National Committee allies — which appear to have included virtually all the top-tier DNC officials — decided the best defense would be an aggressive offense. They would make a pre-emptive damage-control strike to shift media and public attention away from the content of the e-mails (which they knew would be damning) to the provenance of the e-mails. They would divert the focus away from the embarrassing, unethical, and illegal actions revealed in the e-mails to how they were obtained and by whom. ..."
    "... The following day, on June 15, the “Russian hacking” narrative was reinforced by “Guccifer 2.0,” an anonymous Internet persona, who claimed that the forensics of the DNC server showed it had been tainted with “Russian fingerprints.” ..."
    "... All of the above organizations — most especially the CFR — have longstanding, troubling ties to the Deep State intelligence services . Notwithstanding Alperovitch’s many elitist ties listed above, it is his connections to the Atlantic Council that are especially noteworthy, as they illustrate the extensive and dangerous interconnectedness of these private globalist organizations with think tanks, major corporations, intelligence agencies, national governments, the United Nations, and other intergovernmental organizations. These private globalist organizations form the top level of the pyramid of power of the state-within-the-state — the Deep State — and they consider themselves above the rule of law and all that stuff meant for lower mortals. ..."
    "... The Atlantic Council is a staunch opponent of the Brexit, President Donald Trump, nationalist-populist movements, and the burgeoning independent media. ..."
    "... The Ukrainian civil war was well orchestrated by Obama and Hillary's Deep State along with Russian Mafioso and Ukrainian neo-Nazi Stefano Bandera operatives, a dubious mercurial cult from WWII who operated for both Hitler and Stalin's armies, being responsible for the penetration of the OPC's (precursor to the CIA) early Cold War operations behind the Iron Curtain. Every freedom fighter we trained behind the Iron Curtain was immediately identified and assassinated by the KGB because of Belorussian and Ukrainian double agents trained by the OPC-CIA: ..."
    "... Crowdstrike is just another US based start-up getting high on the hog of government contracts, and was keen to be there at the beginning of the Clinton presidency. The evidence from "Adam Carter" shows that Guccifer 2.0 was almost certainly a creation of Crowdstrike, in order to manufacture the story that it was a Russian hacker and not a disgruntled DNC leaker. ..."
    "... The setup was in the media. On June 15 2016, Crowdstrike announced that the DNC had been hacked by the two "bears", but the only thing missing was opposition research on Donald Trump. The next day, G2 appears, "leaking" the very boring "Trump research". The problem is, that that document didn't come from the DNC leak, it came from the Podesta email leak, yet that was never revealed at the time. How did Crowdstrike know on the 15th, to say that the DNC hackers took the Trump research, and G2 appears the next day claiming to release the document, when in actuality, G2 got the "Trump" file off Podesta's machine? ..."
    www.theamericanconservative.com

    Dmitri Alperovitch has played a key role in diverting attention from Hillary Clinton's documented unethical, illegal, and treasonous activities with Putin to allegations of ties between Donald Trump and Putin, for which no evidence has been forthcoming. Is Alperovitch, in reality, one of Putin's best deep-cover agents?

    Before the WikiLeaks announcement in 2016 that it would be releasing thousands of e-mails from the Democratic National Committee, few Americans had heard of the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike or Dmitri Alperovitch (shown), its Russian-Ukranian cofounder and chief technology officer. He is still far from being a household name, but he remains a central figure in the ongoing “Trump-Russia collusion” investigations by Senate and House committees and Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

    That WikiLeaks announcement, by the whistleblowing organization’s spokesman Julian Assange, came on June 12, a little over a month before the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. The Hillary Clinton campaign, still facing an insurgency from staunch Bernie Sanders supporters, was thrown into a panic. The WikiLeaks release was seen as something that could seriously sabotage her march to the White House. Clinton and her Democratic National Committee allies — which appear to have included virtually all the top-tier DNC officials — decided the best defense would be an aggressive offense. They would make a pre-emptive damage-control strike to shift media and public attention away from the content of the e-mails (which they knew would be damning) to the provenance of the e-mails. They would divert the focus away from the embarrassing, unethical, and illegal actions revealed in the e-mails to how they were obtained and by whom.

    As mentioned above, the WikiLeaks announcement came on June 12. Two days later, on June 14, DNC contractor CrowdStrike announced (via the Washington Post) that its forensic analysis of the DNC server had determined malware had been injected into the server — and it had been done by Russians. Not just any Russians, mind you, but agents of Vladimir Putin. Alperovitch and CrowdStrike’s Shawn Henry (a former FBI executive under Director Robert Mueller and President Obama) told the Post that their investigation revealed the DNC server had been hacked by the cyber-espionage groups known as “Fancy Bear,” allegedly associated with the Russian GRU (military intelligence) and “Cozy Bear,” allegedly associated with the FSB (the successor to the infamous Soviet KGB).

    The following day, on June 15, the “Russian hacking” narrative was reinforced by “Guccifer 2.0,” an anonymous Internet persona, who claimed that the forensics of the DNC server showed it had been tainted with “Russian fingerprints.”

    Hillary Clinton and her campaign chairman John Podesta, along with their DNC auxiliaries, immediately launched their brazen Russia-bashing program, claiming that Putin was interfering in our presidential election to keep her out of the White House and put his “puppet,” Donald Trump, into the Oval Office. It was precisely the kind of audacious response one would expect from Podesta, who earned notoriety as a shrewd and ruthless political operative while serving as chief of staff to President Bill Clinton. In that post, he proved his worth as the master of damage control, handling Bill Clinton’s scandals du jour cavalcade: Chinagate, Troopergate, Coffeegate, Bimbogate, etc. Besides diverting attention from the e-mails released by WikiLeaks, the Russia-Trump collusion accusations served other purposes as well. Certainly among the foremost of those purposes was that accusing Trump of colluding with Russia would bolster Hillary’s image as an anti-Putin hardliner. This was not only a move calculated to counter Hillary’s and the Democrats’ images as historically “soft on communism” and “soft on national security/national defense,” but calculated also to serve as a sort of immunity against investigation and prosecution of Bill and Hillary Clinton, John Podesta, and many others in their circle for their own well-documented corrupt, illegal, and treasonous dealings with Putin and Russia, which we have reported on extensively over many years (see here, here, and here, for example).

    However, the “Trump-Russia collusion” meme would not have taken hold and could not have continued causing the political distraction and upheaval more than a year into the Trump administration simply on the strength of Clinton, Podesta, and the DNC. The ongoing campaign against President Trump has only remained viable because of the continuous support and connivance of Deep State operatives in the intelligence community and the major media.

    This connivance was apparent from the start, when the DNC and CrowdStrike refused to allow official analysts from the FBI, CIA, NSA, and other agencies to examine the DNC server that was supposedly hacked by the Russians. One might expect that, in response, the “rebuffed” intelligence and law-enforcement agencies would refrain from endorsing the conclusions of a report that was obviously serving a partisan political purpose and that was based on evidence that they had not seen, because it had been purposely withheld from them. But no, the politically appointed intel chiefs lined up to parrot the Clinton/DNC/CrowdStrike line that Putin had interfered in the U.S. presidential election to torpedo Hillary Clinton and aid Donald Trump.

    Phony “Fingerprints,” Phony “Hack”

    Like the phony “Russia dossier” on Trump produced by Christopher Steele and Fusion GPS for Hillary Clinton and the DNC, the CrowdStrike “analysis” quickly came unraveled under expert examination. Among the many authoritative refutations of CrowdStrike’s claims are an early analysis by former top IBM executive Skip Folden, entitled “Non-Existent Foundation for Russian Hacking Charge” and “Intel Vets Challenge ‘Russia Hack’ Evidence" by Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). The VIPS study, led by the legendary Dr. William Binney, a former technical director at the NSA, also benefitted from the input of VIPS members who were cybersecurity experts with the NSA, CIA, DIA, FBI, and military intelligence.

    Among their most important finds are these two critical points:

    1) The claimed “Russian fingerprints” provide no trace routing to prove that any “hacking” was done by Russian intelligence operatives. The software and methods allegedly used are commonly available and commonly used by many private individuals, criminal syndicates, and state actors. Moreover, the “Russian” traces are so crude as to be obvious plants pointing to the Russians, whereas, if Putin’s cyberspooks had actually done it, they would have done a more professional job of covering their tracks, the experts say, and;

    2) The “hack” of the DNC was actually a leak, not a hack. The technical analysis of the security breach shows that the DNC e-mails were copied onto a USB device, such as a thumb drive, by someone physically at the DNC headquarters, not downloaded via a remote connection on the Internet. Thus it was a leak by someone at the DNC, not Russian hackers, who provided the data to WikiLeaks. That’s not an insignificant distinction!

    In addition to the Folden and VIPS reports, other top-grade technical experts who have challenged and discredited the faux “intelligence community consensus” on the DNC hacking include:

    • Mark Maunder, CEO of cybersecurity firm Wordfence;
    • Rob Graham, CEO of Errata Security;
    • Robert M. Lee, CEO of the security company Dragos;
    • Gregory Copley, president of the International Strategic Studies Association (ISSA); and
    • Jeffrey Carr, principal consultant for 20KLeague.com, founder of Suits and Spooks, author of Inside Cyber Warfare, and a lecturer at the Army War College and the Defense Intelligence Agency.

    In short, what we have is very credible technical analysis that challenges the claim of “Russian hacking” vs. a Clinton-DNC contractor who has a motive to produce a scenario that his employer is demanding. We also have the unexplained refusal of the Clinton-DNC “victims” to provide the evidence of the supposed crime to law-enforcement and intelligence authorities. Finally, and most suspiciously, we have the intelligence community (IC) that fails to demand seeing the evidence before endorsing the DNC/CrowdStrike verdict — a verdict that is obviously politically expedient.

    In addition to the technical forensic analysis that discredits the “Russian hacking” charges, we also have the claims of two WikiLeaks principals involved in the DNC e-mail breach who insist that the data was obtained via an inside leak, not a Russian Hack. WikiLeaks spokesman Julian Assange has repeatedly and emphatically stated that neither Russia nor anyone associated with Russia had anything to do with providing WikiLeaks with the DNC e-mails. For many people, however, Assange’s denials are barely more credible than those of Vladimir Putin himself, even though Assange and WikiLeaks have — time after time — reliably delivered precisely what they promised and have been non-partisan, exposing wrongdoing regardless of the wrongdoers’ political affiliations. Assange is not alone, though, in denying a Russian source connection.

    Craig Murray, the human-rights whistleblower and former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, has said in interviews with two British newspapers, The Guardian and Daily Mail Online, that he personally flew to Washington, D.C., and met with the DNC employee who provided him with the DNC e-mails to give to WikiLeaks. “I’ve met the person who leaked them,” Murray told The Guardian, “and they are certainly not Russian and it’s an insider. It’s a leak, not a hack.” Ambassador Murray’s career has shown him to be a credible witness, as well as heroically courageous. In exposing the brutal communist dictatorship of Uzbek President Islam Karimov, he also stood up to the British Foreign Office, which was covering for Karimov, and in so doing, sacrificed his diplomatic career and drew down on himself a vicious campaign of character assassination aimed at destroying his reputation.

    Thus, we have highly credible technical analysis that asserts the DNC e-mails were obtained by leak, not hack, and we have a credible witness/participant who testifies that he received the DNC data from a DNC “insider” and delivered them to WikiLeaks.

    Who is Dmitri Alperovitch?

    Who is Dmitri Alperovitch, and why is his highly suspect CrowdStrike analysis accepted as gospel by the DNC, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, the IC, and the IC-tainted Big Media “Mockingbirds”? Dmitri Alperovitch was born in Moscow in 1980, which is to say, during the latter years of the Soviet Union. There seem to be large gaps in his curriculum vitae concerning his life before emigrating to the U.S., making his background somewhat mysterious, which, some might think, would be problematical for someone who is reputed to be a top go-to guy on cyber security. But it certainly doesn’t seem to be problematic for major investors such as CapitalG (formerly Google Capital), which led a $100 million capital drive for CrowdStrike in 2015. By May of 2017, Business Insider reported, Alperovitch’s startup had attracted over $256 million and its stock was valued at just under $1 billion.

    Billionaire Eric Schmidt, the longtime CEO of Google (and its parent company, Alphabet, Inc.) is, of course, a big-time DNC donor, and was a major supporter of both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, as were many other Google executives. Schmidt was a principal investor in The Groundwork, a start-up tech company formed to assist Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Besides Google, CrowdStrike has benefitted from cash infusions from Warburg Pincus, Accel Partners, Telstra, and March Capital Partners.

    Just as interesting as Alperovitch’s apparent Midas touch is his cachet with the elite media and the great and the good of the globalist one-world set. He has been the subject of flattering profiles at Esquire, Fortune, Politico, the Washington Post, NPR, CNBC, and many other media herd venues. He is also featured as an anointed expert at such exclusive insider assemblages as the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the World Economic Forum, the Aspen Institute, the Brookings Institution, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Atlantic Council (where he is a senior fellow), and the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University (where he is also a senior fellow).

    All of the above organizations — most especially the CFR — have longstanding, troubling ties to the Deep State intelligence services. Notwithstanding Alperovitch’s many elitist ties listed above, it is his connections to the Atlantic Council that are especially noteworthy, as they illustrate the extensive and dangerous interconnectedness of these private globalist organizations with think tanks, major corporations, intelligence agencies, national governments, the United Nations, and other intergovernmental organizations. These private globalist organizations form the top level of the pyramid of power of the state-within-the-state — the Deep State — and they consider themselves above the rule of law and all that stuff meant for lower mortals.

    The Atlantic Council is subsidized by taxpayers through its government-related funding partners, which include the U.S. State Department; the European Union; the European Investment Bank; NATO; and the governments of Norway, Sweden, Japan, Finland, Lithuania, South Korea, Cyprus, Latvia, and Slovakia; among others. The Atlantic Council’s corporate sponsors include JPMorgan Chase, the Blackstone Group, Bank of America, Airbus, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Ford, Saab, Zurich, Walmart Stores, Inc., Lockheed Martin, 21st Century Fox, Arab Bank, Boeing, CIGNA Corporation, Coca-Cola Company, Raytheon, Pfizer, and many others. Besides the Rockefeller and Soros foundations, the Atlantic Council also receives generous handouts from the usual establishment tax-exempt foundations that fund globalist and leftwing causes.

    The Atlantic Council’s website tells us, “In 1961, former Secretaries of State Dean Acheson and Christian Herter, with Will Clayton, William Foster, Theodore Achilles and other distinguished Americans, recommended the consolidation of the U.S. citizens groups supporting the Atlantic Alliance into the Atlantic Council of the United States.”

    What the Atlantic Council’s website doesn’t mention is that all of these founders were also leading members of the CFR, the principal organization pushing for world government and the annihilation of national sovereignty for most of the past century. Virtually all of the individuals populating the Atlantic Council’s historical roster of its current and past chairmen, presidents, and directors are/were also prominent CFR members. The Atlantic Council represents and projects the CFR globalist agenda on a multitude of political and economic issues, as, for instance, in its support for the TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnersip), the UN Climate treaty, increased Muslim migration into Europe, expanded EU control over its member states, expanded funding and powers for the United Nations and NATO, and much more. The Atlantic Council is a staunch opponent of the Brexit, President Donald Trump, nationalist-populist movements, and the burgeoning independent media.

    It is the Atlantic Council’s involvement in launching an insidious campaign to stamp out the growing Internet-based independent media that is our main concern here, and the area where Dmitri Alperovitch appears to be a central character. A key instrument in that effort is a group of anonymous national security and cybersecurity “experts” who claim to be fighting Russian propaganda in the alternative media.

    The group, which goes by the name “Is It Propaganda Or Not?” or "PropOrNot" (www.propornot.com), joined up with Snopes, Politifact, Fake News Watch, Fort Liberty Hoax Sites, and other left-leaning groups to attack conservative and libertarian news sites. It has been boosted in this treacherous attack on the First Amendment by the Washington Post, the New Republic, and other members of the Fourth Estate with deep ties to the Deep State.

    This danger has been amplified by the efforts of Google, Facebook, Twitter, and other tech giants to censor politically incorrect speech on the Internet. We first wrote about PropOrNot in a December 2016 article, “FAKE NEWS: Media Hysteria Over Irrelevant Fake Websites Masks More Sinister Agenda.”

    In a forthcoming article, we will be examining the threat to our freedom of speech posed by the PropOrNot-Deep State complex and the roles of Alperovitch, CrowdStrike, Google, CFR-Atlantic Council, and the “intelligence community” in that ongoing dangerous attack on liberty.

    Image: screenshot from YouTube video of CBS News interview with Dmitri Alperovitch

    Related articles:

    Rachel Verdon 2 years ago • edited ,

    William Jasper, asking "Is Alperovitch, in reality, one of Putin's best deep-cover agents," has every right to be suspicious about Dmitri Alperovitch and his ties to the Atlantic Council of the Ukraine. Alperovitch hates President Putin and the new Russian Federation. Alperovitch was involved in toppling the legitimate Ukrainian presidency of Viktor Yanukovych who favored aligning with Russia instead of the European Union, according to an article in CounterPunch on March 23, 2017:

    "Cybersecurity Firm That Attributed DNC Hacks to Russia May Have Fabricated Russia Hacking in Ukraine" by Michael J. Sainato
    http://www.counterpunch.org...

    The Ukrainian civil war was well orchestrated by Obama and Hillary's Deep State along with Russian Mafioso and Ukrainian neo-Nazi Stefano Bandera operatives, a dubious mercurial cult from WWII who operated for both Hitler and Stalin's armies, being responsible for the penetration of the OPC's (precursor to the CIA) early Cold War operations behind the Iron Curtain. Every freedom fighter we trained behind the Iron Curtain was immediately identified and assassinated by the KGB because of Belorussian and Ukrainian double agents trained by the OPC-CIA:

    • "Ukraine on Fire" the movie, by Oliver Stone https://www.youtube.com/wat...
    • "The Belarus Secret" by John Loftus https://www.amazon.com/Bela... see pages 16, 66, 101-104 depicting the Ukrainian Stefano Bandera group whose communist double agents had permeated every level of western intelligence and compromised US intelligence during the Cold War
    Brett Harris paul dinatale a year ago ,

    I don't see how Alperovich is connected to Russia, he arrived in the US as a 15year old, and has been working hand in glove with the Obama Administration, especially during the Ukraine coup in 2014. Crowdstrike has already been caught using the same techniques as in the DNC, to "prove" that Russia hacked Ukranian artillery guidance computers. The Ukrainian military has come out and explicitly denied that any artillery was infected, and has been independently verified.

    Crowdstrike is just another US based start-up getting high on the hog of government contracts, and was keen to be there at the beginning of the Clinton presidency. The evidence from "Adam Carter" shows that Guccifer 2.0 was almost certainly a creation of Crowdstrike, in order to manufacture the story that it was a Russian hacker and not a disgruntled DNC leaker.

    The setup was in the media. On June 15 2016, Crowdstrike announced that the DNC had been hacked by the two "bears", but the only thing missing was opposition research on Donald Trump. The next day, G2 appears, "leaking" the very boring "Trump research". The problem is, that that document didn't come from the DNC leak, it came from the Podesta email leak, yet that was never revealed at the time. How did Crowdstrike know on the 15th, to say that the DNC hackers took the Trump research, and G2 appears the next day claiming to release the document, when in actuality, G2 got the "Trump" file off Podesta's machine?

    Plenty of Ukrainian collusion with the DNC, along with British and Australian collusion to undermine Trump, no "collusion" or any other evidence that Russia hacked anyone.

    [Feb 29, 2020] A very interesting and though provoking presentation by Ambassador Chas Freeman "America in Distress: The Challenges of Disadvantageous Change"

    Highly recommended!
    Notable quotes:
    "... the American-led takedown of the post-World War II international system has shattered long-standing rules and norms of behavior. ..."
    "... The combination of disorder at home and abroad is spawning changes that are increasingly disadvantageous to the United States. With Congress having essentially walked off the job, there is a need for America's universities to provide the information and analysis of international best practices that the political system does not. ..."
    Feb 29, 2020 | angrybearblog.com

    likbez , February 29, 2020 7:38 pm

    A very interesting and though provoking presentation by Ambassador Chas Freeman "America in Distress: The Challenges of Disadvantageous Change"

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvILLCbOFo4

    I think this would be very informative for anybody seriously interested in the USA foreign policy. Listening to him is so sad to realize that instead of person of his caliber we have Pompous Pompeo, who forever is frozen on the level of a tank repair mechanical engineer, as the Secretary of State.

    Published on Feb 24, 2020

    In the United States and other democracies, political and economic systems still work in theory, but not in practice. Meanwhile, the American-led takedown of the post-World War II international system has shattered long-standing rules and norms of behavior.

    The combination of disorder at home and abroad is spawning changes that are increasingly disadvantageous to the United States. With Congress having essentially walked off the job, there is a need for America's universities to provide the information and analysis of international best practices that the political system does not.

    Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr. is a senior fellow at Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense, ambassador to Saudi Arabia (during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm), acting Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, and Chargé d'affaires at both Bangkok and Beijing. He began his diplomatic career in India but specialized in Chinese affairs. (He was the principal American interpreter during President Nixon's visit to Beijing in 1972.)

    Ambassador Freeman is a much sought-after public speaker (see http://chasfreeman.net ) and the author of several well-received books on statecraft and diplomacy. His most recent book, America's Continuing Misadventures in the Middle East was published in May 2016. Interesting Times: China, America, and the Shifting Balance of Prestige, appeared in March 2013. America's Misadventures in the Middle East came out in 2010, as did the most recent revision of The Diplomat's Dictionary, the companion volume to Arts of Power: Statecraft and Diplomacy. He was the editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica entry on "diplomacy."

    Chas Freeman studied at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and in Taiwan, and earned an AB magna cum laude from Yale University as well as a JD from the Harvard Law School.

    He chairs Projects International, Inc., a Washington-based firm that for more than three decades has helped its American and foreign clients create ventures across borders, facilitating their establishment of new businesses through the design, negotiation, capitalization, and implementation of greenfield investments, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, franchises, one-off transactions, sales and agencies in other countries.

    He is the author of several books including the most recent

    Interesting times: China, America, and the shifting balance of prestige (2013)

    [Feb 29, 2020] Covid-19 is probably 3 times more contagios that a "regular" flu

    Feb 29, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    Sackerson , Feb 29 2020 19:47 utc | 2

    ...focus on precautions, preparations and resources for the elderly and those with certain chronic health conditions.
    https://theylaughedatnoah.blogspot.com/2020/02/covid-19-keep-calm-and-make-plan.html

    Krollchem , Feb 29 2020 19:57 utc | 4

    Tulsi Gabbard on why politics as usual must be discarded in order to prevent a public health crisis:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sj_tMTmZn-U&t=95s
    Ilya Grushevskiy , Feb 29 2020 20:33 utc | 17
    @14

    The risk is limited - this kills the old and infirm.

    MOA was accurate in all the panic - China controlled its initial outbreak (although a re-entry is not unlikely imo). That the rest of the world didn't react fast enough, is expected though, but saying that before it was a thing would have been unnecessarily scare-mongering I'd say.

    Jackrabbit , Feb 29 2020 22:26 utc | 42
    Normal flu has R0 of about 1.3

    Los Alamos Labs calculates Covid-19 R0 at between 4.7 to 6.6.

    Bottomline: Covid-19 is much easier to spread / quick to spread.

    !!

    CJ , Feb 29 2020 22:15 utc | 38
    Hi B,
    looks like the guys at New England Biolabs have a very rapid assay for COVID-19 --- Rapid Molecular Detection of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) Virus RNA Using Colorimetric LAMP

    Yinhua Zhang, Nelson Odiwuor, Jin Xiong, Luo Sun, Raphael Ohuru Nyaruaba, Hongping Wei, Nathan A Tanner

    Its a preprint -- but this is the way to go an isothermal loop mediated amplification (LAMP) assay. You ought to be able to get a result in about 30 minutes -- faster once they really automate it. Should cost virtually nothing a few cents.

    Other versions of it might be adapted so you can use them in the field so a general practitioner or even a soldier will be able to make the diagnosis at the bed side-- its a simple color change in a tube. All you need is a pipette the assay tube a hot block and a timer. True positive rate 99.99% false positive about 1% or less. This what the CDC needs. Problem is that they have to mass produce the assay tubes -- we need 100 million like yesterday. The other thing is that we might need martial law to quarantine people and we need to train people to use the kits and fast.

    All the best
    CJ

    Venom , Feb 29 2020 22:16 utc | 39
    All of a sudden, "freedom isn't free" axiom acquires a really macabre meaning. The inevitable devastation in countries with laissez-faire approach to this emergency will eventually prove "totalitarian" Chinese measures as being vastly superior.
    The US will undoubtedly - if grudgingly - adopt Beijing MO, but only after hundreds of thousands of people die needlessly, and America's healthcare system falls apart under the pressure of millions of patients unable to pay exorbitant bills.
    oldhippie , Feb 29 2020 22:26 utc | 43
    The American mind does not know what "public health" is.

    "Public health" is not a thinkable thought. b's paragraph beginning with "Tests must be freely available..." is a sequence of events that cannot exist even in fiction in America. Only someone who has never lived here could write that paragraph. None of b's suggestions are happening. And because these simple measures cannot happen, a price will be paid.

    Spike , Feb 29 2020 22:54 utc | 46
    The overreaction to this will cause much, much more damage than the virus would have if it were responded to in a conventional, sensible way. Those in positions of responsibility are terrified of underreacting, and it's easy to rationalize that it's better to be safe than sorry.

    If measures taken cause unnecessary disruption, if they increase the level of stress, the levels of disease and the amount of death will rise rather than fall. There is more to disease than just microbes.

    This is not to say that we should be laissez-faire. Our response to the yearly outbreak of the flu is, in my opinion, insufficient. Schools are an unprecedented institution of prolonged propinquity. Children go to school, are with their classmates in enclosed rooms all day, and bring the disease home. Children survive, but grandma and grandpa might not. Schools can be shuttered during outbreaks, and the technology exists, at least for the relatively fortunate, to continue the instruction online. People should also be encouraged to avoid stressful prolonged propinquity situations such as travel on planes, trains, and interstate buses.

    It's occurred to me that the death rate statistics might be misleading. Since China closed their schools, one can assume that the disease rate among children fell substantially. However, elderly people who live in care facilities, which is a high density living situation, would not enjoy the falling infection rate, and they are exactly the population most susceptible to a fatal outcome. This alone, perhaps, might make the death rate higher for COVID19 than for the flu.

    Here, I think, is a very good take.


    jadan , Feb 29 2020 22:56 utc | 47
    The US healthcare system, the privatized system of exploitation of the sick for greater investor profits, is not capable of dealing with a pandemic. Trump and his gang of thieves, charlatans, and unapologetically incompetent followers of Ayn Rand and graduates of the Koch Brothers University, will prevent the socialization of medicine if they possibly can. Will a future cover of Time Magazine show them all hanging from lamp posts?

    Whether this pandemic provokes the rapture of Pence & his 144,000 elect and the much anticipated End Times, or whether it fizzles out, I do heartily wish for one outcome: the disenfranchisement of Donald J Trump, his heirs & assigns, and all those who seem unable to smell the stink of his bullshit.

    Thank you Jesus! Amen.

    Pft , Feb 29 2020 21:53 utc | 33
    Jackrabbit@30

    CDC estimates 30 million flu cases each year with 30,000 deaths and 500,000 hospitalizations. I think we are a long way from any real concern. The US is nowhere near as polluted or densely populated as China. Also, I don't think we know how the disease spreads among non Asians. They are keeping that under wraps. Aside from those captives on the cruise ship there really has not been much spread from those who returned from China (visitors or citizens).

    Mark2 , Feb 29 2020 21:12 utc | 26
    Let s see America pass the 'Build a 2000 bed hospital in ten day test.
    ... ... ...
    Krollchem , Feb 29 2020 21:12 utc | 24
    Russ@ 12

    Agreed that the US leadership is clueless and their thrashing around in order to protect corporate capitalism is xenophobic and dangerous to the world. Came across this research on a plant bioflavonoid that you might find useful in the treatment of SARS COV-1 (aka COVID-19).

    Michel Chretien is setting up trials for combatting COVID-19 using a derivative of quercetin, which is a natural anti-inflammatory plant component.
    https://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/a-made-in-canada-solution-to-the-coronavirus-outbreak/

    In depth interview of this research in Canadian French:
    https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1538011/quercetine-coronavirus-michel-chretien-ircm-montreal-patrice-roy

    Dr. Michel Chretien's background and research:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H0VJZG2Pjk

    Quercetin and the mixture of isoquercitrin have already been found to suppress the arthropod-borne Mayaro virus (MAYV) occurring in forested areas in tropical South America:
    https://parasitesandvectors.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1756-3305-7-130

    Numerous other research articles on plant bioflavonoids such as Quercetin are readily available in the medical literature.

    stephen laudig , Feb 29 2020 20:47 utc | 20
    It's always Groundhog Day in the USA.
    It's always late August 2005.
    It's always New Orleans.
    It's always Hurricane Katrina [or something else] on the horizon.
    It's always a Republican Administration in power.
    Who needs external enemies when we have such internal incompetents available to do the work of sabotage?
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundhog_Day_(film)
    Russ , Feb 29 2020 20:21 utc | 12
    Neither Reps nor Dems are psychologically capable even of conceiving the kinds of measures the post calls for. Trump's stooge already proclaimed that profit is the one and only goal of any response ("the market must decide"), while the Dem leadership as well can speak and think only in terms of making care "affordable", IOW the main purpose of the whole process still has to be corporate control and profit, even if a few stray Dems do want government to subsidize some victims. The purpose still is money changing hands, profit, commerce. Until the Big One levels the karma of this place that will never change.

    It seems almost like fate is teeing up one practice play each time, just to show the US how hollowed out it is, before the real play begins. First was the Iranian reprisal strike which could have been so much more devastating. And now, although it's too early to tell how severe this pest ultimately will be, it looks so far like it won't completely cleanse the place. But if so that won't be for the lack of the US economic and cultural system giving it every opportunity it can use.

    I have no doubt the US learns zero from either test case. By now the US is too berserk and stupid to deduce anything from its very survival than confirmation of the excellence of its policy and encouragement to further escalate and accelerate.

    Trailer Trash , Feb 29 2020 19:59 utc | 6
    The idea that Uncle Sam will do something useful and timely is simply laughable. I have been mostly housebound due to severe illness for the past five years. Imagine a five year quarantine! In all that time I have had zero social support besides receiving a disability pension. I hire a personal shopper every two weeks to bring groceries; everything else comes via UPS or FedEx. I frequently go two weeks at a time and never see anyone except maybe a delivery driver.

    There is no system to take care of housebound people. For me there is no medical personal to make housecalls, no social support, no personal care workers, nothing. And this at a time when nationwide there are only small numbers of people like myself. Multiply this non-system by 100 or 1000 and people will die at home and no one will even notice.

    Uncle Sam's Day of Reckoning may be fast approaching. And we will have well-earned every bit of suffering headed our way.

    Ilya G Poimandres , Feb 29 2020 19:59 utc | 5
    Funny thing, b was right - China (and online deliveries as well really) managed to snuff the spread out well, and it seems that the rest of the world and their 'representative bureaucracies' will show all how limited they are when a fast acting 'unknown unknown' (Rummy, how you made sense here!) does its thing.

    [Feb 28, 2020] "Abort operation! Russian agent Bernie Sanders has been compromised!"

    Notable quotes:
    "... I would suggest amending this to: Official D policy: "no candidate who intends to govern in the interest of the entirety of the citizenry should seek the nomination of this Party" ..."
    Feb 28, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

    clarky90 , , February 27, 2020 at 5:04 pm

    "Abort operation! Russian agent Bernie Sanders has been compromised!"

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=71&v=4xQTr14WMMs&feature=emb_logo

    RT admits that Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are both Russian Agents!

    USAian Patriot, Michael Bloomberg has uncovered the truth and heroically, "pulled aside the curtain". (sarc)

    Mel , , February 27, 2020 at 5:13 pm

    A candidate should not be trying to win the nomination.

    LET'S give medals to EVERYbody!

    Samuel Conner , , February 27, 2020 at 8:16 pm

    I would suggest amending this to: Official D policy: "no candidate who intends to govern in the interest of the entirety of the citizenry should seek the nomination of this Party"

    [Feb 28, 2020] Chas Freeman America in Distress The Challenges of Disadvantageous Change

    Highly recommended!
    I think everybody should listen the initial 47 minutes
    Notable quotes:
    "... Wanted to add that the malaise that is gripping the U.S. institutions is completely visible, it is not the opaque and obsequies portrait drawn by the punditry, news organizations, and elites. Seems most obvious to those of us outside the beltway that can clearly delineate between the failure of DC and the projections and marketing to the population that passes as wonky prose. Stupidity lacks the clarity, but brings the temerity making the facade not so subtle. ..."
    "... Literally the only endorsement I've heard of Tulsi Gabbard - and a strikingly convincing one ..."
    "... Isn't it just a question of the profits in the military business? ..."
    Feb 24, 2020 | www.youtube.com

    https://youtu.be/mvILLCbOFo4

    In the United States and other democracies, political and economic systems still work in theory, but not in practice. Meanwhile, the American-led takedown of the post-World War II international system has shattered long-standing rules and norms of behavior. The combination of disorder at home and abroad is spawning changes that are increasingly disadvantageous to the United States. With Congress having essentially walked off the job, there is a need for America's universities to provide the information and analysis of international best practices that the political system does not.

    Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr. is a senior fellow at Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense, ambassador to Saudi Arabia (during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm), acting Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, and Chargé d'affaires at both Bangkok and Beijing. He began his diplomatic career in India but specialized in Chinese affairs. (He was the principal American interpreter during President Nixon's visit to Beijing in 1972.)

    Ambassador Freeman is a much sought-after public speaker (see http://chasfreeman.net ) and the author of several well-received books on statecraft and diplomacy. His most recent book, America's Continuing Misadventures in the Middle East was published in May 2016. Interesting Times: China, America, and the Shifting Balance of Prestige, appeared in March 2013. America's Misadventures in the Middle East came out in 2010, as did the most recent revision of The Diplomat's Dictionary, the companion volume to Arts of Power: Statecraft and Diplomacy. He was the editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica entry on "diplomacy."

    Chas Freeman studied at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and in Taiwan, and earned an AB magna cum laude from Yale University as well as a JD from the Harvard Law School. He chairs Projects International, Inc., a Washington-based firm that for more than three decades has helped its American and foreign clients create ventures across borders, facilitating their establishment of new businesses through the design, negotiation, capitalization, and implementation of greenfield investments, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, franchises, one-off transactions, sales and agencies in other countries.


    Trade Prosper , 3 days ago (edited)

    Well worth the watch and hope more see it, especially the presentation in the initial 47 minutes. We Americans take our deficits and the $ as the reserve currency far too lightly.

    strezztechnoid , 2 days ago

    Wanted to add that the malaise that is gripping the U.S. institutions is completely visible, it is not the opaque and obsequies portrait drawn by the punditry, news organizations, and elites. Seems most obvious to those of us outside the beltway that can clearly delineate between the failure of DC and the projections and marketing to the population that passes as wonky prose. Stupidity lacks the clarity, but brings the temerity making the facade not so subtle.

    yes it's me , 3 days ago

    Literally the only endorsement I've heard of Tulsi Gabbard - and a strikingly convincing one

    Bob Trajkoski , 3 days ago

    Way the US is Warmongering state and threat to humanity, on the planet.? Nukes in the hand's of gangsters

    strezztechnoid , 2 days ago (edited)

    No, not mercenaries, this is a protection racket. The U.N. address in late 2018 by the President (the laughter spoke volumes) was about as insightful as a "goodfellas" scene where the shakedown of the little guy is highlighted. It was the speeches by other countries at the meeting that was most informative.

    A definitive pullback from U.S. hegemony was palpable, real, and un-moderated. Large and small countries all expressed an unwillingness to be held under the thumb of the global bully. This is the result of having an over abundance of a particle within D.C.; not the electron, photon, or neutron...but the moron.

    Frank , 3 days ago

    Aura of imperial purpose.

    Dan Good , 7 hours ago

    Isn't it just a question of the profits in the military business?

    [Feb 28, 2020] The impact of coronavirus on Trump reelection chances

    Highly recommended!
    Feb 28, 2020 | angrybearblog.com

    likbez , February 27, 2020 10:57 pm

    There is a silver lining in any dark cloud.

    Trump might not survive the Coronavirus, literally (he is over 70 and has a high range of contacts; the mortality to this age group is close to 10%), or figuratively as voters might not forgive him inadequate and/or incompetent response (which is given) .

    Unfortunately, Bernie is at even higher risk as mortality for 80+ is over 15%, and pre-existing cardiovascular disease is a serious negative factor.

    One can wonder if this will be " Straw that broke the camel's back " for Trump. With 10% drop of S&P500 (aka "correction") it is difficult to talk about booming economy on rallies ( 20% decline marker defines a recession and some stocks -- like oil sector are already in this territory ). High yield bonds are also going down, although more slowly. Now suddenly, Trump has nothing to talk about on his rallies, and he knows it.

    A part of rich retirees who are overexposed to stocks constitutes a sizable part of remaining avid "Trumpers" voter block (kind of double stupidity, if you wish :-) , and some of them might not forgive Trump the liberty of depriving them honestly earned in 2019 ~10% of their 401K accounts.

    IMHO troubles for Trump just started. Being incompetent DJT and his merry band of grifters will almost definitely botch the response.

    They already made three blunders.

    1. When asked if, and when, a vaccine is produced, would the vaccine be affordable to everyone? They replied; We'll let the "market" decide that. And some part of electorate probably noted that.

    2. The last December, they cut the budget for the CDC (center for disease control).

    3. They exposed government workers to the virus without any need to do that, only due to bureaucratic incompetence: https://science.slashdot.org/story/20/02/27/2353236/us-health-workers-responding-to-coronavirus-lacked-training-and-protective-gear-whistle-blower-says

    In this sense appointing Pence as the head of the coronavirus response may be a smart move by Trump. When and if the pandemic hits big time, exposing the mass incompetence and unpreparedness of the US government, in combination with the tanking of the stock market, Trump can, of course, blame Christian Zionist neoconservative Israeli apartheid supporter Pence for his troubles :-)

    But, unfortunately, that will not do him any good.

    [Feb 28, 2020] Conversational Points about Coronavirus and the White House's Panic

    If "Trump recession" materialize, he and Melania can start packing. As as he will most probably repeat Bush II blunders in handling the epidemics, his chances are already lower that they were before.
    Feb 28, 2020 | angrybearblog.com

    "Trump is highly concerned about the market and has encouraged aides not to give predictions that might cause further tremors .In a Twitter post, he misspelled the word 'coronavirus' as 'caronavirus' and wrote that two cable news stations "are doing everything possible to make the Caronavirus look as bad as possible, including panicking markets, if possible. Likewise their incompetent Do Nothing Democrat comrades are all talk, no action. USA in great shape!"

    As far as the markets, I would be concerned with the China supply chain to the US. At most there is 5-weeks, three on the ocean and a week on each side getting board ship, unloading, and customs. Perhaps companies will have 2 -4 weeks in stock already. We are two-3 weeks into this. China plants are more than likely closed or are half-staffed. Ships woill not call on Chinese ports till the crisis is over or is pronounced safe.

      • run75441 , February 28, 2020 6:39 am

        PGL:

        Yep, he believes he is doomed if the economy tanks. It is actually an opportunity for him to shine if only he knew how to be presidential and lead the nation.

    1. EMichael , February 28, 2020 9:31 am

      So Trump keeps trying to reassure investors about the market when there is not a single person in the world that would pay attention to his comments on the market.

    [Feb 27, 2020] Because You d Be In Jail! - The Real Reason Democrats Are Pushing Trump Impeachment by Robert Bridge

    Notable quotes:
    "... Due to the non-stop action in Washington of late, few believe that the present state of affairs between the Democrats and Donald Trump are exclusively due to a telephone call between the US leader and the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. That is only scratching the surface of a story that is practically boundless. ..."
    "... In March 2016, the DOJ found that "the FBI had been employing outside contractors who had access to raw Section 702 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) data, and retained that access after their work for the FBI was completed," as Jeff Carlson reported in The Epoch Times. ..."
    "... That sort of foreign access to sensitive data is highly improper and was the result of "deliberate decision-making," according to the findings of an April 2017 FISA court ruling ( footnote 69 ). ..."
    "... On April 18, 2016, then-National Security Agency (NSA) Director Adm. Mike Rogers directed the NSA's Office of Compliance to terminate all FBI outside-contractor access. Later, on Oct. 21, 2016, the FBI and the DOJ's National Security Division (NSD), and despite they were aware of Rogers's actions, moved ahead anyways with a request for a FISA warrant to conduct surveillance on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. The request was approved by the FISA court, which, apparently, was still in the dark about the violations. ..."
    "... Now James Comey is back in the spotlight as one of the main characters in the Barr-Durham investigation, which is examining largely out of the spotlight the origins of the Trump-Russia conspiracy theory that dogged the White House for four long years. ..."
    Dec 29, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    Authored by Robert Bridge via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    In the time-honored tradition of Machiavellian statecraft, all of the charges being leveled against Donald Trump to remove him from office – namely, 'abuse of power' and 'obstruction of congress' –are essentially the same things the Democratic Party has been guilty of for nearly half a decade : abusing their powers in a non-stop attack on the executive branch. Is the reason because they desperately need a 'get out of jail free' card?

    Due to the non-stop action in Washington of late, few believe that the present state of affairs between the Democrats and Donald Trump are exclusively due to a telephone call between the US leader and the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. That is only scratching the surface of a story that is practically boundless.

    Back in April 2016, before Trump had become the Republican presidential nominee, talk of impeachment was already in the air.

    "Donald Trump isn't even the Republican nominee yet," wrote Darren Samuelsohn in Politico. Yet impeachment, he noted, is "already on the lips of pundits, newspaper editorials, constitutional scholars, and even a few members of Congress."

    The timing of Samuelsohn's article is not a little astonishing given what the Department of Justice (DOJ) had discovered just one month earlier.

    In March 2016, the DOJ found that "the FBI had been employing outside contractors who had access to raw Section 702 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) data, and retained that access after their work for the FBI was completed," as Jeff Carlson reported in The Epoch Times.

    That sort of foreign access to sensitive data is highly improper and was the result of "deliberate decision-making," according to the findings of an April 2017 FISA court ruling ( footnote 69 ).

    On April 18, 2016, then-National Security Agency (NSA) Director Adm. Mike Rogers directed the NSA's Office of Compliance to terminate all FBI outside-contractor access. Later, on Oct. 21, 2016, the FBI and the DOJ's National Security Division (NSD), and despite they were aware of Rogers's actions, moved ahead anyways with a request for a FISA warrant to conduct surveillance on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. The request was approved by the FISA court, which, apparently, was still in the dark about the violations.

    On Oct. 26, following approval of the warrant against Page, Rogers went to the FISA court to inform them of the FBI's non-compliance with the rules. Was it just a coincidence that at exactly this time, the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter were suddenly calling for Roger's removal? The request was eventually rejected. The next month, in mid-November 2016 Rogers, without first notifying his superiors, flew to New York where he had a private meeting with Trump at Trump Towers.

    According to the New York Times, the meeting – the details of which were never publicly divulged, but may be guessed at – "caused consternation at senior levels of the administration."

    Democratic obstruction of justice?

    Then CIA Director John Brennan, dismayed about a few meetings Trump officials had with the Russians, helped to kick-start the FBI investigation over 'Russian collusion.' Notably, these Trump-Russia meetings occurred in December 2016, as the incoming administration was in the difficult transition period to enter the White House. The Democrats made sure they made that transition as ugly as possible.

    Although it is perfectly normal for an incoming government to meet with foreign heads of state at this critical juncture, a meeting at Trump Tower between Michael Flynn, Trump's incoming national security adviser and former Russian Ambassador to the US, Sergey Kislyak, was portrayed as some kind of cloak and dagger scene borrowed from a John le Carré thriller.

    Brennan questioning the motives behind high-level meetings between the Trump team and some Russians is strange given that the lame duck Obama administration was in the process of redialing US-Russia relations back to the Cold War days, all based on the debunked claim that Moscow handed Trump the White House on a silver platter.

    In late December 2016, after Trump had already won the election, Obama slapped Russia with punitive sanctions, expelled 35 Russian diplomats and closed down two Russian facilities. Since part of Trump's campaign platform was to mend relations with Moscow, would it not seem logical that the incoming administration would be in damage-control, doing whatever necessary to prevent relations between the world's premier nuclear powers from degrading even more?

    So if it wasn't 'Russian collusion' that motivated the Democrats into action, what was it?

    From Benghazi to Seth Rich

    Here we must pause and remind ourselves about the unenviable situation regarding Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, who was being grilled daily over her use of a private computer to communicate sensitive documents via email. In all likelihood, the incident would have dropped from the radar had it not been for the deadly 2012 Benghazi attacks on a US compound.

    In the course of a House Select Committee investigation into the circumstances surrounding the attacks, which resulted in the death of US Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other US personnel, Clinton handed over some 30,000 emails, while reportedly deleting 32,000 deemed to be of a "personal nature". Those emails remain unaccounted for to this day.

    I want the public to see my email. I asked State to release them. They said they will review them for release as soon as possible.

    -- Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) March 5, 2015

    By March 2015, even the traditionally tepid media was baring its baby fangs, relentlessly pursuing Clinton over the email question. Since Clinton never made a secret of her presidential ambitions, even political allies were piling on. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), for example, said it's time for Clinton "to step up" and explain herself, adding that "silence is going to hurt her."

    On July 24, 2015, The New York Times published a front-page story with the headline "Criminal Inquiry Sought in Clinton's Use of Email." Later, Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post candidly summed up Clinton's rapidly deteriorating status with elections fast approaching: "Democrats still show no sign they are willing to abandon Clinton. Instead, they seem to be heading into the 2016 election with a deeply flawed candidate schlepping around plenty of baggage -- the details of which are not yet known."

    Moving into 2016, things began to look increasingly complicated for the Democratic front-runner. On March 16, 2016, WikiLeaks launched a searchable archive for over 30 thousand emails and attachments sent to and from Hillary Clinton's private email server while she was Secretary of State. The 50,547-page treasure trove spans the dates from June 30, 2010 to August 12, 2014.

    In May, about one month after Clinton had officially announced her candidacy for the US presidency, the State Department's inspector general released an 83-page report that was highly critical of Clinton's email practices, concluding that Clinton failed to seek legal approval for her use of a private server.

    "At a minimum," the report determined, "Secretary Clinton should have surrendered all emails dealing with Department business before leaving government service and, because she did not do so, she did not comply with the Department's policies that were implemented in accordance with the Federal Records Act."

    The following month brought more bad news for Clinton and her presidential hopes after it was reported that her husband, former President Bill Clinton, had a 30-minute tęte-ŕ-tęte with Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch, whose department was leading the Clinton investigations, on the tarmac at Phoenix International Airport. Lynch said Clinton decided to pay her an impromptu visit where the two discussed "his grandchildren and his travels and things like that." Republicans, however, certainly weren't buying the story as the encounter came as the FBI was preparing to file its recommendation to the Justice Department.

    The summer of 2016, however, was just heating up.

    I take @LorettaLynch & @billclinton at their word that their convo in Phoenix didn't touch on probe. But foolish to create such optics.

    -- David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) June 30, 2016
    Hack versus Leak?

    On the early morning of July 10, Seth Rich, the director of voter expansion for the Democratic National Committee (DNC), was gunned down on the street in the Bloomingdale neighborhood of Washington, DC. Rich's murder, said to be the result of a botched robbery, bucked the homicide trend in the area for that particular period; murders rates for the first six months of 2016 were down about 50 percent from the same period in the previous year.

    In any case, the story gets much stranger. Just five days earlier, on July 5th, the computers at the DNC were compromised, purportedly by an online persona with the moniker "Guccifer 2.0" at the behest of Russian intelligence. This is where the story of "Russian hacking" first gained popularity. Not everyone, however, was buying the explanation.

    In July 2017, a group of former U.S. intelligence officers, including NSA specialists, who call themselves Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) sent a memo to President Trump that challenged a January intelligence assessment that expressed "high confidence" that the Russians had organized an "influence campaign" to harm Hillary Clinton's "electability," as if she wasn't capable of that without Kremlin support.

    "Forensic studies of 'Russian hacking' into Democratic National Committee computers last year reveal that on July 5, 2016, data was leaked (not hacked) by a person with physical access to DNC computer," the memo states (The memo's conclusions were based on analyses of metadata provided by the online persona Guccifer 2.0, who took credit for the alleged hack). "Key among the findings of the independent forensic investigations is the conclusion that the DNC data was copied onto a storage device at a speed that far exceeds an Internet capability for a remote hack."

    In other words, according to VIPS, the compromise of the DNC computers was the result of an internal leak, not an external hack.

    At this point, however, it needs mentioned that the VIPS memo has sparked dissenting views among its members. Several analysts within the group have spoken out against its findings, and that internal debate can be read here . Thus, it would seem there is no 'smoking gun,' as of yet, to prove that the DNC was not hacked by an external entity. At the same time, the murder of Seth Rich continues to remain an unsolved "botched robbery," according to investigators. Meanwhile, the one person who may hold the key to the mystery, Julian Assange, is said to be withering away Belmarsh Prison, a high-security London jail, where he is awaiting a February court hearing that will decide whether he will be extradited to the United States where he 18 charges.

    Here is a question to ponder: If you were Julian Assange, and you knew you were going to be extradited to the United States, who would you rather be the sitting president in charge of your fate, Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump? Think twice before answering.

    "Because you'd be in jail"

    On October 9, 2016, in the second televised presidential debates between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, Trump accused his Democratic opponent of deleting 33,000 emails, while adding that he would get a "special prosecutor and we're going to look into it " To this, Clinton said "it's just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country," to which Trump deadpanned, without missing a beat, "because you'd be in jail."

    Now if that remark didn't get the attention of high-ranking Democratic officials, perhaps Trump's comments at a Virginia rally days later, when he promised to "drain the swamp," made folks sit up and take notice.

    https://www.youtube.com/embed/slLCjLcgqbc

    At this point the leaks, hacks and everything in between were already coming fast and furious. On October 7, John Podesta, Clinton's presidential campaign manager, had his personal Gmail account hacked, thereby releasing a torrent of inside secrets, including how Donna Brazile, then a CNN commentator, had fed Clinton debate questions. But of course the crimes did not matter to the mendacious media, only the identity of the alleged messenger, which of course was 'Russia.'

    By now, the only thing more incredible than the dirt being produced on Clinton was the fact that she was still in the presidential race, and even slated to win by a wide margin. But perhaps her biggest setback came when authorities, investigating Anthony Weiner's abused laptop into illicit text messages he sent to a 15-year-old girl, stumbled upon thousands of email messages from Hillary Clinton.

    BREAKING NEWS: @jasoninthehouse : @HillaryClinton email - "Case reopened." pic.twitter.com/feVlU2aNP9

    -- Fox News (@FoxNews) October 28, 2016

    Now Comey had to backpedal on his conclusion in July that although Clinton was "extremely careless" in her use of her electronic devices, no criminal charges would be forthcoming. He announced an 11th hour investigation, just days before the election. Although Clinton was also cleared in this case, observers never forgave Comey for his actions, arguing they cost Clinton the White House.

    Now James Comey is back in the spotlight as one of the main characters in the Barr-Durham investigation, which is examining largely out of the spotlight the origins of the Trump-Russia conspiracy theory that dogged the White House for four long years.

    In early December, Justice Department's independent inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, released the 400-page IG report that revealed a long list of omissions, mistakes and inconsistencies in the FBI's applications for FISA warrants to conduct surveillance on Carter Page. Although the report was damning, both Barr and Durham noted it did not go far enough because Horowitz did not have the access that Durham has to intelligence agency sources, as well as overseas contacts that Barr provided to him.

    With AG report due for release in early spring, needless to say some Democrats are very nervous as to its finding. So nervous, in fact, that they might just be willing to go to the extreme of removing a sitting president to avoid its conclusions.

    Whatever the verdict, 2020 promises to be one very interesting year.

    [Feb 27, 2020] Russiagate Investigation Now Endangers Obama by Eric Zuesse

    Notable quotes:
    "... The Russiagate investigation, which had formerly focused against the current US President, has reversed direction and now targets the prior President. ..."
    "... In order to appreciate the seriousness of that misconduct and its implications, it is useful to understand certain procedural and substantive requirements that apply to the government's conduct of electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes. Title I of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA ), codified as amended at 50 USC. 1801-1813, governs such electronic surveillance. It requires the government to apply for and receive an order from the FISC approving a proposed electronic surveillance. When deciding whether to grant such an application, a FISC judge must determine among other things, whether it provides probable cause to believe that the proposed surveillance target is a "foreign power" or an agent a foreign power. ..."
    "... The government has a heightened duty of candor to the FISC in ex parte proceedings, that is, ones in which the government does not face an adverse party, such as proceedings on electronic surveillance applications. The FISC expects the government to comply with its heightened duty of candor in ex parte proceedings at all times. Candor is fundamental to this Court's effective operation. ..."
    "... On December 9, 2019, the government filed, with the FISC, public and classified versions of the OIG Report. It documents troubling instances in which FBI personnel provided information to NSD ..."
    "... which was unsupported or contradicted by information in their possession. It also describes several instances in which FBI personnel withheld from NSD information in their possession which was detrimental to their case for believing that Mr. ..."
    "... Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power. ..."
    "... MACCALLUM: Were you surprised that he ..."
    "... seemed to give himself such a distance from the entire operation? ..."
    "... "JAMES COMEY: As the director sitting on top of an organization of 38,000 people you can't run an investigation that's seven layers below you. You have to leave it to the career professionals to do." ..."
    "... MACCALLUM: Do you believe that? ..."
    "... BARR: No, I think that the -- one of the problems with what happened was precisely that they pulled the investigation up to the executive floors, and it was run and bird dogged by a very small group of very high level officials. And the idea that this was seven layers below him is simply not true. ..."
    "... Allegedly, George Papadopoulos said that "Halper insinuated to him that Russia was helping the Trump campaign" , and Papadopoulos was shocked at Halper's saying this. Probably because so much money at the Pentagon is untraceable, some of the crucial documentation on this investigation might never be found. For example, the Defense Department's Inspector General's 2 July 2019 report to the US Senate said "ONA personnel could not provide us any evidence that Professor Halper visited any of these locations, established an advisory group, or met with any of the specific people listed in the statement of work." ..."
    "... very profitable business ..."
    "... Schultz and other members of the DNC staff had exercised bias against Bernie Sanders and in favor of Hillary Clinton during the 2016 Democratic primaries -- which favoritism had been the reason why Obama had appointed Shultz to that post to begin with. She was just doing her job for the person who had chosen her to lead the DNC. Likewise for Comey. In other words: Comey was Obama's pick to protect Clinton, and to oppose Trump (who had attacked both Clinton and Obama). ..."
    "... Nowadays, Obama is telling the Party's billionaires that Elizabeth Warren would be good for them , but not that Sanders would -- he never liked Sanders. ..."
    "... and, so, Trump now will be gunning against Obama ..."
    "... Whatever the outcome will be, it will be historic, and unprecedented. (If Sanders becomes the nominee, it will be even more so; and, if he then wins on November 3rd, it will be a second American Revolution; but, this time, a peaceful one -- if that's even possible, in today's hyper-partisan, deeply split, USA.) ..."
    "... There is no way that the outcome from this will be status-quo. Either it will be greatly increased further schism in the United States, or it will be a fundamental political realignment, more comparable to 1860 than to anything since. ..."
    "... Reform is no longer an available option, given America's realities. A far bigger leap than that will be required in order for this country to avoid falling into an utter abyss, which could be led by either Party, because both Parties have brought the nation to its present precipice, the dark and lightless chasm that it now faces, and which must now become leapt, in order to avoid a free-fall into oblivion. ..."
    "... The problem in America isn't either Obama or Trump; it's neither merely the Democratic Party, nor merely the Republican Party; it is instead both; it is the Deep State . ..."
    Dec 29, 2019 | www.strategic-culture.org
    Former US President Barack Obama is now in severe legal jeopardy, because the Russiagate investigation has turned 180 degrees; and he, instead of the current President, Donald Trump, is in its cross-hairs.

    The biggest crime that a US President can commit is to try to defeat American democracy (the Constitutional functioning of the US Government) itself, either by working with foreign powers to take it over, or else by working internally within America to sabotage democracy for his or her own personal reasons. Either way, it's treason (crime that is intended to, and does, endanger the continued functioning of the Constitution itself*), and Mr. Obama is now being actively investigated, as possibly having done this.

    The Russiagate investigation, which had formerly focused against the current US President, has reversed direction and now targets the prior President. Although he, of course, cannot be removed from office (since he is no longer in office), he is liable under criminal laws, the same as any other American would be, if he committed any crime while he was in office.

    A December 17th order by the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) Court severely condemned the performance by the FBI under Obama, for having obtained, on 19 October 2016 (even prior to the US Presidential election), from that Court, under false pretenses, an authorization for the FBI to commence investigating Donald Trump's Presidential campaign, as being possibly in collusion with Russia's Government. The Court's ruling said:

    In order to appreciate the seriousness of that misconduct and its implications, it is useful to understand certain procedural and substantive requirements that apply to the government's conduct of electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes. Title I of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA ), codified as amended at 50 USC. 1801-1813, governs such electronic surveillance. It requires the government to apply for and receive an order from the FISC approving a proposed electronic surveillance. When deciding whether to grant such an application, a FISC judge must determine among other things, whether it provides probable cause to believe that the proposed surveillance target is a "foreign power" or an agent a foreign power.

    The government has a heightened duty of candor to the FISC in ex parte proceedings, that is, ones in which the government does not face an adverse party, such as proceedings on electronic surveillance applications. The FISC expects the government to comply with its heightened duty of candor in ex parte proceedings at all times. Candor is fundamental to this Court's effective operation.

    On December 9, 2019, the government filed, with the FISC, public and classified versions of the OIG Report. It documents troubling instances in which FBI personnel provided information to NSD [National Security Division of the Department of Justice] which was unsupported or contradicted by information in their possession. It also describes several instances in which FBI personnel withheld from NSD information in their possession which was detrimental to their case for believing that Mr. [Carter] Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power.

    On December 18th, Martha McCallum, of Fox News, interviewed US Attorney General Bill Barr , and asked him (at 7:00 in the video ) how high up in the FBI the blame for this (possible treason) goes:

    MACCALLUM: Were you surprised that he [Obama's FBI Director James Comey] seemed to give himself such a distance from the entire operation?

    "JAMES COMEY: As the director sitting on top of an organization of 38,000 people you can't run an investigation that's seven layers below you. You have to leave it to the career professionals to do."

    MACCALLUM: Do you believe that?

    BARR: No, I think that the -- one of the problems with what happened was precisely that they pulled the investigation up to the executive floors, and it was run and bird dogged by a very small group of very high level officials. And the idea that this was seven layers below him is simply not true.

    The current (Trump) A.G. there called the former (Obama) FBI Director a liar on that.

    If Comey gets heat for this possibly lie-based FBI investigation of the US Presidential nominee from the opposite Party of the sitting US President (Comey's own boss, Obama), then protecting himself could become Comey's top motivation; and, in that condition, protecting his former boss might become only a secondary concern for him.

    Moreover, as was first publicly reported by Nick Falco in a tweet on 5 June 2018 (which tweet was removed by Twitter but fortunately not before someone had copied it to a web archive ), the FBI had been investigating the Trump campaign starting no later than 7 October 2015. An outside private contractor, Stefan Halper, was hired in Britain for this, perhaps in order to get around laws prohibiting the US Government from doing it. (This was 'foreign intelligence' work, after all. But was it really ? That's now being investigated.) The Office of Net Assessment (ONA) "through the Pentagon's Washington Headquarters Services, awarded him contracts from 2012 to 2016 to write four studies encompassing relations among the US, Russia, China and India" .

    Though Halper actually did no such studies for the Pentagon, he instead functioned as a paid FBI informant (and it's not yet clear whether that money came from the Pentagon, which spends trillions of dollars that are off-the-books and untraceable ), and at some point Trump's campaign became a target of Halper's investigation. This investigation was nominally to examine "The Russia-China Relationship: The impact on US Security interests."

    Allegedly, George Papadopoulos said that "Halper insinuated to him that Russia was helping the Trump campaign" , and Papadopoulos was shocked at Halper's saying this. Probably because so much money at the Pentagon is untraceable, some of the crucial documentation on this investigation might never be found. For example, the Defense Department's Inspector General's 2 July 2019 report to the US Senate said "ONA personnel could not provide us any evidence that Professor Halper visited any of these locations, established an advisory group, or met with any of the specific people listed in the statement of work."

    It seems that the Pentagon-contracted work was a cover-story, like pizza parlors have been for some Mafia operations. But, anyway, this is how America's 'democracy' actually functions . And, of course, America's Deep State works not only through governmental agencies but also through underworld organizations . That's just reality, not at all speculative. It's been this way for decades, at least since the time of Truman's Presidency (as is documented at that link).

    Furthermore, inasmuch as this operation certainly involved Obama's CIA Director John Brennan and others, and not only top officials at the FBI, there is no chance that Comey would have been the only high official who was involved in it. And if Comey was involved, then he would have been acting in his own interest, and not only in his boss's -- and here's why: Comey would be expected to have been highly motivated to oppose Mr. Trump, because Trump publicly questioned whether NATO (the main international selling-arm for America's 'defense'-contractors) should continue to exist, and also because Comey's entire career had been in the service of America's Military-Industrial Complex, which is the reason why Comey's main lifetime income has been the tens of millions of dollars he has received via the revolving door between his serving the federal Government and his serving firms such as Lockheed Martin . For these people, restoring, and intensifying, and keeping up, the Cold War , is a very profitable business . It's called by some "the Military-Industrial Complex," and by others "the Deep State," but by any name it is simply agents of the billionaires who own and control US-based international corporations, such as General Dynamics and Chevron. As a governmental official, making decisions that are in the long-term interests of those investors is the likeliest way to become wealthy.

    Consequently, Comey would have been benefitting himself, and other high officials of the Obama Administration, by sabotaging Trump's campaign, and by weakening Trump's Presidency in the event that he would become elected. Plus, of course, Comey would have been benefitting Obama himself. Not only was Trump constantly condemning Obama, but Obama had appointed to lead the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 Presidential primaries, Debbie Wasserman Schultz , who as early as 20 February 2007 had endorsed Hillary Clinton for President in the Democratic Party primaries, so that Shultz was one of the earliest supporters of Clinton against even Obama himself. In other words, Obama had appointed Shultz in order to increase the odds that Clinton -- not Sanders -- would become the nominee in 2016 to continue on and protect his own Presidential legacy. Furthermore, on 28 July 2016, Schultz became forced to resign from her leadership of the DNC after WikiLeaks released emails indicating that Schultz and other members of the DNC staff had exercised bias against Bernie Sanders and in favor of Hillary Clinton during the 2016 Democratic primaries -- which favoritism had been the reason why Obama had appointed Shultz to that post to begin with. She was just doing her job for the person who had chosen her to lead the DNC. Likewise for Comey. In other words: Comey was Obama's pick to protect Clinton, and to oppose Trump (who had attacked both Clinton and Obama).

    Nowadays, Obama is telling the Party's billionaires that Elizabeth Warren would be good for them , but not that Sanders would -- he never liked Sanders. He wants Warren to get the voters who otherwise would go for Sanders, and he wants the Party's billionaires to help her achieve this (be the Party's allegedly 'progressive' option), so that Sanders won't be able to become a ballot option in the general election to be held on 3 November 2020.

    He is telling them whom not to help win the Party's nomination. In fact, on November 26th, Huffington Post headlined "Obama Said He Would Speak Up To Stop Bernie Sanders Nomination: Report" and indicated that though he won't actually say this in public (but only to the Party's billionaires), Obama is determined to do all he can to prevent Sanders from becoming the nominee. In 2016, his choice was Hillary Clinton; but, today, it's anyone other than Sanders; and, so, in a sense, it remains what it was four years ago -- anyone but Sanders.

    Comey's virtually exclusive concern, at the present stage, would be to protect himself, so that he won't be imprisoned. This means that he might testify against Obama. At this stage, he's free of any personal obligation to Obama -- Comey is now on his own, up against Trump, who clearly is his enemy. Some type of back-room plea-bargain is therefore virtually inevitable -- and not only with Comey, but with other top Obama-appointees, ultimately. Obama is thus clearly in the cross-hairs, from now on. Congressional Democrats have opted to gun against Trump (by impeaching him); and, so, Trump now will be gunning against Obama -- and against the entire Democratic Party (unless Sanders becomes its nominee, in which case, Sanders will already have defeated that Democratic Party, and its adherents will then have to choose between him versus Trump; and, so, too, will independent voters).

    But, regardless of what happens, Obama now is in the cross-hairs. That's not just political cross-hairs (such as an impeachment process); it is, above all, legal cross-hairs (an actual criminal investigation). Whereas Trump is up against a doomed effort by the Democratic Party to replace him by Vice President Mike Pence, Obama will be up against virtually inevitable criminal charges, by the incumbent Trump Administration. Obama played hardball against Trump, with "Russiagate," and then with "Ukrainegate"; Trump will now play hardball against Obama, with whatever his Administration and the Republican Party manage to muster against Obama; and the stakes this time will be considerably bigger than just whether to replace Trump by Pence.

    Whatever the outcome will be, it will be historic, and unprecedented. (If Sanders becomes the nominee, it will be even more so; and, if he then wins on November 3rd, it will be a second American Revolution; but, this time, a peaceful one -- if that's even possible, in today's hyper-partisan, deeply split, USA.)

    There is no way that the outcome from this will be status-quo. Either it will be greatly increased further schism in the United States, or it will be a fundamental political realignment, more comparable to 1860 than to anything since.

    The US already has a higher percentage of its people in prison than does any other nation on this planet. Americans who choose a 'status-quo' option will produce less stability, more violence, not more stability and a more peaceful nation in a less war-ravaged world. The 2020 election-outcome for the United States will be a turning-point; there is no way that it will produce reform.

    Americans who vote for reform will be only increasing the likelihood of hell-on-Earth. Reform is no longer an available option, given America's realities. A far bigger leap than that will be required in order for this country to avoid falling into an utter abyss, which could be led by either Party, because both Parties have brought the nation to its present precipice, the dark and lightless chasm that it now faces, and which must now become leapt, in order to avoid a free-fall into oblivion.

    The problem in America isn't either Obama or Trump; it's neither merely the Democratic Party, nor merely the Republican Party; it is instead both; it is the Deep State .

    That's the reality; and the process that got us here started on 26 July 1945 and secretly continued on the American side even after the Soviet Union ended and Russia promptly ended its side of the Cold War. The US regime's ceaseless thrust, since 26 July 1945, to rule the entire world, will climax either in a Third World War, or in a US revolution to overthrow and remove the Deep State and end its dictatorship-grip over America. Both Parties have been controlled by that Deep State , and the final stage or climax of this grip is now drawing near. America thus has been having a string of the worst Presidents -- and worst Congresses -- in US history. This is today's reality.

    Unfortunately, a lot of American voters think that this extremely destabilizing reality, this longstanding trend toward war, is okay, and ought to be continued, not ended now and replaced by a new direction for this country -- the path toward world peace, which FDR had accurately envisioned but which was aborted on 26 July 1945. No matter how many Americans might vote for mere reform, they are wrong. Sometimes, only a minority are right. Being correct is not a majority or minority matter; it is a true or false matter. A misinformed public can willingly participate in its own -- or even the world's -- destruction. That could happen.

    Democracy is a prerequisite to peace, but it can't exist if the public are being systematically misinformed. Lies and democracy don't mix together any more effectively than do oil and water.

    [Feb 26, 2020] On Steele dossier

    Feb 26, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    Freespeaker , 55 minutes ago

    Steele dossier. Fruit of the Poisonous Tree .

    Wow72 , 52 minutes ago

    Fruit of the Poisonous Urinating Tree.. Its beyond...

    [Feb 26, 2020] How many more years will we be blessed with fables about those dastardly Russians and their omnipotent control of US elections?

    Feb 26, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    SteveR , Feb 26 2020 18:03 utc | 31

    Darn Russians made people pay $1750 to $3200 to attend the debates last night and clap for Bloomberg. The Russians also aired a long Bloomberg informercial and an anti-Medicare for All commercial during the ad breaks - to divide us. Putin will stop at nothing.

    [Feb 26, 2020] U.S. Intelligence Is Intervening In The 2020 Election by Jefferson Morley

    Notable quotes:
    "... Brennan charges, "Trump is abetting a Russian covert operation to keep him in office for Moscow's interests, not America's." But congressional representatives, both Democratic and Republican, who heard a briefing by the intelligence community about the 2020 election earlier this month say the case for Russian interference is "overstated." ..."
    "... The leak to the Post, on the eve of the Nevada caucuses, gave the opposite impression : that help for Trump and Sanders was somehow comparable. The insinuation could only have been politically motivated. ..."
    "... What's driving the U.S. intelligence community intervention in presidential politics is not just fear of Trump, but fear of losing control of the presidency. From 1947 to 2017, the CIA and other secret agencies sometimes clashed with presidents, especially Presidents Kennedy, Nixon and Carter. But since the end of the Cold War, under Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama, the secret agencies had no such problem. ..."
    Feb 26, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    Authored by Jefferson Morley via TruthDig.com,

    President Trump's ongoing purge of the intelligence community, along with Bernie Sanders' surge in the Democratic presidential race, has triggered an unprecedented intervention of U.S. intelligence agencies in the U.S. presidential election on factually dubious grounds.

    Former CIA director John Brennan sees a "full-blown national security crisis" in President Trump's latest moves against the intelligence community.

    Brennan charges, "Trump is abetting a Russian covert operation to keep him in office for Moscow's interests, not America's." But congressional representatives, both Democratic and Republican, who heard a briefing by the intelligence community about the 2020 election earlier this month say the case for Russian interference is "overstated."

    On February 21, it was leaked to the Washington Post that "U.S. officials," meaning members of the intelligence community, had confidentially briefed Sanders about alleged Russian efforts to help his 2020 presidential campaign .

    Special prosecutor Robert Mueller documented how the Russians intervened on Trump's behalf in 2016, while finding no evidence of criminal conspiracy. Mueller did not investigate the Russians' efforts on behalf of Sanders, but the Computational Propaganda Research Project at Oxford University did. In a study of social media generated by the Russia-based Internet Research Agency (IRA), the Oxford analysts found that the IRA initially generated propaganda designed to boost all rivals to Hillary Clinton in 2015. As Trump advanced, they focused almost entirely on motivating Trump supporters and demobilizing black voters. In short, the Russians helped Trump hundreds of thousand times more than they boosted Sanders.

    The leak to the Post, on the eve of the Nevada caucuses, gave the opposite impression : that help for Trump and Sanders was somehow comparable. The insinuation could only have been politically motivated.

    What's driving the U.S. intelligence community intervention in presidential politics is not just fear of Trump, but fear of losing control of the presidency. From 1947 to 2017, the CIA and other secret agencies sometimes clashed with presidents, especially Presidents Kennedy, Nixon and Carter. But since the end of the Cold War, under Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama, the secret agencies had no such problem.

    Under Trump, the intelligence community has seen a vast loss of influence. Trump is contemptuous of the CIA's daily briefing. As demonstrated by his pressure campaign on Ukraine, his foreign policies are mostly transactional. Trump is not guided by the policy process or even any consistent doctrine, other than advancing his political and business interests. He's not someone who is interested in doing business with the intelligence community.

    The intelligence community fears the rise of Sanders for a different reason. The socialist senator rejects the national security ideology that guided the intelligence community in the Cold War and the war on terror. Sanders' position is increasingly attractive, especially to young voters, and thus increasingly threatening to the former spy chiefs who yearn for a return to the pre-Trump status quo. A Sanders presidency, like a second term for Trump, would thwart that dream. Sanders is not interested in national security business as usual either.

    In the face of Trump's lawless behavior, and Sanders' rise, the intelligence community is inserting itself into presidential politics in a way unseen since former CIA director George H.W. Bush occupied the Oval Office. Key to this intervention is the intelligence community's self-image as a disinterested party in the 2020 election.

    Former House Intelligence Committee chair Jane Harman says Trump's ongoing purge of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is a threat to those who "speak truth to power." As the pseudonymous former CIA officer "Alex Finley" tweeted Monday,

    the "'Deep state' is actually the group that wants to defend rule of law (and thus gets in the way of those screaming 'DEEP STATE' and corrupting for their own gain)."

    NEVER MISS THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST

    ZEROHEDGE DIRECTLY TO YOUR INBOX

    Receive a daily recap featuring a curated list of must-read stories.

    Self-image, however, is not the same as reality. When it comes to Trump's corruption, Brennan and Co. have ample evidence to support their case. But the CIA is simply not credible as a "defender of the rule of law." The Reagan-Bush Iran-contra conspiracy, the Bush-Cheney torture regime, and the Bush-Obama mass surveillance program demonstrate that the law is a malleable thing for intelligence community leaders. A more realistic take on the 2020 election is that the U.S. intelligence community is not a conspiracy but a self-interested political faction that is seeking to defend its power and policy preferences. The national security faction is not large electorally. It benefits from the official secrecy around its activities. It is assisted by generally sympathetic coverage from major news organizations.

    The problem for Brennan and Co. is that "national security" has lost its power to mobilize public opinion. On both the right and the left, the pronouncements of the intelligence community no longer command popular assent.

    Trump's acquittal by the Senate in his impeachment trial was one sign. The national security arguments driving the House-passed articles of impeachment were the weakest link in a case that persuaded only one Republican senator to vote for Trump's removal. Sanders' success is another sign.

    In the era of endless war, Democratic voters have become skeptical of national security claims - from Iraq's non-existent weapons of mass destruction, to the notion that torture "works," to "progress" in Afghanistan, to the supreme importance of Ukraine - because they have so often turned out to be more self-serving than true.

    The prospect of a Trump gaining control of the U.S. intelligence community is scary. So is the intervention of the U.S. intelligence community in presidential politics.

    the "'Deep state' is actually the group that wants to defend their power and remain above the law (and thus corrupting the rule of law for their own gain)."

    True... the Washington secret police community together with their comrades inside and outside the Regime and their foreign comrades in the secret police community... are only interested in covering up their crime spree and abusing power... though Trump goes along with the Washington regimes abuses of power... play_arrow 1 play_arrow


    RepealThe16th , 1 minute ago

    So the author repeats the charge of intelligence agencies 'insertion' into domestic politics (which they are FORBIDDEN to do anyway.....especially the CIA and NSA).......and he ends the piece with "Based on Trump's lawless behavior"......

    Uh. Dickhead. You might want to point the 'lawless' finger at the proper targets. The intelligence agencies.

    WTF???

    Equinox7 , 2 minutes ago

    U.S. Intelligence Is Intervening In The 2020 Election....

    Let's correct this misleading headline.

    U. S. INTELLIGENCE IS INTERFERING IN THE 2020 ELECTION!

    oromae , 3 minutes ago

    What a load of trash.

    Alis Aquilae , 3 minutes ago

    " The prospect of a Trump gaining control of the U.S. intelligence community is scary."

    What an asinine statement. Since its inception, by Harry Truman in 1947 the CIA has been an instrument of the deep state, working against America.

    Having said that the corruption inside the CIA seems almost to the point where it can't be salvaged. The FBI is in the same shape as it has been handcrafted by the likes of Mueller, Comey and now Wray to a hollow farce of law enforcement that brings back fond memories of the Keystone cops. It seems the FBI with all of its technical wizardry and surveillance capabilities couldn't find their azzholes in a snowstorm. The list of failed investigations and stasi fascist tactics is growing daily.

    At this point it seems the only real cure for these two hemorrhoids on the sphincter of America is a dissection, just like JFK planned before Dallas.

    I'm all in on the phasing out of both the CIA and the FBI and creating a new sector of military intelligence to assume the duties that these 2 agencies have squandered.

    A_Huxley , 4 minutes ago

    Who are the gov of Australia and MI6 supporting this year?

    Thalamus , 4 minutes ago

    The intelligence agencies are the mob getting government pay.

    Shemp 4 Victory , 11 minutes ago

    So this is US "intelligence"? What a bunch of narcissistic, dim-witted, hypocritical, unimaginative poltroons.

    Jane Harman must think everyone is huffing gasoline if she expects people to believe that the "intelligence" community speaks truth to power. If she actually believes it herself, then she must come back from lunch reeking like Sunoco Gold 94 octane. Anyone who actually does speak truth to power ends up like Assange, Manning, or Snowden, or gets the Seth Rich treatment, or simply disappears.

    Pseudonymous former CIA officer "Alex Finley" is just one of many self-serving racketeers in the "intelligence" community worried that their racket may be exposed. He's also a shabby liar. Here is his statement after it's been stripped of the cheap ********:

    the "'Deep state' is actually the group that wants to defend their power and remain above the law (and thus corrupting the rule of law for their own gain)."

    And Johnny "one-note" Brennan (whose eye sockets appear to be empty) keeps playing the same "the Russians are gonna get us" song because he is scared shitless. He knows the extent of his crimes and is desperately trying to deflect attention away from himself. He's such a dullard, though, that he can't think of any way to do so except to bleat the same tired old fake Cold War propaganda from 50 years ago.

    As an American, I'd be embarrassed if these creepy freaks were working for America. It's pretty clear that they're not, though.

    Shifter_X , 12 minutes ago

    This whole Red scare is just a boatload of ********.

    Shue , 15 minutes ago

    " Brennan charges, "Trump is abetting a Russian covert operation to keep him in office for Moscow's interests, not America's."

    WTF?! Are you ******* kidding me? Are Americans really that ******* stupid? Trump has been the worst possible POTUS towards Russia.

    ISEEIT , 16 minutes ago

    Whoever wrote this crap is pretty slick, I'll give 'em that.

    The thing is I simply can't accept the embedded assumptions that render the entire article intellectually poo-poo.

    The real story that would be dominating any legit public discourse would be the ******* coup attempt and the matter of lack of accountability.

    Once we peel off that layer of the onion, we can begin talking about 12-3 and one on one.

    The lack of perspective issue is fatal.

    nuerocaster , 16 minutes ago

    Editors?

    Falconsixone , 17 minutes ago

    Your All Fired! Get Your **** And Get Out!

    seryanhoj , 20 minutes ago

    From the CIA viewpoint, " why should we few hundred thousand citizens and their votes **** up our best laid schemes? That would be crazy ?

    BankSurfyMan , 16 minutes ago

    Angel 5 dispatched 7 at WUHAN, ~ From the CIA viewpoint ~ on the HEDGE! U Next!

    Railiciere , 20 minutes ago

    I've made $64,000 so far this year working online and I'm a full time student. Im using an online business opportunity I heard about and I've made such great money. It's really user friendly and I'm just so happy that I found out about it.

    Heres what I do............... FoxLifeStyles.com

    Shemp 4 Victory , 8 minutes ago

    ***.

    SicSemperTyrannus , 26 minutes ago

    Or, we finally woke up to the fact that the intelligence "community" is a cabal of psychopathic murdering satanists who only cares to stay in power. Keeping the American people in thrall. I could be wrong.

    valjoux7750 , 26 minutes ago

    Is that Brenan **** still running his mouth? That ******* is out there.

    BankSurfyMan , 20 minutes ago

    Speak often on the HEDGE, sign up and post up, Comment of the Month Club Awarded! AMAZING, BUT NEVER COMMON U Next!

    JohnG , 13 minutes ago

    You are coming close to being ignored.

    Post no more obviously retarded comments.

    CamCam , 30 minutes ago

    The intelligence community intervened in every election, everywhere and all of the time

    insanelysane , 31 minutes ago

    Not even a majority of sheeple believe anything the alphabet agencies have to say.

    Chain Man , 31 minutes ago

    The CIA needs to be helping ICE get rid of illegal aliens in the USA. They can do some investigating and leg work.

    Shemp 4 Victory , 5 minutes ago

    Sounds nice, except the CIA doesn't give a **** about America.

    gcjohns1971 , 33 minutes ago

    "Brennan and Co. have ample evidence to support their case. "

    Oh where oh where have I heard THAT before??

    I wouldn't believe Brennan & Co if they told me, "The Sun will rise tomorrow morning".

    And if I shook hands with "Brennan & Co" I would count my fingers afterwards.

    Shifter_X , 11 minutes ago

    If there was any, much less, ample evidence, we would have all seen it by now 24/7 for the last three years.

    chubbar , 34 minutes ago

    The author is an idiot. Anytime you are listening to Brennan or Mueller, you know you are way off track.

    The Palmetto Cynic , 34 minutes ago

    Intelligence has nothing to do with elections. HL Mencken pointed this out a long time ago:

    "Politicians rarely if ever get there [into public office] by merit alone, at least in democratic states. Sometimes, to be sure, it happens, but only by a kind of miracle. They are chosen normally for quite different reasons, the chief of which is simply their power to impress and enchant the intellectually under privileged .... Will any of them venture to tell the plain truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about the situation of the country, foreign or domestic? Will any of them refrain from promises that he knows he can't fulfill-that no human being could fulfill? Will any of them utter a word, however obvious, that will alarm and alienate any of the huge pack of morons who cluster at the public trough, wallowing in the pap that grows thinner and thinner, hoping against hope? Answer: maybe for a few weeks at the start. ... But not after the issue is fairly joined, and the struggle is on in earnest .... They will all promise every man, woman and child in the country whatever he, she or it wants. They'll all be roving the land looking for chances to make the rich poor, to remedy the irremediable, to succor the unsuccorable, to unscramble the unscrambleable, to dephlogisticate the undephlogisticable. They will all be curing warts by saying words over them, and paying off the national debt with money that no one will have to earn. When one of them demonstrates that twice two is five, another will prove that it is six, six and a half, ten, twenty, n. In brief, they will divest themselves from their character as sensible, candid and truthful men, and become simply candidates for office, bent only on collaring votes. They will all know by then, even supposing that some of them don't know it now, that votes are collared under democracy, not by talking sense but by talking nonsense, and they will apply themselves to the job with a hearty yo-heave-ho. Most of them, before the uproar is over, will actually convince themselves. The winner will be whoever promises the most with the least probability of delivering anything." – HL Mencken "A Mencken Chrestomathy"

    BankSurfyMan , 32 minutes ago

    I read your entire comment in less than a second on the HEDGE of Doom 2020! No votes from me, MING!

    The Palmetto Cynic , 29 minutes ago

    What matters is that you took at least 30 seconds to write that response ;-)

    BankSurfyMan , 25 minutes ago

    My instincts on the Hedge told me to expect a reply, Courtesy and Respect ~ Due to You ~ up voted!

    J J Pettigrew , 38 minutes ago

    And what of Hunter Biden...?

    Notice the deals were made somewhere to drop the issue....the corruption...the linkages...

    BankSurfyMan , 31 minutes ago

    JJ in the House and on the Hedge getting up voted AGAIN!

    bizarroworld , 38 minutes ago

    I hope the moron who wrote this (clearly a TDS infected moron) gets covid-19. Soon.

    Roanman , 41 minutes ago

    Dumb *** piece written by a dumb ***.

    Corrupt Trump, corrupt CIA out to get poor Bernie.

    To quote Bugs, "What a maroon. What an ignoranimous."

    Balance-Sheet , 42 minutes ago

    The top level of the Military and the Intelligence Agencies will consider themselves as holders of the Sovereignty of the USA not Congress, the President, and certainly not the average citizen.

    As such they will defend their position on the basis that all politicians are very temporary and will not tolerate any person or group to threaten their primacy and President Trump or anyone else doesn't have to do or say much of anything one way or the other to cause the Mil/Intel community to block the elected government and remove people from office by any and all means.

    As the Sovereign Power of the USA they are above all law outside the USA and increasingly inside the country as well.

    seryanhoj , 15 minutes ago

    Right. The CIA aren't about to let voters inntefere with their plans for the world. What do they know ? Only what we tell them.

    tunEphsh , 43 minutes ago

    John Brennan is a wacko, and he lied to congress about all 17 intelligence agencies supporting the claim of Russia hacking of the DNC emails. The determination was in reality made by a small group of people hand-picked by Brennan. Brennan needs to go to jail for about twenty years. The U.S. should put him in Cuba to be with the Middle Eastern murderers.

    Balance-Sheet , 40 minutes ago

    If the CIA really opposes Brennan they can instantly remove him by accident.

    tunEphsh , 39 minutes ago

    They could but they will not.

    chunga , 44 minutes ago

    I just watched the maverick reformer and his team of experts talk about how awesome the US is prepared for the zombie apocalypse and I still don't know if CDC even has a test for this virus.

    I don't think they do.

    TheBeholder , 23 minutes ago

    Not a very accurate test, lots of false positives

    Cabreado , 44 minutes ago

    Enough of the gibberish.

    How 'bout a Rule of Law?

    Where are the indictments?

    Government needs you to pay taxes , 53 minutes ago

    That goddamn traitor dunecoon Brennan can suck my balls.

    Steele Hammerhands , 53 minutes ago

    What happened to breaking the CIA into a thousand pieces and scattering the bits to the wind? That seemed like a good plan.

    LordMaster , 51 minutes ago

    CIA is basically MOSSAD. If you don't know this, you could be a moron.

    Freespeaker , 49 minutes ago

    They are close MI6/5Eyes as well

    LordMaster , 50 minutes ago

    There should be a people's rally outside CIA headquarters. They are scummy bastards who DO NOT act on the behalf of American Interests.

    DaiRR , 57 minutes ago

    LOL, yeah sure, Brennan spoke "truth to power." I volunteer to pull the lever on his gallows at no cost to the taxpayer. Hell, I volunteer to build the gallows gratis.

    One of the only high level intel chiefs from the Obamunist Administration I trust was Adm. Michael S. Rogers, Director of the National Security Agency. President Trump has been getting Roger's counsel on who to fire.

    Reaper , 58 minutes ago

    Everything they say is a fabrication.

    Wow72 , 58 minutes ago

    Brennan charges, "Trump is abetting a Russian covert operation to keep him in office for Moscow's interests, not America's." But congressional representatives, both Democratic and Republican, who heard a briefing by the intelligence community about the 2020 election earlier this month say the case for Russian interference is "overstated."

    This from the democratic side...The side which has sold every valuable thing in the country to foreign interests... The Hypocrisy is insane here.. Where was he when foreigners were donating to the Clinton Foundation for favors?

    J'accuse , 1 hour ago

    It's a sad situation when the DOJ remains unable to prosecute the Intel agencies' corrupt actors that plotted a coup against Candidate/Pres Trump in 2016 to this day. And Mr. Brennan is already setting up a 2020 pre-coup and the MSM/DOJ et al are willingly participating - again! Sad times for America.

    darkenergy-KNOT , 57 minutes ago

    same as it ever was.

    Freespeaker , 1 hour ago

    CIA is a much bigger electoral threat to the US than Russia could ever dream of.

    Farts and Leaves , 1 hour ago

    Hey Brennan...NOBODY BELIEVES YOU!

    Freespeaker , 1 hour ago

    Brennan and Mike Morrell pushed the Steele dossier along with Harry Reid. This was prior to the election.

    typeatme , 1 hour ago

    "When it comes to Intelligence agency corruption, Trump and the American People have ample evidence to support their case."

    There, Fixed it for ya...

    Something about kettles and black comes to mind...

    nmewn , 54 minutes ago

    Ain't it great that Senator Di-Fi is no longer a member of the Gang of Eight on intelligence matters? It kinda lowered her stature after everyone found out she had a Chi-Com spy in her employ for years...lol.

    And is subject to divulging classified information just because she's taking "cold medicine" ;-)

    [Feb 25, 2020] Russiagate II: Return of the Low Intelligence Zombies

    Notable quotes:
    "... CNN concluded that "America's Russia nightmare is back." Maddow was ecstatic, bleating "Here we go again," recycling her failed conspiracy theories whole. Everybody quoted Adam Schiff firing off that Trump was "again jeopardizing our efforts to stop foreign meddling." Tying it all to the failed impeachment efforts, another writer said , "'Let the Voters Decide' doesn't work if Trump fires his national security staff so Russia can help him again." The NYT fretted , "Trump is intensifying his efforts to undermine the nation's intelligence agencies." John Brennan (after leaking for a while, most boils dry up and go away) said , "we are now in a full-blown national security crisis." The undead Hillary Clinton tweeted , "Putin's Puppet is at it again." ..."
    "... But it's still a miss on Bernie. He did well in Nevada despite the leaks, though Russiagate II has a long way to go. Bernie himself assured us of that. Instead of pooh-poohing the idea that the Russians might be working for him, he instead gave it cred, saying , "Some of the ugly stuff on the internet attributed to our campaign may well not be coming from real supporters." ..."
    "... The world's greatest intelligence team can't seem to come up with anything more specific than "interfering" and "meddling," as if pesky Aunt Vladimir is gossiping at the general store again. CBS reports that House members pressed the ODNI for evidence, such as phone intercepts, to back up claims that Russia is trying to help Trump, but briefers had none to offer. Even Jake Tapper , a Deep State loyalty card holder, raised some doubts. WaPo , which hosted one of the leaks, had to admit "It is not clear what form that Russian assistance has taken." ..."
    "... Yes, yes, they have to protect sources and methods, but of course the quickest way to stop Russian influence is to expose it. Instead the ODNI dropped the turd in the punchbowl and walked away. Why not tell the public what media is being bought, which outlets are working, willingly or not, with Putin? Did the Reds implant a radio chip in Biden's skull? Will we be left hanging with the info-free claim "something something social media" again? ..."
    "... Because the intel community learned its lesson in Russiagate I. Details can be investigated. That's where the old story fell apart. The dossier wasn't true. Michael Cohen never met the Russians in Prague. The a-ha discovery was that voters don't read much anyway, so just make claims. You'll never really prosecute or impeach anyone, so why bother with evidence (see everything Ukraine)? Just throw out accusations and let the media fill it all in for you. ..."
    "... The intel community crossed a line in 2016, albeit clumsily (what was all that with Comey and Hillary?), to play an overt role in the electoral process. When that didn't work out and Trump was elected, they pivoted and drove us to the brink of all hell breaking loose with Russiagate I. The media welcomed and supported them. The Dems welcomed and supported them. Far too many Americans welcomed and supported them in some elaborate version of the ends justifying the means. ..."
    "... The good news from 2016 was that the Deep State turned out to be less competent than we originally feared. ..."
    Feb 25, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

    The Russians are back, alongside the American intelligence agencies playing deep inside our elections. Who should we fear more? Hint: not the Russians.

    On February 13, the election security czar in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) briefed the House Intelligence Committee that the Russians were meddling again and that they favored Donald Trump. A few weeks earlier, the ODNI briefed Bernie Sanders that the Russians were also meddling in the Democratic primaries, this time in his favor. Both briefings remained secret until this past week, when the former was leaked to the New York Times in time to smear Trump for replacing his DNI, and the latter leaked to the Washington Post ahead of the Nevada caucuses to try and damage Sanders.

    Russiagate is back, baby. Everyone welcome Russiagate II.

    You didn't think after 2016 the bad boys of the intel "community" (which makes it sound like they all live together down in Florida somewhere) weren't going to play their games again, and that they wouldn't learn from their mistakes? Those errors were in retrospect amateurish. A salacious dossier built around a pee tape? Nefarious academics befriending minor Trump campaign staffers who would tell all to an Aussie ambassador trolling London's pubs looking for young, fit Americans? Falsified FISA applications when it was all too obvious even Trumpkin greenhorns weren't dumb enough to sleep with FBI honeypots? You'd think after influencing 85 elections across the globe since World War II, they'd be better at it. But you also knew that after failing to whomp a bumpkin like Trump once, they would keep trying.

    Like any good intel op, you start with a tickle, make it seem like the targets are figuring it out for themselves. Get it out there that Trump offered Wikileaks' Julian Assange a pardon if he would state publicly that Russia wasn't involved in the 2016 DNC leaks. The story was all garbage, not the least of which because Assange has been clear for years that it wasn't the Russians. And there was no offer of a pardon from the White House. And conveniently Assange is locked in a foreign prison and can't comment.

    Whatever. Just make sure you time the Assange story to hit the day after Trump pardoned numerous high-profile, white-collar criminals, so even the casual reader had Trump = bad, with a side of Russian conspiracy, on their minds. You could almost imagine an announcer's voice: "Previously, on Russiagate I "

    Then, only a day after the Assange story (why be subtle?), the sequel hit the theaters with timed leaks to the NYT and WaPo . The mainstream media went Code Red (the CIA has a long history of working with the media to influence elections).

    CNN concluded that "America's Russia nightmare is back." Maddow was ecstatic, bleating "Here we go again," recycling her failed conspiracy theories whole. Everybody quoted Adam Schiff firing off that Trump was "again jeopardizing our efforts to stop foreign meddling." Tying it all to the failed impeachment efforts, another writer said , "'Let the Voters Decide' doesn't work if Trump fires his national security staff so Russia can help him again." The NYT fretted , "Trump is intensifying his efforts to undermine the nation's intelligence agencies." John Brennan (after leaking for a while, most boils dry up and go away) said , "we are now in a full-blown national security crisis." The undead Hillary Clinton tweeted , "Putin's Puppet is at it again."

    It is clear we'll be hearing breaking and developing reports about this from sources believed to be close to others through November. Despite the sense of desperation in the recycled memes and the way the media rose on command to the bait, it's intel community 1, Trump 0.

    But it's still a miss on Bernie. He did well in Nevada despite the leaks, though Russiagate II has a long way to go. Bernie himself assured us of that. Instead of pooh-poohing the idea that the Russians might be working for him, he instead gave it cred, saying , "Some of the ugly stuff on the internet attributed to our campaign may well not be coming from real supporters."

    Sanders handed Russiagate II legs, signaling that he'll use it as cover for the Bros' online shenanigans, which were called out at the last debate. That's playing with fire: it'll be too easy later on to invoke all this with "Komrade Bernie" memes in the already wary purple states. "Putin and Trump are picking their opponent," opined Rahm Emanuel to get that ball rolling.

    Summary to date: everyone is certain the Russians are working to influence the election (adopts cartoon Russian accent) but who is the cat and who is the mouse?

    Is Putin helping Trump get re-elected to remain his asset in place? Or is Putin helping Bernie "I Honeymooned in the Soviet Union" Sanders to make him look like an asset to help Trump? Or are the Russkies really all in because Bernie is a True Socialist sleeper agent, the Emma Goldman of his time (Bernie's old enough to have taken Emma to high school prom)? Or is it not the Russians but the American intel community helping Bernie to make it look like Putin is helping Bernie to help Trump? Or is it the Deep State saying the Reds are helping Bernie to hurt Bernie to help their man Bloomberg? Are Russian spies tripping over American spies in caucus hallways trying to get to the front of the room? Who can tell what is really afoot?

    See, the devil is in the details, which is why we don't have any.

    The world's greatest intelligence team can't seem to come up with anything more specific than "interfering" and "meddling," as if pesky Aunt Vladimir is gossiping at the general store again. CBS reports that House members pressed the ODNI for evidence, such as phone intercepts, to back up claims that Russia is trying to help Trump, but briefers had none to offer. Even Jake Tapper , a Deep State loyalty card holder, raised some doubts. WaPo , which hosted one of the leaks, had to admit "It is not clear what form that Russian assistance has taken."

    Yes, yes, they have to protect sources and methods, but of course the quickest way to stop Russian influence is to expose it. Instead the ODNI dropped the turd in the punchbowl and walked away. Why not tell the public what media is being bought, which outlets are working, willingly or not, with Putin? Did the Reds implant a radio chip in Biden's skull? Will we be left hanging with the info-free claim "something something social media" again?

    If you're going to scream that communist zombies with MAGA hats are inside the house , you're obligated to provide a little bit more information. Why is it when specifics are required, the response is always something like "Well, the Russians are sowing distrust and turning Americans against themselves in a way that weakens national unity" as if we're all not eating enough green vegetables? Why leave us exposed to Russian influence for even a second when it could all be shut down in an instant?

    Because the intel community learned its lesson in Russiagate I. Details can be investigated. That's where the old story fell apart. The dossier wasn't true. Michael Cohen never met the Russians in Prague. The a-ha discovery was that voters don't read much anyway, so just make claims. You'll never really prosecute or impeach anyone, so why bother with evidence (see everything Ukraine)? Just throw out accusations and let the media fill it all in for you. After all, they managed to convince a large number of Americans Trump's primary purpose in running for president was to fill vacant hotel rooms at his properties. Let the nature of the source -- the brave lads of the intelligence agencies -- legitimize the accusations this time, not facts.

    It will take a while to figure out who is playing whom. Is the goal to help Trump, help Bernie, or defeat both of them to support Bloomberg? But don't let the challenge of seeing the whole picture obscure the obvious: the American intelligence agencies are once again inside our election.

    The intel community crossed a line in 2016, albeit clumsily (what was all that with Comey and Hillary?), to play an overt role in the electoral process. When that didn't work out and Trump was elected, they pivoted and drove us to the brink of all hell breaking loose with Russiagate I. The media welcomed and supported them. The Dems welcomed and supported them. Far too many Americans welcomed and supported them in some elaborate version of the ends justifying the means.

    The good news from 2016 was that the Deep State turned out to be less competent than we originally feared. But they have learned much from those mistakes, particularly how deft a tool a compliant MSM is. This election will be a historian's marker for how a decent nation, fully warned in 2016, fooled itself in 2020 into self-harm. Forget about foreigners influencing our elections from the outside; the zombies are already inside the house.

    Peter Van Buren, a 24-year State Department veteran, is the author of We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People , Hooper's War: A Novel of WWII Japan , and Ghosts of Tom Joad: A Story of the #99 Percent .

    [Feb 25, 2020] The danger of Coronavirus induced recession

    Feb 25, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

    Ignacio, February 25, 2020 at 7:01 am

    A little bit off-topic, or very much off-topic but related with Hudson's favourite theme. This is about potential bankruptcies derived from quarantines almost certainly not covered by insurance: wouldn't this be an excellent case for debt forgiving?

    Lost in OR, February 25, 2020 at 8:09 am

    I dunno. My impression is too much of corporate malfeasance involves the use of debt. Consolidation, stock buybacks, leveraged everything, hostile take-everything.

    This stacked system is currently confronting two crises it has no good solution to. One is Covid19 and the other is insurrection. Obama forgave the one percent's debts once already. No more of that. I'm hoping this is "the great leveling" event.

    More elderberry-flavored popcorn please.

    Susan the other, February 25, 2020 at 11:39 am

    can you just pop dried elderberries themselves?

    False Solace, February 25, 2020 at 1:30 pm

    Trump's case for re-election is based almost entirely on the stock market being at record highs. If the 1% want a bailout, he'll give them one.

    urblintz, February 25, 2020 at 8:31 am

    I can not find a link but a comment here yesterday said China has announced it will pay all healthcare costs related to Covid for those without insurance. I honestly don't know if that's true but it lead me to understand that China has a hybrid public/private system health insurance system. Wikipedia says China provides "basic" healthcare for 95% of the population which covers roughly 50% of treatment costs. Hmmm I wonder what the treatments cost

    Sadly, promises to cover the cost of treatment are ineffectual without enough facilities, supplies and healthcare workers.

    Samuel Conner, February 25, 2020 at 9:43 am

    With regard to the question of "corporate debt", a better way than "forgiveness" IMO would be "temporary nationalization" by means of some public entity bidding on operating assets (with, hopefully, the entity still functioning) at a liquidation auction. The senior creditors (first in line, I think are employees with unpaid back wages due) would get something; the shareholders -- given the degree of leverage that is customary today -- often would be wiped out (which they would be in any event under the conditions in view).

    The publicly owned and operated businesses would go private again through conversion to worker-owned cooperatives. This would take time, which would permit the bugs to be worked out. I can't imagine that the transition would be smooth.

    This kind of conversion from shareholder-owned to worker-owned enterprise has been proposed previously (don't have links) as something that could be done as ongoing policy through money creation by the central government and new forms of "eminent domain" legislation, or simply by purchase of shares in the open markets, New private enterprises could be created by the former owners using the funds received and, at such time as these became sufficiently powerful to be problematic, could likewise be converted to cooperatives. It might be an engine of innovation. Significant regulation would probably be needed to curb clearly unproductive uses of funds.

    Perhaps it's another way that this crisis is creating opportunities that we don't want to allow to be wasted.

    It will be interesting to see what the government of China does, as it will be the first to face this problem at large scale. Will they turn into a "workers' party"? Hard to imagine, but the paths out of the current turmoil may contain possibilities that could not be realistically contemplated just months ago.

    Susan the other, February 25, 2020 at 11:52 am

    How do you prevent this feed-me-seymour financialization-economy from imploding? Keep feeding it. Biden and his cronies, including little George, knew it. And that has to be the reason why they passed laws preventing the process of bankruptcy. Like they placed their bets on winning the war for oil in the middle east at the same time. Why did they think these bad decisions would keep our economy stable?

    [Feb 24, 2020] The Russia Interference Hoax--Deja Vu All Over Again by Larry C Johnson

    Notable quotes:
    "... Admiral Bill McRaven is proving himself to be an ignorant buffoon. Yes, I'm calling a so-called military hero a clown. He is out today with a despicable op-ed attacking President Trump for removing ACTING DNI Joe Maguire. Here is a sampling of McRaven's stupidity: ..."
    "... Maguire's role as DNI was a temporary appointment. It was not permanent and was not submitted to the Senate as part of a confirmation process. He was a mere place holder. Yet McRaven and others in the anti-Trump crowd display their profound ignorance and insist, wrongly, that Trump fired Maguire. ..."
    "... Guess what? Maguire's resignation coincides with the 210 day limit. ..."
    "... Donald Trump is now on the offensive against a corrupt, dishonest intelligence and law enforcement community as well as their enablers in the festering establishment--the whole crowd is panicked. ..."
    "... If there really was intelligence that Russia had embarked on a new, more expansive round of meddling then that intelligence should have been briefed to the President as part of Presidential Daily Briefing. But that has not taken place. Trump's National Security Advisor, Robert O'Brien says pointedly that he has seen no intelligence to substantiate The NY Times report. NONE : ..."
    "... "I haven't seen any intelligence that Russia is doing anything to attempt to get President Trump reelected," Robert O'Brien, who was appointed by Trump to the post in September, said in an ABC News interview to be broadcast on Sunday. ..."
    "... "Immediately after President Trump won election, opponents inaugurated what they called "The Resistance," and they rallied around an explicit strategy of using every tool and maneuver to sabotage the functioning of the Executive Branch and his Administration. Now, "resistance" is the language used to describe insurgency against rule imposed by an occupying military power. It obviously connotes -- It obviously connotes that the government is not legitimate. This is a very dangerous -- and indeed incendiary -- notion to import into the politics of a democratic republic. What it means is that, instead of viewing themselves as the "loyal opposition," as opposing parties have done in this country for over 200 years, they essentially see themselves as engaged in a war to cripple, by any means necessary, a duly elected government." ..."
    "... Now don't go troubling yourself, Admiral, over finding a reason why people outside your beltway circle don't give a rat's ass about you and your pals getting disrespected. It's been a long time coming, a very long time, but ya'll have earned in spades the right to be ignored. Get used to it. Fool us for a year, for two years, three... but for eighteen years??? Sorry Admiral. Stop whining. ..."
    "... Caity Johnstone has written a parody piece in which the intelligence community labels every candidate other than Buttigieg to be a Secret Russian Agent. ..."
    Feb 24, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    The Russia Interference Hoax--Deja Vu All Over Again by Larry C Johnson

    Admiral Bill McRaven is proving himself to be an ignorant buffoon. Yes, I'm calling a so-called military hero a clown. He is out today with a despicable op-ed attacking President Trump for removing ACTING DNI Joe Maguire. Here is a sampling of McRaven's stupidity:

    Edmund Burke, the Irish statesman and philosopher, once said : "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Over the course of the past three years, I have watched good men and women, friends of mine, come and go in the Trump administration -- all trying to do something -- all trying to do their best. Jim Mattis, John Kelly, H.R. McMaster, Sue Gordon, Dan Coats and, now, Joe Maguire, who until this week was the acting director of national intelligence. . . .

    But, of course, in this administration, good men and women don't last long. Joe was dismissed for doing his job: overseeing the dissemination of intelligence to elected officials who needed that information to do their jobs. As Americans, we should be frightened -- deeply afraid for the future of the nation. When good men and women can't speak the truth, when facts are inconvenient, when integrity and character no longer matter, when presidential ego and self-preservation are more important than national security -- then there is nothing left to stop the triumph of evil.

    Bill, you are wrong as you can be. Are you too damn lazy to do some simple reading and research?

    Maguire's role as DNI was a temporary appointment. It was not permanent and was not submitted to the Senate as part of a confirmation process. He was a mere place holder. Yet McRaven and others in the anti-Trump crowd display their profound ignorance and insist, wrongly, that Trump fired Maguire.

    Here is the dishonest NY Times spin:

    On Wednesday, the president announced that he was replacing Mr. Maguire with Richard Grenell, the ambassador to Germany and an aggressively vocal Trump supporter. And though some current and former officials speculated that the briefing might have played a role in that move, two administration officials said the timing was coincidental. Mr. Grenell had been in discussions with the administration about taking on new roles, they said, and Mr. Trump had never felt a kinship with Mr. Maguire.

    Donald Trump did not fire Maguire. He followed the law. The specious claim that Trump fired Maguire exposes McRaven and his ilk as either liars or ignoramuses. The statute governing temporary appointments (i.e., the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998) is quite clear:

    Once a vacancy occurs, the position is eligible to be filled by an acting officer for 210 days from the date of the vacancy, as well as any time when a nomination is pending before the Senate.

    Guess what? Maguire's resignation coincides with the 210 day limit.

    Facts do not matter to the anti-Trumpers. Remember all of the hysteria surround Attorney General Barr's legitimate and proper submission of a RECOMMENDATION for reduced sentencing in the case of Roger Stone. The media and punditry reacted as if Barr was calling for the mass extermination of physically handicapped children. Hardly any took time to note that Barr's "RECOMMENDATION" was just that--a recommendation. Nothing Barr said or wrote could compel or coerce Judge Berman to act according to Barr's wishes. And guess what? Judge Berman decided that Barr was right. The key point being that, SHE DECIDED. Not Barr.

    Donald Trump is now on the offensive against a corrupt, dishonest intelligence and law enforcement community as well as their enablers in the festering establishment--the whole crowd is panicked.

    The faux outrage over Trump replacing Maguire is just one indicator of this fear. Another is the fact that we are once again being bombarded with the recycled propaganda that Russia meddled in our 2016 election and is poised to do the same in 2020. What next? Resurrect Jussie Smollet and hire a group of pretend rednecks to stage another faux attack on him during the night on the wintry streets of Chicago?

    The most recent installment in Putin on the prowl comes courtesy of The NY Times, doing its damndest to masquerade as Pravda.

    Intelligence officials warned House lawmakers last week that Russia was interfering in the 2020 campaign to try to get President Trump re-elected, five people familiar with the matter said, a disclosure to Congress that angered Mr. Trump, who complained that Democrats would use it against him.

    The day after the Feb. 13 briefing to lawmakers, the president berated Joseph Maguire, the outgoing acting director of national intelligence, for allowing it to take place, people familiar with the exchange said. Mr. Trump was particularly irritated that Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and the leader of the impeachment proceedings, was at the briefing.

    During the briefing to the House Intelligence Committee, Mr. Trump's allies challenged the conclusions, arguing that he had been tough on Russia and that he had strengthened European security.

    Just another scurrilous lie. Pure propaganda being spun for the sole purpose of smearing Trump and tainting his election. The real truth is that Russia, under Vladimir Putin, is doing less "meddling" in our elections than did his predecessors. We meddled in their elections and domestic politics going back to the end of World War II. Meddling is a natural consequence of having professional intelligence services like the CIA, the FSB, the GRU, the DIA, etc. Another uncomfortable fact is that social media makes it more difficult for the traditional intelligence actors to interfere in politics. Michael Bloomberg's spending in the 2020 Democrat primary dwarfs all efforts to control the social media message. Yet, there are limits to the effectiveness of such "meddling."

    If there really was intelligence that Russia had embarked on a new, more expansive round of meddling then that intelligence should have been briefed to the President as part of Presidential Daily Briefing. But that has not taken place. Trump's National Security Advisor, Robert O'Brien says pointedly that he has seen no intelligence to substantiate The NY Times report. NONE :

    "I haven't seen any intelligence that Russia is doing anything to attempt to get President Trump reelected," Robert O'Brien, who was appointed by Trump to the post in September, said in an ABC News interview to be broadcast on Sunday.

    "I have not seen that, and I get pretty good access," he said, according to excerpts released on Saturday.

    Another meme in the latest propaganda push by deranged Democrats and discredited media is to portray Maguire's temporary replacement, Ambassador Richard Grenell, as some sort of ignorant, unqualified political hack.

    Senator Mark Warner of Virginia offers up an excellent example of this kind of malicious stupidity :

    "The President has selected an individual without any intelligence experience to serve as the leader of the nation's intelligence community in an acting capacity. This is the second acting director the President has named to the role since the resignation of Dan Coats, apparently in an effort to sidestep the Senate's constitutional authority to advise and consent on such critical national security positions, and flouting the clear intent of Congress when it established the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in 2004.

    "The intelligence community deserves stability and an experienced individual to lead them in a time of massive national and global security challenges. And at a time when the integrity and independence of the Department of Justice has been called into grave question, now more than ever our country needs a Senate-confirmed intelligence director who will provide the best intelligence and analysis, regardless of whether or not it's expedient for the President who has appointed him.

    Warner conveniently forgets that Trump named Dan Coats as DNI and the Senate, along with Warner's vote, approved him. Coats had trouble spelling CIA and DNI. He was completely unqualified for the position, yet the Senate rolled over for him with barely a whimper. How about the first DNI? Ambassador John Negroponte was not an intelligence professional. He was career Foreign Service.

    Ambassador Grenell has experience comparable to Negroponte's. Grenell has dealt with all elements of the intelligence community during his tenure working within the realm of the U.S. foreign service. The good news is that Grenell is now on the job as DNI and is starting to clean house. This should have been done four years ago. The DNI, like many other parts of the bureaucracy, is infested with anti-Trump haters doing their best to sabotage his Presidency.

    Robert O'Brien has cleaned out the NSC. There are a lot of empty desks there now. And persons through out the National Security bureacracy, including DOD and CIA, are being emptied. This is a prelude. When prosecutor John Durham starts dropping indictments expect the screaming to intensify.


    blue peacock , 23 February 2020 at 02:59 PM

    "When prosecutor John Durham starts dropping indictments....."

    Larry, it looks like you have a lot of confidence in Durham. What gives you this confidence? The actions of the DOJ to date should make people skeptical that they'll prosecute their own leadership.

    Larry Johnson , 23 February 2020 at 03:10 PM
    If Barr and Durham were going to play ball with the Deep Staters and the anti-Trumpers they would not be attacked as is happening. The hysterical over wrought accusations leveled at Barr last week are merely a symptom of the fear seizing these seditionists.
    D , 23 February 2020 at 03:52 PM
    Americans still retain their keen sense of fair play. Nothing wrong with wanting to be surrounded by those loyal to the elected President.

    It is the President's duty to the office itself to demand those appointed also be competent and act with integrity. The President pays the price if they do not.

    English Outsider , 23 February 2020 at 04:25 PM
    Larry Johnson,

    When it comes to telling us where he's coming from Barr has certainly set out his stall. I have been very interested in AG Barr recently. I quoted this fine lecture - https://americanrhetoric.com/speeches/williambarrfederalistsociety.htm

    - on an English blog in order to underline some parallels between the parliamentary crisis in England last year and the very similar constitutional crisis in the US. But there's a lot more to the lecture than that -

    "Immediately after President Trump won election, opponents inaugurated what they called "The Resistance," and they rallied around an explicit strategy of using every tool and maneuver to sabotage the functioning of the Executive Branch and his Administration. Now, "resistance" is the language used to describe insurgency against rule imposed by an occupying military power. It obviously connotes -- It obviously connotes that the government is not legitimate. This is a very dangerous -- and indeed incendiary -- notion to import into the politics of a democratic republic. What it means is that, instead of viewing themselves as the "loyal opposition," as opposing parties have done in this country for over 200 years, they essentially see themselves as engaged in a war to cripple, by any means necessary, a duly elected government."

    That, together with some penetrating remarks about the difference between Progressive and Conservative - and making it amply clear how destructive Progressivism was - was perhaps more than William Barr merely setting out his stall. It was a declaration of intent and if it's held to then we may expect some dramatic results.

    So I'm not surprised the Democrats are attacking him. The wonder is that they're not tearing him limb from limb.

    Upstate NY'er , 23 February 2020 at 07:53 PM
    Chris Murphy - the dolt from CT - on TV whining about Grenell being unqualified and a Trump loyalist. This is the same stooge who just met with the Iranian Foreign Minister (and a head of hair looking for a brain John Kerrey) in Munich.
    Flavius , 23 February 2020 at 08:43 PM
    Admiral McRaven and his gumba Pentagon bureaucrats should be doing a little belly button gazing to determine how after 2 decades they've managed with considerable sturm und drang to win nothing but have succeeded magnificently in piloting the country into Cold War II with a real adversary.

    Well done, Admiral!

    Now don't go troubling yourself, Admiral, over finding a reason why people outside your beltway circle don't give a rat's ass about you and your pals getting disrespected. It's been a long time coming, a very long time, but ya'll have earned in spades the right to be ignored. Get used to it. Fool us for a year, for two years, three... but for eighteen years??? Sorry Admiral. Stop whining.

    Upstate NY'er , 23 February 2020 at 09:41 PM
    Flavius:

    You mean all those VERY important people - dressed like doormen -who haven't won a war since WWII? BTW, Gulf Storm doesn't count - you'd probably get more fight back from the NY State Troopers.

    These politicians in uniform know all about "diversity", pissing away LOTS of money, transgenders, sucking up and especially landing Beltway bandit contracts. Fighting, not so much.

    Note, I'm referring to the General Officer ranks, not actual troops.

    JerseyJeffersonian , 23 February 2020 at 10:33 PM
    I assess with 100% certainty that this fake scandal was contrived to coincide with the end of this Maguire's "service". Indeed, all of this time he has been acting as an agent of the Borg, only chucking this stinkbomb as his last, spiteful act. Contemptible.
    prawnik , 24 February 2020 at 10:46 AM
    Caity Johnstone has written a parody piece in which the intelligence community labels every candidate other than Buttigieg to be a Secret Russian Agent.
    PRC90 , 24 February 2020 at 07:17 PM
    Unless someone in the DNC or numerous affiliates can come up with an actual Russian, this kind of hoax will begin to be be seen as dated.

    However, with the Weinstein conviction, the MeToo movement will get new life and a wave of similar high profile pursuits will begin.

    Undoubtedly this will include one DJT, featuring accusers going back to the 1960's in a orchestrated 24/7 chorus of unproven horror that they hope will succeed where Mueller and Schiff et al have failed.

    Who knows, perhaps one accuser (two for corroboration) will even allege some vague Russian presence.

    Fred , 24 February 2020 at 08:12 PM
    PRC90,

    So a democratic megadoner is convicted of multiple accounts of sexual assault and surprise! Others in the moral cesspool that is Hollywood won't be brought to "justice", social or otherwise but we'll see Stormy Daniels 2.0. Except her lawyer's already in jail. The left better come up with something better than that.

    Jack , 24 February 2020 at 10:43 PM
    Fred,

    How about Epstein and his pals? That would be a good start. However nothing will happen on that since too many powerful people would likely be ensnared like Billy Clinton and a British prince.

    [Feb 24, 2020] The Russia Interference Hoax--Deja Vu All Over Again by Larry C Johnson - Sic Semper Tyrannis

    Feb 24, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    The Russia Interference Hoax--Deja Vu All Over Again by Larry C Johnson

    Admiral Bill McRaven is proving himself to be an ignorant buffoon. Yes, I'm calling a so-called military hero a clown. He is out today with a despicable op-ed attacking President Trump for removing ACTING DNI Joe Maguire. Here is a sampling of McRaven's stupidity:

    Edmund Burke, the Irish statesman and philosopher, once said : "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Over the course of the past three years, I have watched good men and women, friends of mine, come and go in the Trump administration -- all trying to do something -- all trying to do their best. Jim Mattis, John Kelly, H.R. McMaster, Sue Gordon, Dan Coats and, now, Joe Maguire, who until this week was the acting director of national intelligence. . . .

    But, of course, in this administration, good men and women don't last long. Joe was dismissed for doing his job: overseeing the dissemination of intelligence to elected officials who needed that information to do their jobs. As Americans, we should be frightened -- deeply afraid for the future of the nation. When good men and women can't speak the truth, when facts are inconvenient, when integrity and character no longer matter, when presidential ego and self-preservation are more important than national security -- then there is nothing left to stop the triumph of evil.

    Bill, you are wrong as you can be. Are you too damn lazy to do some simple reading and research?

    Maguire's role as DNI was a temporary appointment. It was not permanent and was not submitted to the Senate as part of a confirmation process. He was a mere place holder. Yet McRaven and others in the anti-Trump crowd display their profound ignorance and insist, wrongly, that Trump fired Maguire.

    Here is the dishonest NY Times spin:

    On Wednesday, the president announced that he was replacing Mr. Maguire with Richard Grenell, the ambassador to Germany and an aggressively vocal Trump supporter. And though some current and former officials speculated that the briefing might have played a role in that move, two administration officials said the timing was coincidental. Mr. Grenell had been in discussions with the administration about taking on new roles, they said, and Mr. Trump had never felt a kinship with Mr. Maguire.

    Donald Trump did not fire Maguire. He followed the law. The specious claim that Trump fired Maguire exposes McRaven and his ilk as either liars or ignoramuses. The statute governing temporary appointments (i.e., the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998) is quite clear:

    Once a vacancy occurs, the position is eligible to be filled by an acting officer for 210 days from the date of the vacancy, as well as any time when a nomination is pending before the Senate.

    Guess what? Maguire's resignation coincides with the 210 day limit.

    Facts do not matter to the anti-Trumpers. Remember all of the hysteria surround Attorney General Barr's legitimate and proper submission of a RECOMMENDATION for reduced sentencing in the case of Roger Stone. The media and punditry reacted as if Barr was calling for the mass extermination of physically handicapped children. Hardly any took time to note that Barr's "RECOMMENDATION" was just that--a recommendation. Nothing Barr said or wrote could compel or coerce Judge Berman to act according to Barr's wishes. And guess what? Judge Berman decided that Barr was right. The key point being that, SHE DECIDED. Not Barr.

    Donald Trump is now on the offensive against a corrupt, dishonest intelligence and law enforcement community as well as their enablers in the festering establishment--the whole crowd is panicked.

    The faux outrage over Trump replacing Maguire is just one indicator of this fear. Another is the fact that we are once again being bombarded with the recycled propaganda that Russia meddled in our 2016 election and is poised to do the same in 2020. What next? Resurrect Jussie Smollet and hire a group of pretend rednecks to stage another faux attack on him during the night on the wintry streets of Chicago?

    The most recent installment in Putin on the prowl comes courtesy of The NY Times, doing its damndest to masquerade as Pravda.

    Intelligence officials warned House lawmakers last week that Russia was interfering in the 2020 campaign to try to get President Trump re-elected, five people familiar with the matter said, a disclosure to Congress that angered Mr. Trump, who complained that Democrats would use it against him.

    The day after the Feb. 13 briefing to lawmakers, the president berated Joseph Maguire, the outgoing acting director of national intelligence, for allowing it to take place, people familiar with the exchange said. Mr. Trump was particularly irritated that Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and the leader of the impeachment proceedings, was at the briefing.

    During the briefing to the House Intelligence Committee, Mr. Trump's allies challenged the conclusions, arguing that he had been tough on Russia and that he had strengthened European security.

    Just another scurrilous lie. Pure propaganda being spun for the sole purpose of smearing Trump and tainting his election. The real truth is that Russia, under Vladimir Putin, is doing less "meddling" in our elections than did his predecessors. We meddled in their elections and domestic politics going back to the end of World War II. Meddling is a natural consequence of having professional intelligence services like the CIA, the FSB, the GRU, the DIA, etc. Another uncomfortable fact is that social media makes it more difficult for the traditional intelligence actors to interfere in politics. Michael Bloomberg's spending in the 2020 Democrat primary dwarfs all efforts to control the social media message. Yet, there are limits to the effectiveness of such "meddling."

    If there really was intelligence that Russia had embarked on a new, more expansive round of meddling then that intelligence should have been briefed to the President as part of Presidential Daily Briefing. But that has not taken place. Trump's National Security Advisor, Robert O'Brien says pointedly that he has seen no intelligence to substantiate The NY Times report. NONE :

    "I haven't seen any intelligence that Russia is doing anything to attempt to get President Trump reelected," Robert O'Brien, who was appointed by Trump to the post in September, said in an ABC News interview to be broadcast on Sunday.

    "I have not seen that, and I get pretty good access," he said, according to excerpts released on Saturday.

    Another meme in the latest propaganda push by deranged Democrats and discredited media is to portray Maguire's temporary replacement, Ambassador Richard Grenell, as some sort of ignorant, unqualified political hack.

    Senator Mark Warner of Virginia offers up an excellent example of this kind of malicious stupidity :

    "The President has selected an individual without any intelligence experience to serve as the leader of the nation's intelligence community in an acting capacity. This is the second acting director the President has named to the role since the resignation of Dan Coats, apparently in an effort to sidestep the Senate's constitutional authority to advise and consent on such critical national security positions, and flouting the clear intent of Congress when it established the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in 2004.

    "The intelligence community deserves stability and an experienced individual to lead them in a time of massive national and global security challenges. And at a time when the integrity and independence of the Department of Justice has been called into grave question, now more than ever our country needs a Senate-confirmed intelligence director who will provide the best intelligence and analysis, regardless of whether or not it's expedient for the President who has appointed him.

    Warner conveniently forgets that Trump named Dan Coats as DNI and the Senate, along with Warner's vote, approved him. Coats had trouble spelling CIA and DNI. He was completely unqualified for the position, yet the Senate rolled over for him with barely a whimper. How about the first DNI? Ambassador John Negroponte was not an intelligence professional. He was career Foreign Service.

    Ambassador Grenell has experience comparable to Negroponte's. Grenell has dealt with all elements of the intelligence community during his tenure working within the realm of the U.S. foreign service. The good news is that Grenell is now on the job as DNI and is starting to clean house. This should have been done four years ago. The DNI, like many other parts of the bureaucracy, is infested with anti-Trump haters doing their best to sabotage his Presidency.

    Robert O'Brien has cleaned out the NSC. There are a lot of empty desks there now. And persons through out the National Security bureacracy, including DOD and CIA, are being emptied. This is a prelude. When prosecutor John Durham starts dropping indictments expect the screaming to intensify.


    blue peacock , 23 February 2020 at 02:59 PM

    "When prosecutor John Durham starts dropping indictments....."

    Larry, it looks like you have a lot of confidence in Durham. What gives you this confidence? The actions of the DOJ to date should make people skeptical that they'll prosecute their own leadership.

    Larry Johnson , 23 February 2020 at 03:10 PM
    If Barr and Durham were going to play ball with the Deep Staters and the anti-Trumpers they would not be attacked as is happening. The hysterical over wrought accusations leveled at Barr last week are merely a symptom of the fear seizing these seditionists.
    D , 23 February 2020 at 03:52 PM
    Americans still retain their keen sense of fair play. Nothing wrong with wanting to be surrounded by those loyal to the elected President.

    It is the President's duty to the office itself to demand those appointed also be competent and act with integrity. The President pays the price if they do not.

    English Outsider , 23 February 2020 at 04:25 PM

    Larry Johnson,

    When it comes to telling us where he's coming from Barr has certainly set out his stall.

    I have been very interested in AG Barr recently. I quoted this fine lecture -

    https://americanrhetoric.com/speeches/williambarrfederalistsociety.htm

    - on an English blog in order to underline some parallels between the parliamentary crisis in England last year and the very similar constitutional crisis in the US. But there's a lot more to the lecture than that -

    "Immediately after President Trump won election, opponents inaugurated what they called "The Resistance," and they rallied around an explicit strategy of using every tool and maneuver to sabotage the functioning of the Executive Branch and his Administration. Now, "resistance" is the language used to describe insurgency against rule imposed by an occupying military power. It obviously connotes -- It obviously connotes that the government is not legitimate. This is a very dangerous -- and indeed incendiary -- notion to import into the politics of a democratic republic. What it means is that, instead of viewing themselves as the "loyal opposition," as opposing parties have done in this country for over 200 years, they essentially see themselves as engaged in a war to cripple, by any means necessary, a duly elected government."

    That, together with some penetrating remarks about the difference between Progressive and Conservative - and making it amply clear how destructive Progressivism was - was perhaps more than William Barr merely setting out his stall. It was a declaration of intent and if it's held to then we may expect some dramatic results.

    So I'm not surprised the Democrats are attacking him. The wonder is that they're not tearing him limb from limb.

    Upstate NY'er , 23 February 2020 at 07:53 PM
    Chris Murphy - the dolt from CT - on TV whining about Grenell being unqualified and a Trump loyalist. This is the same stooge who just met with the Iranian Foreign Minister (and a head of hair looking for a brain John Kerrey) in Munich.
    Flavius , 23 February 2020 at 08:43 PM
    Admiral McRaven and his gumba Pentagon bureaucrats should be doing a little belly button gazing to determine how after 2 decades they've managed with considerable sturm und drang to win nothing but have succeeded magnificently in piloting the country into Cold War II with a real adversary.

    Well done, Admiral!

    Now don't go troubling yourself, Admiral, over finding a reason why people outside your beltway circle don't give a rat's ass about you and your pals getting disrespected. It's been a long time coming, a very long time, but ya'll have earned in spades the right to be ignored. Get used to it. Fool us for a year, for two years, three... but for eighteen years??? Sorry Admiral. Stop whining.

    Upstate NY'er , 23 February 2020 at 09:41 PM
    Flavius:

    You mean all those VERY important people - dressed like doormen -who haven't won a war since WWII?

    BTW, Gulf Storm doesn't count - you'd probably get more fight back from the NY State Troopers.

    These politicians in uniform know all about "diversity", pissing away LOTS of money, transgenders, sucking up and especially landing Beltway bandit contracts. Fighting, not so much.

    Note, I'm referring to the General Officer ranks, not actual troops.

    JerseyJeffersonian , 23 February 2020 at 10:33 PM
    I assess with 100% certainty that this fake scandal was contrived to coincide with the end of this Maguire's "service". Indeed, all of this time he has been acting as an agent of the Borg, only chucking this stinkbomb as his last, spiteful act. Contemptible.
    prawnik , 24 February 2020 at 10:46 AM
    Caity Johnstone has written a parody piece in which the intelligence community labels every candidate other than Buttigieg to be a Secret Russian Agent.
    PRC90 , 24 February 2020 at 07:17 PM
    Unless someone in the DNC or numerous affiliates can come up with an actual Russian, this kind of hoax will begin to be be seen as dated.

    However, with the Weinstein conviction, the MeToo movement will get new life and a wave of similar high profile pursuits will begin.

    Undoubtedly this will include one DJT, featuring accusers going back to the 1960's in a orchestrated 24/7 chorus of unproven horror that they hope will succeed where Mueller and Schiff et al have failed.

    Who knows, perhaps one accuser (two for corroboration) will even allege some vague Russian presence.

    Fred , 24 February 2020 at 08:12 PM
    PRC90,

    So a democratic megadoner is convicted of multiple accounts of sexual assault and surprise! Others in the moral cesspool that is Hollywood won't be brought to "justice", social or otherwise but we'll see Stormy Daniels 2.0. Except her lawyer's already in jail. The left better come up with something better than that.

    Jack , 24 February 2020 at 10:43 PM
    Fred,

    How about Epstein and his pals? That would be a good start. However nothing will happen on that since too many powerful people would likely be ensnared like Billy Clinton and a British prince.

    [Feb 24, 2020] Congress chose not to include articles of impeachment based on the foreign and domestic emoluments clauses by Josh Blackman

    Instead of settling on charges that relate to statutory crimes, with clear, concrete criteria, the Democrats have released two articles of impeachment in which the misconduct exists largely in the eye of the beholder. Instead of settling on charges that relate to statutory crimes, with clear, concrete criteria, the Democrats have instead released two articles of impeachment in which the misconduct exists largely in the eye of the beholder.
    Dec 10, 2019 | www.theatlantic.com

    First, Congress chose not to include articles of impeachment based on the foreign and domestic emoluments clauses. Democratic members of Congress have long alleged that President Trump is illegally profiting from his business entities that cater to foreign and state governments. Indeed, more than 200 members of Congress have sued the president in federal court, arguing that his conduct is unconstitutional. (I have filed a series of amicus briefs arguing that Trump's conduct amounts to poor policy, but is lawful.) Yet, the House has not even held a hearing on these once obscure provisions of the Constitution. It would have been very difficult to make the case for impeachment based on a nonexistent record. ... ... ...

    ...What exactly is an abuse of power? The term is not defined in the Constitution, and indeed it resists a simple definition. This is a crime that exists in a person's subjective judgment: One person's abuse of power is another's diplomacy.

    ...The House issued subpoenas to the Trump administration to assist its impeachment inquiry. In turn, the Trump administration categorically refused to comply with all of those subpoenas. The House of Representatives then asked the courts to enforce those subpoenas. And the Trump administration asserted various privileges, mirroring arguments they have made in prior court cases. That litigation proceeds separately. But now the House contends that Trump's refusal to comply with the subpoenas is itself an impeachable act. Is that theory correct? Trump will likely counter that asserting a privilege in lieu of responding to a subpoena is a well-worn executive practice, not grounds for removal. Who is right? The Senate will decide.

    The Senate is heading into uncharted territory. ... any president who refuses to comply with what he sees as an improper investigation can be charged with "obstruction of Congress." This one-two punch can be drafted with far greater ease than were the articles of impeachment presented against Presidents Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, or Bill Clinton.

    ...the predicates of the Trump articles will set a dangerous precedent, as impeachment might become -- regrettably -- a common, quadrennial feature of our polity.

    This story is part of the project " The Battle for the Constitution ," in partnership with the National Constitution Center.

    Josh Blackman is a Constitutional law professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston

    [Feb 24, 2020] The Impeachment s Moral Hypocrisy by Chris Hedges

    Notable quotes:
    "... It was a mind-numbing spectacle, devoid of morality and ethics, the kind of political theater that characterizes despotic regimes. No one in the House chamber was protecting the Constitution. No one was seeking to hold accountable those who had violated it. No one was fighting to restore the rule of law. The two parties, which have shredded constitutional protections and rights and sold the political process to the highest bidders, have engaged in egregious constitutional violations for years and ignored them when they were made public. Moral stances have a cost, but almost no one in Congress seems willing to pay. Trying to tar Trump as a Russian agent failed. Now the Democrats hope to discredit him with charges of abuse of power and contempt of Congress. ..."
    "... The politicization of the impeachment process has only exacerbated the antagonisms and polarization in the country. It has, ironically, increased support for Trump, who in this toxic environment may well be reelected. His approval rating has jumped to 45 percent, up from 39 percent when the impeachment inquiry was launched, according to the latest Gallup survey , conducted from Dec. 2 to Dec. 15. This is the third consecutive increase in Trump's approval rating. Among Republicans, Trump has a job approval rating of 89%, almost nine in 10 in the GOP. Fifty-one percent of Americans oppose impeachment and removal, up five percentage points since the House inquiry began, Gallup reports. ..."
    Dec 23, 2019 | www.truthdig.com

    The impeachment process was a nauseating display of moral hypocrisy. The sound bites by Republicans and Democrats swiftly became predictable. The Democrats, despite applauding the announcement of the voting results before being quickly silenced by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, sought to cloak themselves in gravitas and solemnity. Pelosi's calculated decision to open the impeachment proceedings with the 1954 "under God" version of the Pledge of Allegiance was an appropriate signal given the party's New McCarthyism. The Democrats posited themselves as saviors, the last line of defense between a constitutional democracy and tyranny. The Republicans, as cloyingly sanctimonious as the Democrats, offered up ludicrous analogies to attack what they condemned as a show trial, including Rep. Barry Loudermilk's statement that "Pontius Pilate afforded more rights to Jesus than the Democrats have afforded to this president." The Republicans shamelessly prostrated themselves throughout the 10-hour process at the feet of their cult leader Donald Trump, offering abject and eternal fealty. They angrily accused the Democrats of seeking to overturn the 2016 election in a legislative coup.

    It was a mind-numbing spectacle, devoid of morality and ethics, the kind of political theater that characterizes despotic regimes. No one in the House chamber was protecting the Constitution. No one was seeking to hold accountable those who had violated it. No one was fighting to restore the rule of law. The two parties, which have shredded constitutional protections and rights and sold the political process to the highest bidders, have engaged in egregious constitutional violations for years and ignored them when they were made public. Moral stances have a cost, but almost no one in Congress seems willing to pay. Trying to tar Trump as a Russian agent failed. Now the Democrats hope to discredit him with charges of abuse of power and contempt of Congress.

    The politicization of the impeachment process has only exacerbated the antagonisms and polarization in the country. It has, ironically, increased support for Trump, who in this toxic environment may well be reelected. His approval rating has jumped to 45 percent, up from 39 percent when the impeachment inquiry was launched, according to the latest Gallup survey , conducted from Dec. 2 to Dec. 15. This is the third consecutive increase in Trump's approval rating. Among Republicans, Trump has a job approval rating of 89%, almost nine in 10 in the GOP. Fifty-one percent of Americans oppose impeachment and removal, up five percentage points since the House inquiry began, Gallup reports.

    Yes, Trump's contempt of Congress and attempt to get Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, to open an investigation of Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, in exchange for almost $400 million in U.S. military aid and allowing Zelensky to visit the White House are impeachable offenses, but trivial and minor ones compared with the constitutional violations that the two parties have institutionalized and, I fear, made permanent. These sustained, bipartisan constitutional violations -- not Trump -- resulted in the failure of our democracy. Trump is the pus coming out of the wound.

    If the Democrats and the Republicans were committed to defending the Constitution why didn't they impeach George W. Bush when he launched two illegal wars that were never declared by Congress as demanded by the Constitution? Why didn't they impeach Bush when he authorized placing the entire U.S. public under government surveillance in direct violation of the Fourth Amendment? Why didn't they impeach Bush when he authorized torture along with kidnapping terrorist suspects around the world and holding them for years in our black sites and offshore penal colonies? Why didn't they impeach Barack Obama when he expanded these illegal wars to 11, if we count Yemen? Why didn't they impeach Obama when Edward Snowden revealed that our intelligence agencies are monitoring and spying on almost every citizen and downloading our data and metrics into government computers where they will be stored for perpetuity? Why didn't they impeach Obama when he misused the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force to erase due process and give the executive branch of government the right to act as judge, jury and executioner in assassinating U.S. citizens, starting with the radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and, two weeks later, his 16-year-old son? Why didn't they impeach Obama when he signed into law Section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act, in effect overturning the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the use of the military as a domestic police force?

    There are other bipartisan constitutional violations, including violating treaty clauses that are supposed to be ratified by the Senate, violating the Constitution by making appointments without seeking Senate confirmation, and the routine abusive use of executive orders. But the two major political parties, salivating at the thought of wielding the king-like power that now comes with the presidency, have no desire to curb these far more dangerous violations.

    The selective use of the two violations to impeach Trump is a weaponization of the impeachment process. Should the Democrats take control of the White House and the Republicans control of the Congress, impeachment, with or without merit, will become another form of political pressure exerted within our dysfunctional and divided political system. The rule of law will be a pretense, as in the current process of impeachment and Senate trial.

    The impeachment circus, which will culminate in a preordained, choreographed and televised show in the Senate, coincided with The Washington Post's release of what is being called the Afghanistan Papers . The Post, through a three-year legal battle, obtained more than 2,000 pages of internal government documents about the war. The papers detail bipartisan lies, fraud, deceit, corruption, waste and gross mismanagement during the 18-year conflict, the longest in U.S. history. It is a blistering indictment of the ruling class, which, as the papers note, since 2001 has seen the Defense Department, State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development spend or win appropriation of between $934 billion and $978 billion, according to an inflation-adjusted estimate calculated by Neta Crawford, a political science professor and co-director of the Costs of War Project at Brown University. "These figures," the Post adds, "do not include money spent by other agencies such as the CIA and the Department of Veterans Affairs, which is responsible for medical care for wounded veterans." [ See Chris Hedges discuss the Afghanistan Papers with Spenser Rapone, a West Point graduate who served as an Army Ranger in Afghanistan.]

    This window into the inner workings of our bankrupt ruling elite, responsible for widespread destruction and the loss of tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of lives in Afghanistan, was largely ignored by the media during the impeachment proceedings. Neither political party, and none of their courtiers on the cable news shows, is interested in exposing the bipartisan failure, lying and grotesque incompetence on the part of the United States in the years it has occupied Afghanistan. Afghan and U.S. officials concede that the Taliban is stronger now than at any other time since the 2001 invasion.

    In a functioning democracy, the publication of the Afghanistan Papers would see generals and politicians who knowingly deceived the public hauled before congressional committees. The Fulbright hearings, during the Vietnam War, although they did not lead to prosecutions, at least aggressively held U.S. officials to account and made public their duplicity and failure. But in the wake of the new disclosures, no one in either political party or the military will be held accountable for the debacle in Afghanistan, a conflict that saw a vast waste of resources, including nearly a trillion dollars that could have been used to address our pronounced social inequality, rebuild our decaying infrastructure and help end our reliance on fossil fuels.

    The Afghanistan Papers lay bare a truth the hyperventilating Republican and Democratic mandarins in Congress prefer to mask. On all the major structural issues -- war, the economy, the use of militarized police and the world's largest prison system for social control, the infusion of corporate money to deform the electoral and legislative processes, slashing taxes for the wealthy and corporations, exploitative trade deals, austerity, the climate emergency and the rapidly accelerating government debt -- there is little or no difference between the Republicans and the Democrats.

    The political clashes are not substantive, despite what we heard in the impeachment hearings. They are rhetorical and largely inconsequential. The Republicans and the Democrats recently passed a $738 billion defense bill for fiscal year 2020, a $21 billion increase over what was enacted for fiscal year 2019. The vote was a lopsided 377 to 48. The U.S. spends more on its military than the next 10 countries combined. Also, a day after the impeachment of President Trump, the Republicans and Democrats in the House passed a thinly veiled rewrite of the Clinton administration's North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the 25-year-old free trade agreement that hollowed out our manufacturing centers and sent U.S. jobs and production to Mexico. Again, the vote was lopsided, 385 to 41. When the wealthy and our corporate masters want something done, it gets done. Our elected officials serve them, not us. We are to be controlled.

    The Republican and Democratic politicians, like the generals, government bureaucrats and intelligence chiefs, once they leave their government posts will be generously rewarded by being given jobs as lobbyists and consultants or being appointed to corporate boards. These politicians are the mutant products of our system of legalized bribery, shameless kleptocrats . The only interests they serve are their own. This truth binds half the country to Trump, who although a con artist and himself flagrantly corrupt, at least belittles and mocks the ruling elites who have betrayed us.

    Trump and his supporters are not wrong in condemning the deep state -- the generals, bankers, corporatists, lobbyists, intelligence chiefs, government bureaucrats and technocrats who oversee domestic and international policy no matter who is in power. The Afghanistan Papers, while detailing the quagmire in Afghanistan -- where more than 775,000 Americans were deployed over the 18 years, more than 2,300 soldiers and Marines killed and more than 20,000 wounded -- also illustrate how seamlessly the two ruling parties and the deep state work together.

    "What did we get for this $1 trillion effort? Was it worth $1 trillion?" Jeffrey Eggers, a retired Navy SEAL and White House staffer for Bush and Obama, is quoted as saying by The Washington Post. "After the killing of Osama bin Laden, I said that Osama was probably laughing in his watery grave considering how much we have spent on Afghanistan."

    The Post writes , "The documents also contradict a long chorus of public statements from U.S. presidents, military commanders and diplomats who assured Americans year after year that they were making progress in Afghanistan and the war was worth fighting. Several of those interviewed described explicit and sustained efforts by the U.S. government to deliberately mislead the public. They said it was common at military headquarters in Kabul -- and at the White House -- to distort statistics to make it appear the United States was winning the war when that was not the case."

    "As commanders in chief, Bush, Obama and Trump all promised the public the same thing," the Post notes. "They would avoid falling into the trap of 'nation-building' in Afghanistan. On that score, the presidents failed miserably. The United States has allocated more than $133 billion to build up Afghanistan -- more than it spent, adjusted for inflation, to revive the whole of Western Europe with the Marshall Plan after World War II."

    There is no difference, the Afghanistan Papers make clear, in the mendacity and incompetence of the policymaking apparatus no matter who controls Congress or the White House. No party or elected official dares defy the military-industrial complex or other titans of the deep state. The Democrats through impeachment have no intention of restoring constitutional rights that would curb the power of the deep state and protect democracy. The deep state funds them. It sustains them in office. The Democrats are seeking to replace the inept and vulgar face of empire that is Trump with the benign and decorous face of empire that is Joe Biden. What the Democrats, and the deep state that has allied itself with the Democratic Party, object to is the mask, not what is behind it. If you doubt me, read the six-part series on Afghanistan in the Post.

    Columnist Chris Hedges is a Truthdig columnist, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, a New York Times best-selling author, a professor in the college degree program offered to New Jersey state prisoners by Rutgers

    [Feb 24, 2020] Opening impeachment was worse then a crime, it was a blunder on the part of neoliberal Dems. Essentially they bet that it can serve as the Muller investigation II helping the neoliberal Dems to win 2020 like it helped them to win 2018 without reforming the Party. They forgot about their own crimes committed in the process (Ukraine, Stzrokgate, etc), which now come to light

    Notable quotes:
    "... Adam Schiff physically resembles a typical prosperity theology preacher -- a classic modern American snake oil salesman. And with his baseless accusations and the fear to touch real issues , he is even worse than that -- he looks outright silly even for the most brainwashed part of the USA electorate ;-) ..."
    "... Realistically Schiff should be viewed as yet another intelligence agency stooge, a neocon who is funded by military contractors such as Northrop Grumman, which sells missiles to Ukraine. ..."
    "... The claim that the withdrawal of military aid from Ukraine somehow influences the balance of power in the region was a State department concocted scam from the very beginning. How sniper rifles and anti-tank missiles change the balance of power on the border with the major nuclear power, who has probably second or third military in the world.? They do not. ..."
    "... No where does Schiff compare to the evils and long lasting impact by that of Trump, Nunes, and Mcconnell. Comment over. ..."
    "... Does not matter. Schiff is just a marionette performing prescribed function. He is adamantly inept is this function, but that happens with marionettes. Nothing to talk about or to compare with the major "evildoers" of Trump administration (although he, like Pompeo, is a neocon, so he belongs to the same crime family ;-) ..."
    "... Actually, as a side effect, they might well sink Warren (which is not such a good thing), as she was stupid enough to jump into impeachment bandwagon early on with great enthusiasm. Proving another time that she is an incompetent politician. ..."
    "... Trump is a narcissistic megalomaniac. It matters that he is escaping impeachment. Of all the presidents impeached before him as #4, he is the most deserving. History will judge his actions and crimes. ..."
    Jan 25, 2020 | angrybearblog.com

    likbez , January 25, 2020 3:10 pm

    While I agree that the removal of Trump might be slightly beneficial (Pence-Pompeo duo initially will run scared), this Kabuki theater with Schiff in a major role is outright silly.

    Adam Schiff physically resembles a typical prosperity theology preacher -- a classic modern American snake oil salesman. And with his baseless accusations and the fear to touch real issues , he is even worse than that -- he looks outright silly even for the most brainwashed part of the USA electorate ;-)

    As he supported the Iraq war, he has no right to occupy any elected office. He probably should be prosecuted as a war criminal.

    Realistically Schiff should be viewed as yet another intelligence agency stooge, a neocon who is funded by military contractors such as Northrop Grumman, which sells missiles to Ukraine.

    The claim that Trump is influenced by Russia is a lie. His actions indicate that he is an agent of influence for Israel, not so much for Russia. Several of his actions were more reckless and more hostile to Russia than the actions of the Obama administration. Anyway, his policies toward Russia are not that different from Hillary's policies. Actually, Pompeo, in many ways, continues Hillary's policies.

    The claim that the withdrawal of military aid from Ukraine somehow influences the balance of power in the region was a State department concocted scam from the very beginning. How sniper rifles and anti-tank missiles change the balance of power on the border with the major nuclear power, who has probably second or third military in the world.? They do not.

    They (especially sniper rifles) will definitely increase casualties of Ukrainian separatists (and will provoke Russian reaction to compensate for this change of balance and thus increase casualties of the Ukrainian army provoking the escalation spiral ), but that's about it. So more people will die in the conflict while Northrop Grumman rakes the profits.

    They also increase the danger of the larger-scale conflict in the region, which is what the USA neocons badly wants to impose really crushing sanctions on Russia. The danger of WWIII and the cost of support of the crumbling neoliberal empire with its outsize military expenditures (which now is more difficult to compensate with loot) somehow escapes the US neocon calculations. But they are completely detached from reality in any case.

    I think Russia can cut Ukraine into Western and Eastern parts anytime with relative ease and not much resistance. Putin has an opportunity to do this in 2014 (risking larger sanctions) as he could establish government in exile out of Yanukovich officials and based on this restore the legitimate government in Eastern and southern region with the capital in Kharkiv, leaving Ukrainian Taliban to rot in their own brand of far-right nationalism where the Ukraine identity is defined negatively via rabid Russophobia.

    His calculation probably was that sanctions would slow down the Russia recovery from Western plunder during Yeltsin years and, as such, it is not worth showing Western Ukrainian nationalists what level of support in Southern and Eastern regions that actually enjoy.

    My impression is that they are passionately hated by over 50% of the population of this region. And viewed as an occupying force, which is trying to colonize the space (which is a completely true assessment). They are viewed as American stooges, who they are (the country is controlled from the USA embassy in any case).

    And Putin's assessment might be wrong, as sanctions were imposed anyways, and now Ukraine does represent a threat to Russia and, as such, is a huge source of instability in the region, which was the key idea of "Nulandgate" as the main task was weakening Russia. In this sense, Euromaidan coup d'état was the major success of the Obama administration, which was a neocon controlled administration from top to bottom.

    Also unclear what Dems are trying to achieve. If Pelosi gambit, cynically speaking, was about rehashing Mueller witch hunt success in the 2018 election, that is typical wishful thinking. Mobilization of the base works both ways.

    So what is the game plan for DemoRats (aka "neoliberal democrats" or "corporate democrats" -- the dominant Clinton faction of the Democratic Party) is completely unclear.

    I doubt that they will gain anything from impeachment Kabuki theater, where both sides are afraid to discuss the real issues like Douma false flag and other real Trump crimes.

    Most Democratic candidates such as Warren, Biden, and Klobuchar will lose from this impeachment theater. Candidates who can gain, such as Major Pete and Bloomberg does not matter that much.

    run75441 , January 25, 2020 4:48 pm

    likbez:

    Let me help you along with the rant . . . "so you are in trump's camp." That was not a question. Given anything the Dems may have, the Repubs have done it bigger. No where does Schiff compare to the evils and long lasting impact by that of Trump, Nunes, and Mcconnell. Comment over.

    likbez , January 25, 2020 7:47 pm

    > No where does Schiff compare to the evils and long lasting impact by abd of trump

    Does not matter. Schiff is just a marionette performing prescribed function. He is adamantly inept is this function, but that happens with marionettes. Nothing to talk about or to compare with the major "evildoers" of Trump administration (although he, like Pompeo, is a neocon, so he belongs to the same crime family ;-)

    Opening impeachment was worse then a crime, it was a blunder on the part of neoliberal Dems. Essentially they bet that it can serve as the "Muller investigation II" helping the neoliberal Dems to win 2020 like it helped them to win 2018 without reforming the Party. They forgot about their own crimes committed in the process (Ukraine, Stzrokgate, etc), which now come to light

    Pelosi somehow opted for this "Hail Mary pass" and allowed Schiff to destroy the last remnants of the credibility of neoliberal Dems: none of House Republicans voted for impeachment, which dooms the idea converting it into the vote of non-confidence of the majority party. Creating the situation in which Dems, paradoxically, can lose some House seats they gained in 2018. Which would be a bad thing. Also due to backlash they now can well lose 2020 election while each of Dems candidates (with the possible exception of semi-senile neoliberal Biden) is a better option for the country than Trump.

    Actually, as a side effect, they might well sink Warren (which is not such a good thing), as she was stupid enough to jump into impeachment bandwagon early on with great enthusiasm. Proving another time that she is an incompetent politician.

    "Whom the gods would destroy..." (misattributed to Euripides)

    run75441 , January 25, 2020 8:17 pm

    likbez:

    No it does not. He is inept at a function and does not follow the constitutional precepts put in place by the Founding Fathers. Schiff and all of us are on unchartered territory where a president deems he can do as he pleases, is above the law, and can not be reigned in by the law or the two legislative bodies of the nation. He is aided and abetted by illegal Congressional actions with the support of renegade Senators. No where in history has anything of this magnitude occurred. He has to be ousted.

    I told you once before, knock that neoliberal shit off. You are just using this as a filter to avoid what most people see, Trump is a narcissistic megalomaniac. It matters that he is escaping impeachment. Of all the presidents impeached before him as #4, he is the most deserving. History will judge his actions and crimes.

    Mon sequitur to the rest of your commentary

    [Feb 24, 2020] US Intel Briefer Who Gave Overblown Russian Interference Assessment Has Reputation For Hyperbole

    This is not "the reputation for hyperbole". This is attempt to defend the interests of MIC, including the interests of intelligence agencies themselves in view of deteriorating financial position of the USA. And first of all the level of the current funding. Like was the case in 2016 elections, the intelligence agencies and first of all CIA should now be considered as the third party participating in the 2020 election which attempts to be the kingmaker. They are interested in continuing and intensifying the Cold War 2, as it secured funding for them and MIC (of this they are essential part)
    Notable quotes:
    "... The official, Shelby Pierson, "appears to have overstated the intelligence community's formal assessment of Russian interference in the 2020 election, omitting important nuance during a briefing with lawmakers earlier this month," according to CNN . ..."
    "... " The intelligence doesn't say that ," one senior national security official told CNN. "A more reasonable interpretation of the intelligence is not that they have a preference, it's a step short of that. It's more that they understand the President is someone they can work with, he's a dealmaker." - CNN ..."
    "... To recap - Pierson told the House Intelligence Committee a lie , which was promptly leaked to the press - ostensibly by Democrats on the committee, and it's just now getting walked back with far less attention than the original 'bombshell' headline received. ..."
    "... No biggie... the media just ran with hysteria for 3 years as gospel accusing people of treason ..."
    "... Well guess what? It turns out the media and the DNC were the ones working for Russia, executing their long standing goal to create chaos better than Russia could have ever dreamed of. https://t.co/PhrJiES9ui ..."
    Feb 24, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    The US intelligence community's top election security official who appears to have overstated Russian interference in the 2020 election has a history of hyperbole - described by the Wall Street Journal as "a reputation for being injudicious with her words."

    The official, Shelby Pierson, "appears to have overstated the intelligence community's formal assessment of Russian interference in the 2020 election, omitting important nuance during a briefing with lawmakers earlier this month," according to CNN .

    The official, Shelby Pierson, told lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee that Russia is interfering in the 2020 election with the goal of helping President Donald Trump get reelected .

    The US intelligence community has assessed that Russia is interfering in the 2020 election and has separately assessed that Russia views Trump as a leader they can work with. But the US does not have evidence that Russia's interference this cycle is aimed at reelecting Trump , the officials said.

    " The intelligence doesn't say that ," one senior national security official told CNN. "A more reasonable interpretation of the intelligence is not that they have a preference, it's a step short of that. It's more that they understand the President is someone they can work with, he's a dealmaker." - CNN

    Pierson was reportedly peppered with questions from the House Intelligence Committee, which 'caused her to overstep and assert that Russia has a preference for Trump to be reelected,' according to the report. CNN notes that one intelligence official said that her characterization was "misleading," while a national security official said she failed to provide the "nuance" required to put the US intelligence conclusions in proper context.

    To recap - Pierson told the House Intelligence Committee a lie , which was promptly leaked to the press - ostensibly by Democrats on the committee, and it's just now getting walked back with far less attention than the original 'bombshell' headline received.

    Sound familiar?

    No biggie... the media just ran with hysteria for 3 years as gospel accusing people of treason

    Well guess what? It turns out the media and the DNC were the ones working for Russia, executing their long standing goal to create chaos better than Russia could have ever dreamed of. https://t.co/PhrJiES9ui

    -- Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) February 24, 2020

    [Feb 23, 2020] Sick trash by PaulR

    Notable quotes:
    "... In 2017, a woman working with frontline families told me why she didn't want reintegration. 'These [the population of rebel-held Donbass] are people with a minimum level of human development, people raised by their TVs. Okay, so we live together, then what? We're trying to build a completely new society.' ..."
    "... And there once again you have it – one of the primary causes of the war in Ukraine: the contempt with which the post-Maidan government and its activist supporters regard a significant portion of their fellow citizens, the 'sick trash' of Donbass with their 'minimum level of human development'. ..."
    Feb 18, 2020 | irrussianality.wordpress.com

    I'd never heard of the Euro-Atlantic Security Leadership Group (EASLG) until today, even though it turns out that one of its members has the office next door to mine. Its website says that it seeks to respond to the challenge of East-West tensions by convening 'former and current officials and experts from a group of Euro-Atlantic states and the European union to test ideas and develop proposals for improving security in areas of existential common interest'. It hopes thereby to 'generate trust through dialogue.'

    It's hard to object to any of this, but its latest statement , entitled 'Twelve Steps Toward Greater Security in Ukraine and the Euro-Atlantic Region', doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. The 'twelve steps' the EASLG proposes to improve security in Eastern Ukraine are generally pretty uninspiring, being largely of the 'set up a working group to explore' variety, or of such a vaguely aspirational nature as to be almost worthless (e.g. 'Advance reconstruction of Donbas An essential first step is to conduct a credible needs assessment for the Donbas region to inform a strategy for its social-economic recovery.' Sounds nice, but in reality doesn't amount to a hill of beans).

    For the most part, these proposals attempt to treat the symptoms of the war in Ukraine without addressing the root causes. In a sense, that's fine, as symptoms need treating, but it's sticking plaster when the patient needs some invasive surgery. At the end of its statement, though, the EASLG does go one step further with 'Step 12: Launch a new national dialogue about identity', saying:

    A new, inclusive national dialogue across Ukraine is desirable and could be launched as soon as possible. Efforts should be made to engage with perspectives from Ukraine's neighbors, especially Poland, Hungary, and Russia. This dialogue should address themes of history and national memory, language, identity, and minority experience. It should include tolerance and respect for ethnic and religious minorities in order to increase engagement, inclusiveness, and social cohesion.

    This is admirably trendy and woke, but in the Ukrainian context somewhat explosive, as it implicitly challenges the identity politics of the post-Maidan regime. Unsurprisingly, it's gone down like a lead balloon in Kiev. The notorious website Mirotvorets even went so far as to add former German ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger to its blacklist of enemies of Ukraine for having had the temerity to sign the EASLG statement and thus 'taking part in Russia's propaganda events aimed against Ukraine.' Katherine Quinn-Judge of the International Crisis Group commented on Twitter, 'As the idea of dialogue becomes more mainstream, backlash to the concept grows fiercer.' 'In Ukraine, prominent pro-Western politicians, civic activists, and media, have called Step 12 "a provocation" and "dangerous",' she added

    Quinn-Judge comes across as generally sympathetic to the Ukrainian narrative about the war in Donbass, endorsing the idea that it's largely a product of 'Russian aggression'. But she also recognizes that the war has an internal, social dimension which the Ukrainian government and its elite-level supporters refuse to acknowledge. Consequently, they also reject any sort of dialogue, either with Russia or with the rebels in Donbass. As Quinn-Judge notes in another Tweet:

    An advisor to one of Ukraine's most powerful pol[itician]s told us recently of his concern about talk of dialogue in international and domestic circles. 'We have all long ago agreed among ourselves. We need to return our territory, and then work with that sick – sick – population.'

    This isn't an isolated example. Quinn-Judge follows up with a couple more similar statements:

    Social resentments underpin some opposition to disengagement, for example. An activist in [government-controlled] Shchastye told me recently that she feared disengagement and the reopening of the bridge linking the isolated town to [rebel-held] Luhansk: 'I don't want all that trash coming over here.'

    In 2017, a woman working with frontline families told me why she didn't want reintegration. 'These [the population of rebel-held Donbass] are people with a minimum level of human development, people raised by their TVs. Okay, so we live together, then what? We're trying to build a completely new society.'

    And there once again you have it – one of the primary causes of the war in Ukraine: the contempt with which the post-Maidan government and its activist supporters regard a significant portion of their fellow citizens, the 'sick trash' of Donbass with their 'minimum level of human development'. You can fiddle with treating Donbass' symptoms as much as you like, ŕ la EASLG, but unless you tackle this fundamental problem, the disease will keep on ravaging the subject for a long time to come. In due course, I suggest, the only realistic cure will be to remove the patient entirely from the cause of infection.

    Mao Cheng Ji says: February 18, 2020 at 5:02 pm Yeah, but that's just their standard narrative.

    See here, for example:

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

    And it's been there, either officially or beneath the surface, since forever. Since the Habsburgs, probably, when it was first introduced in Ruthenia.

    Guest says: February 21, 2020 at 5:27 am

    This person speaks so casually of genocide!!!

    It's disgusting that such people have been empowered and such ideas are mainstream.
    Calling people sick trash is the start on the road to genocide

    Mao Cheng Ji says: February 22, 2020 at 1:46 pm

    He's still there, working. Popular journalist and blogger.

    dewittbourchier says: February 18, 2020 at 6:01 pm
    All that you have described above is very sad, but not very surprising – which is itself very sad. I think Patrick Armstrong is right that a lot of the reason Ukraine is not and has never been a functional polity is because much if not most of the population cannot accept that the right side won WWII.
    Mikhail says: February 18, 2020 at 10:15 pm

    Hypocritically denounces the USSR, while seeking that entity's Communist created/inherited boundaries

    akarlin says: February 18, 2020 at 6:48 pm

    Contempt and loathing towards the Donbass is a pretty popular feeling amongst Ukrainian svidomy. E.g., one of the two regular pro-Ukrainian commenters on my blog.

    To his credit, he supports severing the Donbass from Ukraine (as one would a gangrenous limb – his metaphor) as opposed to trying to claw it back. Which is an internally consistent position.

    Mikhail says: February 18, 2020 at 10:13 pm

    Same guy who doesn't consider Yanukovych as having been overthrown under coup like circumstances, while downplaying Poland's past subjugation of Rus territory.

    Lyttenburgh says: February 19, 2020 at 8:18 pm

    In Part I and II we saw how much truth is there in Herr Karlin's claim of being a model of the rrrracially purrrre Rrrrrrrussian plus some personal views.

    Part III (this one) gives a peek into his cultural and upbringing limits, which "qualify" him as an expert of all things Russian, who speaks on behalf of the People and the Country.

    Exhibit "A"

    " I left when I was six, in 1994 , so I'm not really the best person to ask this question of – it should probably be directed to my parents, or even better, the Russian government at the time which had for all intents and purposes ceased paying academics their salaries.

    I went to California for higher education and because its beaches and mountains made for a nice change from the bleakness of Lancashire.

    I returned to Russia because if I like Putler so much, why don't I go back there? Okay, less flippancy. I am Russian, I do not feel like a foreigner here, I like living in Moscow, added bonus is that I get much higher quality of life for the buck than in California ."

    Exhibit "B"

    "I never went to school, don't have any experience with writing in Russian, and have been overexposed to Anglo culture , so yes, it's no surprise that my texts will sound strange."

    Vladimir says: February 20, 2020 at 8:46 am

    The Russian branch of Carnegie Endowment did a piece on this issue. It mostly fits your ideas, but the author suggests it was a compromise, short-term solution – what steps can be taken right now, without crossing red lines of either side – but compromise is unwelcome among both parties. The official Russian reaction was quite cold too.

    "Удаленные 12 шагов. Почему в Мюнхене испугались собственных предложений по Донбассу"
    https://carnegie.ru/commentary/81093

    Mikhail says: February 20, 2020 at 4:54 pm

    Upon a quick perusal of the website of the org at issue, Alexey Arbatov and Susan Eisenhower have some kind of affiliation with it, thus maybe explaining the compromise approach you mention.

    This matter brings to mind Trump saying one thing during his presidential bid – only to then bring in people in key positions who don't agree with what he campaigned on.

    In terms of credentials and name status, the likes of Rand Paul, Tulsi Gabbard, Stephen Cohen and Jim Jatras, are needed in Trump's admin for the purpose of having a more balanced foreign policy approach that conforms with US interests (not to be necessarily confused with what neocons and neolibs favor).

    Instead, Trump has been top heavy with geopolitical thinking opposites. He possibly thought that having them in would take some of the criticism away from him.

    The arguably ideal admin has both sides of an issue well represented, with the president intelligently deciding what's best.

    Guest says: February 21, 2020 at 5:23 am

    On the BBC and on other media there are films of Ukrainians attacking a bus with people evacuated from China. These people even wanted to burn down the hospital where the peoplew were taken (along with other unrelated patients)

    This is a sign of a degraded society – attacking people who may or may not be ill!!!

    Ukraine will eventually break up
    The nationalist agenda is just degrading the society.

    -The economy is failing
    -People who can, are leaving
    -The elected government has no control over the violent people who take to the streets

    It's clear Zelensky is a puppet no different to Poroshenko – this destroys the idea that democracy is a good thing.

    It's very sad that the EU and the Americans under Obama – empowered these decisive elements and then blame Russia.

    Crimea did the right thing leaving Ukraine – Donbass hopefully will follow.

    Lyttenburgh says: February 21, 2020 at 11:16 am

    "And there once again you have it – one of the primary causes of the war in Ukraine: the contempt with which the post-Maidan government and its activist supporters regard a significant portion of their fellow citizens, the 'sick trash' of Donbass"

    [ ]

    Only them?

    [ ]

    Yesterday marks yet another milestone on the Ukrainian glorious шлях перемог and long and arduous return to the Family of the European Nations. The Civil Society ™ of the Ukraine rose as one in the mighty CoronavirusMaidan, against the jackbooted goons of the crypto-Napoleon (and agent of Putin) Zelensky. Best people from Poltava oblast' (whose ancestors without doubt, welcomed Swedish Euro-integrators in 1709) and, most important of all, from the Best (Western) Ukrajina, who 6 years ago made the Revolution of Dignity in Kiev the reality and whom pan Poroshenko called the best part of the Nation, said their firm "Геть вiд Москви!"

    to their fellow Ukrainian citizens, evacuated from Wuhan province in China

    The Net is choke full of vivid, memorable videos, showing that 6 years after Maidan, the Ukraine now constitute a unified, эдiна та соборна country. You all, no doubt, already watched these clips, where a brave middle-aged gentleman from the Western Ukraine, racially pure Ukr, proves his mental acuity by deducing, that crypto-tyrant (and "не лох") Zelensky wants to settle evacuees in his pristine oblast out of vengeance, because the Best Ukrajina didn't vote for him during the election. Or a clip about a brave woman from Poltava oblast, suggesting to relocate the Trojan-horse "fellow countrymen" to Chernobol's Zone. Or even the witty comments and suggestions by the paragons of the Ukrainian Civil Society, " волонтэры ":


    Shy and conscientious members of the Ukrainian (national!) intelligentsia had their instincts aligned rrrrrright. When they learned about that their hospital will be the one receiving the evacuees from Wuhan, the entire medical personell of that Poltava oblast medical facility rose to their feet and sang "Shenya vmerla". Democracy and localism proved once again the strongest suit of the pro-European Ukraine, with Ternopol's oblast regional council voting to accept the official statement to the crypto-tyrant Zelensky, which calls attempts to place evacuees on their Holy land "an act of Genocide of the Ukrainian People" (c)

    Just the headlines .

    [ ]

    That's absolutely "normal", predictable reaction of the "racially pure Ukrainians" to their own fellow citizens. Now, Professor, are you insisting on seeking or even expecting "compromise" with them ? What to do, if after all these years, there is no such thing as the united Ukrainian political nation?

    Like Like Reply

    Lyttenburgh says: February 21, 2020 at 2:12 pm

    "Ukraine's democracy is flourishing like never before due to the tireless efforts of grassroots, pro-democracy, civil-society groups. Many Ukrainians say their country is now firmly set on an irreversible, pro-Western trajectory. Moreover, the country has also undertaken a top-to-bottom cultural, economic, and political divorce from its former Soviet overlord.

    Today, Ukraine is a democratic success story in the making, despite Russia's best efforts to the contrary."
    – Nolan Peterson, a former special operations pilot and a combat veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, is The Daily Signal's foreign correspondent based in Ukraine

    International recognition of the fact:

    [Feb 22, 2020] The Red Thread A Search for Ideological Drivers Inside the Anti-Trump Conspiracy by Diana West

    Highly recommended!
    She does not use the term neoliberalism but she provide interesting perspective about connection of neoliberalism and Trotskyism. It is amazing fact that most of them seriously studied communist ideology at universities.
    Trotskyites are never constrained by morality and they are obsessed with raw power (especially political power) and forceful transformation of the society. They are for global dominance so they were early adherents of "Full spectrum Dominance" doctirne approporitated later be US neocons. Their Dream -- global run from Washington neoliberal empire is a mirror of the dream of Trotskyites of global communist empire run from Moscow (Trotsky "Permanent war" till the total victory of communism idea)
    Inability to understand that neoliberal is undermines Diana West thinking, but still she is a good researcher and she managed to reveal some interesting facts and tendencies. She intuitively understand that both are globalist ideologies, but that about all she managed to understand. Bad for former DIA specialist on the USSR and former colleague of Colonel Lang (see Sic Semper Tyrannis)
    It is funny that Sanders is being accused of being a 'self-identified' socialist, while neoliberal elite is shoulder-deep in socialism for the 1% and enjoy almost unlimited access to free Fed funds.
    Feb 22, 2020 | www.amazon.com

    Boston Bill , March 23, 2019

    Programs, programs, get your program here.

    I received my copy just a few days before the Mueller investigation closed shop. There is an old saying "You can't tell the players without a program." As the aftermath of the Mueller investigation begins, you need this book. Some pundits and observers of the political scene have observed that the Mueller investigation didn't come about because of any real concern about "Trump Russia collusion," it was manufactured to protect the deep state from a non-political interloper. That's the case Diana West makes and does it with her exceptional knowledge of the Cold War and the current jihad wars. Not to mention her deadly aim with her rhetorical darts.

    Erving L. Briggs , April 2, 2019
    History Repeats

    The Red Thread by Diana West
    Diana states, "the anti-Trump conspiracy is not about Democrats and Republicans. It is not about the ebb and flow of political power, lawfully and peacefully transferred. It is about globalists and nationalists, just as the president says. They are locked in the old and continuous Communist/anti-Communist struggle, and fighting to the end, whether We, the anti-Communists, recognize it or not."

    Diana traces the Red Thread running through the swamp, she names names and relates the history of the Red players. She asks the questions, Why? Why so many Soviet-style acts of deception perpetrated from inside the federal government against the American electoral process? Why so many uncorroborated dossiers of Russian provenance influencing our politics? Why such a tangle of communist and socialist roots in the anti-Trump conspiracy?
    In this book, these questions will be answered.

    If you have read her book "American Betrayal," I'm sure you will have a good idea about what is going on. I did. I just didn't know the major players and the red history behind each of them.

    The book is very interesting and short, only 104 pages, but it is not finished yet. Easy to read but very disturbing to know the length and width of the swamp, the depth, we may not know for a long time. I do feel better knowing that there are people like Diana uncovering and shining a light into the darkness. Get the book, we all need to know why this is happening and who the enemies are behind it. Our freedom depends on it.

    [Feb 22, 2020] Diana West provides some interesting information about Nellie Ohr and Christophor Steele

    Some interesting information about Nellie Ohr and Christopher Steele and also about neoliberalism as being Trotskyism for the rich
    Jan 13, 2020 | www.youtube.com

    Why does Diana West believe that communist ideology has infiltrated America's intelligence agencies?

    After looking into key figures involved in the Spygate scandal, what information did Diana West uncover about their ideological beliefs?


    RED PILL PORTAL , 1 month ago

    "In America moral relativism is now so deeply embued that there is no ideology, including communism, that can bar you from joining our most powerful intelligence agency (which was essentially stood up to fight communism) and even rise to control it and all of its secrets." –Diana West, The Red Thread

    Jerk Joker , 1 month ago

    Nellie Ohr: Stalin's techniques might be useful in getting a confession from her & Bruce

    Judith Gervais , 2 days ago

    I think Diana West might want to consider the "just war" theory as something Niebuhr.would have been talking about. I do not know the writings of either Niebuhr or Tillich well but it is my understanding that both did much good in the world so I wouldn't write them off without very careful consideration. Many deeply religious people I know consider some of the ideas contained within socialism to be Christian friendly. Thank you for considering my statements.

    Tamas Hadaszy , 3 weeks ago

    "The ends justify the means" is the false and evil doctrine of collectivist. "We will force our utopia on you, even if we have to kill you to do it".

    Minecraft gaming channel gamer girl , 1 month ago (edited)

    For 3 years i argued with my Left wing friend. One day he called out "I just want to control people". Talk about 'the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks'. I finally worked out what made my friend consider government programs as the solution to every problem: He is a closet control freak! Every person on the Left is a control freak hiding in the closet!! Beware of these dictators coming to control your life!!!

    [Feb 22, 2020] Was anyone aware that in 1991 in the Ukraine almost 100% of the population had indoor running water, but as of 2014 that was down to 87%?

    That's typical deterioration of the standard of living for the country that was converted into the debt slave and de facto US colony
    Feb 22, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
    William Gruff , Feb 22 2020 11:56 utc | 9
    Was anyone aware that in 1991 in the Ukraine almost 100% of the population had indoor running water, but as of 2014 that was down to 87%? I'm talking of the western portion of the Ukraine here and not the part being attacked by neo-Nazis where it is unsurprising that infrastructure is being destroyed.

    I was curious what happened to the Ukraine's infrastructure since the Soviet Union was dissolved so I asked some Ukrops what was up. Apparently Putin himself has been sneaking into the Ukraine at night and stealing the plumbing right out of people's houses. I kid thee not! Putin did it! Ukrops wouldn't lie about that, would they?

    If you think what Putin is doing to America is bad, then just be thankful you are not in Ukropistan! Over there Putin causes people to stub their toes on the furniture when they get out of bed to take a leak at night. He tricks people into not bringing their umbrellas on days that it rains. He even causes babies to foul their diapers right after they were changed. Putin's evil knows no bounds!

    [Feb 22, 2020] Show Trial Ends Roger Stone Sentenced to 40 months in Prison

    Feb 22, 2020 | ronpaulinstitute.org


    Today, the long-time friend and Trump campaign consultant Roger Stone was sentenced to 40 months in a federal prison for multiple charges relating to his Congressional testimony and Robert Mueller's Russia probe.

    US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson issued Stone's sentence after his lawyers had first requested that he receive no prison time.

    After the sentence was handed down, Stone refrained from making a personal statement to the court.

    Normally, one might refrain from criticizing a judge too harshly, but this was no ordinary closing remarks performance, as Judge Jackson seemed to go on forever, attempting to address all of her critics, and seemed compelled to want to justify the premise of the legal proceedings.

    After reviewing her statements, to say (and I don't say this lightly) that she had personal axe to grind is an understatement, and her extended diatribe appears to point to an obvious political agenda.

    Judge Jackson wasn't shy about showing her bias either, remaining in lockstep with the original RussiaGate narrative – even though it's been proven to be hoax after a 3 year-long Mueller Investigation produced no evidence of alleged 'Trump-Russia Collusion.' She clearly attempted to do this here:

    "He was not prosecuted for standing up for the president," said Judge Jackson during her closing remarks. "He was prosecuted for covering up for the president."

    Only the President did nothing which required covering for.

    As that wasn't enough, the judge went on during her hours-long sentencing hearing to claim that what Roger Stone did was somehow "a threat to our democracy".

    We're still trying to work out exactly what she is talking about there, or how the 67 year-old Stone became so powerful as to bring down democracy in the United States. I mean, he has certain skills, but take down the United States of America? Here Jackson is dog whistling to the RussiaGate consensus – when in fact there was no collusion between Stone, Trump, WikiLeaks and Russia – nor did Stone have any 'back channel' to WikiLeaks. Any rational, objective professional might look at that and conclude that there was no underlying conspiracy which this entire Russia Investigation effort was supposed to uncover.

    The truth is, Stone's entire case was erected to help maintain the RussiaGate narrative, but to help towards delegitimizing Trump's historic 2016 upset victory. Validating the hoax also helps to fortify a hawkish US foreign policy against Russia, and all the political, geopolitical and military industrial spoils that go with it.

    In response to public comments made by Trump about the trial being a farce, Judge Jackson felt compelled to defend her political show trial, exclaiming that, "There was nothing unfair, phony or disgraceful about the investigation or the prosecution."

    If only it ended there. She kept going, insisting that the Stone case was 'serious' and not a joke, which Trump had publicly intimated. "The problem is nothing about this case was a joke," said Jackson just prior to sentencing Stone. "It wasn't funny. It wasn't a stunt and it wasn't a prank," said Jackson.

    That old Hamlet adage comes to mind, The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

    Due to the President's insistence on weighing-in with such vigour, it seems likely that Stone will eventually be pardoned by Trump, but it's not certain when. Some have speculated that the White House would be better served to wait until after the General Election, but then again, Trump tends to defy the experts on conventional logic.

    As I wrote in a feature published this morning at RT International , Roger Stone was simply the last available scalp for the Mueller brigade in order to lend credence to the underlying RussiaGate narrative upon which Stone's criminal case is built on top of. His criminality was assumed under the guise 'Trump-Russia Collusion' which is predicated on the as yet evidence-free official conspiracy theory that Russian GRU operatives hacked the DNC and Podesta and then gave those emails to Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. I explained how the underlying assumptions are fallacies and why the underlying assumptions in this case never did raise to the standard of criminality, while all of the little process crimes and reprimand which came during the legal circus was what this judge was compiling to build up Stone's charge sheet.

    In the end, all of this is just more grist to the mill. But for how much longer? The level of panic and desperation surrounding this case, as well as the politicized behavior of the judge and prosecutors – really demonstrated how deeply infected the federal judiciary with partisan propaganda and conspiracy theories of Russian interference which were debunked long ago.

    Any reasonable, objective judge or jury would look at this picture and deduce that there were definitely a lot of things going on here (like things that happen during elections, leaks and campaign bluster), but not a crime. For the prosecution, of the supposed 'crimes' came long after 2016, as part of the process of trying to prove there was Trump-Russia Collusion, which there wasn't.

    So one should consider Roger Stone as collateral damage in what is perhaps the greatest political hoax in American history.

    As @JonathanTurley noted in 2018, "Even if Stone received early word of the WikiLeaks release, it would not necessarily be a crime for Trump, his campaign, or Stone himself."

    That and fact his case assumed #Mueller would get something substantiative. It never did. #RogerStone

    -- Patrick Henningsen (@21WIRE) February 20, 2020
    Of course, very few will step forward and stand-up for a character like Roger Stone, and why would they? He's a flamboyant political operative who cut his teeth working under Richard Nixon of all people. He's guy everyone loves to hate, so the support is sparse.

    But let's not forget that back when this all began – it was Stone who told Congress that there was never any Russian involvement. Of course, Stone was right, and the evidence is on his side. Official Washington on the other hand, was wrong. Yet, here we are three years later, still re-litigating an election which happened four years ago.

    When will American exercise its 2016 collective trauma and return to some semblance of sanity?

    Reprinted with permission from 21st Century Wire .

    [Feb 21, 2020] Why Both Republicans And Democrats Want Russia To Become The Enemy Of Choice by Philip Giraldi

    Highly recommended!
    Notable quotes:
    "... Schiff insisted that Trump must be removed now to "assure the integrity" of the 2020 election. He elaborated somewhat ambiguously that "The president's misconduct cannot be decided at the ballot box, for we cannot be assured that the vote will be fairly won." Schiff also unleashed one of the most time honored but completely lame excuses for going to war, claiming that military assistance to Ukraine that had been delayed by Trump was essential for U.S. national security. He said "As one witness put it during our impeachment inquiry, the United States aids Ukraine and her people so that we can fight Russia over there, and we don't have to fight Russia here." ..."
    "... Schiff, a lawyer who has never had to put his life on the line for anything and whose son sports a MOSSAD t-shirt, is one of those sunshine soldiers who finds it quite acceptable if someone else does the dying. Journalist Max Blumenthal observed that "Liberals used to mock Bush supporters when they used this jingoistic line during the war on Iraq. Now they deploy it to justify an imperialist proxy war against a nuclear power." Aaron Mate at The Nation added that "For all the talk about Russia undermining faith in U.S. elections, how about Russiagaters like Schiff fear-mongering w/ hysterics like this? Let's assume Ukraine did what Trump wanted: announce a probe of Burisma. Would that delegitimize a 2020 U.S. election? This is a joke." ..."
    "... On Wednesday, Schiff maintained that "Russia is not a threat to Eastern Europe alone. Ukraine has become the de facto proving ground for just the types of hybrid warfare that the twenty-first century will become defined by: cyberattacks, disinformation campaigns, efforts to undermine the legitimacy of state institutions, whether that is voting systems or financial markets. The Kremlin showed boldly in 2016 that with the malign skills it honed in Ukraine, they would not stay in Ukraine. Instead, Russia employed them here to attack our institutions, and they will do so again." Not surprisingly, if one substitutes the "United States" for "Russia" and "Kremlin" and changes "Ukraine" to Iran or Venezuela, the Schiff comment actually becomes much more credible. ..."
    "... Donald Trump's erratic rule has certainly dismayed many of his former supporters, but the Democratic Party is offering nothing but another helping of George W. Bush/Barack Obama establishment war against the world. We Americans have had enough of that for the past nineteen years. Trump may indeed deserve to be removed based on his actions, but the argument that it is essential to do so because of Russia lurking is complete nonsense. Pretty scary that the apparent chief promoter of that point of view is someone who actually has power in the government, one Adam Schiff, head of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee. ..."
    "... It is scary, but what else can Schiff say? They have no credible arguments against Trump, or for their own party. They are a bunch of lying scumbags that will kill, cheat, steal, mislead, carpet-bag and anything else unethical to achieve their sleazy goals. ..."
    "... Since the US Sociopaths In Charge have totally Effed up the nation, and a significant portion of the world, they have to have SOMEBODY to blame. They certainly won't take the blame they deserve themselves. ..."
    "... What the ZOG wants the ZOG gets ..."
    "... It is appropriate to recall the words of Joseph Goebbels: "Give me the media, and I will make a herd of pigs from any nation," and pigs are easy to drive to the slaughterhouse. Only Russia can really resist such a situation in the world. Therefore, she is the enemy. ..."
    "... The Centrist Democrats and Republicans want to paint the old school God and Country Conservatives Equality and Justice for the USA (Nationalist) into being Russian ..."
    Feb 07, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
    Authored by Philip Giraldi via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    One of the more interesting aspects of the nauseating impeachment trial in the Senate was the repeated vilification of Russia and its President Vladimir Putin.

    To hate Russia has become dogma on both sides of the political aisle, in part because no politician has really wanted to confront the lesson of the 2016 election, which was that most Americans think that the federal government is basically incompetent and staffed by career politicians like Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell who should return back home and get real jobs .

    Worse still, it is useless, and much like the one trick pony the only thing it can do is steal money from the taxpayers and waste it on various types of self-gratification that only politicians can appreciate. That means that the United States is engaged is fighting multiple wars against make-believe enemies while the country's infrastructure rots and a host of officially certified grievance groups control the public space.

    It sure doesn't look like Kansas anymore.

    The fact that opinion polls in Europe suggest that many Europeans would rather have Vladimir Putin than their own hopelessly corrupt leaders is suggestive. One can buy a whole range of favorable t-shirts featuring Vladimir Putin on Ebay , also suggesting that most Americans find the official Russophobia narrative both mysterious and faintly amusing. They may not really be into the expressed desire of the huddled masses in D.C. to go to war to bring true U.S. style democracy to the un-enlightened.

    One also must wonder if the Democrats are reading the tea leaves correctly. If they think that a slogan like "Honest Joe Biden will keep us safe from Moscow" will be a winner in 2020 they might again be missing the bigger picture. Since the focus on Trump's decidedly erratic behavior will inevitably die down after the impeachment trial is completed, the Democrats will have to come up with something compelling if they really want to win the presidency and it sure won't be the largely fictionalized Russian threat.

    Nevertheless, someone should tell Congressman Adam Schiff, who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, to shut up as he is becoming an international embarrassment. His "closing arguments" speeches last week were respectively two-and-a-half hours and ninety minutes long and were inevitably praised by the mainstream media as "magisterial," "powerful," and "impressive." The Washington Post 's resident Zionist extremist Jennifer Rubin labeled it "a grand slam" while legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin called it "dazzling." Gail Collins of the New York Times dubbed it "a great job" and added that Schiff is now "a rock star." Daily Beast enthused that the remarks "will go down in history " and progressive activist Ryan Knight called it "a closing statement for the ages." Hollywood was also on board with actress Debra Messing tweeting "I am in tears. Thank you Chairman Schiff for fighting for our country."

    Actually, a better adjective would have been "scary" and not merely due to its elaboration of the alleged high crimes and misdemeanors committed by President Trump, much of which was undeniably true even if not necessarily impeachable. It was scary because it was a warmongers speech, full of allusions to Russia, to Moscow's "interference" in 2016, and to the ridiculous proposition that if Trump were to be defeated in 2020 he might not concede and Russia could even intervene militarily in the United States in support of its puppet.

    Schiff insisted that Trump must be removed now to "assure the integrity" of the 2020 election. He elaborated somewhat ambiguously that "The president's misconduct cannot be decided at the ballot box, for we cannot be assured that the vote will be fairly won." Schiff also unleashed one of the most time honored but completely lame excuses for going to war, claiming that military assistance to Ukraine that had been delayed by Trump was essential for U.S. national security. He said "As one witness put it during our impeachment inquiry, the United States aids Ukraine and her people so that we can fight Russia over there, and we don't have to fight Russia here."

    Schiff, a lawyer who has never had to put his life on the line for anything and whose son sports a MOSSAD t-shirt, is one of those sunshine soldiers who finds it quite acceptable if someone else does the dying. Journalist Max Blumenthal observed that "Liberals used to mock Bush supporters when they used this jingoistic line during the war on Iraq. Now they deploy it to justify an imperialist proxy war against a nuclear power." Aaron Mate at The Nation added that "For all the talk about Russia undermining faith in U.S. elections, how about Russiagaters like Schiff fear-mongering w/ hysterics like this? Let's assume Ukraine did what Trump wanted: announce a probe of Burisma. Would that delegitimize a 2020 U.S. election? This is a joke."

    Over at Antiwar Daniel Lazare explains how the Wednesday speech was "a fear-mongering, sword-rattling harangue that will not only raise tensions with Russia for no good reason, but sends a chilling message to [Democratic Party] dissidents at home that if they deviate from Russiagate orthodoxy by one iota, they'll be driven from the fold."

    The orthodoxy that Lazare was writing about includes the established Nancy Pelosi/Chuck Schumer narrative that Russia invaded "poor innocent Ukraine" in 2014, that it interfered in the 2016 election to defeat Hillary Clinton, and that it is currently trying to smear Joe Biden. One might add to that the growing consensus that Russia can and will interfere again in 2020 to help Trump. Absent from the narrative is the part how the U.S. intervened in Ukraine first to remove its government and the fact that there is something very unsavory about Joe Biden's son taking a high-paying sinecure board position from a notably corrupt Ukrainian oligarch while his father was Vice President and allegedly directing U.S. assistance to a Ukrainian anti-corruption effort.

    On Wednesday, Schiff maintained that "Russia is not a threat to Eastern Europe alone. Ukraine has become the de facto proving ground for just the types of hybrid warfare that the twenty-first century will become defined by: cyberattacks, disinformation campaigns, efforts to undermine the legitimacy of state institutions, whether that is voting systems or financial markets. The Kremlin showed boldly in 2016 that with the malign skills it honed in Ukraine, they would not stay in Ukraine. Instead, Russia employed them here to attack our institutions, and they will do so again." Not surprisingly, if one substitutes the "United States" for "Russia" and "Kremlin" and changes "Ukraine" to Iran or Venezuela, the Schiff comment actually becomes much more credible.

    The compulsion on the part of the Democrats to bring down Trump to avoid having to deal with their own failings has brought about a shift in their established foreign policy, placing the neocons and their friends back in charge. For Schiff, who has enthusiastically supported every failed American military effort since 9/11, today's Russia is the Soviet Union reborn, and don't you forget it pardner! Newsweek is meanwhile reporting that the U.S. military is reading the tea leaves and is gearing up to fight the Russians. Per Schiff, Trump must be stopped as he is part of a grand Russian conspiracy to overthrow everything the United States stands for. If the Kremlin is not stopped now, it's first major step, per Schiff, will be to "remake the map of Europe by dint of military force."

    Donald Trump's erratic rule has certainly dismayed many of his former supporters, but the Democratic Party is offering nothing but another helping of George W. Bush/Barack Obama establishment war against the world. We Americans have had enough of that for the past nineteen years. Trump may indeed deserve to be removed based on his actions, but the argument that it is essential to do so because of Russia lurking is complete nonsense. Pretty scary that the apparent chief promoter of that point of view is someone who actually has power in the government, one Adam Schiff, head of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee.


    Chain Man , 10 hours ago link

    If the USA doesn't have a bogey man to be afraid of, the USA might worry more and to insist on fixing the problems within the Nation.

    So many of our politicians are guilty of allowing un constitutional on going act like the removal of Due Process of law for some people and the on going bailout of Global Markets with the US Dollar. The Patriot act and FISA Courts should have been gone.

    J Frank Parnell , 11 hours ago link

    I never saw the problem with Russians. They practice the same religion as I do and are mostly the same color...

    Sid Finch , 10 hours ago link

    Agreed. He seems as about as close as a leader can get to genuinely liking his country and people. It seems the ones here only give a **** about carbon, Central and South Americans, and cutting off my kids genitalia.

    Archeofuturist , 11 hours ago link

    Well let see.... Who has a historical beef with Russia and controls both parties. I wonder?

    globalintelhub , 11 hours ago link

    It is scary, but what else can Schiff say? They have no credible arguments against Trump, or for their own party. They are a bunch of lying scumbags that will kill, cheat, steal, mislead, carpet-bag and anything else unethical to achieve their sleazy goals. When Trump wins in a landslide in 2020, they will claim it's because the Russians 'fixed' the election, and the Democratic party will break into pieces arguing about how they failed and what they did wrong. See www.splittingpennies.com

    Alice-the-dog , 11 hours ago link

    Since the US Sociopaths In Charge have totally Effed up the nation, and a significant portion of the world, they have to have SOMEBODY to blame. They certainly won't take the blame they deserve themselves.

    John Hansen , 10 hours ago link

    Don't leave out Israel, they aren't the American peoples friend either.

    motiveunclear , 13 hours ago link

    There used to be this thing we don't hear used much anymore called "diplomacy" and another useful thing in international politics called "tact".

    https://skulltripper.com/2020/01/18/statesmanship/

    44magnum , 12 hours ago link

    What the ZOG wants the ZOG gets

    toady , 13 hours ago link

    McCarthyism II. Will the US be able put down a second "red scare"? Tune in next week. Same bat time, same bat channel.

    sillycat , 13 hours ago link

    lots of words and no answer to the title question. Giraldi does not see the deep ideological problems: Russia is not trying to diversify into a PoC country, they do not worship gays and may be the only white people nation with sustaining birth rate. The US will go to war there is no way to let this continue.

    hispanicLoser , 13 hours ago link

    The level of Russia hate coming out of the dems is so much greater than that coming out of repubs that one can safely ignore this retarded article.

    Jeffersonian Liberal , 12 hours ago link

    True. But their hatred is pretended hatred. It is a form of projection.

    Dan The Man , 13 hours ago link

    Its our own fault.

    The smart ppl are doing a lousy job of informing the dumb ones about accepted policy like "America Always Needs An Enemy". Smart ones understand that, and see the bigger game because of it.

    We fight the dumb ones who believe Russian boogeyman crap, instead of helping them understand they are being misled on who the enemy really is. The dumb ones then fight back and further entrench that brainwashing.

    vasilievich , 13 hours ago link

    I'm trying to imagine the Russian Army marching down Pennsylvania Avenue. But first, across the Atlantic Ocean.

    ombon , 13 hours ago link

    It is appropriate to recall the words of Joseph Goebbels: "Give me the media, and I will make a herd of pigs from any nation," and pigs are easy to drive to the slaughterhouse. Only Russia can really resist such a situation in the world. Therefore, she is the enemy.

    Dan The Man , 13 hours ago link

    Coming Soon... Why the Gullibles Will Believe Anything

    south40_dreams , 14 hours ago link

    ....and the many thieves are gulping at the money spigot.....time to shut that sucker OFF

    whatisthat , 14 hours ago link

    I would observe there is evidence the corrupt establishment has done more damage to the US than any other country could ever imagine...

    Chain Man , 15 hours ago link

    The Centrist Democrats and Republicans want to paint the old school God and Country Conservatives Equality and Justice for the USA (Nationalist) into being Russian. How dare we expect enforcement of the Laws on the books against them. They want to be deemed Royalty with all the Elitist Rights.

    The old rally call about Russia was always Communist Russia but, they don't do that anymore? Why ? They love their Communist China wage slaves. The Centrist love Communist labor in the name of profits . Human rights be damned it's all about the Global Elitist to them now.

    [Feb 20, 2020] Zombie Senator McCarthy is now employed by NYT: NYT Secret Sources Claim Russia Backing Trump Re-Election

    They had learned nothing and forgotten nothing ~Taleyrand
    Feb 20, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    Clearly the only way Trump can win, right?

    It's Putin again, right?

    Moments after the Times report was published, CNN immediately picked it up for their dozens of viewers.

    And of course, the hot-takes:

    This story doesn't say how Russia is supposedly doing this https://t.co/6IiamPtSPI

    -- Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) February 20, 2020

    This story claims that it had five (5!) people criminally leaking alleged content from a classified briefing. And why not, since no one gets prosecuted for these crimes. Still, we have a serious problem with our supposedly professional "intelligence" and "oversight" communities. https://t.co/zuAdwXpU2L

    -- Mollie (@MZHemingway) February 20, 2020

    Until heads roll and hoaxers are sent to prison, the seditious Russian collusion hoaxers will never stop. They will lie and leak and fabricate evidence, whatever it takes, to prevent the American people from taking charge of their own government. https://t.co/wijJ07QKOO

    -- Sean Davis (@seanmdav) February 20, 2020

    [Feb 19, 2020] McCabe IS NOT "off the hook." The particular charge DoJ is not going to try him for is the least of his problems

    Feb 19, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    Flavius , 16 February 2020 at 10:10 AM

    BTW. McCabe IS NOT "off the hook." The particular charge DoJ is not going to try him for is the least of his problems."
    So true...and he knows it. You'll notice they haven't yet indicted the FBI lawyer who made a material misrepresentation on the Page FISC affidavit either. Comey, McCabe, Clapper, Brennan are being investigated for their roles in having blown up the Presidential electoral process in the United States. The DoJ is not about to make itself up front look petty, vindictive, and stupid by indicting McCabe for spitting on the sidewalk. The Democrats would love to take advantage of that opportunity.
    For those paying attention, this provides a welcome contrast to the way the political jihadists under Mueller conducted themselves - Flynn, Manafort, Stone, Papanobody. Ditto the Schiff impeachment debacle. Pure chickenshit made into red meat by an obliging institutional media.
    It's heartening to see some evidence of judgement has returned to the Department.
    Jack , 16 February 2020 at 12:12 PM
    Sir,

    The optics of the non-prosecution of McCabe is not looking good when the DOJ have prosecuted Stone and Flynn for the same thing. There's no doubt we have a 2-tier justice system with a very corrupt prosecutorial system and a judiciary in lock step with them. The FISA court exemplifies this.

    As far as the Orangeman is concerned he seems not much different than all the others. At the end of the day he hired Rosenstein, Wray, Sessions, Barr, Bolton, Kelly and Mattis. While he's got the prerogative to declassify he shirked each time and passed the buck. His shtick of being the representative of the Deplorables is just that. He only cares about his own skin.

    He's completely in thrall of the Saudi bonesaw and Bibi's maximalist visions.

    The bottom line in my opinion is we have a broken political, media and governmental system as the people the voters encourage to run it are as corrupt as in any tinpot banana republic.

    Personally I'd like to see Trump vs Bernie as it would implode the Democrats and show clearly how polarized the electorate really is and how venal the media have become. What will they do when they hate both candidates?

    [Feb 19, 2020] One bonfire that refuses to die and flamed up again today - Crowdstrike and the media's total refusal to even mention its name, which was the really critical part of the Ukrainian phone call. Not their phony quid pro quo.

    Feb 19, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    D , 16 February 2020 at 01:06 PM

    One bonfire that refuses to die and flamed up again today - Crowdstrike and the media's total refusal to even mention its name, which was the really critical part of the Ukrainian phone call. Not their phony quid pro quo.

    All Democrat candidates need to questioned about Crowdstrike, since it led to two failed major Democrat-led actions against President Trump - The Mueller investigation and the Democrat impeachment.

    Following article underscores what Larry Johnson has been reporting for years:

    https://thenationalsentinel.com/2020/02/15/crowdstrike-claim-that-russia-hacked-dnc-server-remains-at-center-of-2016-spygate-scandal-hoax/

    [Feb 17, 2020] https://www.zerohedge.com/political/coupgate-localized-civil-war-now-underway-doj

    Feb 17, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    'CoupGate' - A Localized Civil War Is Now Underway In The DoJ by Tyler Durden Mon, 02/17/2020 - 17:25 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print

    Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

    At Stake

    A miasma of consternation lay heavy across the Potomac swamp late last week when former FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe was let off the hook for lying to his own bureau while, elsewhere across DC, the distinguished Lt. General Flynn was still fighting for his life against exactly the same charge after three years of dilatory maneuvers by the DOJ to conceal their prosecutorial malfeasance in the case and then the sketchy Roger Stone matter entered a twilight zone of jiggery-pokery that appeared to climax in a staged ruse by his four prosecutors to lure the Attorney General, Mr. Barr, into a trap.

    You are forgiven for failing to follow all the twists and turns in this latest installment of what might now be called CoupGate , a summation of the seditious campaign to overthrow the president, which already has gone through so many gates -- SpyGate, RussiaGate, MuellerGate, UkraineGate, WhistleblowerGate -- that Mr. Trump looks like he's spent three years training for the giant slalom in the next winter Olympics. A localized Civil War is underway in the Department of Justice now. Mr. Barr is in the middle, getting it from both sides.

    The AG has apparently partitioned the DOJ into two separate realms: the now-identified corps of coupsters working desperately to keep their asses covered in an unraveling conspiracy, and Mr. Barr's group attempting to account fairly for all that has happened, while salvaging what's left of the outfit's institutional legitimacy. Too much documented evidence of crime is out there in the public domain to dismiss these activities as a "conspiracy theory." The trouble is, so many were involved from so many branches and agencies, that fully prosecuting every angle of it could bring down the permanent bureaucracy like the Jenga tower it has become.

    The decision to let Mr. McCabe skate on the lying rap infuriated those demanding accountability for government lawyers-gone-wild, since even the DOJ Inspector General, Mr. Horowitz, cited serial instances of his "lacking candor" in more than one report, and "Andy" seems to have been a pivot-man for the FBI in the early-and-middle phases of the coup -- along with his DOJ counterpart, former Deputy Attorney General Rod ("I'll wear a wire") Rosenstein.

    I have a theory about the McCabe case: The Attorney General has taken the rinky-dink "lying to the FBI" charge off the table. It has become a liability, virtually the emblem for government misconduct, and Mr. Barr is getting rid of it in these matters. It has already caused too much mischief, insulted Americans' sense of justice, and damaged the DOJ's standing. Note, Andrew McCabe has been let off only on this charge, stemming from only one particular IG referral; he may well yet be liable for more serious charges-to-come. From here on, there will be no more rinky-dink lying charges against any of those implicated in the coup, only the most serious charges, and only those that add up to a solid case.

    The coup has been so broad, deep, and thick that I predict cases will have to be brought under the RICO statutes in batches for different groups in separate agencies and branches of government.

    For instance, there is the Intel Mob , including former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intel (DNI) James Clapper, current Intel IG Michael Atkinson, so-called whistleblower ( he that cannot be named , E*** C**********) and International Man of Mystery Joseph Mifsud.

    There is gang from the State Department who helped engineer UkraineGate , including former Ambassador Marie Yovanovich, former Sec'y of State John Kerry, and others. There is that big herd of rogue lawyers in the DOJ and its stepchild, the FBI, the names widely disseminated by now, Comey, Strzok, Baker, Boente, Carlin, Clinesmith, et. al.

    There's Robert Mueller and his henchpersons, Andrew Weissmann, Jeannie Rhee, et. al.

    There's another a band of seditionists in Congress that includes Mark Warner of the Senate Intel Committee, the now notorious idiot Adam Schiff over in the House, and staffers who worked for both.

    There's a bunch in the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment that paid over a million dollars to Alternate International Man of Mystery (actually, CIA asset) Stefan Halper to run entrapment schemes against people working for Mr. Trump.

    There's a swarm from Barack Obama's White House, including Valarie Jarrett, Susan Rice, Samantha Powers, Alexandra Chalupa, former Vice-President Joe Biden and the former President himself.

    And finally, there is the 800-pound-gorilla over in the Democratic Party thicket, namely Hillary Clinton, and those connected to her and her charity fraud, the Clinton Foundation, which is the real and actual predicate for the whole sordid affair -- a list that includes Viktor Vekselberg of Russia's Skolkovo Project, $25-million donor Russian oligarch Victor Pinchuk, Russian aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska, and Dmitri Alperovich of CrowdStrike, (Russian collusion, anyone?) as well as rascally freelancers such as Christopher Steele, Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS, lawyer / Lobbyist Adam Waldman, and Hillary errand boys Sidney Blumenthal and Cody Shearer. The stories behind those names are all over the web, in case you want edify yourself.

    Now, perhaps, you can see the scope of this big hot mess, and deduce the degree of difficulty that William Barr faces in attempting to set it all straight. He has to carefully select those who will be charged and probably not bother with some of the bit players. The charges are going to have to be serious, and the cases must be strong. It is a gigantic job of work, and rather delicate business considering the explosive potential to a government whose credibility is already pretty shredded. Failure to attend to it may turn a mere bureaucratic civil war into a genuine citizen rebellion featuring some of the 300-million-odd firearms at large in the republic. I believe Mr. Barr is aware of what's at stake and will behave honorably.

    6 minutes ago

    POTUS Trump bears the blame, and we voters suffer the consequences of his not purging the Executive Branch of these back-stabbing ****-weasels.

    10 minutes ago

    What these intel scoundrels, politicians, permanent state bureaucrats and media operators have attempted is over 1000x worse than NIXON and Watergate. It makes watergate look actually like nothing. What Andy McCabe alone did was worse than watergate; what Comey did alone was 10x worse than watergate; what Clapper did alone was 2x worse than watergate; what Brennan did alone was 100x worse than watergate; what the operatives, lawers in the DOJ and FBI in aggregate did was 300x worse than watergate; the media is complicit in each scandal; and all of this is tied to Uranium One, the IMRAN AWAN scandal (in fact, all the "GATES" are to cover up the Imran Awan scandal alone)....because the imran awan scandal is tied to this massive ukranian and eastern bloc / eu laundering game of selling weapons abroad, laundering weapons thru ukrain to terrorists and despot / autocratic states that are not our allies....in exchange for...you guessed it, drugs, kids (to be sex or future agents), organs..., slaves to mine uranium in african countries. These people are unbelievably sick...when you pull the threads like George Webb has, then you realize how this scandal is ONE big crime business that has operated from within the US government for decades and it's a megascandal ...a crime syndicate and ithat's why it's 1000s of times worse than watergate.

    Also, obama alone got away with 30,000 watergates. He illegally surveilled americans AT LEAST that many times. Ergo it's the same crime only 30,000+ felonies. No he's NOT immune. No the president CAN NOT get away with crimes. Yes, the bastards tried to charge President Trump with impeachment for DOING HIS JOB. Meanwhile black god was able to get away with atrocities and absolute disrespect for the consittutional rights of our citizens. He won't get away with it either, because his crimes are ongoing.

    You'll see in the next few months, though possibly you'll have to wait until nov 5

    22 minutes ago

    If Barr is worried about the "Institutions," don't forget that the Russians dismantled the KGB after the fall of the Soviet Union and renamed it the Federal Counterintelligence Service or FSK. We should follow their lead. The IRS and Securities and Exchange Commission are similar. They are full of lib pukes who protect the rich and powerful and go after little people, primarily because it is easy and little people can't afford the cost to defend themselves.

    22 minutes ago (Edited)

    If I don't see thousands of top tier officials all across the country from all the gov agencies arrested and sentenced for decades each and some for death penalty, I will not believe that any change is coming. Also, as long as the same lying globalist psychos are allowed to live, thrive, prosper and continue to control the simple minds, there is no change to the system.

    38 minutes ago

    The author is dreaming ... the first batch up under RICO will tell the others the games is up and all hell would break out.

    Many batches of people --> infinite batches --> it is the whole government.

    The whole corrupt government is not running it is doubling down to implement tyranny.

    45 minutes ago

    The coup has been so broad, deep, and thick that I predict cases will have to be brought under the RICO statutes in batches for different groups in separate agencies and branches of government.

    Nice idea. RICO is fine where applicable, i.e. Clinton/Biden Bribery and Public Corruption.

    Not all criminal conspiracies are RICO violations. Sedition and Espionage are matters of National Security. As is Biden's selling of military secrets to China, and Clinton's sale of Uranium to Russia.

    When this author names the CIA, State Dept, Congress, DOJ, FBI, Pentagon, and the Obama White House, RICO isn't nearly enough for these criminal conspirators.

    We're talking about collusion with foreign intelligence services to rig our elections and overthrow the US government.

    The DOJ can't handle this. These are enemy combatants and require military tribunals. Death penalty for all.

    [Feb 16, 2020] Understanding the Ukraine Story by Joe Lauria

    Highly recommended!
    Notable quotes:
    "... Imagine if we substitute the U.S. for Russia and the country "invaded" was Canada, rather than Ukraine, the government overthrown was in Ottawa and not Kiev, and the provinces embroiled in a foreign-backed civil war have been Nova Scotia and New Brunswick rather the provinces of Eastern Ukraine? This report, written in 2016, may make it easier to understand what has been really going on in Ukraine. Clicking on the links is key to understanding the real story. ..."
    "... Washington Post ..."
    "... Versions of this article first appeared on ..."
    "... Consortium News ..."
    Feb 14, 2020 | consortiumnews.com

    The impeachment hearings and trial of Donald Trump were filled with talk of Russian aggression against Ukraine and threats to the United States. But what would it be like if we switched the roles of Russia and the U.S.?

    Imagine if we substitute the U.S. for Russia and the country "invaded" was Canada, rather than Ukraine, the government overthrown was in Ottawa and not Kiev, and the provinces embroiled in a foreign-backed civil war have been Nova Scotia and New Brunswick rather the provinces of Eastern Ukraine? This report, written in 2016, may make it easier to understand what has been really going on in Ukraine. Clicking on the links is key to understanding the real story.

    By Joe Lauria
    Special to Consortium News

    T he United States has "invaded" Canada to support the breakaway Maritime provinces that are resisting a Moscow-engineered violent coup d'etat against the democratically elected government in Ottawa.

    The U.S. move is to protect separatists in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia after Washington annexed Prince Edwards Island in a quickly arranged referendum .

    The Islanders voted over 90 percent in favor of joining the United States following the Russian-backed coup. Moscow has condemned the referendum as illega l.

    Hard-liners in the U.S. want Washington to annex all three Maritime provinces, whose fighters are defying the coup in Ottawa after Moscow installed an unelected prime minister.

    Russian-backed Canadian federal troops have launched so-called "anti-terrorist" operations in the breakaway region to crush the rebellion, shelling residential areas and killing hundreds of civilians.

    The violent coup.

    The Canadian army are joined by Russian-supported neofascist battalions that played a crucial role in the overthrow of the Canadian government. In Halifax, the extremists have burned alive at least 40 pro-U.S. civilians who had taken refugee in a trade union building.

    Proof that Russia was behind the overthrow of the elected Canadian prime minister is contained in a leaked conversation between Georgiy Yevgenevich Borisenko, foreign ministry chief of Moscow's North America department, and Alexander Darchiev, the Russian ambassador to Canada.

    According to a transcript of the leaked conversation, Borisenko discussed who the new Canadian leaders should be six weeks before the coup took place.

    Russia moved to launch the coup when Canada decided to take a loan package from the IMF that had fewer strings attached than a loan from Russia.

    Russia's Beijing ally was reluctant to back the coup. But this seemed of little concern to Borisenko who is heard on the tape saying, "Fuck China."

    Minister handing out cookies in the square.

    Weeks before the coup Borisenko was filmed visiting protestors who had camped out in Parliament Square in Ottawa demanding the ouster of the prime minister. Borisenko is seen giving out cakes to the demonstrators.

    The foreign ministers of Russian-allied Belarus and Cuba also marched with the protestors through the streets of Ottawa against the government. Russian media has portrayed the unconstitutional change of government an act of "democracy." Russian senators have met in public with extreme right-wing Canadian coup leaders, praising their rebellion.

    Borisenko said in a speech that Russia had spent $5 billion over the past decade to "bring democracy" to Canada.

    Senator meeting far-right coup leaders.

    The money was spent on training "civil society." The use of non-governmental organizations to overthrow foreign governments that stand in the way of Russia's economic and geo-strategic interests is well documented, especially in a 1991 Washington Post column, "Innocence Abroad: The New World of Spyless Coups ."

    The United States has thus moved to ban Russian NGOs from operating in the country.

    The coup took place as protestors violently clashed with police, breaking through barricades and killing a number of officers. Snipers fired on the police and the crowd from a nearby building in Parliament Square in which the Russian embassy had set up offices just a few floors above, according to Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N.

    Son Gets Job After Coup

    Russian lawmakers compared President Barack Obama to Adolph Hitler for allegedly sending U.S. troops into the breakaway provinces and for annexing Prince Edward Island in an act of "American aggression." The Maritimes have had long ties to the U.S. dating back to the American Revolution.

    Russia says it has intelligence proving that U.S. tanks have crossed the Maine border into New Brunswick, but have failed to make the evidence public. They have revealed no satellite imagery. Russian news media only reports American-backed rebels fighting in the Maritimes, not American troops.

    Washington denies it has invaded but says some American volunteers have entered the Canadian province to join the fight.

    Russia's puppet prime minister now in charge in Ottawa has only offered as proof six American passports of U.S. soldiers found in New Brunswick.

    Son gets job on energy company board after his father's government backs violent coup.

    The Maritime Canadian rebels have secured anti-aircraft weapons enabling them to shoot down a number of Royal Canadian Air Force transport planes.

    A Malaysian airlines passenger jet was also shot down over Nova Scotia killing all on board. Russia has accused President Obama of being behind the incident, charging that the U.S. provided the anti-aircraft weapon.

    Moscow has refused to release any intelligence to support its claim, other than statements by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

    Canada's economy is near collapse and is dependent on infusions of Russian aid. This comes despite a former Russian foreign ministry official being installed as Canada's finance minister, only receiving Canadian citizenship on her first day on the job.

    Despite installing a Russian to run Canada's economy, President Putin told the U.N. General Assembly that Russia had "few economic interests" in the country. But Russian agribusiness companies have already taken stakes in Albertan wheat fields. And Ilya Medvedev, son of Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev, as well as a Lavrov family friend joined the board of Canada's largest oil company just weeks after the coup.

    Russia's ultimate aim, beginning with the imposition of sanctions on the U.S., appears to be a color revolution in Washington to overthrow Obama and install a Russian-friendly American president.

    This is clear from numerous statements by Russian officials and academics. A former Russian national security advisor whom Putin consults on foreign policy said the United States should be broken into three countries.

    He has also written that Canada is the stepping stone to the United States and that if the U.S. loses Canada it will fail to control North America.

    Versions of this article first appeared on The Duran and Consortium News in 2016.

    Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former correspondent for T he Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe , Sunday Times of London and numerous other newspapers. He can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @unjoe .


    mary floyd , February 15, 2020 at 13:20

    The most important takeaway in this article for me was that the US should be broken into three separate entities!
    That would work well for most Americans. All in all, this is a great piece, Mr. Lauria!

    Dao Gen , February 15, 2020 at 02:28

    Joe, you are The Truth. The only thing you left out, no doubt for reasons of space and time, was the immortal statement made by a leading member of the Russian Duma, who said during a stirring and well-received speech that, “Canada is our crucial first line of defense against the US. If Canada weren’t there to stop the Americans, we’d have to fight them right here on our own doorstep.”

    Herman , February 14, 2020 at 18:52

    A very creative way of making the point. Still do not understand the depth of what often appears to be heart felt hate for Russia by very powerful and smart people. Remember reading a comment by Phil Girardi early in the Trump tour when he remarked at the depth of dislike of Russia within the spook community. He wrote he was surprised and had, I think, been part of that community.

    Eddie S , February 15, 2020 at 14:51

    RE: “…depth of dislike of Russia within the spook community”.
    While I have no ‘special knowledge’ of the so-called ‘intelligence community’, there’s a few reasons for this that come to-mind:
    — Job preservation. The most obvious. The US wouldn’t need ~80% of those spooks if there
    weren’t big scary Russians/Chinese/Iranians/N.Koreans constantly plotting against the
    peaceful, benevolent US.

    — Spooks believe in what is mainly a distractionary ploy by US oligarchs/plutocrats. These
    wealthy interests don’t want to lose some of their wealth to social reforms, so they constantly
    financially support scare-mongering, which some spooks unquestioningly accept.

    — The profession tends to attract some of the more paranoid elements in our society, so
    they’re inclined that way by nature/personality.

    robert e williamson jr , February 14, 2020 at 17:51

    Well one thing for sure we would not be seeing a female anchor on CNN bemoaning the fact the because of the coronavirus many popular kids toys might not be available here in the U.S. for the up coming holidays (?).

    Yes it did happen, hell I couldn’t make that up.

    DARYL , February 14, 2020 at 15:45

    …or better yet, substitute Central America for Ukraine, and Panama(canal) for Crimea, then you have the makings of an even more salient parallel.

    Realist , February 14, 2020 at 15:42

    The difference is that under your scenario the world would be a smoking heap of radioactive ashes already as the exceptional nation, unlike the ever cautious Russians, would have immediately made bombastic threats and then launched military attacks to protect its “security interests.” (Warring to “protect” security interests has replaced invasion and occupation to save souls.) Things would have escalated from there to its predestined thermonuclear climax, as they will in the real world if Uncle Sam doesn’t get a grip on his uncontrolled aggression, demanding whatever he wants whenever he wants it at the point of a gun. The world seems to be circling the drain whether or not Washington is allowed to micromanage the affairs of Russia, China, Iran and every last duchy, principality and people’s republic in addition to its own monumental mess it calls domestic affairs. We’ve only got two political parties in this madhouse and they are both equally bent on destroying civilisation if they can’t rule it all, which seems to be the only point they agree on. Each party thinks it preferable to allow an obscenely rich oligarch (what else should we call Trump or Bloomberg?) from the other side to rule rather than a “communist” like Bernie Sanders or a “naive peacenik” like Tulsi Gabbard to be elected president. If the space aliens land tomorrow and start recruiting colonists to populate newly terraformed planets in other solar systems, sign me up. Yeah, it’s become that absurd down here.

    JOHN CHUCKMAN , February 14, 2020 at 15:22

    Simply imperial rot and corruption of power on all sides.

    Neither Democrats nor Republicans have an exclusive on those qualities.

    Mark Thomason , February 14, 2020 at 12:37

    This is a useful approach. It needs added to it the language and culture element: as if the part that wants out of the Moscow coup shares our own language and culture, while the rest of Canada does not, and the rest of Canada had gone on a spree to suppress that language and culture. It is hard to find a parallel in Canada to those facts, but it is what happened in Ukraine.

    It is important to understanding to put oneself in the shoes of the other guys. It was once called walking a mile in the other guy’s moccasins, and given a Native wisdom attribution.

    David G Horsman , February 14, 2020 at 12:01

    I do this exercise mentally fairly often. This is the first time I saw it done in print. I would like to do an automated process.

    [Feb 16, 2020] John Brennan Under DOJ Scrutiny, As John Durham's Criminal Investigation Expands

    Notable quotes:
    "... However, DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz confirmed in his report that the dossier was used in the Obama administration's 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA). As stated in the IG report, there were discussions by top intelligence officials as to whether the Steele dossier should be included in the ICA report. ..."
    "... But upon careful inspection of Horowitz's report, on page 179, investigators ask former FBI Director James Comey if he discussed the dossier with Brennan and whether or not it should be given to President Obama. According to the report, Comey told investigators that Brennan said it was "important" enough to include in the ICA -- clearly part of the "corpus of intelligence information" they had. ..."
    "... "Mr. Durham appears to be pursuing a theory that the C.I.A., under its former director John O. Brennan, had a preconceived notion about Russia or was trying to get to a particular result -- and was nefariously trying to keep other agencies from seeing the full picture lest they interfere with that goal, the people said." ..."
    "... Brennan's assessment stated that Putin wanted to "undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate former Secretary of State [Hillary] Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency." It also stated that Putin "developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump." ..."
    "... Durham's investigation appear to have many tentacles. For example, he has expanded his probe to the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment. According to sources who spoke to SaraACarter.com he is carefully scrutinizing money paid through the office to former FBI confidential informant Cambridge academic Stefan Halper. Halper, who worked in previous U.S. administrations and is an academic, is connected to three of President Donald Trump's campaign officials that were wrapped up into the FBI's probe, most notably Carter Page. ..."
    "... Halper, along with others such as former MI6 Chief Sir Richard Dearlove, founded the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar, in England at Cambridge University. According to several sources, Durham has questioned officials at the Office of Net Assessment about Halper's contracts, how the money was utilized and what agency actually awarded the contract. ..."
    "... Durham's criminal investigation into the FBI , CIA, as well as private entities is ongoing. Known by its acronym ONA, the secretive office is run by Director James Baker, who has been in the role since being appointed by the Obama Administration in 2015. In a January letter to Baker, Grassley asks a litany of questions as to Halper's role within ONA, his contracts, his foreign contacts and whether the FBI, or CIA, used the ONA office to pay Halper for spying on Trump campaign personnel. ..."
    "... "Can ONA state for certain that Halper did not use taxpayer money provided by DoD to recruit, or attempt to recruit, sources for the FBI investigation into the now-debunked theory of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia," Grassley asks Baker. ..."
    "... Ironically, documents obtained by SaraACarter.com suggest that during Halper's tenure with the seminar, he had also invited senior Russian intelligence officials to co-teach his course on several occasions. Further, according to news reports, he also accepted money to finance the course from a top Russian oligarch with ties to Putin. ..."
    "... Several course syllabi from 2012 and 2015 obtained by this outlet reveal Hapler had invited and co-taught his course on intelligence with the former Director of Russian Intelligence Gen. I. Vyacheslav Trubnikov. ..."
    "... However, there is evidence that Halper had similar sources to former MI6 spy Christopher Steele, who compiled the dossier. Based on hand written notes from an interview the State Department's Kathleen Kavalec states two of Steele's dossier sources; "Trubnikov" and "Surkov." ..."
    Feb 16, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
    Authored by Sara Carter via SaraACarter.com,

    U.S. Attorney John Durham – charged with the criminal probe into the FBI's Russia investigation of the Trump campaign – has been questioning CIA officials closely involved with John Brennan's 2017 intelligence community assessment regarding direct Russian interference in the 2016 election, according to U.S. officials.

    In May 2017, Brennan denied during a hearing before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that its agency relied on the now debunked Christopher Steele dossier for the Intelligence Community Assessment report. He told then Congressman Trey Gowdy "we didn't" use the Steele dossier.

    "It wasn't part of the corpus of intelligence information that we had," Brennan stated.

    "It was not in any way used as a basis for the Intelligence Community assessment that was done. It was -- it was not."

    However, DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz confirmed in his report that the dossier was used in the Obama administration's 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA). As stated in the IG report, there were discussions by top intelligence officials as to whether the Steele dossier should be included in the ICA report.

    But upon careful inspection of Horowitz's report, on page 179, investigators ask former FBI Director James Comey if he discussed the dossier with Brennan and whether or not it should be given to President Obama. According to the report, Comey told investigators that Brennan said it was "important" enough to include in the ICA -- clearly part of the "corpus of intelligence information" they had.

    According to a recent report by The New York Times, Durham's probe is specifically looking at that January 2017 intelligence community assessment, which concluded with "high confidence" that Russian President Vladimir Putin "ordered an influence campaign in 2016."

    From the New York Times

    "Mr. Durham appears to be pursuing a theory that the C.I.A., under its former director John O. Brennan, had a preconceived notion about Russia or was trying to get to a particular result -- and was nefariously trying to keep other agencies from seeing the full picture lest they interfere with that goal, the people said."

    Sources with knowledge have said CIA officials questioned by Durham's investigative team "are extremely concerned with the investigation and the direction it's heading."

    Brennan's assessment stated that Putin wanted to "undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate former Secretary of State [Hillary] Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency." It also stated that Putin "developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump."

    But not everyone agreed with Brennan. The NSA then under retired Adm. Mike Rogers stated it only had "moderate confidence" that Putin tried to help Trump's election. As stated in the New York times Durham is investigating whether Brennan was keeping other intelligence agencies out of the loop to keep his narrative that Putin was helping Trump's campaign public.

    "I wouldn't call it a discrepancy, I'd call it an honest difference of opinion between three different organizations, and, in the end, I made that call," Rogers told the Senate in May 2017.

    "It didn't have the same level of sourcing and the same level of multiple sources."

    According to The Times Durham is reviewing emails from the CIA, FBI, and National Security Agency analysts who worked on the January, 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment on Russia's interference in the election.

    Durham's office could not be reached for comment. DOJ spokesperson Kerri Kupec also could not be reached for comment.

    However, Brennan told MSNBC's "Hardball" last week, that Durham's questioning is dangerous.

    "It's kind of silly," he said.

    "Is there a criminal investigation now on analytic judgments and the activities of C.I.A. in terms of trying to protect our national security? I'm certainly willing to talk to Mr. Durham or anybody else who has any questions about what we did during this period of 2016 ."

    Durham And FBI Spy Stefan Halper

    Durham's investigation appear to have many tentacles. For example, he has expanded his probe to the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment. According to sources who spoke to SaraACarter.com he is carefully scrutinizing money paid through the office to former FBI confidential informant Cambridge academic Stefan Halper. Halper, who worked in previous U.S. administrations and is an academic, is connected to three of President Donald Trump's campaign officials that were wrapped up into the FBI's probe, most notably Carter Page.

    Halper, along with others such as former MI6 Chief Sir Richard Dearlove, founded the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar, in England at Cambridge University. According to several sources, Durham has questioned officials at the Office of Net Assessment about Halper's contracts, how the money was utilized and what agency actually awarded the contract.

    Further, Sen. Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, is also investigating the over $1 million in contracts Halper received from the ONA, as first reported at SaraACarter.com. It is, of course, a separate investigation from Durham's but on the same issues.

    The Office Of Net Assessment, according to sources with knowledge, is sometimes used as a front to pay contractors, like Halper, who are conducting work for U.S. intelligence agencies. It is for this reason, that Durham is investigating the flow of money that Halper received and whether or not agencies other than the FBI were involved in the investigation into Trump's campaign and whether or not, the contracts were accurately accounted for in the reports received by Grassley.

    Durham's criminal investigation into the FBI , CIA, as well as private entities is ongoing. Known by its acronym ONA, the secretive office is run by Director James Baker, who has been in the role since being appointed by the Obama Administration in 2015. In a January letter to Baker, Grassley asks a litany of questions as to Halper's role within ONA, his contracts, his foreign contacts and whether the FBI, or CIA, used the ONA office to pay Halper for spying on Trump campaign personnel.

    "Can ONA state for certain that Halper did not use taxpayer money provided by DoD to recruit, or attempt to recruit, sources for the FBI investigation into the now-debunked theory of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia," Grassley asks Baker.

    But it is Halper's role overseas and concern that the CIA may have been involved that is leading to more questions than answers. In 2016, in what appeared to be an unexpected move, Halper left the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar. He told papers in London – at the time – that it was due to "unacceptable Russian influence."

    Ironically, documents obtained by SaraACarter.com suggest that during Halper's tenure with the seminar, he had also invited senior Russian intelligence officials to co-teach his course on several occasions. Further, according to news reports, he also accepted money to finance the course from a top Russian oligarch with ties to Putin.

    Several course syllabi from 2012 and 2015 obtained by this outlet reveal Hapler had invited and co-taught his course on intelligence with the former Director of Russian Intelligence Gen. I. Vyacheslav Trubnikov.

    Moreover, the New York Times recent report suggests that Durham's probe into Brennan is also looking closely at an alleged secret source said to have direct ties to the Kremlin. It is not certain if the same secret Kremlin source discussed by Brennan is the same source used by Halper in his reports.

    However, there is evidence that Halper had similar sources to former MI6 spy Christopher Steele, who compiled the dossier. Based on hand written notes from an interview the State Department's Kathleen Kavalec states two of Steele's dossier sources; "Trubnikov" and "Surkov."

    Interesting, isn't it.

    Surkov is Vladislav Surkov, an aide of Vladimir Putin who is on the U.S.'s list of sanctioned individuals, and Trubnikov is none other than Vyacheslav Trubnikov. Trubnikov was the First Deputy of Foreign Minister of Russia and he formally served as the Director of Foreign Intelligence Service. He is also a source of Halper.

    [Feb 15, 2020] How does one say Adam Schiff without laughing? by title="View user profile." href="https://caucus99percent.com/users/alligator-ed">Alligator Ed

    Highly recommended!
    Feb 15, 2020 | caucus99percent.com

    At the end of this essay, you may find a song which reasonably applies to Donald Trump directed to Democrats.

    How does one say Adam Schiff without laughing? It's hard to continue typing while contemplating the Burbank Buffoon. Yet AS is making obscene flatus-like noises about impeachment 2.0. He and Nervous Nancy will conspire with chief strategist Gerald Nadler about extending the charges of 1.0 to 2.0.

    Second verse
    Same as the first

    Obstructing leaking by firing leakers. That's one of the pending charges. Leutnant Oberst Vindman will be help up as the innocent victim of political retaliation. As I understand the military code of conduct, it says that the underling, Herr Oberst Vindman, went outside the chain of command and released classified information. In the military this is called insubordination, perhaps gross insubordination in view of the classified nature of the information.

    Another charge to be filed on behalf of former Ambassador Yovanovich, is that her God-given Female rights were brutally violated as retaliation of advising Ukrainian officials to disregard Commander Cheeto.

    There is no telling what additional non-crimes may be thrown at the feet at El Trumpo. All too horrible to contemplate--like someone throwing feces-contaminated dope needles onto Nervous Nancy's front lawn in Pacific Heights.

    If this Shampeachment 2.0 (S2) occurs before November's election, Democrats will become as rare as dodo birds. If such proponents of S2 persist after the general election, they better have secure transportation to an extradition-free country.

    If it gets bad enough, considering the Clinton Mafia's body count, would it be unreasonable to expect some untimely heart attacks and suicides with red scarves? On Clintonites? Soros et al.?

    When the first shot and you don't kill the king, flee. But the DNC is going to attempt shot number 2. Trump WILL NEVER ALLOW A SECOND IMPEACHMENT TO OCCUR, no matter how patently worthless? Will the most powerful narcissist in the world allow the DNC / coup perpetrators to escaping Trumpian retribution?

    Those doubting the Wrath of Q be prepared to be disabused of the impression that Q is pure fantasy. Fantasy--like GPS targeting a single small sniper drone to shoot someone from 3000 feet.

    Sorry folks. I live in a swamp. I've stepped in shit with my eyes open. Many of you have too. Some of the excrement was of my own making.

    Think about the singularly most effective and complex plot the world has ever seen, called 9/11. Think of the thousands of lives purposefully snuffed in then name of power and money. Call yourselves serfs--that's a euphemism. You--including me-- are nothing but ants. Goddam little ants that only Janes respect. There are no ascetic Janes in the penthouses of the elites.

    But I digressed to the mysterious existence of morality in politics as a whole. Today's topic is more confined to the Democratic nomination.

    Statement of Bias: Go Tulsi. Bravo Andy. The rest of you to the elsewhere--yeah, BS too.

    The Dems are determined to grasp Defeat from the jaws of Defeat. Quite a trick. Like trying to borrow money from the Judge during a Bankruptcy trial.

    I talked today with a freshman college student majoring in political science about her thought about the Shampeachment. She hadn't been paying attention. Not that I blame her. Her college freshman friend watched C-Span; wasn't impressed. We political aficionados know all about this political debauchery. If AS and NN attempt S2, expect many defections from the supporting vote.

    Democrat respect has dwindled in the Independent sector. This is not to say the Repugnants are thereby more popular. They aren't. Trump is. Trump need that NH clown to challenge him in the Repugnant primary to prove exactly how powerful he is. Anybody notice who were in the audience, sitting nearby during Trump's post acquittal speech. Rand Paul and Lindsey Graham. The lamb and the lion laying together. They are both on the Trump Train. Even Richard Burr voted Trump in the impeachment. Mittens feared both his cojones would be excised if he voted against Trump on both counts. What a chickenheart.

    But where are the Dems? Why, they are Here. Yes. Yes. And they are There. Yes. Yes. And they are Near. Yes. Yes. But....they are Far. Whither thou goest?

    I refrain from pointed comments about AOC in further comments. The Squad is the iceberg floating away from the glacier which spawned it. Unsuitable to warm weather produced by political combat, the Squad faction will woke themselves up to dubious futures.

    Establishment versus Bernie:

    Not a contest. Spineless Bernie pretzelizes during first heated combat (which the Dem Debate Debacles were not). Won't take a second punch--the first during night 3 of the '16 DNC convention. Fist-shy now. Open Borders? WTF? Are you so nuts? If one offered a person the choice personal safety in their own homes and streets and free medical care for all--including the criminal aliens that A New Path Forward proposes--what do you think 85% of the public would choose?

    Pandering.

    The Left is also pushing strenuous avoidance of discussing issues in a platitude-depleted fashion. Yeah, Bernie's giving the same speech, with suitable modification, over 40 years. Consistency is a good thing, yeh? How about persistently beating your head with a hammer (while you still can)? Sounds like something Sun Tzu might not recommend.

    Now, speaking of Las Vegas and the Nevada Primary. The culinary workers union will not endorse Bernie due to well-deserved or ill-deserved claims that M4A will abolish hard won union health benefits. And don't worry, the Shadow will be there, although Buttjiggle has now disavowed any further connection, along with David Plouffe.

    Keeping the Bern off the campaign trail is going to infuriate the Woke Generation / Antifa. When--not if--the DNC cheats Bernie out of the nomination, if such proves necessary* will literally result in blood on the streets along with broken windows and flaming tires. Associate with that lot, eh? Given the choice of going into a biker bar, where brawls are always on the menu, or a discreet wine bar, which would one rather choose? Sorry, those are your only choices.

    Nancy Pelosi, impressed by Arnold Schwarzenegger's former physical prowess, tears up her copy of the state of the union address. How decorous. How courteous. How polite. Seen around the world. Nigel Farage must be laughing his butt off, thinking about the shallow anti-Brexit campaigns against his were compared to our Coup. Nigel won. Trump . is. winning. Getting tired of winning yet?

    I could go on for pages more of Dem stupidity, but why bother? Stupidity surrounds us.

    Betting odds: DNC 1,999,999 to Bernie 1.

    Place your bets.

    For all the good it will do and I am sincere about this, I will vote Tulsi in the Dem primary.

    Here is the song Dems need to heed. This is Donald Trump telling' y'all I'M NOT YOUR MAN

    [Feb 14, 2020] More Lies on Iran The White House Just Can t Help Itself as New Facts Emerge by Philip Giraldi

    Notable quotes:
    "... It soon emerged that the Iranian was in fact in Baghdad to discuss with the Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi a plan that might lead to the de-escalation of the ongoing conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, a meeting that the White House apparently knew about may even have approved. If that is so, events as they unfolded suggest that the US government might have encouraged Soleimani to make his trip so he could be set up and killed. Donald Trump later dismissed the lack of any corroboration of the tale of "imminent threat" being peddled by Pompeo, stating that it didn't really matter as Soleimani was a terrorist who deserved to die. ..."
    "... It now appears that the original death of the American contractor that sparked the tit-for-tat conflict was not carried out by Kata'ib Hezbollah at all. An Iraqi Army investigative team has gathered convincing evidence that it was an attack staged by Islamic State. In fact, the Iraqi government has demonstrated that Kata'ib Hezbollah has had no presence in Kirkuk province, where the attack took place, since 2014. It is a heavily Sunni area where Shi'a are not welcome and is instead relatively hospitable to all-Sunni IS. It was, in fact, one of the original breeding grounds for what was to become ISIS. ..."
    Feb 14, 2020 | www.unz.com

    Admittedly the news cycle in the United States seldom runs longer than twenty-four hours, but that should not serve as an excuse when a major story that contradicts what the Trump Administration has been claiming appears and suddenly dies. The public that actually follows the news might recall a little more than one month ago the United States assassinated a senior Iranian official named Qassem Soleimani. Openly killing someone in the government of a country with which one is not at war is, to say the least, unusual, particularly when the crime is carried out in yet another country with which both the perpetrator and the victim have friendly relations. The justification provided by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, speaking for the administration, was that Soleimani was in Iraq planning an "imminent" mass killing of Americans, for which no additional evidence was provided at that time or since.

    It soon emerged that the Iranian was in fact in Baghdad to discuss with the Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi a plan that might lead to the de-escalation of the ongoing conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, a meeting that the White House apparently knew about may even have approved. If that is so, events as they unfolded suggest that the US government might have encouraged Soleimani to make his trip so he could be set up and killed. Donald Trump later dismissed the lack of any corroboration of the tale of "imminent threat" being peddled by Pompeo, stating that it didn't really matter as Soleimani was a terrorist who deserved to die.

    The incident that started the killing cycle that eventually included Soleimani consisted of a December 27th attack on a US base in Iraq in which four American soldiers and two Iraqis were wounded while one US contractor, an Iraqi-born translator, was killed. The United States immediately blamed Iran, claiming that it had been carried out by an Iranian supported Shi'ite militia called Kata'ib Hezbollah. It provided no evidence for that claim and retaliated by striking a Kata'ib base, killing 25 Iraqis who were in the field fighting the remnants of Islamic State (IS). The militiamen had been incorporated into the Iraqi Army and this disproportionate response led to riots outside the US Embassy in Baghdad, which were also blamed on Iran by the US There then followed the assassinations of Soleimani and nine senior Iraqi militia officers. Iran retaliated when it fired missiles at American forces , injuring more than one hundred soldiers, and then mistakenly shot down a passenger jet , killing an additional 176 people. As a consequence due to the killing by the US of 34 Iraqis in the two incidents, the Iraqi Parliament also voted to expel all American troops.

    It now appears that the original death of the American contractor that sparked the tit-for-tat conflict was not carried out by Kata'ib Hezbollah at all. An Iraqi Army investigative team has gathered convincing evidence that it was an attack staged by Islamic State. In fact, the Iraqi government has demonstrated that Kata'ib Hezbollah has had no presence in Kirkuk province, where the attack took place, since 2014. It is a heavily Sunni area where Shi'a are not welcome and is instead relatively hospitable to all-Sunni IS. It was, in fact, one of the original breeding grounds for what was to become ISIS.

    This new development was reported in the New York Times in an article that was headlined "Was US Wrong About Attack That Nearly Started a War With Iran? Iraqi military and intelligence officials have raised doubts about who fired the rockets that started a dangerous spiral of events." In spite of the sensational nature of the report it generally was ignored in television news and in other mainstream media outlets, letting the Trump administration get away with yet another big lie, one that could easily have led to a war with Iran.

    Iraqi investigators found and identified the abandoned white Kia pickup with an improvised Katyusha rocket launcher in the vehicle's bed that was used to stage the attack. It was discovered down a desert road within range of the K-1 joint Iraqi-American base that was hit by at least ten missiles in December, most of which struck the American area.

    There is no direct evidence tying the attack to any particular party and the improvised KIA truck is used by all sides in the regional fighting, but the Iraqi officials point to the undisputed fact that it was the Islamic State that had carried out three separate attacks near the base over the 10 days preceding December 27th. And there are reports that IS has been increasingly active in Kirkuk Province during the past year, carrying out near daily attacks with improvised roadside bombs and ambushes using small arms. There had, in fact, been reports from Iraqi intelligence that were shared with the American command warning that there might be an IS attack on K-1 itself, which is an Iraqi air base in that is shared with US forces.

    The intelligence on the attack has been shared with American investigators, who have also examined the pick-up truck. The Times reports that the US command in Iraq continue to insist that the attack was carried out by Kata'ib based on information, including claimed communications intercepts, that it refuses to make public. The US forces may not have shared the intelligence they have with the Iraqis due to concerns that it would be leaked to Iran, but senior Iraqi military officers are nevertheless perplexed by the reticence to confide in an ally.

    If the Iraqi investigation of the facts around the December attack on K-1 is reliable, the Donald Trump administration's reckless actions in Iraq in late December and early January cannot be justified. Worse still, it would appear that the White House was looking for an excuse to attack and kill a senior Iranian official to send some kind of message, a provocation that could easily have resulted in a war that would benefit no one. To be sure, the Trump administration has lied about developments in the Middle East so many times that it can no longer be trusted. Unfortunately, demanding any accountability from the Trump team would require a Congress that is willing to shoulder its responsibility for truth in government backed up by a media that is willing to take on an administration that regularly punishes anyone or any entity that dares to challenge it

    That is the unfortunate reality in America today.



    AnonStarter , says: Show Comment February 14, 2020 at 12:25 am GMT

    Well, the 9/11 Commission lied about Israeli involvement, Israeli neocons lied America into Iraq, and Netanyahu lied about Iranian nukes, so this latest news is just par for the course.
    KA , says: Show Comment February 14, 2020 at 12:59 am GMT
    @04398436986 lets stay focused.

    Pompeo had evidence of immediate catastrophic attack. That turned out to be a lie and plain BS.
    Why should we believe Pompeo or White House or intelligence about the situation developing around 27-29 Dec ? Is it because it's USA who is saying so?

    anonymous [307] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment February 14, 2020 at 1:12 am GMT
    [it would appear that the White House was looking for an excuse to attack and kill a senior Iranian official to send some kind of message, a provocation that could easily have resulted in a war that would benefit no one.]

    The Jewish mafia stooge and fifth column, Trump, is a war criminal and an ASSASSIN.

    ... ... ...

    melpol , says: Show Comment February 14, 2020 at 1:13 am GMT
    War with Iran is off the table. Carpet bombing Iran would lead to the destruction of Israel and its nuclear facility...
    Sean , says: Show Comment February 14, 2020 at 2:23 am GMT

    Worse still, it would appear that the White House was looking for an excuse to attack and kill a senior Iranian official to send some kind of message, a provocation that could easily have resulted in a war that would benefit no one.

    Soleimani was a soldier involved in covert operations, Iran's most celebrated hero, and had been featured in the Iraq media as the target of multiple Western assassination attempts. He did not have diplomatic status.

    As it happens Iran did not declare war on America and America did not declare war on Iran. If Americans soldiers killed in Iraq should not have been there in the first place, then the same goes for an Iranian soldier killed there too.

    KA , says: Show Comment February 14, 2020 at 2:30 am GMT
    @04398436986 There is western assertion and western assertion only that Iran influences Iraqi administration and intelligence . It can be a projection from a failing America . It can be also a valid possibility .

    But lying is America's alter ego . It comes easily and as default explanation even when admitting truth would do a better job .

    Now let's focus on ISIS 's claims . Why is Ametica not taking it ( claim of ISIS) as truth and fact when USA has for last 19 years has jailed , bombed, attacked mentally retarded , caves and countries because somebody has pledged allegiance to Al Quida or to ISIS!!!

    It seems neither truth nor lies , but what suits a particular psychopath at a particular time – that becomes USA's report ( kind of unassigned sex – neither truth nor lies – take your pick and find the toilet to flush it down memory hole) – so Pompeo lies to nation hoping no one in administration will ask . When administrative staff gets interested to know the truth , Pompeo tells them to suck it up , move on and get ready to explain the next batch of reality manufactured by a regime and well trained by philosopher Karl Rove

    AnonStarter , says: Show Comment February 14, 2020 at 4:06 am GMT
    @04398436986 conspiracy mongers

    To what "conspiracy" are you referring? It's a well established fact that your ilk was, at the very least, aware that the 9/11 attacks would occur and celebrated them in broad daylight. No conspiracy theory needed. Mossad ordnance experts were living practically next door to the hijackers. Well established fact.

    It's also undeniable that the 9/11 Commission airbrushed Israeli involvement from their report. No conspiracy theory there, either.

    Same goes for Israeli neocons and their media mandarins using "faulty intel" to get their war in Iraq. "Clean Break"? "Rebuilding America's Defenses"? Openly written and published. Judith Miller's lies? Also no conspiracy.

    And Israel's own intelligence directors were undermining Netanyahu's lies on Iran. Not a conspiracy in sight.

    contemplating the outcome of normal everyday competition, influenced by good & bad luck, is just too much truth for some psychological makeups

    That's one of the lamest attempts at deflection I've seen thus far, and I've seen quite a few here.

    Those who deny the official version of 9/11 are in the majority now:

    https://www.livescience.com/56479-americans-believe-conspiracy-theories.html

    We've reached critical mass. Clearly, that's just too much truth for your psychological makeup. Were we really that worthy of ignoring, your people wouldn't be working 24/7/365 to peddle your malarkey in fora of this variety.

    JUSA , says: Show Comment February 14, 2020 at 5:23 am GMT
    I have thought that Trump's true impeachable crime was the illegal assassination of a foreign general who was not in combat. Pence should also be impeached for the botched coup in Venezuela. That was true embarrassment bringing that "El Presidente" that no one recognizes to the SOTU.

    USA is basically JU-S-A now, Jews own and run this country from top to bottom, side to side, and because of it, pretty much run the world. China-Russia-Iran form their new "Axis of Evil" to be brought in line. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if the Covid-19 is a bioweapon, except not one created by China. Israel has been working on an ethnic based bioweapon for years. US sent 172 military "athletes" to the Military World Games in Wuhan in October, 2019, two weeks before the first case of coronavirus appeared. Almost too coincidental.

    animalogic , says: Show Comment February 14, 2020 at 6:20 am GMT
    @Sean He wasn't there as a soldier -- he was there in a diplomatic role. (regardless of his official "status"). It also appears he was lured there with intent to assaninate.
    Your last para is not only terrible logic but ignores the point of the article. Iran likely was not responsible for the US deaths. Even had it been responsible it would still not legitimate such a baldly criminal action.
    Sean , says: Show Comment February 14, 2020 at 6:29 am GMT
    @JUSA

    [I]illegal assassination of a foreign general who was not in combat

    Lawful combat according to the Geneva Convention in which war is openly declared and fought between two countries each of which have regular uniformed forces that do all the actual fighting is an extremely rare thing. It is all proxy forces, deniability and asymmetric warfare in which one side (the stronger) is attacked by phantom combatants.

    The Israeli PM publically alluded to the fact that Soleimani had almost been killed in the Mossad operation to kill Imad Mughniyeh a decade ago. The Iranian public knew that Soleimani had narrowly escaped death from Israeli drones, because Soleimani appeared on Iranian TV in October and told the story. A plot kill him by at a memorial service in Iran was supposedly foiled. He came from Lebanon by way of Syria into Iraq as if none of this had happened. Trump had sacked Bolton and failed to react to the drone attack on Saudi oil.

    Iran seems to have thought that refusal to actually fight in the type of war that the international conventions were designed to regulate is a licence to exert pressure by launch attacks without being targeted oneself. Now do they understand.

    Ace , says: Show Comment February 14, 2020 at 8:41 am GMT
    @Sean American troops invaded Iraq under false pretenses, killed thousands, and caused great destruction. Chaos and vengeful Sunnis spilled over into Syria where the US proceeded to grovel before the terrorists we fret about. Soleimani was effective in organizing resistance in Iraq and Syria and was in both countries with the blessing of their governments.

    How you get Soleimani shouldn't be there out of that I have no idea.

    Zen , says: Show Comment February 14, 2020 at 12:04 pm GMT
    @04398436986 Yet you ignore that the Neocons have lied about virtually every cause if war ever. Lied about Iraq, North Korea and Iran nuclear info actions, about chem weapons in Syria, lied about Kosovo, lied about Libya, lied about Benghazi, lied about Venezuela. So Whom I gonna believe, no government, but a Neocon led one least of all
    Vojkan , says: Show Comment February 14, 2020 at 1:05 pm GMT
    @Sean American soldiers went there uninvited. Soleimani went there because he was invited. That makes a hell of a difference.
    Robjil , says: Show Comment February 14, 2020 at 1:05 pm GMT
    It is common knowledge that ISIS is a US/Israeli creation. ISIS is the Israeli Secret Intelligence Service. Thus, the US/Israel staged the attack on the US base on 12.27.2019.

    https://www.globalresearch.ca/isis-is-a-us-israeli-creation-top-ten-indications/5518627

    ISIS is a US-Israeli Creation: Indication #2: ISIS Never Attacks Israel

    It is more than highly strange and suspicious that ISIS never attacks Israel – it is another indication that ISIS is controlled by Israel. If ISIS were a genuine and independent uprising that was not covertly orchestrated by the US and Israel, why would they not try to attack the Zionist regime, which has attacked almost of all of its Muslim neighbors ever since its inception in 1948? Israel has attacked Egypt, Syria and Lebanon, and of course has decimated Palestine. It has systemically tried to divide and conquer its Arab neighbors. It continually complains of Islamic terrorism. Yet, when ISIS comes on the scene as the bloody and barbaric king of Islamic terrorism, it finds no fault with Israel and sees no reason to target a regime which has perpetrated massive injustice against Muslims? This stretches credibility to a snapping point.

    ISIS and Israel don't attack each other – they help each other. Israel was treating ISIS soldiers and other anti-Assad rebels in its hospitals! Mortal enemies or best of friends?

    Coward Corps , says: Show Comment February 14, 2020 at 1:07 pm GMT
    The MQ-9 pilot and sensor operator will be looking over their shoulders for a long time. They're as famous as Soleimani. Their command chain is well known too, hide though they might far away.

    And who briefed the president that terror Tuesday? The murder program isn't Air Force.

    Eek , says: Show Comment February 14, 2020 at 1:25 pm GMT
    Hey now, you learn to put the best gloss on things when your troops are pathetic little timmies scared of rocks and 12-year olds. Bunch of pussies.

    https://southfront.org/dumbfucks-russian-troops-react-to-us-forces-using-firearms-against-syrian-villagers/

    The IRGC is going to make mincemeat of these chumps.

    Moi , says: Show Comment February 14, 2020 at 1:36 pm GMT
    @anonymous The kind of crap Trump pulled in the assassination of Soleimani is what he should be impeached about–not the piss-ant stuff about Hunter Biden's job in the Ukaranian gas company and his pappy's role in it.
    Sick of Orcs , says: Show Comment February 14, 2020 at 1:49 pm GMT
    We're really benefitting, carrying water for (((our greatest ally.)))
    Really No Shit , says: Show Comment February 14, 2020 at 1:59 pm GMT
    Iraq an ally of the United States! Is it some kind of a joke? How can a master and slave be equal? We, the big dog want their oil and the tail that wags us, Israel, want all Muslims pacified and the Congress, which is us wether we like or not, compliant out of financial fears. Unless we curb our own greedy appetite for fossil fuels and at the same time tell an ally, which Israel is by being equal in a sense that it can get away with murder and not a pip is raised, to limit its ambition, nothing is going to be done to improve the situation. Until then it's an exercise in futility, at best!
    anonymous [307] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment February 14, 2020 at 2:46 pm GMT
    @Ozymandias You are so ignorant.

    Iran has NO choice but to defend itself from the savages. It has not been Iran that invaded US, but US with a plan that design years before 9/11 invaded many countries. Remember: seven countries in five years. Soleimani was a wise man working towards peace by creating options for Iran to defend itself. Iran is not the aggressor, but US -Israel-UK are the aggressor for centuries now. Is this so difficult to understand. 9/11 was staged by US/Israel killing 3000 Christians to implement their criminal plan.

    Soleimani, was on a peace mission, where was assassinated by Trump, an Israeli firster and a fifth column and the baby killer Netanyahu. Is this difficult to understand by the Trump worshiper, a traitor.

    Now, Khamenie is saying the same thing: "Iran should be strong in military warfare and sciences to prevent war and maintain PEACE.

    Only ignorant, arrogant, and racists don't understand this fact and refuse to understand how the victims have been pushed to defend themselves.

    The Assassin at the black house should receive the same fate in order to bring the peace.

    anonymous [307] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment February 14, 2020 at 2:48 pm GMT
    @Moi I totally agree with you. Both parties are a fifth column and criminals.
    Fiendly Neighbourhood Terrorist , says: Website Show Comment February 14, 2020 at 2:57 pm GMT
    When does Amerikastan *not* lie about anything? If an Amerikastani tells you the sun rises in the east, you're probably on Venus, where it rises in the west.
    DaveE , says: Show Comment February 14, 2020 at 3:05 pm GMT
    I think this article is getting close to the truth, that this whole operation was and is an ISIS (meaning Israeli Secret Intelligence Service) affair designed to pit America against the zionists' most formidable enemy thus far, Iran.

    I'm of the opinion that Trump did not order the hit on Soleimani, but was forced to take credit for it, if he didn't want to forfeit any chance of being reelected this year. The same ISIS (Israeli) forces that did the hit also orchestrated the "retaliation" that Mr. Giraldi so heroically documents in this piece.

    As usual, this is looking more and more like a zionist /jewish false flag attack on the Muslim world, with the real dirty-work to be done by the American military.

    Ahoy , says: Show Comment February 14, 2020 at 3:17 pm GMT
    The dealer in the M.E. poker game is Putin. This is what drives the very elite crazy. How could this have happened? We had conquered Russia in 1917.

    Well, you must have made a small mistake along the way. Trumpstein can't save you. Soon the dollar won't have any value. There is nothing behind it.

    The new policeman in the M.E. will be Iran. The legacy of Lawrence of Arabia has died long time ago.

    Greg Bacon , says: Website Show Comment February 14, 2020 at 3:33 pm GMT

    It soon emerged that the Iranian was in fact in Baghdad to discuss with the Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi a plan that might lead to the de-escalation of the ongoing conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, a meeting that the White House apparently knew about may even have approved.

    It's now obvious that the slumlord son-in-law Jared Kushner is really running the USA's ME policy.
    Kushner is not only a dear friend of at-large war criminal Bibi Nuttyahoo, he also belongs to the Judaic religious cult of Chabad Lubavitcher, whom make the war-loving Christian Evangelicals almost look sane. Chabad also prays for some kind of Armageddon to bring forth their Messiah, just like the Evangelicals.

    One can tell by Kushner's nasty comments he makes about Arabs/Persians and Palestinians in particular, that he loathes and despises those people and has an idiotic ear to cry into in the malignant form of Zion Don, AKA President Trump.

    It's been said that Kushner is also a Mossad agent or asset, which is a good guess, since that agency has been placing their agents into the WH since at least the days of Clinton, who had Rahm Emmanuel to whisper hate into his ear.

    That the Iranian General Soleimani was lured into Iraq so the WH could murder the man probably most responsible for halting the terrorist activities of the heart-eating, head-chopping US/Israel/KSA creation ISIS brings to mind the motto of the Israeli version of the CIA, the Mossad.

    "By way of deception thou shalt make war."

    Between Trump's incompetence, his vanity–and yes, his stupidity– and his appointing Swamp creatures into his cabinet and allowing Jared to run the ME show, Trump is showing himself to be a worse choice than Hillary.
    If that maniac gets another 4 years, humanity is doomed. Or at least the USA for sure will perish.

    [Feb 14, 2020] Michael Flynn's lawyer reacts to outside prosecutor reviewing case

    Feb 14, 2020 | www.youtube.com

    Feb 14, 2020

    Sidney Powell, attorney for Gen. Michael Flynn, speaks out on 'Hannity.'


    mw3516405 , 4 minutes ago

    General Flynne was set up ! Everybody knows that !

    Underdog , 6 minutes ago

    Why is McCabe walking then? Is McCabe talking to prosecutors to witness for Flynn to help clear his name?

    Shyanne Vollin , 4 minutes ago

    When Flynn is cleared, can Flynn sue the government in order to recoup his losses? This makes me so mad for him.

    [Feb 14, 2020] Between Trump's incompetence, his vanity and yes, his stupidity and his appointing Swamp creatures into his cabinet and allowing Jared to run the ME show, Trump is showing himself to be a worse choice than Hillary.

    Feb 14, 2020 | www.unz.com

    Greg Bacon , says: Website Show Comment February 14, 2020 at 3:33 pm GMT

    It soon emerged that the Iranian was in fact in Baghdad to discuss with the Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi a plan that might lead to the de-escalation of the ongoing conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, a meeting that the White House apparently knew about may even have approved.

    It's now obvious that the slumlord son-in-law Jared Kushner is really running the USA's ME policy.
    Kushner is not only a dear friend of at-large war criminal Bibi Nuttyahoo, he also belongs to the Judaic religious cult of Chabad Lubavitcher, whom make the war-loving Christian Evangelicals almost look sane. Chabad also prays for some kind of Armageddon to bring forth their Messiah, just like the Evangelicals.

    One can tell by Kushner's nasty comments he makes about Arabs/Persians and Palestinians in particular, that he loathes and despises those people and has an idiotic ear to cry into in the malignant form of Zion Don, AKA President Trump.

    It's been said that Kushner is also a Mossad agent or asset, which is a good guess, since that agency has been placing their agents into the WH since at least the days of Clinton, who had Rahm Emmanuel to whisper hate into his ear.

    That the Iranian General Soleimani was lured into Iraq so the WH could murder the man probably most responsible for halting the terrorist activities of the heart-eating, head-chopping US/Israel/KSA creation ISIS brings to mind the motto of the Israeli version of the CIA, the Mossad.

    "By way of deception thou shalt make war."

    Between Trump's incompetence, his vanity–and yes, his stupidity– and his appointing Swamp creatures into his cabinet and allowing Jared to run the ME show, Trump is showing himself to be a worse choice than Hillary.
    If that maniac gets another 4 years, humanity is doomed. Or at least the USA for sure will perish.

    [Feb 14, 2020] Barr Assigns Outside Prosecutor To Review Case Against Flynn

    Notable quotes:
    "... Of particular interest will be cases overseen by now-unemployed former US attorney for DC, Jessie Liu, which includes actions against Stone, Flynn, the Awan brothers, James Wolfe and others . Notably, Wolfe was only sentenced to leaking a classified FISA warrant application to journalist and side-piece Ali Watkins of the New York Times - while prosecutors out of Liu's office threw the book at former Trump adviser Roger Stone - recommending 7-9 years in prison for process crimes. ..."
    "... What's next on the real-life House of Cards? ..."
    Feb 14, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    A week of two-tiered legal shenanigans was capped off on Friday with a New York Times report that Attorney General William Barr has assigned an outside prosecutor to scrutinize the government's case against former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, which the Times suggested was " highly unusual and could trigger more accusations of political interference by top Justice Department officials into the work of career prosecutors."

    Notably, the FBI excluded crucial information from a '302' form documenting an interview with Flynn in January, 2017. While Flynn eventually pleaded guilty to misleading agents over his contacts with the former Russian ambassador regarding the Trump administration's efforts to oppose a UN resolution related to Israel, the original draft of Flynn's 302 reveals that agents thought he was being honest with them - evidence which Flynn's prior attorneys never pursued.

    His new attorney, Sidney Powell, took over Flynn's defense in June 2019 - while Flynn withdrew his guilty plea in January , accusing the government of "bad faith, vindictiveness, and breach of the plea agreement."

    In addition to a review of the Flynn case, Barr has hired a handful of outside prosecutors to broadly review several other politically sensitive national-security cases in the US attorney's office in Washington , according to the Times sources.

    Of particular interest will be cases overseen by now-unemployed former US attorney for DC, Jessie Liu, which includes actions against Stone, Flynn, the Awan brothers, James Wolfe and others . Notably, Wolfe was only sentenced to leaking a classified FISA warrant application to journalist and side-piece Ali Watkins of the New York Times - while prosecutors out of Liu's office threw the book at former Trump adviser Roger Stone - recommending 7-9 years in prison for process crimes.

    • Stone - Charged
    • Flynn - Charged
    • Papadopoulos - Charged
    • Gates - Charged
    • Cohen - Charged
    • McCabe - Pass
    • Comey - Pass
    • Brennan - Pass
    • Clapper - Pass
    • Podesta - Pass
    -- Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) February 14, 2020

    Earlier this week, Barr overruled the DC prosecutors recommendation for Stone, resulting in their resignations. The result was the predictable triggering of Democrats across the spectrum .

    According to the Times , "Over the past two weeks, the outside prosecutors have begun grilling line prosecutors in the Washington office about various cases -- some public, some not -- including investigative steps, prosecutorial actions and why they took them, according to the people. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive internal deliberations."

    The moves amounted to imposing a secondary layer of monitoring and control over what career prosecutors have been doing in the Washington office. They are part of a broader turmoil in that office coinciding with Mr. Barr's recent installation of a close aide, Timothy Shea , as interim United States attorney in the District of Columbia, after Mr. Barr maneuvered out the Senate-confirmed former top prosecutor in the office, Jessie K. Liu.

    Mr. Flynn's case was first brought by the special counsel's office, who agreed to a plea deal on a charge of lying to investigators in exchange for his cooperation, before the Washington office took over the case when the special counsel shut down after concluding its investigation into Russia's election interference. -New York Times

    What's next on the real-life House of Cards?

    [Feb 14, 2020] UkraineGate

    Feb 14, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    Ag , Feb 13 2020 18:25 utc | 197

    UkraineGate

    The documentary was produced by French investigative journalist Olivier Berruyer, founder of popular anti-corruption and economics blog Les Crises.

    Part 1 – A Not So Solid Prosecutor
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBQycscF08A

    Part 2 – Not so "dormant" investigations
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZSaB4eAP5Y

    Part 3 – A not so noble president
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-Z5-zuw7kE

    [Feb 14, 2020] The pro-Trump TV news channel One America News Network has produced a 50 minute documentary on Ukrainegate hoax. Half of it is however dedicated to the Maidan sniper massacre of February 2014.

    Feb 14, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    Petri Krohn , Feb 12 2020 17:57 utc | 36

    The pro-Trump TV news channel One America News Network has produced a 50 minute documentary on Ukrainegate hoax. Half of it is however dedicated to the Maidan sniper massacre of February 2014.
    'The Ukraine Hoax: Impeachment, Biden Cash, Mass Murder' Debuting This Weekend On OAN

    In the documentary, Caputo exposes the cover-up that led to the impeachment of President Donald Trump and mass murder. The Democrats' crusade to kick our duly elected president out of office didn't start with a phone call. It began with Ukrainian corruption, election meddling and a bloody coup that cleared a path for Hunter Biden to get rich.

    Tune in this weekend, Saturday and Sunday at 10PM EST / 7PM PST – only on One America News!

    The above page only contains a four minute introduction : OAN's Jack Posobiec sat down with Michael Caputo to discuss his new special, "One America News Investigates – The Ukraine Hoax: Impeachment, Biden Cash, Mass Murder."

    I have not been able to find the original English language version online. I only found a version dubbed in Russian via Colonel Cassad.

    Украинский обман One America News

    Note, that the video is age restricted by YouTube, meaning that you can only view it if you have registered and logged into your Google account. Commenting on the video is disabled, as is saving it to a playlist or downloading it through some easy to use online service.

    The reason for this censorship cannot be "community guidelines". The FCC places far stringent restrictions on what can be broadcast on television during prime time on Saturday evenings.

    [Feb 10, 2020] Trump lost anti-war republicans and independents; he now might lose the elections

    Feb 10, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

    Caroline Dorminey and Sumaya Malas do an excellent job of making the case for extending New START:

    One of the most critical arms control agreements, the New Strategic Reduction Arms Treaty (New START), will disappear soon if leaders do not step up to save it. New START imposes limits on the world's two largest nuclear arsenals, Russia and the United States, and remains one of the last arms control agreements still in effect. Those limits expire in exactly one year from Wednesday, and without it, both stockpiles will be unconstrained for the first time in decades.

    Democrats in Congress already express consistent support for the extension of New START, turning the issue into a Democratic Party agenda item. But today's hyper-partisan landscape need not dictate that arms control must become solely a Democratic priority. Especially when the treaty in question still works, provides an important limit on Russian nuclear weapons, and ultimately increases our national security.

    Dorminey and Malas are right that there should be broad support for extending the treaty. The treaty's ratification was frequently described as a "no-brainer" win for U.S. national security when it was being debated ten years ago, and the treaty's extension is likewise obviously desirable for both countries. The trouble is that the Trump administration doesn't judge this treaty or any other international agreement on the merits, and only a few of the Republicans that voted to ratify the treaty are still in office. Trump and his advisers have been following the lead of anti-arms control ideologues for years. That is why the president seized on violations of the INF Treaty as an excuse to get rid of that treaty instead of working to resolve the dispute with Russia, and that is why he expressed his willingness to pull out of the Open Skies Treaty. Trump has encountered no resistance from the GOP as he goes on a treaty-killing spree, because by and large the modern Republican Party couldn't care less about arms control.

    Like these hard-liners, Trump doesn't think there is such a thing as a "win-win" agreement with another government, and for that he reason he won't support any treaty that imposes the same restrictions on both parties. We can see that the administration isn't serious about extending the treaty when we look at the far-fetched demands they insist on adding to the existing treaty. These additional demands are meant to serve as a smokescreen so that the administration can let the treaty die, and the administration is just stalling for time until the expiration occurs. The Russian government has said many times that it is ready and willing to accept an extension of the treaty without any conditions, and the U.S. response has been to let them eat static.

    It would be ideal if Trump suddenly changed his position on all this and just extended the treaty, but all signs point in the opposite direction. What we need to start thinking about is what the next administration is going to have to do to rebuild the arms control architecture that this administration has demolished. There will be almost no time for the next president to extend the treaty next year, so it needs to be a top priority. If New START lapses, the U.S. and Russia would have to negotiate a new treaty to replace it, and in the current political climate the odds that the Senate would ratify an arms control treaty (or any treaty) are not good. It would be much easier and wiser to keep the current treaty alive, but we need to start preparing for the consequences of Trump's unwillingness to do that.

    [Feb 09, 2020] Trump demand for 50% of Iraq oil revenue sound exactly like a criminal mob boss

    Highly recommended!
    Jan 21, 2020 | www.unz.com

    Tucker , says: Show Comment January 21, 2020 at 12:27 pm GMT

    I've heard and read about a claim that Trump actually called PM Abdul Mahdi and demanded that Iraq hand over 50 percent of their proceeds from selling their oil to the USA, and then threatened Mahdi that he would unleash false flag attacks against the Iraqi government and its people if he did not submit to this act of Mafia-like criminal extortion. Mahdi told Trump to kiss his buttocks and that he wasn't going to turn over half of the profits from oil sales.

    This makes Trump sound exactly like a criminal mob boss, especially in light of the fact that the USA is now the world's #1 exporter of oil – a fact that the arrogant Orange Man has even boasted about in recent months. Can anyone confirm that this claim is accurate? If so, then the more I learn about Trump the more sleazy and gangster like he becomes.

    I mean, think about it. Bush and Cheney and mostly jewish neocons LIED us into Iraq based on bald faced lies, fabricated evidence, and exaggerated threats that they KNEW did not exist. We destroyed that country, captured and killed it's leader – who used to be a big buddy of the USA when we had a use for him – and Bush's crime gang killed close to 2 million innocent Iraqis and wrecked their economy and destroyed their infrastructure. And, now, after all that death, destruction and carnage – which Trump claimed in 2016 he did not approve of – but, now that Trump is sitting on the throne in the Oval office – he has the audacity and the gall to demand that Iraq owes the USA 50 percent of their oil profits? And, that he won't honor and respect their demand to pull our troops out of their sovereign nation unless they PAY US back for the gigantic waste of tax payers money that was spent building permanent bases inside their country?

    Not one Iraqi politician voted for the appropriations bill that financed the construction of those military bases; that was our mistake, the mistake of our US congress whichever POTUS signed off on it.

    melpol , says: Show Comment January 21, 2020 at 1:41 pm GMT
    ...Trump learned the power of the purse on the streets of NYC, he survived by playing ball with the Jewish and Italian Mafia. Now he has become the ultimate Godfather, and the world must listen to his commands. Watch and listen as the powerful and mighty crumble under US Hegemony.
    World War Jew , says: Show Comment January 21, 2020 at 1:42 pm GMT
    Right TG, traditionally, as you said up there first, and legally too, under the supreme law of the land. Economic sanctions are subject to the same UNSC supervision as forcible coercion.

    UN Charter Article 41: "The Security Council may decide what measures not involving the use of armed force are to be employed to give effect to its decisions, and it may call upon the Members of the United Nations to apply such measures. These may include complete or partial interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations."

    https://www.un.org/en/charter-united-nations/index.html

    US "sanctions" require UNSC authorization. Unilateral sanctions are nothing but illegal coercive intervention, as the non-intervention principle is customary international law, which is US federal common law.

    The G-192, that is, the entire world, has affirmed this law. That's why the US is trying to defund UNCTAD as redundant with the WTO (UNCTAD is the G-192's primary forum.) In any case, now that the SCO is in a position to enforce this law at gunpoint with its overwhelmingly superior missile technology, the US is going to get stomped and tased until it complies and stops resisting.

    Charlie , says: Show Comment January 21, 2020 at 7:53 pm GMT
    @Tucker This idea that the US is any sort of a net petroleum exporter is just another lie.

    https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=268&t=6

    In 2018 total US petroleum production was under 18 million barrels per day, total consumption north of 20 mmb/d. What does it matter if the US exports a bunch of super light fracked product the US itself can't refine if it turns around and imports it all back in again and then some.

    The myths we tell ourselves, like a roaring economy that nevertheless generates a $1 trillion annual deficit, will someday come back to bite us. Denying reality is not a winning game plan for the long run.

    Christophe GJ , says: Show Comment January 21, 2020 at 8:00 pm GMT
    I long tought that US foreign policies were mainly zionist agenda – driven, but the Venezuelan affair and the statements of Trump himself about the syrian oil (ta be "kept" (stolen)) make you think twice.

    Oil seems to be at least very important even if it's not the main cause of middle east problems

    So maybe it's the cause of illegal and cruel sanctions against Iran : Get rid of competitor to sell shale oil everywhere ?( think also of Norstream 2 here)

    Watch out US of A. in the end there is something sometimes referred to as the oil's curse . some poor black Nigerians call oil "the shit of the devil", because it's such a problem – related asset Have you heard of it ? You get your revenues from oil easily, so you don't have to make effort by yourself. And in the end you don't keep pace with China on 5G ? Education fails ? Hmm
    Becommig a primary sector extraction nation sad destiny indeed, like africans growing cafe, bananas and cacao for others. Not to mention environmental problems
    What has happened to the superb Nation that send the first man on the moon and invented modern computers ?
    Disapointment
    Money for space or money for war following the Zio. Choose Uncle Sam !
    Difficult to have both

    OverCommenter , says: Show Comment January 21, 2020 at 8:24 pm GMT
    Everyone seems to forget how we avoided war with Syria all those years ago It was when John Kerry of all people gaffed, and said "if Assad gives up all his chemical weapons." That was in response to a reporter who asked "is there anything that can stop the war?" A intrepid Russian ambassador chimed in loud enough for the press core to hear his "OK" and history was averted. Thinking restricting the power of the President will stop brown children from dying at the hands of insane US foreign policy is a cope. "Bi-partisanship" voted to keep troops in Syria, that was only a few months ago, have you already forgotten? Dubya started the drone program, and the magical African everyone fawns over, literally doubled the remote controlled death. We are way past pretending any elected official from either side is actually against more ME war, or even that one side is worse than the other.

    The problem with the supporters Trump has left is they so desperately want to believe in something bigger than themselves. They have been fed propaganda for their whole lives, and as a result can only see the world in either "this is good" or "this is bad." The problem with the opposition is that they are insane. and will say or do anything regardless of the truth. Trump could be impeached for assassinating Sulimani, yet they keep proceeding with fake and retarded nonsense. Just like keeping troops in Syria, even the most insane rabid leftoids are just fine with US imperialism, so long as it's promoting Starbucks, Marvel and homosex, just like we see with support for HK. That is foreign meddling no matter how you try to justify it, and it's not even any different messaging than the hoax "bring democracyhumanrightsfreedom TM to the poor Arabs" justification that was used in Iraq. They don't even have to come up with a new play to run, it's really quite incredible.

    Just passing through , says: Show Comment January 21, 2020 at 8:44 pm GMT
    @OverCommenter A lot of right-wingers also see military action in the Middle East as a way for America to flex its muscles and bomb some Arabs. It also serves to justify the insane defence budget that could be used to build a wall and increase funding to ICE.

    US politics has become incredibly bi-partisan, criticising Trump will get you branded a 'Leftist' in many circles. This extreme bipartisanship started with the Obama birth certificate nonsense which was being peddled by Jews like Orly Taitz, Philip J. Berg, Robert L. Shulz, Larry Klayman and Breitbart news – most likely because Obama was pursuing the JCPOA and not going hard enough on Iran – and continued with the Trump Russian agent angle.

    Now many Americans cannot really think critically, they stick to their side like a fan sticks to their sports team.

    Weston Waroda , says: Show Comment January 21, 2020 at 9:11 pm GMT
    The first person I ever heard say sanctions are acts of war was Ron Paul. The repulsive Madeleine Albright infamously said the deaths of 500,000 Iranian children due to US sanctions was worth it. She ought to be tried as a war criminal. Ron Paul ought to be Secretary of State.

    [Feb 09, 2020] As someone born in Latin America, we never saw the US as anything but a brutal predator, whose honeyed words were belied by their deeds

    Aug 05, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

    The essential facts are these. In April 1898, the United States went to war with Spain. The war's nominal purpose was to liberate Cuba from oppressive colonial rule. The war's subsequent conduct found the United States not only invading and occupying Cuba, but also seizing Puerto Rico, completing a deferred annexation of Hawaii, scarfing up various other small properties in the Pacific, and, not least of all, replacing Spain as colonial masters of the Philippine Archipelago, located across the Pacific.

    That the true theme of the war with Spain turned out to be not liberation but expansion should not come as a terrible surprise. From the very founding of the first British colonies in North America, expansion has constituted an enduring theme of the American project. Separation from the British Empire after 1776 only reinforced the urge to grow. Yet prior to 1898, that project had been a continental one. The events of that year signaled the transition from continental to extra-continental expansion. American leaders were no longer content to preside over a republic stretching from sea to shining sea.

    In that regard, the decision to annex the Philippines stands out as especially instructive. If you try hard enough -- and some politicians at the time did -- you can talk yourself into believing that U.S. actions in the Caribbean in 1898 represented something other than naked European-style imperialism with all its brute force to keep the natives in line. After all, the United States did refrain from converting Cuba into a formal colony and by 1902 had even granted Cubans a sort of ersatz independence. Moreover, both Cuba and Puerto Rico fell within "our backyard," as did various other Caribbean republics soon to undergo U.S. military occupation. Geographically, all were located within the American orbit.

    Yet the Philippines represented an altogether different case. By no stretch of the imagination did the archipelago fall within "our backyard." Furthermore, the Filipinos had no desire to trade Spanish rule for American rule and violently resisted occupation by U.S. forces. The notably dirty Philippine-American War that followed from 1899 to 1902 -- a conflict almost entirely expunged from American memory today -- resulted in something like 200,000 Filipino deaths and ended in a U.S. victory not yet memorialized on the National Mall in Washington.

    Why Do We Still Have War Booty From the Philippines? Time to Break Up With the Philippines

    So the Philippine Archipelago had become ours. In short order, however, authorities in Washington changed their mind about the wisdom of accepting responsibility for several thousand islands located nearly 7,000 miles from San Francisco.

    The sprawling American colony turned out to be the ultimate impulse purchase. And as with most impulse purchases, enthusiasm soon enough gave way to second thoughts and even regret. By 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt was privately referring to the Philippines as America's "Achilles heel." The United States had paid Spain $20 million for an acquisition that didn't turn a profit and couldn't be defended given the limited capabilities of the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy. To complicate matters further, from Tokyo's perspective, the Philippines fell within its backyard. So far as Imperial Japan was concerned, imperial America was intruding on its turf.

    Thus was the sequence of events leading to the Pacific War of 1941-1945 set in motion. I am not suggesting that Pearl Harbor was an inevitable consequence of the United States annexing the Philippines. I am suggesting that it put two rival imperial powers on a collision course.

    One can, of course, find in the ensuing sequence of events matters worth celebrating -- great military victories at places like Midway, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa, culminating after 1945 in a period of American dominion. But the legacy of our flirtation with empire in the Western Pacific also includes much that is lamentable -- the wars in Korea and Vietnam, for example, and now an intensifying rivalry with China destined to lead we know not where.

    If history could be reduced to a balance sheet, the U.S. purchase of the Philippines would rate as a pretty bad bargain. That first $20 million turned out to be only a down payment.


    Eliseo Art Silva Mark Thomason 6 hours ago

    No. Absolutely not. We would have been much better off had the US not violently dismantled the first Republic of the Philippines.

    The canard that our greatest generation of Filipinos (Generation of 1898) was not fit to govern us was a product of US Assimilation Schools designed to rid the Philippines of Filipinos- by wiring them to automatically think anything non-Filipino will always be better (intenalized racism) and to train the primarily to leave and work abroad and blend -in as Americans (objectification) and never stand out as self-respecting Filipinos who aspire to be the best they can be propelled by the Filipino story.

    Our multiple Golden Ages only occurred prior to US invasion and colonization.

    YES, the USA owes us. We are every American's 2nd original sin.

    Eliseo Art Silva Mark Thomason 5 hours ago
    We do not owe US anything. The USA owes us a great big deal, More than any other country on earth.

    THEY (USA) owes us:
    1) For violently dismantling the first Republic of the Philippines at the cost of over a million martyrs from the greatest generation of Filipinos.

    2) For US Assimilation Schools denying us the intensity of our golden ages prior to their invasion as our drivers for PH civilization, turning us into a country that trains its people to leave and assimilate in US culture and become workers for Americans and foreigners abroad. This results in a Philippines WITHOUT Filipinos.

    3) For US bombs turning Intramuros into dust- the centerpiece of the Paris of the East, with treasures, publications and art much older that the US- without consent from any Filipino leader. And for dismantling our train system from La Union to Bicol.

    4) For the US Rescission Act which denied Filipino veterans due recognition, dignity and honor- vets who fought THEIR war against Japan on our soil.

    5) For the canard that Aguinaldo, our 29-year old father and liberator of the Republic of the Philippines, is a villain and a traitor, even inventing the heroism of Andres Bonifacio which ultimately resulted in "Toxic Nationalism" which Rizal warned us about in the persona of Simoun in El Filibusterismo who will drive our nation to self-destruction and turn a paradise into a desert by being automatically wired to think anything non-Filipino will and always be better.

    The core of colonial mentality is the misguided belief that we cannot have been a greater country had the US not destroyed the first Republic of the Philippines- a lie that was embedded in our minds by the US discrediting Aguinaldo and the Generation of 1896/1898- the greatest generation of Filipinos.

    bob balkas 18 hours ago
    It does seem to me that every country which was able and could afford to expand its territory did so. In Europe, exceptions to that a wish were Switzerland, Slovakia, Finland, Ireland, Norway, Slovenia, Ukraine, ?Romania and Chechia.
    So, US had company!
    Romulus 11 hours ago
    President William McKinley defends his decision to support the annexation of the Philippines in the wake of the U.S. war in that country:

    "When I next realized that the Philippines had dropped into our laps I confess I did not know what to do with them. . . And one night late it came to me this way. . .1) That we could not give them back to Spain- that would be cowardly and dishonorable; 2) that we could not turn them over to France and Germany-our commercial rivals in the Orient-that would be bad business and discreditable; 3) that we not leave them to themselves-they are unfit for self-government-and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain's wars; and 4) that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God's grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow-men for whom Christ also died."

    Making Christians of a country that had its first Catholic diocese 9 years before the Spanish Armada sailed for England, with 4 dioceses in place years before the English sailed for Jamestown.

    Tommy Matic IV Romulus 6 hours ago
    Not to mention a full fledged university older than Harvard.
    Michael Brand 7 hours ago • edited
    Dan Carlin did an outstanding podcast on the choices America faced after acquiring the Philippines. McKinley was anti-empire, but the industrialists in his administration hungered to thwart the British, French and Dutch empires in the Pacific by establishing a colony all of our own.

    Worth a listen

    Adriana Pena 7 hours ago
    As someone born in Latin America, we never saw the US as anything but a brutal predator, whose honeyed words were belied by their deeds. I wonder if it began with the Philippines. There was the Mexican war first, which wrested a lot of territory from Mexico. And then there was the invasion of Canada to bring the blessings of democracy to Canadians (it ended with the White House in flames). I suspect that the beliefe that you are exceptional and blessed by God can lead to want to straighten up other people "for their own good", and make a profit besides - a LOT of profit.

    [Feb 09, 2020] Key Witness Told Mueller Team That Russia Collusion Evidence Found In Ukraine Was Fabricated by John Solomon

    Notable quotes:
    "... By April 2018, Gates had reached a plea deal to testify against Manafort in a criminal case that ultimately resulted in Manafort's conviction on tax and illegal lobbying charges. As the day-to-day manager of Manafort's political consulting and lobbying efforts for former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, Gates handled Manafort's operations and was deeply familiar with when and how payments were made and from whom. ..."
    "... Furthermore, Gates revealed that Manafort's team had confirmed with the party's former accountant that the black ledger could not be a contemporaneous document because the party's official accounting books burned in a 2014 fire during Ukraine's Maidan uprising. ..."
    "... The Party of Regions accountant reached by Manafort's team told them that the black ledger was a "copy of a document that did not exist" and it "was not even [the accountant's own] handwriting," Gates told the prosecutors. ..."
    Feb 09, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    0Authored by John Solomon via JustTheNews.com,

    One of Robert Mueller's pivotal trial witnesses told the special prosecutor's team in spring 2018 that a key piece of Russia collusion evidence found in Ukraine known as the "black ledger" was fabricated, according to interviews and testimony.

    The ledger document, which suddenly appeared in Kiev during the 2016 U.S. election, showed alleged cash payments from Russian-backed politicians in Ukraine to ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

    "The ledger was completely made up," cooperating witness and Manafort business partner Rick Gates told prosecutors and FBI agents, according to a written summary of an April 2018 special counsel's interview.

    In a brief interview with Just the News, Gates confirmed the information in the summary.

    "The black ledger was a fabrication," Gates said.

    "It was never real, and this fact has since been proven true."

    Gates' account is backed by several Ukrainian officials who stated in interviews dating to 2018 that the ledger was of suspicious origins and could not be corroborated.

    If true, Gates' account means the two key pieces of documentary evidence used by the media and FBI to drive the now-debunked Russia collusion narrative -- the Steele dossier and the black ledger -- were at best uncorroborated and at worst disinformation. His account also raises the possibility that someone fabricated the document in Ukraine in an effort to restart investigative efforts on Manafort's consulting work or to meddle in the U.S. presidential election.

    Much mystery has surrounded the black ledger, which was publicized by the New York Times and other U.S. news outlets in the summer of 2016 and forced Manafort out as one of Trump's top campaign officials.

    After gaining wide attention as purported evidence of Russian ties to the Trump campaign, the ledger was never introduced as evidence at Manafort's 2018 trial or significantly analyzed in Mueller's final 2019 report, which concluded that Trump did not collude with Russia to influence the 2016 election. No FBI 302 interview reports have been released either showing what the FBI concluded about the ledger.

    Gates' interview with the Mueller team now provides a potential clue as to why.

    By April 2018, Gates had reached a plea deal to testify against Manafort in a criminal case that ultimately resulted in Manafort's conviction on tax and illegal lobbying charges. As the day-to-day manager of Manafort's political consulting and lobbying efforts for former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, Gates handled Manafort's operations and was deeply familiar with when and how payments were made and from whom.

    During a debriefing with Mueller's team on April 10, 2018, Gates was asked about the August 2016 New York Times article that first alerted the public to the existence of the black ledger and eventually led to Manafort's downfall.

    "The article was completely false," Gates is quoted as telling Mueller's team in a written summary of the interview created by some of the attendees.

    "As you now know there were no cash payments. The payments were wired. The ledger was completely made up."

    When pressed as to why he was so certain, Gates explained the ledger did not match the way Yanukovych's Party of Regions made payments to consultants like Manafort.

    "It was not how the PoR [Party of Regions] did their record keeping," Gates told the prosecution team, according to the written summary.

    Furthermore, Gates revealed that Manafort's team had confirmed with the party's former accountant that the black ledger could not be a contemporaneous document because the party's official accounting books burned in a 2014 fire during Ukraine's Maidan uprising.

    "All the real records were burned when the party headquarters was set on fire when Yanukovych fled the country," Gates told the investigators, according to the interview summary.

    The Party of Regions accountant reached by Manafort's team told them that the black ledger was a "copy of a document that did not exist" and it "was not even [the accountant's own] handwriting," Gates told the prosecutors.

    Gates' account to prosecutors closely matches what several Ukrainian officials have said for more than a year.

    Ukraine's Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor Nazar Kholodnytskyy told me last spring that he believed the black ledger was not a contemporaneous document, and likely manufactured after the fact.

    "It was not to be considered a document of Manafort," Kholodnytskyy said in an interview.

    "It was not authenticated. And at that time it should not be used in any way to bring accusations against anybody."

    Likewise, one of Gates' and Manafort's Ukrainian business partners, Konstantin Kilimnik, who is now indicted in the same case as Manafort but remain at large, wrote a senior U.S. State Department official in summer 2016 that the black ledger did not match actual payments made to Manafort's firm.

    "I have some questions about this black cash stuff because those published records do not make sense," Kilimnik wrote the State official in August 2016.

    "The time frame doesn't match anything related to payments made to Manafort. It does not match my records. All fees Manafort got were wires, not cash."

    In December 2018, a Ukrainian court ruled that two of that country's government officials -- member of parliament Sergey Leschenko and Artem Sytnyk, the head of the National Anticorruption Bureau of Ukraine -- illegally interfered in the 2016 U.S. election by publicizing the black ledger evidence.

    While that ruling has been overturned on a technicality, the role of Sytnyk and Leschenko in pushing the black ledger story remains true.

    In an interview last summer, Leschenko said he first received part of the black ledger when it was sent to him anonymously in February 2016, but it made no mention of Manafort. Months later, in August 2016, more of the ledger became public, including the alleged Manafort payments.

    Leschenko said he decided to publicize the information after confirming a few of the transactions likely occurred or matched known payments.

    But Leschenko told me he never believed the black ledger could be used as court evidence because it couldn't be proved beyond a reasonable doubt that it was authentic, given its mysterious appearance during the 2016 election.

    "The black ledger is an unofficial document," Leschenko told me. "And the black ledger was not used as official evidence in criminal investigations because you know in criminal investigations all proof has to be beyond a reasonable doubt. And the black ledger is not a sample of such proof because we don't know the nature of such document ."

    In the end, the black ledger did prompt the discovery of real financial transactions and real crimes by Manafort, which ultimately led to his conviction.

    But its uncertain origins raise troubling questions about election meddling and what constitutes real evidence worthy of starting an American investigation.

    [Feb 09, 2020] It's Time To Ask Again What Really Happened To Ukraine's Missing Gold

    Feb 09, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    It's Time To Ask Again What Really Happened To Ukraine's Missing Gold by Tyler Durden Sat, 02/08/2020 - 19:00 0 SHARES Now that the Trump impeachment farce is finally over, vindicating the president and in the process for the first time boosting the president's approval rating higher than where Obama was at this time in his first term much to the embarrassment of Nancy Pelosi, whose impeachment gambit has backfired spectacularly (just as Nancy knew it would, and is why she delayed triggering it until a critical mass of ultra left-wing demands in Congress made it impossible for her to ignore any longer)...

    ... the Democrats' great diversion from Trump's core question - did the Bidens willfully engage in, and benefit from corruption in the Ukraine, corruption which may have been enabled and facilitated by billions in taxpayer funds originating from the Obama administration no less - is over.

    However, while Trump has finally moved on beyond what in retrospect was a remarkable, if failed presidential coup attempt, orchestrated by the Ukraine lobby in the US, backed by the Atlantic Council and various other "deep-state" institutions and apparatchiks, and implemented by Congressional democrats who are now watching the chances of the Democratic party winning the 2020 presidential election melt before their eyes, some long overdue questions surrounding the Bidens' involvement in Ukraine - one of the world's most corrupt nations according to the World Economic Forum - especially around the time of the 2014 presidential coup and the months immediately following, are about to be asked , and haunt Joe Biden and his son like a very angry and vengeful ghost, only this time there will be no Trump impeachment to distract from revealing the shocking answers.

    Needless to say, we are delighted by this outcome because as regular readers will recall, there are many unanswered questions that emerged back in 2014, some from following the money both in and out of Ukraine, and some from following the country's gold, much of which was put on board a plane headed to the US in one cold, wintry night in March 2014, never to come back again.

    But before we get there, first we need to a rather lengthy detour into the history of Ukraine corruption since the February 2014 Euromadian revolution, for the background on why Trump had to be stopped at all costs from asking either Ukraine, or anyone else, questions that may expose corruption involving Joe Biden in particular, and the Obama administration in general. To do that, we need to follow some $1.8 billion in US taxpayer funds that quietly went missing back in 2014, and most likely ended up in the offshore bank account of some Ukrainian oligarch; conveniently PJ Media's senior editor Tyler O'Neill did just that almost two years ago, in March 2018 . Here's what he said back then , together with some additions from ZH:

    In the last days of the Obama administration, then-Vice President Joe Biden took a "swan song" trip to Ukraine, a notoriously corrupt country where he had been the administration's "point person." On the eve of this trip, the country announced it would end a criminal investigation into an infamous company connected to the loss of $1.8 billion in aid funding -- a company whose board of directors included Biden's son Hunter.

    The Biden family's dealings with this Ukrainian company involved getting one of the country's most notorious mob bankers, Ihor Kolomoiski, off the U.S. government visa ban list. Under Biden's leadership, $3 billion in aid went to Ukraine, and his son's company was implicated in the disappearance of $1.8 billion of that money. Peter Schweizer revealed the former vice president's role in his new book " Secret Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends ."

    Ihor Kolomoiski

    Secretary of State John Kerry announced the U.S. support for Ukraine's nationalist government in March 2014, a month after a mass uprising pushed pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych out of office and inspired a corresponding pro-Russian uprising in the east. It was also at this time that a leaked recording between US assistant secretary of state Victoria "Fuck the EU" Nuland and the US envoy to the Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, emerged, a clip which as the FT said then " could also bolster [claims] that the protests that erupted against Ukraine's President Viktor Yanukovich last November are being funded and orchestrated by the US ." In other words, the clip confirmed that the US was masterminding the entire "Euromaidan" process all along and deciding who should be in Ukraine's next government. In short: what happened in Ukraine in February 2014 was another CIA-staged presidential coup. Finally, it was also the time that Biden became the Obama administration's "point person" for the country.

    On April 16, 2014, shortly after the February 2014 Ukrainian revolution which culminated with the overthrow of democratically-elected president Yanukovich, Biden met with Devon Archer, a former star fundraiser for John Kerry's 2004 presidential run and business partner in Rosemont Capital with Biden's son Hunter . (Federal agents would later arrest Archer in May 2016 for defrauding a Native American tribe.)

    Less than a week later (April 22) came an announcement that Archer had joined the board of Burisma, a secretive Ukrainian natural gas company. On May 13, Hunter Biden would also join the company's board.

    On the day before Archer's hiring, April 21, the vice president landed in Kiev for high-level meetings with Ukrainian officials. He spearheaded the effort to invest $1 billion from the U.S. and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) into Ukraine .

    The vice president's presence helps explain a conundrum. Burisma hired his son and Archer despite the fact that neither of them had any experience in the energy sector. Schweizer notes, "The choice of Hunter Biden to handle transparency and corporate governance of Burisma is curious, because Biden had little if any experience in Ukrainian law, or professional legal counsel, period."

    Furthermore, Hunter Biden "seemed undeterred by the fact that as he was joining the Burisma board the British government's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) was seizing $23 million from [founder Mykola] Zlochevsky's bank accounts." Furthermore, a year after Biden joined the firm, "experienced industry observers warned investors that Burisma was still a company to be avoided."

    Mykola Zlochevsky

    On the other hand, Ukraine is one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Out of 148 nations studied by the World Economic Forum , Ukraine ranks 143 for property rights, 130 for "irregular payments and bribes," 133 for "favoritism in decisions of government officials," and 146 for "protection of minority shareholders' interests."

    Two major figures in this corruption feature prominently in Biden's Ukraine investment.

    Zlochevsky founded Burisma in Cyprus in 2006. He served as natural resources minister under Yanukovych, and gave himself the licenses to develop the country's abundant gas fields. He also had a flare for lavishness, running a super-exclusive fashion boutique named after himself.

    Burisma's major subsidiaries ended up sharing the same business address as the natural gas firm controlled by Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky. He controlled the country's largest financial institution, PrivatBank, through which the Ukrainian military and government workers got paid. He also owned media companies and airlines. In violation of Ukraine law, he maintained Ukrainian, Israeli, and Cypriot passports.

    Kolomoisky gained a reputation for violence and brutality, along with lawlessness. Rival oligarchs have sued him for alleged involvement in "murders and beheadings" related to a business deal. He also allegedly used "hired rowdies armed with baseball bats, iron bars, gas and rubber bullet pistols and chainsaws" to take over a steel plant in 2006. He built his multibillion-dollar empire by "raiding" other companies, forcing them to merge with his own using brute force.

    For these and other reasons, the U.S. government placed Kolomoisky on its visa ban list, prohibiting him from entering the country legally. In 2015, however, after Hunter Biden and Devon Archer had joined Burisma's board, Kolomoisky was given admittance back into the U.S. According to a follow-up report in 2016, "today, the oligarch mainly resides in Switzerland. He spends much time in the United States and is getting less and less involved in the Ukrainian affairs."

    Archer and the younger Biden brought other benefits to Burisma, however. Archer represented the company at the Louisiana Gulf Coast Oil Exposition in 2015. Biden addressed the Energy Security for the Future conference in Monaco. The vice president's son brought much-needed legitimacy to the shoddy gas company . Less than a month after Archer joined Burisma's board, the company hired another Kerry lackey, David Leiter, as a lobbyist in Washington, D.C. He successfully lobbied for more aid to the country.

    And Both Biden and Kerry championed $1.8 billion in taxpayer-backed loans given to Ukraine in September 2014 courtesy of the IMF. That money would go directly through Kolomoisky's PrivatBank, and then it would disappear . According to the Ukrainian anti-corruption watchdog Nashi Groshi, "This transaction of $1.8 billion ... with the help of fake contracts was simply an asset siphoning operation."

    What is even more fascinating, is that in the chaos following the February 2014 revolution, Ukraine appears to have embezzled money from none other than the IMF (whose biggest source of funds is the US). As German newspaper Deutsche Wirtshafts Nachrichten reported in August 2015 , a huge chunk of the $17 billion in bailout money the IMF granted to Ukraine in April 2014 was discovered in a bank account in Cyprus controlled by, who else, Ukrainian oligarch Kolomoisky . As the German publication went on to add, in April 2014, $3.2 billion was immediately disbursed to Ukraine, and over the following five months, another $4.5 billion was disbursed to the Ukrainian Central Bank in order to stabilize the country's financial system. " The money should have been used to stabilize the country's ailing banks, but $1.8 billion disappeared down murky channels, " DWN wrote .

    DWN also reported that according to the IMF, in January 2015 the equity ratio of Ukraine's banking system had dropped to 13.8 percent, from 15.9 percent in late June 2014. By February 2015 even PrivatBank had to be saved from bankruptcy, and was given a 62 million Euro two-year loan from the Central Bank. "So where have the IMF's billions gone?"

    The racket executed by Kolomoiski's PrivatBank was first uncovered by the Ukrainian anti-corruption initiative 'Nashi Groshi,' meaning 'our money' in Ukrainian.

    According to Nashi Groshi's investigations, PrivatBank has connections to 42 Ukrainian companies, which are owned by another 54 offshore companies based in the Caribbean, USA and Cyprus. These companies took out loans from PrivatBank totaling $1.8 billion.

    These Ukrainian companies ordered investment products from six foreign suppliers based in the UK, the Virgin Islands and the Caribbean, and then transferred money to a branch of PrivatBank in Cyprus, ostensibly to pay for the products.The products were then used as collateral for the loans taken out from PrivatBank – however, the overseas suppliers never delivered the goods, and the 42 companies took legal action in court in Dnipropetrovsk, demanding reimbursement for payments made for the goods, and the termination of the loans from Privatbank. The court's ruling was the same for all 42 companies; the foreign suppliers should return the money, but the credit agreement with Privatbank remains in place.

    "Basically, this was a transaction of $1.8 billion abroad, with the help of fake contracts, the siphoning off of assets and violation of existing laws, " explained journalist Lesya Ivanovna of Nashi Groshi.

    Then in March 2015, Kolomoiski, whom some have described as the Tony Soprano of Ukraine, and increasingly a pariah in the country that made him a billionaire was dismissed from his position as governor of Dnipropetrovsk after a power struggle with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko; the fraud was carried out while he was governor of the region in East-Central Ukraine.

    "The whole story with the court case was only necessary to make it look like the bank itself was not involved in the fraud scheme. Officially it now looks like as if the bank has the products, but in reality they were never delivered," said Ivanovna.

    Such business practices, which earned Kolomoskyi a fortune estimated by Forbes in March 2012 to be $3 billion , were known to investigators beyond Ukraine's borders; Kolomoiski was once banned from entering the US due to suspicions of connections with international organized crime but then Biden's involvement quietly lifted the visa ban.

    Despite these suspicions, Kolomoiski is unlikely to face justice, as he is currently living in exile in Switzerland , Israel and the US, after he fled Ukraine in early 2015. Not long after Kolomoiski fled Ukraine, in December 2016, Ukraine's government nationalize his Privatbank in order to shore up Ukrainians' savings. A Ukrainian lawmaker called it the " greatest robbery of Ukraine's state budget of the millennium." A few months earlier, in February 2016, the government seized Burisma founder Zlochevsky's assets and placed him on Ukraine's wanted list. The Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office seized Burisma's gas wells.

    Which brings us to January 2017, and when Joe Biden infamous arrived for his "swan song" visit and demanded, before the entire world, that the criminal investigation into Burisma was dropped.

    https://www.youtube.com/embed/UXA--dj2-CY

    Devon Archer left the scandal-plagued company at the end of 2016, although a clueless Hunter Biden remained on the board through October 2019 - well after his presence there sparked the biggest political scandal since the Bill Clinton impeachment - providing "legal assistance" in exchange for millions of dollars received from the gas giant. Archer and Biden have not been required to disclose their compensation from Burisma, but Bowling Green State University professor Oliver Boyd-Barrett wrote , "Potentially, the Biden family could become billionaires."

    So did Joe Biden get Burisma off the hook for $1.8 billion in lost aid funding? Did he or his son get Kolomoisky off the visa ban list? To be sure, many questions still remain and were all conveniently swept under the rug over the "faux outrage" over the Trump impeachment farce. But now that the great impeachment diversion is over, these all too pressing questions can and finally should be asked.

    Incidentally, anyone who is confused by the narrative above, and how $1.8 billion in taxpayer dollars "disappeared" in Ukraine starting in September 2014 when the money was deposited in PrivatBank, is encouraged to watch the following video by Glenn Beck who does a surprisingly good job at connecting the confusing dots behind what may be one of the greatest sovereign corruption and money heist stories in history.

    https://www.youtube.com/embed/dCSwqca8KXU

    The good news is that there are so many loose threads in this narrative, that any real probe will have little difficulty in getting to the bottom of where and how the $1.8 billion in US taxpayer funding to Ukraine "disappeared" and whether Biden, both father and son, are indeed involved.

    And just to help them out, one place where any serious probe can start is with a story we wrote in March 2014, when citing a local media report , we shone light on a mysterious operation in which a substantial portion of Ukraine's gold reserves were loaded onboard an unmarked plane, and flown to the US, just weeks after the February 2014 revolution. From the source , March 7, 2014:

    Tonight, around at 2:00 am, an unregistered transport plane took off took off from Boryspil airport.

    According to Boryspil staff, prior to the plane's appearance, four trucks and two cargo minibuses arrived at the airport all with their license plates missing. Fifteen people in black uniforms, masks and body armor stepped out, some armed with machine guns. These people loaded the plane with more than forty heavy boxes.

    After this, several mysterious men arrived and also entered the plane. The loading was carried out in a hurry. After unloading, the plateless cars immediately left the runway, and the plane took off on an emergency basis.

    Airport officials who saw this mysterious "special operation" immediately notified the administration of the airport, which however strongly advised them "not to meddle in other people's business."

    Later, the editors were called by one of the senior officials of the former Ministry of Income and Fees, who reported that, according to him, tonight on the orders of one of the "new leaders" of Ukraine, all the gold reserves of the Ukraine were taken to the United States.

    Needless to say there was no official confirmation of any of this taking place, and in fact our report, in which we mused if the "price of Ukraine's liberation" was the handover of Ukraine's gold to the Fed at a time when Germany was actively seeking to repatriate its own physical gold located at the bedrock of the NY Fed, led to the usual mainstream media mockery.

    But then everything changed in November 2014 , when in an interview on Ukraine TV, none other than the then-head of the Ukraine Central Bank, Valeriya Gontareva (who, became head of the Ukraine central bank in June 2014 when she replaced Stepan Kubiv and also presided over the nationalization of Kolomoiski's PrivateBank in December 2016 ), made the stunning admission that "in the vaults of the central bank there is almost no gold left. There is a small amount of gold bullion left, but it's just 1% of reserves."

    https://www.youtube.com/embed/NUrPwhSXwVk

    As Ukraina reported at the time, this stunning revelation means that not only has Ukraine been quietly depleting its gold throughout the year, but that the latest official number, according to which Ukraine gold was 8 times greater than the reported 1%, was fabricated, and that the real number is about 90% lower.

    According to official statistics the NBU, the amount of gold in the vaults should be eight times more than is actually in stock. At the beginning of this month, the volume of gold was about $ 1 billion, or 8% of the total gold reserves. Now this is just one percent.

    Assuming Gonaterva's admission was true, it would imply that the official reserve data at the Central Bank was clearly fabricated, prompting questions about just how long ago the actual gold "displacement" took place. Could it have been during a cold night in March when "more than 40 heavy boxes" full of gold were loaded up on the plane and flown off to an unknown destination in the US?

    To help out in this puzzle, we got some additional information from Rusila, which in Nov 2014 reported that "Ukraine's gold reserves disappeared."

    According to recent data, the value of Ukraine gold should be $988.7 million. That is the value of gold proportion of gold in gold reserves is 8%. If you believe Gontareva, it turns out there is a mere $123.6 million in gold remaining. The figure is fantastic, considering that the amount of gold at the end of February (when the new authorities have already taken key positions) was $1.8 billion or 12% of the reserves.

    In other words, since the beginning of the year gold reserves dropped almost 16 times. Gold stock in February were approximately 21 tons of gold, the presence of which was once proudly reported by Sergei Arbuzov, who led the NBU in 2010-2012. So what happened to 20.8 tons of gold?

    Explaining the dramatic reduction in the context of the hryvnia devaluation through gold sales is impossible. After all, 92% of the reserves of the National Bank is in the form of a foreign currency that is much easier to use to maintain hryvnia levels and cover current liabilities. Besides since March the international price of gold has plummeted. Selling gold under such circumstances is a crime . In fact it would be more expedient to increase gold reserves through currency conversion in precious metals.

    But apparently the result is not due to someone's negligence or carelessness. The gold reserve has been actively carted out of the country, as a result of the very vague economic and political prospects of Ukraine. Something similar happened to the gold reserves of the USSR - when the Gorbachev elite realized that perestroika is leading the country to the abyss, gold simply disappeared in an unknown direction.

    Oddly enough there was no official gold reduction just prior to the time when Victoria "Fuck the EU" Nuland was planning Yanukovich's ouster, and as shown above, quite the contrary: Ukraine's gold pile was increasing with every passing year... until it collapsed in early 2014. It is a little more odd that it was during the period when Ukraine was "supported" by its western allies that several billion dollars worth of physical gold - the people's gold - just "vaporized."

    Which brings us to the $1.8 billion question: what happened to Ukraine's gold, because if the now former central banker's story is accurate, that's roughly the amount of gold that quietly left the country just days after the US-backed presidential coup. And, it is also roughly how much taxpayer-funded Ukraine aid, procured by Joe Biden while his son was working at Burisma , is now missing.

    At this point, there are certainly many pressing questions but one stands out: was the real " quid pro quo" not one of Trump holding up payments to Kiev in exchange for a probe of Biden - which after reading all of the above is more than warranted - but if the quo , namely US support for regime change in Ukraine and almost two billion in now missing taxpayer funds which ended up in an oligarch's bank and mysteriously "vaporized" but not before said oligarch hired the son of the US vice president, wasn't the quid to some 40 tons of Ukraine leaving forever to an unknown destination in the US.

    We hope that Trump's second term will provide ample time and opportunity to answer this critical question, and just to set off investigators on the right track, we believe that any investigation should begin with the former central bank head, Gontareva, who he also fled to London where she now lives in self-appointed exile and where she now "fears for her life" after one of her homes near Kiev was badly damaged in an arson attack, and was also injured in August when she was knocked down by a car in London. Failing that, one can always check the flight manifests and the cargo contents of all planes that left the Ukraine and arrived in the US on March 7, 2014 with a cargo consisting of billions of dollars in gold...


    ConnectingTheDots , 23 minutes ago link

    "It's Time To Ask Again What Really Happened To Ukraine's Missing Gold"

    It is also time to ask what happened to the Libyan gold.

    It really seems like the criminal syndicate controlling its US government puppets is nothing more than a modern version of the Vikings where they go into sovereign nations to loot and pillage.

    libfrog88 , 32 minutes ago link

    Since all of the US gold and the gold of foreign countries held in custody has been leased out (never to return) to keep the price of gold low and that Germany wanted their gold back they had to find gold somewhere: Ukraine's gold! No mystery here and the $1.8 billion American tax payers money was the payment for this. Lots of corrupt Ukrainians and Americans got their share of this. No mystery here.

    WHATDIFFERENCEDOESITMAKE , 46 minutes ago link

    Ukraines "Crowdstrike" Is the elephant in the room. Funny how Trumps transcripts mention Crowdstrike, yet not one lawyer brought it up in the hearings.

    freedommusic , 1 hour ago link

    What Really Happened To Ukraine's Missing Gold?

    It sitting inside 33 Liberty St.

    Helg Saracen , 1 hour ago link

    Karl Marx was called Mordechai Levy and no one is still indignant, and Leon Trotsky was called Leiba Bronstein and again no one is indignant, and you pester this innocent boy with his innocent surname. Shame on you! :) ~

    dogfish , 2 hours ago link

    The US stole it.

    Helg Saracen , 1 hour ago link

    Not only stolen, also handed over to their kosher "Owners". :) Oy vey!

    freeculture , 2 hours ago link

    "fake contracts"asset siphoning operation"murky channels". Hmm...sounds fair?!

    Now that even the dirt is sold piece by piece,loaded on cargo trains and taken out from Ukraine, the prospect of anothe "holodomor" looks ever so promisingly close.

    OpenEyes , 2 hours ago link

    Two things that the US seems to do with every regime-change operation

    1: Steal the gold

    2: Set-up a Central Bank

    Mimir , 2 hours ago link

    what happened to Ukraine's gold ?????

    It is all in the Federal Reserve in Washington, just as what happened with the Iraqi and Libyan gold reserves.

    Sources: Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc (GATA) , GlobalResearch .

    Chris Powell , Stepan Kubiv and Nyland know more about it than Biden or his relatives, whatever you agenda !

    Mimir , 3 hours ago link

    Trump/Obama/Clinton/Bush compared !!

    Average approval rates of US Presidents, two of them impeached by the House of Representatives:

    Trump 42.2 %

    Obama 47.9 %

    G. W. Bush 49.4 %

    Clinton 55.1 %

    Grandad Grumps , 7 minutes ago link

    What is your source? It conflicts with recent articles that show Trump over 49% after the SoU.

    messystateofaffairs , 3 hours ago link

    I didn't read the article and I don't know where Ukraine gold is but wherever it is a *** is there with it. Did I make a good guess?

    MozartIII , 3 hours ago link

    About time that this is re-reported. There are ties that are binding, they have been so for a very long time!

    quasi_verbatim , 6 hours ago link

    Ukraine, Libya, VZ, how else we gonna restock Fort Knox? That Russkie/***** buying spree got us down to bedrock tungsten.

    MozartIII , 3 hours ago link

    So who pilfered the gold that was in Fort Knox. You may find similar persons involved.

    Elizabeth545 , 7 hours ago link

    I g­­­­e­­­­t p­­­­a­­­­i­­­­d o­­­­v­­­­e­­­­r $­­9­­0 p­­­­e­­­­r h­­­­o­­­­u­­­­r w­­­­o­­­­r­­k­­­­i­­­­n­­­­g f­­­­r­­­­o­­­­m h­­­­o­­­­m­­­­e w­­­­i­­­­t­­­­h 2 k­­­­i­­d­­­­s a­­­­t h­­­­o­­­­m­­­­e. I n­­­­e­­­­v­­­­e­­r t­­­­h­­o­­­­u­­­­g­­­­h­­­­t I­­­­'­­­­d b­­­­e a­­­­b­­­­l­­­­e t­­­­o d­­­­o i­­­­t b­­­­u­­­­t m­­­­y b­­­­e­­­­s­­­­t f­­r­­i­­e­­n­­d e­­a­­r­­n­­s o­­v­­e­­r 1­­0­­k a m­­o­­n­­t­­h d­­o­­i­­n­­g t­­h­­­­i­­­­s a­­­­n­­­­d s­­­­h­­­­e c­­­­o­­­­n­­­­v­­­­i­­­­n­­­­c­­­­e­­­­d m­­­­e t­­­­o t­­r­­y. T­­h­­e p­­o­­t­­e­­n­­t­­i­­a­­l w­­i­­t­­h t­­h­­i­­s i­­s e­­n­­­­d­­l­­e­­­­s­­­­s. H­­­­e­­­­r­­­­e­­­­s w­­­­h­­­­a­­­­t I'v­­­­e b­­­­e­­­­e­­­­n d­­­­o­­­­i­­­­n­­­­g,

    HERE →→→→→→ W­­­­w­­­­w.­­­­w­­­­o­­­­r­­­­k­­­­b­­­­a­­­­a­­­­r­­­­.C­­­­o­­­­m

    sticknca , 8 hours ago link

    The missing Ukraine gold is no surprise knowing the country's reputation, but what is still puzzling is what the hell happened to all the damn Libyan gold that was going to be used to start a friggin' new currency?

    On another Ukraine related note, just got done watching the Beck show referenced and linked above. I normally avoid Beck but this piece by him is well worth the watch. Skip through the short self-promo in the very beginning and you'll be fine.

    deadcat2 , 4 hours ago link

    Don't worry, the gold is all safely tucked away in the vaults of the American Fed.

    DaiRR , 8 hours ago link

    It's buried in my neighbor's north pasture. He borrowed my skid-steer loader to hide it.

    Ms No , 9 hours ago link

    I wonder if theyever recovered that gold that they failed to heist when silverstein and the rest of the Jewish mob blew up NY.

    They had the gold already in trucks. It looks like something went wrong. Since the whole underground was a foundary for a week due to thermite, they may have never gotten it out.

    zob2020 , 5 hours ago link

    umm.. there is a monument there now. This means construction. Trucks come and go.. maybe they come empty and leave full..
    And lots of labor. I can presume those were all jewish bankers doing the digging and pretending to be blue collars.

    Ms No , 9 hours ago link

    The Jewish bankster Mafia has it.

    Soloamber , 9 hours ago link

    The gold is in Russia that's why the Demo's are pissed . They missed their cut . OK Not all of it .

    Biden will be playing bingo and drinking warm milk within the month .

    Straighteight , 9 hours ago link

    `We hope that Trump's second term will provide ample time and opportunity to answer this critical question`

    There is plenlty of time to sink our teeth into this one than play the `quid pro quo` vote for me and `then` we will look into it!

    Templar X , 9 hours ago link

    Ukraine's missing (stolen) gold has likely been funding the DNC for years.

    Ms No , 9 hours ago link

    Probably helping the banksters keep their dollar and perpetual terrorist scams afloat.

    sevensixtwo , 9 hours ago link

    "This transaction of $1.8 billion ... with the help of fake contracts was simply an asset siphoning operation."

    Here is the main problem with USA law compared to God law. If a contract is made by fraudulent representations, the contract is actually said to voidable but not invalid. To have some grievance, you would have to take the contract to court to get get it voided, but in the meantime it is a valid contract. Therefore, fraudulent misrepresentation can be a big cash cow if you are able to keep your defrauded counter party ignorant of the fraud terms in which he is involved. When I went to Exide in late 2018, shortly after the beginning of October, I asked for the copies of all the agreements into which me or my person had been subjected. I went to their office, and I demanded the termination of all agreements, and the copies of all agreements. The HR manager, Mr Gay, refused to give me the documents, and then he called the cops on me to have them take me away without any of the things I asked for. The cops issued me a CT against ever returning to Exide, and I went to jail on a municipal warrant taken out against me after I spat in my roommate's face due to him usuing sexual torture electrodes each afternoon when he would come home. He snickered at me maliciously in the hall when I confronted him about it, and then I spat in his face shortly thereafter in the kitchen. I would to smash their heads with hammers who hypnotize and drug me and enter my apartment in the night to do evil things. Then the next day after I got arrested trying to get copies of the docs relevant to my concurrent and direct allegations of criminal fraudulent misrepresentation against Exide, such that Exide had misrepresented the terms of the hiring package to me in the summer of 2016. I think it's because I am trying to kill the CIA, or the FBI, or both likely, they said in the summer of 2016, "Let's get him to to says he's actually joining us instead of trying to kill us, so that way it will be harder for him to kill us when we make everyone else think we are willing collaborators. I think when they told me at Exide that I would help them in the SQL part of their IT department, and they were a just-out-of-bankruptcy manufacturer and seller of electrical batteries, and they gave me a huge pile of hiring paperwork that I signed in good faith without ever looking at, what they had actually given me was a fraud contract with terms totally unrelated to what I had discussed with the hiring manager, likely Chief Justice John Roberts in a Steve Collins mask. So, the problem with USA law is that Exide has a valid contract as long as they can get away with refusing to give me the papers, then also issuing a criminal trespass notice so that I could never try again to get the papers. Then then next day, or perhaps the same day, Jamal "Cash O.G." Khashoggi went to get his "divorce papers" from the Saudi Embassy, and he "got killed" for doing it. The stock market crashed that day, and there was a problem in the Mueller investigation that got "quickly resolved." What was quickly resolved was that under USA law a fraud contract is voidable but not invalid. So... I think the "anti-Trump insurance policy" of summer 2016 was the conspiracy of fraudulent misrepresentation at Exide. Compared to God law, the only part of the contract which is valid is the the part we discussed and shook hands on. It was said that in ancient Israel after two men would agree on terms of business, one man would give his sandal to the other to signify that they were agreeing to exactly what was discussed and nothing else.

    ImTalkinfullCs , 9 hours ago link

    The plane touched down Tel Aviv for aviation fuel and refreshments. The secretive cargo was offloaded and a manifest notation indicates an additional 17 dancing Israelis flew on to Andrew's airforce base.

    dcmbuffy , 5 hours ago link

    the self loathing watching out and protecting the self loathing.

    sticknca , 9 hours ago link

    Why do I believe that the unmarked US jet that was overnight in Little Rock a few months back is connected to this? Probably because Biden is still a 2nd tier player and not a chief benefactor.

    taglady , 9 hours ago link

    USSR's and Ukraine's gold went to the same place that Libya's gold did...same as USA missing trillions, $35,000,000,000.00 to date.

    oracle of poindexter , 10 hours ago link

    whew! that's a lot of read. maybe better as a movie, eh?

    Dzerzhhinsky , 10 hours ago link

    The gold was put in a USAF cargo plane and flown to ?

    The Mason , 10 hours ago link

    A Rothschild's Bank.

    Ms No , 9 hours ago link

    Since they lost China and everything else is going wrong, I wonder if they will try a temporarily gold backed currency again next time. They will do whatever it takes to own a reserve currency. It is the demon's lifeblood.

    PKKA , 10 hours ago link

    Maidan and the coup attempt in Venezuela, was also accompanied by robbery. After Trump and his disenfranchised vassals declared the clown Guaido - President, the Bank of England froze all the gold assets of Venezuela.

    [Feb 08, 2020] Instead of praise, someone should tell Congressman Adam Schiff, who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, to shut up as he is becoming an international embarrassment

    Feb 08, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    His "closing arguments" speeches last week were respectively two-and-a-half hours and ninety minutes long and were inevitably praised by the mainstream media as "magisterial," "powerful," and "impressive."

    The Washington Post 's resident Zionist extremist Jennifer Rubin labeled it "a grand slam" while legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin called it "dazzling." Gail Collins of the New York Times dubbed it "a great job" and added that Schiff is now "a rock star." Daily Beast enthused that the remarks "will go down in history " and progressive activist Ryan Knight called it "a closing statement for the ages."

    Hollywood was also on board with actress Debra Messing tweeting "I am in tears. Thank you Chairman Schiff for fighting for our country."

    [Feb 08, 2020] Please stand up and clap for Colonel Vindman

    Feb 08, 2020 | caucus99percent.com

    snoopydawg on Fri, 02/07/2020 - 7:48pm

    ...

    ..

    Joe Biden asks the Democratic audience to stand up and clap for Colonel Vindman, a member of the national security state

    A perfect encapsulation of the last few years

    -- Saagar Enjeti (@esaagar) February 8, 2020

    ..

    Joe Biden asks the Democratic audience to stand up and clap for Colonel Vindman, a member of the national security state

    A perfect encapsulation of the last few years

    -- Saagar Enjeti (@esaagar) February 8, 2020

    BTW Vindman quit his job so why was it bad for Trump to remove him early? Games

    lol, Joe demands a standing ovation for Lt. Col. Vindman, a security state apparatchik who was offended that Trump didn't read from the talking points he prepared. Beyond parody

    -- Michael Tracey (@mtracey) February 8, 2020

    ..

    This moment of Amy and Joe basically telling HRC to f*** off is truly beautiful. #DemDebate

    -- Krystal Ball (@krystalball) February 8, 2020

    [Feb 08, 2020] Is Iraq About To Switch From US to Russia

    Highly recommended!
    Feb 08, 2020 | angrybearblog.com

    likbez , February 8, 2020 8:56 pm

    NSC Russia expert freshly appointed Andrew Peek, who was walked out like Vindman, with him only freshly appointed after Fiona Hill and the Tim Morrioson resigned.

    There is a big problems with "experts" in NSC -- often they represent interests of the particular agency, or a think tank, not that of the country.

    Look at former NSC staffer Fiona Hill. She can be called "threat inflation" specialist.

    NSC tries to usurp the role of the State Department and overly militarize the USA foreign policy, while having much lower class specialists. It is a kind of CIA backdoor into defining the USA foreign policy.

    I would advocate creating "shadow NSC" by the party who is in opposition, so that it can somehow provide countervailing opinions. But with both parties being now war parties, this is no that effective.

    Cutting NSC staff to the bones, so that such second rate personalities like Fiona Hill and Vindman are automatically excluded might also help a little bit.

    The size above a dozen or two is probably excessive, as like any bureaucracy, it will try to control the President, not so much help him/her.
    ( https://docs.house.gov/meetings/FA/FA00/20160908/105276/HHRG-114-FA00-Transcript-20160908.pdf ):

    One common explanation is that the NSC mission creep results from the NSC staff growing too large and the easy solution is to limit the size of the staff. I am sympathetic to that feeling because we don't want it to
    be too large and we don't want it to be usurping things that the State Department or the Agency should do.

    [Feb 08, 2020] Impeachment witness Alexander Vindman escorted from White House

    Feb 08, 2020 | thehill.com

    walter sobchak travelergtoo 18 hours ago

    Not at all. But, Vindman should take a lesson from Frank "Five Angels" Pentangelli. If you go for the king, you had best be successful. Otherwise, it will not end up well... for you!
    Bubba Gump biker1 6 hours ago
    Careful you are going to cause anxiety attacks on the snowflakes. They cannot differentiate fact from fiction or correlate the meanings of analogies.

    Mark H Petersen iamanole2 9 hours ago

    He told his opinion. It wasn't facts! Vindman was just upset that Trump didn't take his advice on Ukraine and became vindictive! Such a small petulant thing to do. That's why he got fired!
    pevan99 iamanole2 7 hours ago • edited
    He did nothing wrong by testifying.
    He violated the UCMJ by talking to the whistleblower.
    He discussed classified information with someone (the whistle blower) who was not authorized to know that information.
    That is a clear violation of the UCMJ.
    Were he a civilian he was just a leaker. Since he is in the military, it doesn't get much worse.
    Loose lips sink ships.
    He is very lucky he is not facing a court marshall
    Evangelion Unit 01 travelergtoo 18 hours ago • edited
    It makes a lots of since why these cons are attacking a decorated veteran in defense of who is essentially just a draft-dodging reality TV star.

    They're about as real American as Vladimir Putin.

    biker1 Evangelion Unit 01 10 hours ago
    Hm....
    Michael Flynn is also a "decorated veteran", but that has not stopped the left from attacking him.
    Also, did you have a problem with the draft dodging Bill Clinton being the commander in chief? When did Joe Biden serve? Barack Obama
    T.L. Coston Evangelion Unit 01 12 hours ago
    Anyone who worships the bureaucracy over the U.S. Constitution is not a real American. I will come to the defense of a duly elected president, no matter the party, over a stinking bureaucrat who is trying to overturn the previous election and determine the next.
    biker1 T.L. Coston 10 hours ago
    It would be interesting to see how much the Vindman brothers engaged in any leaks to the media during the course of their work at the White House.
    It appears the Lt. Col. was colluding with the so called whistle blower
    T.L. Coston biker1 9 hours ago
    According to the leftist rabble, Vindman was following his conscience. He's a patriot for the leftist bureaucracy, don't you know.
    Ree Bock T.L. Coston 6 hours ago
    52 U.S.C § 30121
    18 U.S.C § 201
    18 U.S.C § 641
    18 U.S.C § 371
    18 U.S.C § 1343
    18 U.S.C § 1346
    18 U.S.C § 1512
    18 U.S.C § 610
    18 U.S.C §§ 1501-1521
    18 U.S.C § 151
    biker1 Boss 10 hours ago
    Because he's an anti-Trumper who was using his position to undermine the President. Vindman was upset that HIS view of things was not on the same page as the President, and that the President did not do what he wanted.
    If Obama had a guy working in his White House who was actively working to undermine him, I doubt if the left would have been whining if the guy/gal was re-assigned to a job outside of that White Hosue.
    Vindman is a spy for the left, and can't be trusted.
    T.L. Coston Richard Sperry 10 hours ago
    Did Vindman act like a LtC? He sure as hell didn't follow the chain of command did he? If that's the case he should be court martialed. And by the way, who ASSIGNED this partisan dirtbag, anyway?
    T.L. Coston Richard Sperry 7 hours ago
    According to CNN and testimony by Tim Morrison, Vindman didn't consult him. Morrison is Vindman's direct supervisor. Are you trying to tell me that CNN has their reporting wrong
    T.L. Coston Richard Sperry 5 hours ago
    I didn't know Vindman controlled foreign policy. Tell me, where in Article Two does it say NSC advisers dictate foreign policy. These bureaucracies have become rogue entities completely subverting our constitution and its federalist principles
    T.L. Coston Richard Sperry 3 hours ago
    There was nothing illegal of what he did. He is the commander in chief and responsible for foreign policy. He is also responsible for ferreting out corruption and there is no doubt the Biden's are corrupt.
    Boss T.L. Coston 10 hours ago
    Say what you will about people that live their conscience. This will NOT bode well for Trump with the military. I live at Joint Base Lewis-McChord and I see more disdain for Trump every day.
    T.L. Coston Boss 10 hours ago
    There are plenty of dirtbags who lived by their conscience, the Jacobins of the French Revolution and the Bolsheviks are a good example of that. And I'm not buying your assertion that the military has disdain for President Trump. I've had plenty of experience with liberals lies
    Blondlady Texan 18 hours ago
    Vindman's allegiance is with the Ukraine.

    [Feb 08, 2020] This wonderful illusion of democracy

    Feb 08, 2020 | www.unz.com

    That is not the case for most Americans. When approximately 129 million people cast their votes for Donald Trump and HilIary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, you know idiocy reigns and nothing has been learned. Ditto for the votes for Obama, Bush, Clinton, et al. You can keep counting back. It is an ugly fact and sad to say. Such a repetition compulsion is a sign of a deep sickness, and it will no doubt be repeated in the 2020 election. The systemic illusion must be preserved at all costs and the warfare state supported in its killing. It is the American way.

    It is true that average Americans have not built the doll's house; that is the handiwork of the vast interconnected and far-reaching propaganda arms of the U.S. government and their media accomplices. But that does not render them innocent for accepting decades of fabricated reality for so-called peace of mind by believing that a totally corrupt system works. The will to believe is very powerful, as is the propaganda. The lesson that Garrison spoke of has been lost on far too many people, even on those who occasionally leave the doll house for a walk, but who only go slightly down the path for fear of seeing too much reality and connecting too many dots. There is plain ignorance, then there is culpable ignorance, to which I shall return.

    Biff , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 6:18 am GMT

    A good dose of reality will drive a man to drink. Where's my beer?

    A good summary:

    events that started with the CIA coup d'état in Dallas on November 22, 1963, continued through the killings of Malcolm X, MLK, RFK and on through so much else up to September 11, 2001, and have brought us to the deeply depressing situation we now find ourselves in where truthtellers like Julian Assange, Chelsey Manning, and Edward Snowden are criminalized, while the real perpetrators of terrible evils roam free.

    [Feb 08, 2020] Age is starting to catch up to Trump. He appears to be tiring and his rhetoric is becoming repetitive.

    Feb 08, 2020 | www.unz.com

    melpol , says: Show Comment February 7, 2020 at 2:02 am GMT

    Age is starting to catch up to Trump. He appears to be tiring and his rhetoric is becoming repetitive. He might have to resort to energy boosting drugs which is illegal in sporting contests but his opponents might demand a doping test. Bloomberg and Sanders are also old men but they might cause Trump to become confused and disoriented. If that happens Trump will quit the debates and go into the elections based on his low black unemployment achievements.

    [Feb 08, 2020] Beyond Ukraine America's Coming (Losing) Battle For Eurasia

    Feb 08, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    Beyond Ukraine: America's Coming (Losing) Battle For Eurasia by Tyler Durden Sat, 02/08/2020 - 00:05 0 SHARES Authored by US Army Major Danny Sjursen (ret.) via AntiWar.com,

    Academic historians reject anything smacking of inevitably . Instead they emphasize the contingency of events as manifested through the inherent agency of human beings and the countless decisions they make. On the merits, such scholars are basically correct. That said, there was something – if not inevitable – highly probable, almost (forgive me) deterministic about the two cataclysmic world wars of the 20th century. Both, in retrospect, were driven, in large part, by collective – particularly Western – nations' adherence to a series of geopolitical philosophies.

    The first war – which killed perhaps nine million soldiers in the sodden trench lines (among other long forgotten places) of Europe – began, in part, due to the continental, and especially maritime, competition between Imperial Great Britain, and a new, rising, and highly populous, land power, Imperial Germany. Both had pretensions to global leadership; Britain's old and long-standing, Germany's recent and aspirational – tinged with a sense of long-denied deservedness. Political and military leaders on both sides – along with other European (and the Japanese) nations – then pledged philosophical fealty to the theories of an American Navy man, Alfred Thayer Mahan. To simplify, Mahan's core postulation – published from a series of lectures as The Influence of Sea Power Upon History – was that geopolitical power in the next (20th) century would be inherently maritime. The countries that maintained large, modern navies, held strategic coaling stations, and expanded their coastal, formal empires, would dominate trade, develop the strongest economies, and, hence, were apt to global paramountcy. Conversely, traditional land power – mass armies prepared to march across vast land masses – would become increasingly irrelevant.

    Mahan's inherently flawed, or at least exaggerated, conclusions – and his own clear institutional (U.S. Navy) bias – aside, key players in two of the major powers of Europe seemed to buy the philosophy hook-line-and-sinker. So, when Wilhelmine Germany took the strategic decision to rapidly expand its own colonial fiefdoms (before the last patches of brown-people-inhabited land were swallowed up) and, thereby necessarily embarked on a crash naval buildup to challenge the British Empire's maritime supremacy, the stage was set for a massive war. And, with most major European rivals – hopelessly hypnotized by nationalism – locked in a wildly byzantine, bipolar alliance system, all that was needed to turn the conflict global was a spark: enter the assassin Gavrilo Princip, a pistol, Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and it was game on .

    The Second World War – which caused between 50-60 million deaths – was, of course, an outgrowth of the first. It's causes were multifaceted and complicated. Nonetheless, particularly in its European theater, it, too, was driven by a geopolitical theorist and his hypotheses. This time the culprit was a Briton, Halford John Mackinder. In contrast with Mahan, Mackinder postulated a land-based, continental power theory. As such, he argued that the "pivot" of global preeminence lay in the control of Eurasia – the "World Island" – specifically Central Asia and Eastern Europe. These resource rich lands held veritable buried treasure for the hegemon, and, since they lay on historical trade routes, were strategically positioned.

    Should an emergent, ambitious, and increasingly populated, power – say, Nazi Germany – need additional territory (what Hitler called " Lebensraum ") for its race, and resources (especially oil) for its budding war machine, then it needed to seize the strategic "heartland" of the World Island. In practice, that meant the Nazis theoretically should, and did, shift their gaze (and planned invasion) from their outmoded Mahanian rival across the English Channel, eastward to the Ukraine, Caucasus (with its ample oil reserves), and Central Asia. Seeing as all three regions were then – and to lesser extent, still – dominated by Russia, the then Soviet Union, the unprecedentedly bloody existential war on Europe's Eastern Front appears ever more certain and explainable.

    Germany lost both those wars: the first badly, the second, disastrously. Then, in a sense, the proceeding 45-year Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union – the only two big winners in the Second World War – may be seen as an extension or sequel to Mackinder-driven rivalry. The problem is that after the end of – at least the first – Cold War, Western, especially American, strategists severely miscalculated . In their misguided triumphalism, US geopolitical theorists both provoked a weak (but not forever so) Russia by expanding the NATO alliance far eastward, but posited premature (and naive) theories that assumed global finance, free (American-skewed) trade, and digital dominance were all that mattered in a "Post" Cold War world.

    No one better defined this magical thinking more than the still – after having been wrong about just about every US foreign policy decision of the last two decades – prominent New York Times columnist , Thomas Friedman. In article after article, and books with such catchy titles as The World is Flat , and The Lexus and the Olive Tree , Friedman argued, essentially, that old realist geopolitics were dead, and all that really mattered for US hegemony was the proliferation of McDonald's franchises worldwide.

    Friedman was wrong; he always is (Exhibit A: the 2003 Iraq War). Today, with a surprisingly – at least with his prominent base – popular president, Donald J. Trump, impeached in the House and just acquitted by the Senate for alleged crimes misleadingly summed up as "Ukraine-gate," a look at the real issues at hand in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, demonstrate that, for better or (probably) worse, the ghost of Mackinder still haunts the scene. For today, I'd argue, the proxy battle over Ukraine between the U.S. and its allied-coup-empowered government – which includes some neo-nazi political and military elements – and Russian-backed separatists in the country's east, reflects a return to the battle for Eurasian resource and geographic predominance.

    Neither Russia nor the United States is wholly innocent in fueling and escalating the ongoing Ukrainian Civil War. The difference is, that in post-Russiagate farce, chronically (especially among mainstream Democrat) alleged Russia-threat-obsessed America, reports of Moscow's ostensible guilt literally saturate the media space. The reporting from Washington? Not so much.

    The truth is that a generation of prominent "liberal" American, born-again Russia-hawks – Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, the whole DNC apparatus , and the MSNBC corporate media crowd – wielded State Department, NGO, and economic pressure to help catalyze a pro-Western coup in Ukraine during and after 2014. Their opportunism seemed, to them, simple, and relatively cost-free, at the time, but has turned implacably messy in the ensuing years.

    In the process, the Democrats haven't done themselves any political favors, further sullying what's left of their reputation by – in some cases – colluding with Ukrainians to undermine key Trump officials; and consorting with nefarious far-right nationalist local bigots (who may have conspired to kill protesters in the Maidan "massacre," as a means to instigate further Western support for the coup). What's more, while much of the conspiratorial Trump-team spin on direct, or illegal, Biden family criminality has proven false, neither Joe nor son Hunter, are exactly "clean." The Democratic establishment, Biden specifically, may, according to an excellent recent Guardian editorial , have a serious "corruption problem" – no least of which involves explaining exactly why a then sitting vice president's son, who had no serious diplomatic or energy sector experience, was paid $50,000 a month to serve on the board of a Ukrainian gas company .

    Fear not, the "Never-Trump" Republicans, and establishment Democrats seemingly intent on drumming up a new – presumably politically profitable – Cold War have already explanation. They've dug up the long ago discredited, but still publicly palatable, justification that the US must be prepared to fight Russia "over there," before it has no choice but to battle them "over here" (though its long been unclear where "here" is , or how , exactly, that fantasy comes to pass). First, there's the distance factor: though several thousands of miles away from the East Coast of North America, Ukraine is in Russia's near-abroad. After all, it was long – across many different generational political/imperial structures – part of the Soviet Union or other Russian empires. A large subsection of the populace, especially in the East, speaks, and considers itself, in part, culturally, Russian.

    Furthermore, the Russian threat, in 2020, is highly exaggerated. Putin is not Stalin. The Russian Federation is not the Soviet Union; and, hell, even the Soviet (non-nuclear) military threat and geopolitical ambitions were embellished throughout Cold War "Classic." A simple comparative " tale-of-the-tape " illustrates as much. Economically and demographically, Russia is demonstrably an empirically declining power – its economy, in fact, about the size of Spain's.

    Nor is the defense of an imposed, pro-Western, Ukrainian proxy state a vital American national security interest worth bleeding, or risking nuclear war, over. As MIT's Barry Posen has argued , "Vital interests affect the safety, sovereignty, territorial integrity, and power position of the United States," and, "If, in the worst case, all Ukraine were to 'fall' to Russia, it would have little impact on the security of the United States." Furthermore, as retired US Army colonel, and president of the restraint-based Quincy Institute, Andrew Bacevich, has advised , the best policy, if discomfiting, is to "tacitly acknowledge[e] the existence of a Russian sphere of influence." After all, Washington would expect, actually demand, the same acquiescence of Moscow in Mexico, Canada, or, for that matter, the entire Americas.

    Unfortunately, no such restrained prudence is likely, so long as the bipartisan American national security state continues to subscribe to some vague version of the Mackinder theory. Quietly, except among wonky regional experts and investigative reporters on the scene, the US has, before, but especially since the "opportunity" of the 9/11 attacks, entered full-tilt into a competition with Russia and China for physical, economic, and resource dominance from Central Asia to the borderlands of Eastern Europe. That's why, as a student at the Army's Command and General Staff College in 2016-17, all us officers focused almost exclusively on planning fictitious, but highly realistic, combat missions in the Caucasus region. It also partly explains why the US military, after 18+ years, remains ensconced in potentially $3 trillion resource-rich Afghanistan, which, not coincidentally, is America's one serious physical foothold in land-locked Central Asia.

    Anecdotally, but instructively, I remember well my four brief stops at the once ubiquitous US Air Force way-station into Afghanistan – Manas Airbase – in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Off-base "liberty" – even for permanent party airmen – was rare, in part, because the Russian military had a mirror base just across the city. What's more, the previous, earlier stopover spot for Afghanistan – Uzbekistan – kicked out the US military in 2005, in part, due to Russian political and economic pressure to do so.

    Central Asia and East Europe are also contested spaces regarding the control of competing – Western vs. Russian vs. Chinese – oil and natural gas pipeline routes and trade corridors. Remember, that China's massive " One Belt – One Road " infrastructure investment program is mostly self-serving, if sometimes mutually beneficial . The plan means to link Chinese manufacturing to the vast consumerist European market mainly through transportation, pipeline, diplomatic, and military connections running through where? You guessed it: Central Asia, the Caucasus, and on through Eastern Europe.

    Like it or not, America isn't poised to win this battle, and its feeble efforts to do so in these remarkably distant locales smacks of global hegemonic ambitions and foolhardy, mostly risk, nearly no reward, behavior. Russia has a solid army in close proximity, a hefty nuclear arsenal, as well as physical and historical connections to the Eurasian Heartland; China has an even better, more balanced, military, enough nukes, and boasts a far more powerful, spendthrift-capable, economy. As for the US, though still militarily and (for now) economically powerful, it lacks proximity, faces difficult logistical / expeditionary challenges, and has lost much legitimacy and squandered oodles of good will with the regional countries being vied for. Odds are, that while war may not be inevitable, Washington's weak hand and probable failure, nearly is.

    Let us table, for the purposes of this article, questions regarding any environmental effects of the great powers' quest for, extraction, and use of many of these regional resources. My central points are two-fold:

    • first, that Ukraine – which represents an early stage in Washington's rededication to chauvinist, Mackinder geostrategy – as a proxy state for war with Russia is not an advisable or vital interest;
    • second, that Uncle Sam's larger quest to compete with the big two (Eur)Asian powers is likely to fail and symptomatic of imperial confusion and desperation.

    As the U.S. enters an increasingly bipolar phase of world affairs, powerful national security leaders fear its diminishing power. Washington's is, like it or not, an empire in decline; and, as we know from history, such entities behave badly on the downslope of hegemony. Call me cynical, but I'm apt to believe that the United States, as perhaps the most powerful imperial body of all time, is apt, and set, to act poorest of all.

    The proxy fight in Ukraine, battle for Central Asia in general – to say nothing of related American aggression and provocations in Iran and the Persian Gulf – could be the World War III catalyst that the Evangelical militarist nuts, Vice President Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, unwilling to wait on Jesus Christ's eschatological timeline, have long waited for . These characters seemingly possess the heretical temerity to believe man – white American men, to be exact – can and should incite or stimulate Armageddon and the Rapture.

    If they're proved "right" or have their way – and the Mikes just might – then nuclear cataclysm will have defied the Vegas odds and beat the house on the expected human extinction timeline. Only contra to the bloody prophecy set forth in the New Testament book of Revelations, it won't be Jesus wielding his vengeful sword on the back of a white horse, but – tragic and absurdly – the perfect Antichrist stooge, pressing the red button, who does the apocalyptic deed .

    * * *

    Danny Sjursen is a retired US Army officer and regular contributor to Antiwar.com . His work has appeared in the LA Times, The Nation, Huff Post, The Hill, Salon, Truthdig, Tom Dispatch, among other publications. He served combat tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at his alma mater, West Point. He is the author of a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge . His forthcoming book, Patriotic Dissent: America in the Age of Endless War , is available for preorder on Amazon. Follow him on Twitter at @SkepticalVet . Check out his professional website for contact info, scheduling speeches, and/or access to the full corpus of his writing and media appearances.


    Sparkey , 1 hour ago link

    "it won't be Jesus wielding his vengeful sword on the back of a white horse, but – tragic and absurdly – the perfect Antichrist stooge, pressing the red button, who does the apocalyptic deed .'

    The World is full of people who would like to be the one who pushes that button, no matter what happens!

    There is an hint of Samson Option, which basically says; If I can't have it all, then none shall have anything! Don't blame anyone it is just the nature of man, probably both sides believe in this! Who will wiling submit to slavery?

    PKKA , 2 hours ago link

    Europe will become free when the last armed American occupier leaves the European continent. This axiom is also valid for Japan, South Korea and other countries.

    Revolution_starts_now , 2 hours ago link

    Ukraine only matters if you are playing a game of "risk" for world domination.

    messystateofaffairs , 2 hours ago link

    Space and the moon is the latest theory for how to acheive empire and defend yourself from empire.

    Well defended soverignty that is helpful and useful to other sovereign trading partners in a diverse mutipolar world of sovereigns, not so much as yet. Switzerland is kind of that and Russia looks like they're working on it.

    China aspires to empire and America aspires not to lose theirs and is taking instructions from Israel on how to do that.

    Melchizedek gave Abraham these seven laws of how to get along. Empire ambitious nations have trouble with numbers 3, 4 and 5.

    93:4.7 (1017.9) 1. You shall not serve any God but the Most High Creator of heaven and earth.

    93:4.8 (1017.10) 2. You shall not doubt that faith is the only requirement for eternal salvation.

    93:4.9 (1017.11) 3. You shall not bear false witness.

    93:4.10 (1017.12) 4. You shall not kill.

    93:4.11 (1017.13) 5. You shall not steal.

    93:4.12 (1018.1) 6. You shall not commit adultery.

    93:4.13 (1018.2) 7. You shall not show disrespect for your parents and elders.

    PKKA , 1 hour ago link

    It depends on which god to serve. They certainly do not serve Christ the Savior. By their fruits you will recognize them. Mtf. 7:20.

    squid , 2 hours ago link

    Why are career military officers so myopic?

    Eurasia is NONE of America's business, full stop, period, paragraph finish.

    Done.

    It has two oceans separating itself from same.

    It's NONE of America's business. end.

    squid

    SittingDuck2 , 1 hour ago link

    Because they are totally corrupt.

    They are only interested in Money

    theprofromdover , 2 hours ago link

    When China and Russia abandon the dollar, all that's left for the Empire is Canada and South America, and they've never been able to stop themselves making a mess of everywhere south of the fence.

    We're at the end-game now.

    ArgentDawn , 2 hours ago link

    What if they win?

    Chief Joesph , 2 hours ago link

    Pretty good article and summation of what America has become and what to expect. America has sure lost a lot of ground since the 1990's. It's really hard to see America winning at anything these days.

    Justin Case , 2 hours ago link

    When alternatives become available, the *** kissing ends. It's getting late in the bankruptcy

    Scipio Africanuz , 3 hours ago link

    Now Major, let's explore your wonderful article..

    When the "strategists" were penning their hegemonic theories, they woefully failed to peruse history properly, especially that of human nature put on existential defense..

    Either they were not human, or stunted development humans for were they properly developed humans, they'd have understood eventual reaction to unprovoked aggression..

    Such responses often tend to be totally destructive, especially after long suffering from aggression..

    Now, regarding the BRI/OBOR, we've been saying to the West, if they think it's not good enough, what inputs, devoid of coercion, rapine, aggression, or deceit, they'd suggest to improve it..

    And it was crickets for a while, until Germany woke up, and decided with Europe that they'd contribute trade diplomacy..

    We're still waiting for that of America under the current Admin, and all we observe is bullying, coercion, and reality denial..

    Until a Bernard Sanders seized the initiative, that with a continously finessed Green New Deal, the United States of America will lead in the environmental aspect of global trade and commerce, which the EU has also committed to doing as well..

    So then Major, perhaps the time has finally arrived for America to eschew aggression and imperialism, in favor of the erstwhile business of America.. Trade and Commerce..

    So for those who desire swamp drained, and a fresh start for America, you might wanna go chat with, and support Bernard Sanders, the future, and Us..

    Then dump the swamp critters and their current admin enabler..

    But as in all things, we can only show you the way.. Traveling on it however, is your sovereign prerogative..

    Good luck!...

    Falcon49 , 3 hours ago link

    The author still tends to think that it is all because of missteps, mistakes, ignorance, incompetence, stupidity....

    If you step back from the fray.....and don't get caught up in red/blue team nonsense, it becomes apparent that there is a theme/strategy that is being played out. It appears to be conducted in evolutionary phases with Wars allowing larger and more overt advances in their agenda. Simply put order out of chaos.

    We are now about to be manipulated into another major evolutionary phase to advance the globalist agenda. All the conditions are set for their next major order out of chaos...scheme. It is pretty obvious that Nationalism/Populism will be the scapegoat for the cause of the chaos to come. The US will take center stage as an example that you cannot trust a single country (uni-polar world) not to abuse its power....and history has shown a multi-polar situation leads to major wars...creating chaos around the world.

    Their answer will be global governance and their dream of a global feudalistic utopia will be well on its way to being realized. Hold on, we are about to enter a global "great leap forward"...

    [Feb 07, 2020] Just one subjective opinion ;-)

    Feb 07, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    Rusty Trombone , 43 minutes ago link

    Trump is in many ways a narcissistic scumbag...but given the alternative of any of these degenerate limp wristed faggots and gun grabbing communists who want to pay reparations for slavery to people who were never slaves, transgender 7 year olds and have their mental illness rammed down our throats, open borders, and whatever assorted lunacy is in vogue with their purple haired minions ?

    Yeah, go **** yourself.

    Trump, it's not even close.

    Gaius Petronius , 13 minutes ago link

    Instant classic. Love it.

    [Feb 07, 2020] The favored candidate of the DNC is clearly Trump

    Trump is Hillary2020 ;-)
    Feb 07, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    Bubbles , Feb 6 2020 20:57 utc | 74

    Yes pft, the favored candidate of the DNC is clearly Trump.

    Posted by: Blue Dotterel | Feb 6 2020 19:25 utc | 58


    Only if the ungrateful commoners who identify as Democrats or moderates can't be brought to heel and give their full throated support for the DNC's favoured Cookie Cutter candidate who might as well be one of those dolls with a string and a recording you hear when you pull the string.

    Then yes, they would prefer 'fore moar years!!' of the Ugliest American ever to be installed as President of the United States.

    One of things I respect about Tulsi Gabbard is she ain't no Doll with a string attached. When she made the comment about cleaning out the rot in the Democratic Party, she left no doubt her intent and goals. And to take on hillary, the Red Queen to boot, why that was simply delicious.

    Alas, the View, the DNC, it's web of evil rich and the media will never forgive her for Soldiering for her Country.

    [Feb 07, 2020] Ambassador Sondland Gets The Axe Hours After Vindman Twins Escorted Out Of White House

    Feb 07, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    Allow me a moment to thank -- and this may be a bit of a surprise -- Adam Schiff. Were it not for his crack investigation skills, @realDonaldTrump might have had a tougher time unearthing who all needed to be fired. Thanks, Adam! 🤣 #FullOfSchiff

    -- Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) February 8, 2020

    Update (6:55 p.m.): Today's Trump admin casualties continue to stack up, after it was reported that Ambassador Gordon Sondland was fired Friday afternoon.

    " I was advised today that the president intends to recall me effective immediately as United States Ambassador to the European Union," Sondland said in a Friday statement, expressing gratitude to Trump for having "given me the opportunity to serve."

    Sondland testified in Trump's impeachment inquiry that there was no quid pro quo when President Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky to investigate the Bidens while withholding US military aid (unbeknownst to Zelensky at the time). Sondland later flipped his story, claiming that he told a top Ukrainian official that a meeting with President Trump may be contingent upon its new administration committing to investigations Trump wanted, according to the New York Times .

    Sondland's departure comes one week after anti-Trump impeachment witness and former US ambassador to Ukraine announced her retirement from the State Department . Her departure follows her removal as Ambassador at the request of Ukraine.

    * * *

    Anti-Trump impeachment witness Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and his twin brother have been fired and escorted out of the White House by security, according to his Alexander Vindman's attorney.

    News -- Lt. Col. Vindman was just escorted out of the White House by security and told his services were no longer needed.

    -- Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) February 7, 2020

    I'm told Vindman walked out with his brother, who is an attorney for the NSC. It's unclear if he was also fired but that was the expectation.

    -- Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) February 7, 2020

    Vindman, a Ukraine specialist who sat on the National Security Counsel who was accused of being coached by House Intel Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA), was present on a July 25 phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky, when the US president asked that Ukraine investigate former VP Joe Biden and his son Hunter, as well as claims of pro-Clinton meddling in the 2016 US election.

    He was also notably counseling Ukraine on how to counter President Trump's foreign policy according to the New York Times , which led some to go as far as accuse him of being a double agent .

    Adam Schiff wants you to forget this happened https://t.co/DuBm2m4zAx

    -- NSC Cleaning Crew Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) February 7, 2020

    The now-former White House employee, who admitted to violating the chain of command when he reported his concerns over the call, had been rumored to be on the chopping block for much of Friday.

    "He followed orders, he obeyed his oath, and he served his country... And for that, the most powerful man in the world - buoyed by the silent, the pliable, and the complicit - has decided to exact revenge," said his attorney, David Pressman.

    LTC Vindman escorted from WH, per his lawyer David Pressman: "He followed orders, he obeyed his oath, and he served his country... And for that, the most powerful man in the world - buoyed by the silent, the pliable, and the complicit - has decided to exact revenge." pic.twitter.com/u0CAB13iln

    -- Peter Alexander (@PeterAlexander) February 7, 2020

    Soloamber , 15 minutes ago link

    Let's just get this straight . You are in the military , you made it into the White House , you break the chain of command

    in order to take out the President of the United states of America . How is this not firing squad after a court marshal ?

    I hope Schiff and Nadler and Pelosi get a front row seat .

    And by the way no soiling of the uniform . the metals get burned .

    MarkD , 16 minutes ago link

    I can't wait for the next 4+ years of Trump.... The only ones left will be Jarred and friends and those rejoicing right now will be wondering how we allowed an administration to eliminate and assassinate those that went up against the establishment.....err the takeover of Israel.

    Vageling , 19 minutes ago link

    So the Ukinazies got served. They wanted to go dem style and got served. Or severed if you will from the gubbie titty they were breastfeeding on. Ask Nancy. Maybe she needs her lawn mowed. Fuckers.

    Citizen_x , 26 minutes ago link

    Update (6:55 p.m.): Today's Trump admin casualties continue to stack up, after it was reported that Ambassador Gordon Sondland was fired Friday afternoon.

    I wonder how many non-disclosure agreements he had to sign ?

    SirBarksAlot , 12 minutes ago link

    I understand your concern Mark.

    How do you figure that Schiff and Nadler were Jewish, yet somehow they tried to impeach Trump, who you apparently suspect of batting for Israel?

    MoreFreedom , 29 minutes ago link

    If Vindman "followed orders" he wouldn't have tried to undermine the President's foreign policy, nor violated the chain of command. Vindman is putting his, the Democrats, and Ukraine's interests all before the US's interests.

    [Feb 07, 2020] Divide et Impera

    Feb 07, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    VodkaInKrakow , 1 hour ago link

    Bezos held a party in DC recently at his place attended by top officials from the Trump Administration. Jared Kushner was there before. They hang out together.

    How odd that Bezos is somehow portrayed as some anti-Trump owner of WaPo. Bezos serves his role in Beltway...

    Divide et Impera.

    Divide and Rule (the rabble).

    [Feb 07, 2020] Romney Vote Motivated By 'Bitterness And Jealousy' According To Former Spokesman

    Feb 07, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    Mitt Romney's decision to convict President Trump on the impeachment charge of abuse of power was " motivated by bitterness and jealousy ," according to former Romney spokesman Rick Gorka, who added that President Trump has "accomplished what he [Mitt] has failed to do multiple times."

    These are the same people that hated Mitt in 2012 and they will hate him again when they are done with him. It is sad to see that Mitt has not learned the lessons from 2012. Now he has betrayed his Party and millions of voters.

    -- Rick Gorka (@Rick_Gorka) February 5, 2020

    "These are the same people that hated Mitt in 2012 and they will hate him again when they are done with him," Gorka added. "

    It is sad to see that Mitt has not learned the lessons from 2012. Now he has betrayed his Party and millions of voters."

    While that's a good theory, at least a few people have been passing around this Federalist article from September, 2019 which notes that Romney adviser Cofer Black worked with Hunter Biden on the board of Ukrainian energy giant Burisma .

    According to web archives, top Mitt Romney adviser Joseph Cofer Black, who publicly goes by "Cofer Black," joined Burisma's board of directors while Hunter Biden was also serving on the board.

    According to The New Yorker , Hunter joined Burisma's board in April of 2014 and remained on it until he declined to renew his position this past May. Meanwhile, according to Burisma's website, Black was appointed in February of 2017 and continues to serve on its board. The timelines would indicate that Black and Biden worked together at Burisma, and indeed, web archives from late 2017 show Black and Biden listed simultaneously on the board. - The Federalist

    This picture may or may not sum up Romney's utter contempt for Donald Trump:

    Tags Politics play_arrow Reply


    insanelysane , 4 minutes ago link

    Mitt's votes were a bit odd. Not sure of his logic.

    He states that he wanted Senate to call witnesses.

    He voted no on obstruction because House didn't pursue all methods of getting evidence from Trump's crew.

    So he admits that the House was light on evidence and the Senate didn't call witnesses to get more evidence.

    Yet he votes guilty on abuse of power knowing there is evidence missing.

    frankthecrank , 5 minutes ago link

    whether you live in Utah or not--go sign the petition to remove his sorry ***. Just so he knows how hated he is now--a man without a country.

    Chief Joesph , 9 minutes ago link

    At least the good thing about Mitt Romney, he has a mind of his own. Can't say that about the rest of the Republicans who go around marching in lock step to the party's tune, like mechanical robots. (Talk about Communism)!!!!!!

    FGopher , 10 minutes ago link

    Mitt is angry that The Donald got the supermodel and the Presidency. Poor Mittens.

    frankthecrank , 7 minutes ago link

    Trump got three of them to bear his children and fucked a whole lot more.

    Pure Evil , 11 minutes ago link

    I didn't know you could grow sour grapes in Utah. But, Mitt proved me wrong.

    BTCtroll , 12 minutes ago link

    Mitt is a typical Mormon ******.

    kimsarah , 13 minutes ago link

    I cannot believe Mitt did that.

    MAGAMAN , 11 minutes ago link

    Wait until you find out what else he did. This was the believable part. A democrat cut off Romney's balls after the first debate with Obama. The dirt must be pretty vile, my guess is that Trump has the dirt 2.

    MAGAMAN , 13 minutes ago link

    Get in bed with Democrats and wake up with bad jo jo. The best part was his leaning on his faith to cast the treasonous vote.

    Someone Else , 14 minutes ago link

    Try running for President again Mitty.

    You won't have a chance in hell.

    But you can certainly go to hell.

    MasterControl , 17 minutes ago link

    Romney's vote is motivated by fear.

    MootMaster , 18 minutes ago link

    His handlers are extracting the last of his value before sending the broken down hack to the glue factory. What a pathetic individual.

    Stainless Steel Rat , 16 minutes ago link

    Put him up on the roof and let the dog drive.

    frankthecrank , 22 minutes ago link

    You just know when you look at Mittens he as a total dweeb and never got laid in high school or probably college either. The girls he lusted after were actually ******* their brains out with the bad boys--like Trump. There was a time when I almost--almost felt sorry for guys like him because they just didn't 'get it". Mittens probably recoiled in terror the first time he heard Queen's "Tie your mother down".

    So, Mittens grew up and got even. Fucked over lots of blue collar middle class and their supervisors. He hates Trump because he knows it was a guy like Trump that fucked all of his girl friends behind his back. Trump reminded him of his cuckedness on the debate stage one night. He did the same thing to JEB.

    two hoots , 24 minutes ago link

    Elites don't always win and no amount of money can remove that decision. He is this.

    infotechsailor , 24 minutes ago link

    Mitt Romney used to be my favored candidate, I appreciated that he was a solid capitalist . But he is a traitor

    Stainless Steel Rat , 20 minutes ago link

    I lived in SLC, UT for six months, twice, two winters. Away from the slopes, that city is full of weirdness.

    But I guess they like it.

    MootMaster , 11 minutes ago link

    You're forgiven

    this_circus_is_no_fun , 27 minutes ago link

    Mitt Romney:

    "has betrayed his Party and millions of voters."

    He has also betrayed his country and his oath to uphold the constitution, to the extent that Trump was trying to have Biden investigated for his crimes.

    It must always be remembered that Trump's impeachment was about Trump's alleged attempt to have Biden investigated for crimes that Biden actually committed. If Trump really attempted to do so, then he was doing his job as president.

    Trump was accused of doing his job. Biden committed a crime, and then bragged about it.

    motoXdude , 27 minutes ago link

    He split his vote at least... as for his vindictive side, well: We all know that exists! His Utah voters will decide this as it's not up to us! Time Wounds All Heels! Poor Joe Biden and Poor Mitt... 1 loss for Mitt, 2? 3? for Joe? God being a LOSER must really SUCK! Mitt: Play for the Team or Switch Sides! Straddling the fence is not for Men... it's for Boys!

    Stainless Steel Rat , 29 minutes ago link

    Je Suis Romney. Non! -Pierre

    bdc63 , 29 minutes ago link

    Mitt takes his orders from the Deep State.

    hoffstetter , 33 minutes ago link

    Duh?

    Lord Raglan , 36 minutes ago link

    ROMNEY NEEDS TO RESIGN AS SENATOR FROM UTAH. if he had any integrity at all, that's what he'd do as he surely doesn't represent the State of Utah. Only represents his bruised little ego and he's a schmuck. Beta Male.

    BankSurfyMan , 32 minutes ago link

    stoked

    hoffstetter , 32 minutes ago link

    He's a mormon bishop. Utah is more than half mormons. It doesn't matter what else he represents.

    Uncle_Cuddles , 27 minutes ago link

    Resign? Are you kidding? These guys are brazen, in-your-face dishonest these days. Up until Slick Willie's cigar shenigans, pols would resign for the good of the nation usually, not any more.

    molliesue , 37 minutes ago link

    My gawd, romney is the clear example of the bully next door who is just SO ticked off, that his first cousin somehow won a brand new bike from entering a drawing at the county fair, and then proceeds to call the cops on the cousin ratting him out that he never licensed the bike with the city; Cousin then gets his bike impounded by the cops.....Just jealous as all get out that HE didn't win the presidency but trump did. People of Utah had better wake the hell up and dump this RINO asap. Shame on orrin hatch for recommending him in the first place!!!!!!

    HRH of Aquitaine 2.0 , 17 minutes ago link

    Yeah, I had a sister like this. I bought a custom ordered 2000 Ford Ranger and she came to visit me. She couldn't stand that I had a new truck (even though she knew I had lived without any vehicle for years while I went to univ and rode public transit).

    I would ride the bus to visit her for holidays or family stuff and she complained about me calling to have her pick me up at the bus stop closest to her place (less than 2 miles). I was expected to spend money topping off her gas tank for the honor of her picking me up along with buying groceries and pot (for her to smoke).

    I am glad to say I have never asked anyone to top off my gas tank, ever. Low class move.

    I don't understand being jealous over anything. It's material crap.

    lasvegaspersona , 39 minutes ago link

    Complete tosser

    BillEpstein , 40 minutes ago link

    Mitt goes wherever he can be elected

    BankSurfyMan , 34 minutes ago link

    Pea soup with ham for the troops, piss and vinegar for Mitt! up voted on the HEDGE! U Next!

    hoffstetter , 32 minutes ago link

    And some places where he can't...

    Lord Raglan , 40 minutes ago link

    When he went to dinner with Trump that time that Trump was allegedly considering him for Secretary of State, Trump made Romney eat frogs legs. Trump has a great sense of humor. Really great.

    Frog legs for the ******* frog that Romney is.........

    Obake158 , 41 minutes ago link

    Mitt says he's prepared to pay a dear cost for his betrayal of both his constituents, the President and the party. So the bigger question is, why the **** is he in public office? He's a billionaire, he doesn't need money. His family is prosperous and secure. He doesn't represent the people of Utah or their wishes? He is hated and despised by both Republicans and Democrats and the media establishment on both sides. He really needs to do some solid introspective self examination. There is no place for his contemptable brand of high cuckery in today's GOP. He is best served crossing the aisle to the Antiwhite party where such nonsense is standard.

    Brazillionaire , 36 minutes ago link

    Yes, he can go be a dem. Or he can drop dead and wake up in Hell. I really don't care which.

    Spectorman , 42 minutes ago link

    Getting too close to his Ukraine business. Simple as that.

    BankSurfyMan , 41 minutes ago link

    Sleepy Joe And Mitt were hand jobbing Ukraine? OMG!

    I hate cunton , 45 minutes ago link

    Mitt Romney reminds me of John Kerry.

    John Kerry reminds me of Mitt Romney.

    BankSurfyMan , 44 minutes ago link

    is kunt a word? up voted

    SDShack , 25 minutes ago link

    They really are two sides of the same **** coin. One inherited wealth, the other married it. One lied about his service, the other lied to his voters. Both corrupt as hell grifters that would do the world a favor by simply living like Howard Hughes in a dark hotel room.

    williambanzai7 , 48 minutes ago link

    Romney is a losers loser. He's a shitty politician, he's a third string financier. All that's left is for him to me a devout Moron.

    HRH of Aquitaine 2.0 , 15 minutes ago link

    Damn @WB, for a second I misread you comment as the only thing is left for him to become a deviant moron!

    Offthebeach , 50 minutes ago link

    The Romneys came over from England as Mormons in the 1860's. Not one Romney male, to include now Mittens 5 sons, has ever served in the military. Big patriots they are.

    A couple of generations did flee to Mexico to keep multiple wives.

    Mittens dad, George was a big, squish liberal Republican. Govenor of Michigan and always ready to raise taxes. George hated Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan.

    Mittens was a total squish and wimp like his father as Govenor of Massachusetts, raising every fee, license, permit he could, and of course his signature abortion, Romneycare, precursor to Obamacare.

    Mittens ran against Ted Kennedy for Kennedys Senate seat, and had a chance against a obvious un well, fat, drunk, pre brain cancer Ted, but Mittens was such a daddy's boy wimp, the old pickled drunk biytch slapped little Mittens like the woose he was. Later fat Candy Crowley would do the same.

    Mittens has always been a wimpy, goody-two shoes wimp and resents Alpha dog males like Trump.

    BankSurfyMan , 46 minutes ago link

    I am nearing my finals, soon the University of Hedge will award me my PHD. I must however include your comments in my discussions with ALL THE COMMITTEE MEMBERS and the public at large! up voted! U Next!

    Evreman , 37 minutes ago link

    Haven't used that Ignore User button much. Just seems counter to free exchange. But you're my exception. Got you pegged as a twisted INCEL type. Amirite?

    BankSurfyMan , 31 minutes ago link

    **** off bra' do it IGNORE ME up voted PHD HERE

    Offthebeach , 23 minutes ago link

    On occasion I have down voted myself because the critics seemed so pathetic, and voting so meaningful that, what the heck, help a poor short bus window licker out.

    [Feb 07, 2020] Failed Coup of a Failing Establishment by Pat Buchanan

    Feb 04, 2020 | www.unz.com

    It has been a bad few days for the establishment, really bad.

    In a 51-49 vote, the Senate refused to call witnesses in the impeachment trial of Donald Trump and agreed to end the trial Wednesday, with a near-certain majority vote to acquit the president of all charges.

    As weekend polls show socialist Bernie Sanders surging into the lead for the nomination in the states of Iowa, New Hampshire and California, the sense of panic among Democratic Party elites is palpable.

    Former Secretary of State and Joe Biden surrogate John Kerry was overheard Sunday at a Des Moines hotel talking of the "possibility of Bernie Sanders taking down the Democratic Party -- down whole."

    Tuesday, Trump takes his nationally televised victory lap in the U.S. Capitol with his State of the Union address, as triumphant Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and a humiliated Speaker Nancy Pelosi sit silently side-by-side behind him.

    Democrats may declare the Trump impeachment a victory for righteousness, but the anger and outrage, the moans and groans now coming off the editorial and op-ed pages and cable TV suggest the media know otherwise.

    History, we are told, will vindicate what Pelosi and the Democrats did and stain forever the Republican Party for voting to acquit.

    Perhaps, but only if some future Howard Zinn is writing the history.

    Reality: The impeachment of Trump was an attempted -- and failed -- coup that not a single Republican supported, only Democrats in the House and their Senate caucus. The impeachment of Trump was an exercise in pure partisanship and itself an abuse of power.

    What was the heart of the Democrats' case to remove Trump?

    Trump failed to invite Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to the White House, and held up military aid to Kyiv for several months, to get Zelenskiy to hold a press conference to announce that Kyiv was looking into how Hunter Biden got on the board of a corrupt energy company at a retainer of $83,000 a month while his father was the chief international monitor of corruption in Ukraine.

    The specific indictment: Trump's suspension of military aid imperiled "our national security" by denying arms to an "ally" who was fighting the Russians over there, so we don't have to fight them over here.

    And what was the outcome of it all?

    Zelenskiy got his meeting with the president. He got the military aid in September. He did not hold the press conference requested. He did not announce an investigation of the Bidens. No harm, no foul.

    How did President Obama handle Ukraine?

    After Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea and intervened to protect pro-Russian secessionists in the Donbass, Obama's White House restricted U.S. lethal military aid to Kyiv and provided blankets and meals ready to eat.

    What punishment did House and Senate Democrats and anti-Trump media demand for the pause in sending weapons for Ukraine?

    Capital punishment, a political death penalty.

    Democrats demanded that a Republican Senate overturn the election of 2016, make Trump the first president ever impeached and removed, and then ensure that the American people could never vote for him again.

    Nancy Pelosi's House and the Democratic minority in the Senate were demanding that a Republican Senate do their dirty work and keep Trump off the ballot in 2020, lest he win a second term.

    For four years, elements of the liberal establishment -- in the media, "deep state" and major institutions -- have sought to destroy Trump. First, they aimed to smear him and prevent his election, and then to overturn it as having been orchestrated by the Kremlin, and then to impeach and remove him, and then to block him from running again.

    The damage they have inflicted upon our country's institutions is serious.

    U.S. intelligence agencies are being investigated by U.S. Attorney John Durham for their role in instigating an investigation of a U.S. presidential campaign. The FBI has been discredited by exposure of a conspiracy of top-level agents to spy on Trump's campaign.

    The media, by endlessly echoing unproven claims that Trump was a stooge of the Kremlin, discredited themselves to a degree unknown since the "Yellow Press" prostituted itself to get us into war with Spain. Media claims to be unbiased pursuers of truth have suffered, not only from Trump's attacks, but from their own biased and bigoted coverage and commentary.


    anonymous [245] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment February 3, 2020 at 11:18 pm GMT

    Always at least a dribble of Beltway, uniparty propaganda that Russia is "our" enemy ruled by a dictator, etc: "After Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea .." Can this columnist not acknowledge that the people of Crimea voted to secede from Ukraine after Uncle Sam helped stage a coup and handpicked its new figurehead? He is still on record espousing the claim that Russia "hacked" the 2016 U.S. election.

    Anyone who believes that people above the level of sacrificial flunky "being investigated by U.S. Attorney John Durham for their role in instigating an investigation of a U.S. presidential campaign" will be charged with a felony is dreaming.

    Mr. Buchanan's jobs as Stagehand Right in the Washington puppet show are to whitewash the imperialism and to lead enough Red sheep to vote in the next Most Important Election Ever.

    TG , says: Show Comment February 3, 2020 at 11:24 pm GMT
    Impeachment was a circus, nothing more.

    Ooh, lookie lookie, Trump is being impeached! Cheer the noble Democrats striking a blow for freedom and virtue! Or boo the corrupt Democrats for putting on this farce! Take your pick.

    But whatever you do, don't pay any attention to the ongoing third-world invasion on our southern border, or the trillions we are wasting on pointless winless foreign wars, or the tens of trillions (that's not a mis-print) we are wasting bailing out and subsidizing Wall Street and financial engineering, don't pay any attention to the fact that most of our drugs are now made in Communist China with very little quality control, and yet prices for these same drugs in the US are skyrocketing. And don't get me started on the growing industry of "Surprise Medical Billing." I could go on but you get the idea.

    Yes, impeachment was a bad joke. It's not a bug, it's a feature.

    Buck Ransom , says: Show Comment February 3, 2020 at 11:45 pm GMT
    Mr. Buchanan continues in his refusal to mention that the Maidan Revolution in the Ukraine was a color revolution backed by the Obama-era State Department, the CIA and various Soros-affiliated NGOs. But he dutifully invokes the Russian annexation of Crimea while never mentioning the fact that it followed a referendum on the issue which was supported by the vast majority in Crimea.
    Rurik , says: Show Comment February 3, 2020 at 11:46 pm GMT

    Almost all now concede we have become an us vs. them nation.

    hmm..

    Corvinus , says: Show Comment February 3, 2020 at 11:59 pm GMT
    "Reality: The impeachment of Trump was an attempted -- and failed -- coup that not a single Republican supported, only Democrats in the House and their Senate caucus. The impeachment of Trump was an exercise in pure partisanship and itself an abuse of power."

    Reality–Mr. Buchanan is still smarting from his boss Nixon getting busted, and will stoop to new lows to exonerate him and others on the same trajectory. Of course, impeachment is not a coup, and the Democrats made a strong case. It is other than surprising in an election year where Trump threatened to burn any Republican Senator to the ground that they are "united".

    It is laughable that there was this "perfect call", yet he stonewalled any and all efforts to enable witnesses to come forward. Why not have the Bidens, Guiliani, Parnas, Mulvaney, and everyone associated to this scandal be allowed to speak their minds in the Senate? What is the GOP so afraid of?

    Several questions remain:

    Why did Trump task Giuliani, in a personal capacity, to press Ukraine on the Bidens rather than Trump asking the Department of Justice to investigate? Why were several key administration officials "in the dark" about the activities of Giuliani?

    Why did one Trump lawyer say to Senators that the House never authorized a resolution (when it did) for subpoenas of Trump officials, when that same lawyer stated in 2019 that resolution was unnecessary since they would testify on their own behalf?

    White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney admitted to a quid pro quo and then walked it back. Could he testify as to explain why? Why not allow other Trump officials to testify as witnesses to exonerate Trump?

    Trump stated he is concerned about adult children benefiting from their father's name? Why did he give his children a place in his administration?

    Trump's lawyers argued that in order to convict him, the Senate must find him guilty "beyond a reasonable doubt". Except that has never been the standard ever used in past impeachment trial. Why would they make this claim?

    Anonymous [124] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment February 4, 2020 at 12:48 am GMT
    Time for a senate investigation into Joe Biden's blatant corruption and abuse of power in the Burisma matter. There has already been a shitload of evidence gathered by Ukraine prosecutors and a French journalist and it all points to Joe actually being guilty of everything the Dems charged Trump with. Subpoena all of it plus sworn testimony from Joe and Hunter themselves (though they will both have to take the Fifth to avoid self-incrimination).
    Curmudgeon , says: Show Comment February 4, 2020 at 1:02 am GMT
    @Truth3 He can't get that far, he's still stuck on Russia "annexing" Crimea.
    gsjackson , says: Show Comment February 4, 2020 at 1:07 am GMT
    @Truth3 You'd think at 82 and presumably secure financially Pat would let 'er rip once in a while, but he had bigger stones three decades ago when he had a mainstream career in middle age to protect. I met him a couple of times in the '80s, and the pugnacious brawler image he liked to project -- back then, at least -- is not what comes across in person. He was a little reserved and diffident (maybe it was the company). Nothing wrong with that, of course, but you didn't sense a zest for engaging and confronting.
    R.G. Camara , says: Show Comment February 4, 2020 at 1:09 am GMT
    All the coup members should be arrested and tried for treason. Including those working at the corporate news networks who cheered this on.

    Also, the Democratic party will cease to be a viable national party by 2030. (ok, it really should be 2032, because that will be the first presidential election they will not be viable, but I'll stick with 2030).

    Why? Simple: a political party based on a coalition solely devoted to hating the other side won't work. Political parties, unlike wartime militaries, need a constructive agenda to unite behind. Meaning the party must want to do certain things when in power that everyone in the party agrees on, not merely to trample on their political opponents

    Ironically, that's why Bernie's going so well: he's got a constructive agenda. Yes, socialism is evil, but all the other candidates merely say the same flavor of "defeating Trump is paramount." Socialism is at least something to implement beyond recriminations against whitey.

    R.G. Camara , says: Show Comment February 4, 2020 at 1:09 am GMT
    @Corvinus lmao. Our personal paid media-matters troll, Corvinus, is desperately trying to spin his conspiracy theory hoax again. Go, Corvinus, go, earn Mr. Soros's paycheck you maginificent lying bastard!
    Ozymandias , says: Show Comment February 4, 2020 at 2:38 am GMT
    @Anonymous "Subpoena all of it plus sworn testimony from Joe and Hunter themselves (though they will both have to take the Fifth to avoid self-incrimination)."

    Then charge them with Obstruction Of Congress. Isn't that what you're supposed to do when someone exercises their rights?

    Truth3 , says: Show Comment February 4, 2020 at 3:04 am GMT
    @gsjackson Remember this is the guy that was attacked on stage by Jewish thug-wannabees the day he announced his Presidential Campaign and he bounced them off the stage solo.

    He knows the Elephant with the hooked nose well enough is he still afraid of Mossad?

    Priss Factor , says: Website Show Comment February 4, 2020 at 3:15 am GMT
    @Truth3 Yup. Jew Coup through and through.

    It makes me wonder. Even though Jews are over-represented in elite institutions, the great majority of Deep State is still made up of goyim. Then, why are they all so servile to Jewish agendas and Jewish wishes? Do goyim lack a mind of their own? If Jews say 'gay marriage', deep state goyim run to fetch the stick. When Jews 'more Wars for Israel', deep state goyim roll over. If Jews say, 'bail out Wall Street', deep state goyim just go along. If Jews say, "fuc* the first and second amendments", deep state goyim nod along. Look at cuck goyim in Virginia grabbing guns to serve their Jewish masters. If Jews say 'let's get Trump', deep state goyim bark and bite.

    It could be that deep state goyim just happen to share the same ideas and values as the Jews. Or it could be their minds were molded by Jewish-run media and academia. Or they're just afraid of Jewish power that, via media, blackmail, and bought off politicians, can destroy anyone. Indeed, the sheer chutzpah of all those Jews coming out of the woodwork to unseat an elected president.
    Jewish attitude is "Powers Is Ours. All you goyim are just guests at the table."

    Jews are captains of the ship. Deep State goyim must man the engines with no sense of direction or destiny of their own.

    Priss Factor , says: Website Show Comment February 4, 2020 at 3:21 am GMT
    @Corvinus Trump is scump, and yes, he was sniffing at Hunter for political reasons. But there is no smoking gun that he violated any law. It's all speculation.

    Still, Trump did something that was unethical even though he was probing into corruption. He did it for political reasons. After all, if Trump is concerned about corruption, he should begin with US defense budgets.

    But Dems are also full of shit. They began with the agenda, "Let's impeach Trump" and grasped for ANYTHING to carry it out. It didn't begin with the possible violation on Trump's part but with the desire to get Trump somehow someway. Impeach Trump was the apriori agenda from the day he was elected.

    Besides, if Trump should really be removed, it's for the murder of hero Soleimani. And Obama should have been impeached for his war crimes. But nope. It's some fantasy about Russia Collusion or some triviality about Hunter, another scumbag. Jewish Power pushes American Politicians to do evil things around the world and expresses OUTRAGE only when Jews don't get what they want.

    You pretend to be a proggy, but you're just Hasbara. It's so obvious. Give it up.

    nsa , says: Show Comment February 4, 2020 at 6:11 am GMT
    @Priss Factor Henry Ford was the last WASP to resist jew banking and finance. 100 years ago, Ole Henry bought a newspaper dedicated to attacking the jew, and he disseminated the Elders of Zio through all his dealerships. He also tried to prevent the jew's favorite project at the time ..WW1. The jew stomped Ole Henry double plus good and got their war. The WASP establishment took careful note of Ford's humiliation, and took in the jew as a junior partner in running and looting the country. 100 years later, the jew is running government, media, and finance ..with the WASP as a very junior partner, mostly playing the role of useful idiot providing the cannon fodder and taxes for jew wars.
    John Johnson , says: Show Comment February 4, 2020 at 7:30 am GMT
    @Truth3 You and other "blame da jooz" lurkers at Unz clearly haven't spent much time around non-Jewish White leftists as Pat obviously has. There is no great conspiracy he is trying to avoid.

    I went to a college where every single professor was doing their best to indoctrinate the students and 90% of them were Anglo or Nordic.

    For every Jewish leftist lawyer you can point at in DC there are a thousand non-Jewish White lawyers behind the scenes.

    Liberalism is a sickness that would still exist even if you got rid of the Jews. Have a look at Deutschland if you doubt this.

    Here is the kicker: The non-Jewish leftists know they are lying. It isn't some brainwash job by the Jewz. Liberal professors and media commentators know they are lying. They think it is all justified. In their minds we are the problem and lies or gulags are just fine if the end is the same.

    The worst leftist of all time was not Jewish and in fact sent a lot of Jews packing. His name was Stalin, maybe you have heard of him.

    El Dato , says: Show Comment February 4, 2020 at 7:56 am GMT
    @Truth3 But that get-out is a bit easy. It's like ghetto denizens complaining about "the man".

    Yes, philosophical high ground, media high ground, rent-a-mob management ground and self-unaware ability to act decisively and shamelessly has been taken. Now what? Order up a box of Red Bull?

    The sad fact is that there are REAL reasons for getting Trump's ass dragged off into the sunset, but they involve wars and hits for you-know-who, so nobody is ever going to mention those.

    Ludwig Watzal , says: Website Show Comment February 4, 2020 at 8:33 am GMT
    Pat Buchanan describes all the steps of a corrupt political system to remove a sitting US President from office with bogus charges, and their handlers in the media played the loudspeakers and an inaffable role. This gang bears the responsibility that all the major institutions are untrustworthy. CNN leads the lying press crowd. I was not surprised hearing that the Iowa caucus did produce any results yet. As it seems, the "right" person didn't come out first; Joe Biden. The corrupt Democratic Party starts already at the beginning of the primaries by rigging the election. The Dems are still suffering from the defeat of the Queen of Darkness, Hillary Clinton, and their corrupt entourage. The Democratic Parts seems incapable to clean out this Augean stable. The last telling example has been the charade of impeachment. As long no Heads will roll, the Democratic Party will remain in the political quagmire, and corruption will prevail.
    Tulip , says: Show Comment February 4, 2020 at 11:43 am GMT
    What Sanders is doing is revolutionary, in the sense that he is raising enough money to run a national campaign, and winning, without taking corporate money.

    American politics is controlled by a two-party cartel, and candidates have to join the cartel and take the corporate money to get elected, resulting in policies like high immigration that make sense to the Chamber of Commerce but not to many voters. Sure, you can pander to voters and then do the bidding of the Chamber, but a candidate that does more than pander is a stronger candidate.

    You could have a real populist right if you had a candidate who could generate campaign funding solely from grass roots contributions and refused to take corporate money. Granted this is not the culture of the GOP, but the reality is that the program of the American cartels is deeply unpopular with huge swaths of the American people, and the future belongs to the group that can effectively carry out a hostile take-over of the organization and then, not having to obey the corporate donors, puts in place a political program that actually accomplishes the agenda: something like mandatory everify rather than say stupid symbolic fights about a "wall" that never gets built, or maybe conduct a foreign policy that does not have to have pre-approval from Sheldon Adelson.

    Realist , says: Show Comment February 4, 2020 at 12:15 pm GMT
    @Priss Factor

    It makes me wonder. Even though Jews are over-represented in elite institutions, the great majority of Deep State is still made up of goyim. Then, why are they all so servile to Jewish agendas and Jewish wishes?

    Jews have lots of wealth and control the narrative. Plus the average Jew is smarter than the average goyim.

    Do goyim lack a mind of their own?

    In many cases yes.

    It could be that deep state goyim just happen to share the same ideas and values as the Jews. Or it could be their minds were molded by Jewish-run media and academia.

    The latter is the case.

    Jews are captains of the ship. Deep State goyim must man the engines with no sense of direction or destiny of their own.

    This has happened many times in history the out come not so good for Jews.

    Realist , says: Show Comment February 4, 2020 at 12:22 pm GMT
    @nsa

    Henry Ford was the last WASP to resist jew banking and finance.

    And Henry Ford actually produced something of value. As opposed to most rich Jews who produce financial products , which are detrimental to most goyim, but very lucrative to Jews.

    Johnny Smoggins , says: Show Comment February 4, 2020 at 1:17 pm GMT
    @John Johnson "The worst leftist of all time was not Jewish and in fact sent a lot of Jews packing. His name was Stalin, maybe you have heard of him."

    No the worst leftist of all time was the creator of it all, Karl Marx, who absolutely was Jewish. Jews like to use goy cat's paws like Stalin, Roosevelt and Bush to do their dirty work but never forget who's behind it all.

    Truth3 , says: Show Comment February 4, 2020 at 2:50 pm GMT
    @John Johnson Rosa Kaganovich would call you an idiot so I don't have to.
    TGD , says: Show Comment February 4, 2020 at 3:58 pm GMT
    Pat wrote:

    How we accomplish great things again, giv(en) our seemingly unbridgeable differences, remains a mystery.

    Hasn't the US had enough of "accomplishing great things?" Let's pull back and stop trying to remake the world in our own image.

    John Johnson , says: Show Comment February 4, 2020 at 4:23 pm GMT
    @Johnny Smoggins No the worst leftist of all time was the creator of it all, Karl Marx, who absolutely was Jewish. Jews like to use goy cat's paws like Stalin, Roosevelt and Bush to do their dirty work but never forget who's behind it all.

    Marx was half-Jewish and White egalitarian marauding predates Marxism. Napoleon and Lincoln both believed in war for equality.

    Did the Jews force Stalin to send millions to the Gulag? Was pol pot also forced by the Jews to kill his own people? Pretty amazing that Jews were able to manipulate even Asian leftists when there were zero Jews in those countries.

    The corollary of blaming Jews for everything is that non-Jewish leftists are never responsible for their own actions. This is amusing since behind closed doors leftist leaders will admit certain politically incorrect truths which shows they are not Goy-drones. But according to the Unz Blamin' Jews club they are just victims of manipulation. Poor wittle victims that are consciously lying and would send us all to gulags if they could.

    Rurik , says: Show Comment February 4, 2020 at 4:39 pm GMT
    @anonymous

    Can this columnist not acknowledge that the people of Crimea voted to secede from Ukraine

    Whose Side Is God on Now?

    April 4, 2014 by Patrick J. Buchanan

    In his Kremlin defense of Russia's annexation of Crimea, Vladimir Putin, even before he began listing the battles where Russian blood had been shed on Crimean soil, spoke of an older deeper bond.

    Crimea, said Putin, "is the location of ancient Khersones, where Prince Vladimir was baptized. His spiritual feat of adopting Orthodoxy predetermined the overall basis of the culture, civilization and human values that unite the peoples of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus."

    Indicting the "Bolsheviks" who gave away Crimea to Ukraine, Putin declared, "May God judge them."

    Putin is entering a claim that Moscow is the Godly City of today and command post of the counter-reformation against the new paganism.

    Putin is plugging into some of the modern world's most powerful currents.

    Not only in his defiance of what much of the world sees as America's arrogant drive for global hegemony. Not only in his tribal defense of lost Russians left behind when the USSR disintegrated.

    He is also tapping into the worldwide revulsion of and resistance to the sewage of a hedonistic secular and social revolution coming out of the West.

    https://buchanan.org/blog/whose-side-god-now-6337

    It seems to me, that in a sense, Buchanan is declaring that Putin is 'planting Russia's flag' as the new moral center of the dying ((murdered)) Western world, with Moscow as the " the Third Rome".

    As the West descends into the moral 'sewer', Putin's Russia is returning to the ideals of Christian virtues and traditional values.

    "But the war to be waged with the West is not with rockets. It is a cultural, social, moral war where Russia's role, in Putin's words, is to "prevent movement backward and downward, into chaotic darkness and a return to a primitive state."

    Would that be the "chaotic darkness" and "primitive state" of mankind, before the Light came into the world?"

    In other words, Patrick Buchanan knows very well indeed who the villains are vis-a-vis Crimea, and Russia, vs. the ((Globohomo)). And he's willing to say so, eloquently, when it suits him to do so.

    But even so, there was that vomit reflex moment when I read "writes WCF's Allan Carlson, "Russia is defending Judeo-Christian values . "

    So Pat does pepper his articles with paeans to the Globohomo vernacular of the day, I suppose for reasons of appealing to the masses, such as they are. But if you've been reading Pat for as long as I have, you know he's well aware of the subtle nuances behind claims of 'annexing Crimea', but this column is all about the obvious corruption on display with the impeachment farce, and how the Democrats all gush when Obama does something corrupt, but howl and screech when it's 'done' by Trump.

    So in that context, he's simply using Crimea as an example of Democrat hypocrisy. Like trying to impeach Trump for endeavoring to uncover the rat-hole of uber-corruption between Obama/Hillary/Biden/Nuland – and the former regime in Ukraine.

    IOW, what Trump did, (what he was actually impeached for) was the "off the reservation" attempt to expose their uber-corruption. That he trusted the current ((regime)) in Ukraine, and in his own deepstate, was his monumental error.

    Then, there's this:

    The NSC and State Department have been exposed as employing individuals with an exaggerated view of their role in the origination and the execution of foreign policy. Disloyalty and animosity toward the chief executive appear to permeate the upper echelons of the "deep state."

    The arrogance on display from all those diplomats, with sanctimonious outrage, at a president that actually thinks *he's* in charge of foreign policy! 'Who does he think he is?!, to decide when Ukraine gets their belligerent weapons to use on Putin's/Hitler's aggressive Russia?! These decisions are all made wayyyy above that asshole's pay grade, and we need to put him in his place!'

    Not in our lifetime have the institutions of government and the establishment been held in lower regard.

    Almost all now concede we have become an us vs. them nation.

    Liberal Jews, who hate Trump's guts with the searing heat of a thousand exploding suns, vs. war mongering neocon Jews, who also hate Trump, but see in him a very pliant and useful idiot.

    @ Priss

    Or they're just afraid of Jewish power that, via media, blackmail, and bought off politicians, can destroy anyone.

    Bingo

    If you're a goyim in the administration, and you mumble something about how much the wars are costing, either in untold trillions or in political capital, the dagger-eyed glowering would be immediate from every Jew in the room. 'So, we have a little wannabe Himmler here. He'll soon fine out what happens to Adolf wannabes, when he gets his arse handed to him, and he's out on the streets'. Make him the first on your list.'

    Everyone with two synapses to rub together, knows that all these wars are Jewish supremacist wars of conquest. Duh. Even the war on Yemen, is a proxy war against Iran. So the moment anyone tries to rein in the belligerence, he's going to have Hymie to pay. And that is what this really is all about. Trump's holding back weapons from Ukraine, is seen as counter productive to the ((greater agenda)), and so they pile on. And if the president of the United States, can be keelhauled for a year, and impeached, for daring to obstruct the Eternal Wars for Israel*, then how well will some lesser veck fare if he too thinks the wars are not the greatest thing since sliced bread?

    The Jews are uniform and connected on certain subjects. The Eternal Wars are one of them. I know some liberal Jews. To this day, they seem to worship Obama, and loath Trump with obvious distain, (clear hatred), but when it comes to the wars, they're kosher.

    That's why there's perfect conformity from both isles in DC, on the need to continue the wars. That's why both Fox news and ABCNNBCBS.. et al, are all perfectly aligned on that particular issue. Which is why Tulsi has been 'Ron Pauled'. When it's something all Jews are all aligned on ** , then it's unwritten, and woe be to any wrong-minded goyim, who's brave enough to step over that particular line.

    *Obama got a pass on a lot of things, because the liberal Jews gushed when he walked into the room. Trump gets no such leeway.

    ** .. in reality, since first entering Congress in 1991, Sanders has compiled a lengthy record of support for war and defense of the predatory interests of American imperialism."

    Sanders' record demonstrates what he considers "necessary wars." It also includes the NATO air war against Serbia in 1999, launched on the pretext of stopping the imminent ethnic cleansing of Kosovars.

    In 2001, Sanders joined in a near-unanimous vote in favor of the invasion of Afghanistan. Today -- now that the nearly twenty-year-long war is widely unpopular -- Sanders conveniently declares that his earlier vote was a "mistake." But he has continued to endorse US wars in the Middle East, including the US proxy war in Syria.

    Sanders has also supported Israel's repeated assaults on Gaza, imperialist war crimes made possible with the support of the United States. In a 2014 town hall meeting, Sanders shouted down an antiwar protester who challenged his support for Israel even as it was committing egregious crimes against the Palestinian population.

    Moreover, Sanders has publicly voiced support for the use of assassinations and "extraordinary rendition" in the so-called "war on terror." In 2015, when asked whether anti-terrorism policies under a Sanders administration would include drones and special forces, Sanders replied that he supported "all that and more."

    https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/01/11/sand-j11.html

    John Johnson , says: Show Comment February 4, 2020 at 5:23 pm GMT
    I'm amazed Pat even posts here when half of you guys couldn't analyze the contents of a turkey sandwich without some screed about Jews.

    Jews are depicted as some monolithic bloc and yet Israel would undoubtedly take Trump over Sanders.

    So the first Jewish president would be rejected by the world wide Jewish conspiracy? Some conspiracy.

    As a reminder the presidential candidate that actually wanted government troops to kick in doors and take guns was an Irish Texan. But I'm sure that's somehow the fault of Jews even though the Jewish candidate has been a moderate on guns.

    follyofwar , says: Show Comment February 4, 2020 at 5:57 pm GMT
    In the fifth paragraph, Pat writes: "Tuesday, Trump takes his nationally televised victory lap in the US Capitol with his SOTU address, as Mitch McConnell and a humiliated Speaker Nancy Pelosi sit silently side-by-side behind him."

    I'll forgive Pat the senior moment, as he surely knows that VP Pence, not Mitch McConnell, will be sitting next to our senile Speaker.

    anonymous [245] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment February 4, 2020 at 6:18 pm GMT
    @Rurik "In other words, Patrick Buchanan knows very well indeed who the villains are vis-a-vis Crimea, and Russia, vs. the ((Globohomo)). And he's willing to say so, eloquently, when it suits him to do so.
    [I]f you've been reading Pat for as long as I have, you know he's well aware of the subtle nuances behind claims of 'annexing Crimea', "

    Please. Just run "Crimea" in the search engine against Mr. Buchanan's columns. -- > 11/22/2019: " .. 2014, when Vladimir Putin's Russia seized Crimea .." What's subtle or nuanced about "seized"? Do I need to show you some of his other Beltway bits, like his standing assertion that Russia "hacked" the 2016 US election?

    I repeat: Mr. Buchanan's jobs as Stagehand Right in the Washington puppet show are to whitewash the imperialism and to lead enough Red sheep (like you?) to vote in the next Most Important Election Ever.

    Refute it, or admit it. Neither should require another 1,300 words.

    Rurik , says: Show Comment February 4, 2020 at 6:58 pm GMT
    @John Johnson

    Jews are depicted as some monolithic bloc and yet Israel would undoubtedly take Trump over Sanders.

    in the comment right above this one, I just wrote

    "Liberal Jews, who hate Trump's guts with the searing heat of a thousand exploding suns, vs. war mongering neocon Jews, who also hate Trump, but see in him a very pliant and useful idiot."

    Jews don't control everything. But when it comes to N. America's foreign policy, you'd have to be a huge knucklehead not to know of AIPAC, CFR, and PNAC, and all the other Jewish supremacist institutions herding our congress-critters like so many sheep, to their Eternal Wars for Israel.

    Or ,

    ..you can explain how its in the American people's interest to spend seven+ trillion, (all of it borrowed at interest) to slaughter, main and displace millions of innocent people, who just happen to be inconvenient to Israel's imperial ambitions. While simultaneously getting tens of thousands of young American soldiers dead, maimed or so soul-shattered they're committing suicide at some 20 a day?

    Or, would you really have us all believe, that Saddam did 9/11, and that he and Gadhafi had WMD, because they "hate our freedom", and so we have to "fight them over there, so we don't have to fight them over here"

    ?

    Johnny Smoggins , says: Show Comment February 4, 2020 at 7:13 pm GMT
    @John Johnson But for the Jews who controlled the Communist party in the Soviet Union grooming and promoting him, Stalin would've been a minor tyrant terrorizing the peasantry in the Georgian countryside. Unfortunately for them, their pet got out of control and started to bite the hand that fed him. The corollary to this is Jews in the US promoting "civil rights" and then having some of their negro pets (like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton) turn on them.

    Remind us friend, where the idea for Marxism came to Asians from? The answer of course is from the Jew Marx with financing provided by Jacob Schiff and other wealthy Jews. Perhaps Pol Pot may have found some other outlet for his murderous instincts but as has been the case in so many instances around the world, it was Jewish Marxism that not only lit the fuse, but set it up to begin with.

    Don't get me wrong, do gooder Christian types are nearly as much to blame for the mess we're in as the Jews. The difference is that while Christians are naive, gullible and stupid, their motivations are essentially good even if the outcome is bad. With Jews, the motivation behind what they do is pure malice.

    You seem new here. Welcome. Do some more reading and exploring and then comment more. You're not the first newbie to wander in from Breitbart ready to defend Israel and the Jews without first having educated himself, and you won't be the last.

    Rurik , says: Show Comment February 4, 2020 at 7:20 pm GMT
    @anonymous

    Do I need to show you some of his other Beltway bits, like his standing assertion that Russia "hacked" the 2016 US election?

    from my little screed

    "So Pat does pepper his articles with paeans to the Globohomo vernacular of the day, I suppose for reasons of appealing to the masses, such as they are."

    Mr. Buchanan's jobs as Stagehand Right in the Washington puppet show are to whitewash the imperialism and to lead enough Red sheep (like you?) to vote in the next Most Important Election Ever.

    Refute it, or admit it.

    I admit it!

    HAHAHAAAAHAAA!!!

    I'm actually a Trump supporter because, that's right! I'm a racist!!!

    HAHAHAAAHAAAA!

    That's why we're all pretending that the Dems are actuyally way worse than Trump when it comes to the Eternal Wars, because we all secretly love Trump, because he called Mexicans 'bad hombres!! And he said Obama wasn't born here, and we all love that kind of RACISM!

    HAHAHAAAAA!!!!

    When ever he mocks Maxine Waters, we all laugh at how racist we all are, and that's why Pat and the Deplorables and all of us closet racists are going to pull the lever for Trump!

    Because we're racists!! And we don't even worship Obama!! the One!!!

    HAHAHAAAHAAAA!!!!

    White supremacy, baby!!!

    HAHAAAHAAAAAAA!!!!

    You're going to get four more years of Orange clown racism! He grabs fulsomely offered gold-digger's pussies like crazy, and we don't even care!!!

    We even like, that he likes women, and isn't even gay!!

    HAHAHAAAA

    I was just talking to a buddy of mine, and we were lamenting some of Trump's more egregious disappointments, (assassinating world leaders, tossing Bibi's salad, etc..). But there was one thing about which we could agree, as bad as Trump is, (and he's a disaster), we are very much going to enjoy the show, as Hillary and Madow and Maxine and all the other white-male-castrating hags and losers and SJW POS, will be soul-raped on election day.

    That, might go a long way towards mollifying Trump's disastrous presidency.

    Sometimes I watch those videos of the reaction to the 2016 election, and the tears, and howls of existential angst, from Hillary supporters, and boy oh boy are those memories great.

    heh

    John Johnson , says: Show Comment February 4, 2020 at 8:44 pm GMT
    @Rurik Jews don't control everything. But when it comes to N. America's foreign policy, you'd have to be a huge knucklehead not to know of AIPAC, CFR, and PNAC

    Zomg Jewish lobbies. You can actually be against aid to Israel while not taking the view that Jews control every single war and leftist action. Not everything has to be about the Jews.

    Or, would you really have us all believe, that Saddam did 9/11, and that he and Gadhafi had WMD, because they "hate our freedom", and so we have to "fight them over there, so we don't have to fight them over here"

    What would make you think that I believe Saddam did 9/11? I have said nothing of the sort.

    It's actually possible to be against foreign wars and also against blaming the Jews for everything. Anglo leaders have started foreign wars without the influence of Jews. If that angry Austrian didn't start a needless war with Poland we wouldn't be in the mess we are in today. Then he went and made his great dunderheaded move of attacking Russia before defeating Britain. Did the Jews make him do it while they were in boxcars? The Romans started all kinds of needless foreign wars without Jewish influence. But if a US president does it then MUST BE the Jews. Nevermind that GWB talked about wanting to get even with Saddam or that Cheney had all sorts of war industry connections. Just blame Jews, it's the Unz way. Thank you Mr. Jewish Unz for providing this forum.

    SolontoCroesus , says: Show Comment February 4, 2020 at 8:49 pm GMT
    Disagree w/ Buchanan's key premise: the coup leaders, as Rick Wiles identified them, the Jew Coup, got everything they wanted and still have tethers in place to force more from Trump, in the fullness of time.

    -- Give us Golan or we'll unleash "six ways til Sunday"

    -- Give us Jewish capital in Jerusalem or we will unleash "six ways til Sunday"

    -- Convey gas rights in Golan to Cheney, other Jewish and American interests or we'll unleash "six ways til Sunday"

    -- Kill Soleimani or we'll unleash "six ways til Sunday"

    -- Give us full sovereignty and political cover to take all of ersatz Israel, Palestinians be damned, or we'll unleash "six ways til Sunday"

    -- Ensure that Syria remains fragmented and without financing to rebuild or we'll unleash "six ways til Sunday"

    --
    By the way: those of you familiar with gematria or Kabbalah -- remember Schiff's "parody" of the Trump phone call? Among its other weird references that, I suspect, were not without esoteric meaning, Schiff repeated the number seven. Does that mean anything?

    IMHO, the outcome -- 'acquittal' in the Senate -- is just as pre-ordained by Schiff-Nadler – Engel – Schumer, as was the No vote on witnesses: Dems are just as dirty as GOP; they'd have been pissing in their Guccis if Republicans had voted to call more witnesses who might have implicated Democrats in corruption.

    AGREE that Pelosi has been humiliated: nothing Jew Coupers like better than using, then humiliating a Catholic; that she is Italian (Roman) is cream cheese on the bagels.

    John Johnson , says: Show Comment February 4, 2020 at 9:02 pm GMT
    @Johnny Smoggins But for the Jews who controlled the Communist party in the Soviet Union grooming and promoting him, Stalin would've been a minor tyrant terrorizing the peasantry in the Georgian countryside.

    Where does Lenin fall into this revisionist history? He had nothing to do with the rise of Stalin? Why didn't the Jews rally around Trotsky, an actual Jew?

    Anyways the Jews dominated the NKVD, not the central party. They executed anyone including Jews. Their top leaders were eventually executed by Stalin to cover up his crimes. Their hegemony in the NKVD was eventually broken but the "Jewish USSR" myth remained for decades.

    Remind us friend, where the idea for Marxism came to Asians from? The answer of course is from the Jew Marx with financing provided by Jacob Schiff and other wealthy Jews.

    This is exactly the irrational thinking that I am talking about. If some Asian dictator kills a million people you actually blame a half-Jew's Communist book even though said book never called for killing a million people. Total removal of responsibility. You are giving a free pass to any blood thirsty leftist.

    Don't get me wrong, do gooder Christian types are nearly as much to blame for the mess we're in as the Jews. The difference is that while Christians are naive, gullible and stupid, their motivations are essentially good even if the outcome is bad.

    This shows you don't even understand leftiest leadership in the US or EU. They are mostly secular, not Christian. They are not manipulated children. They know exactly what they are doing and fully intend to
    transform the US into Brazil.

    Whites like Edwards and Beto are not the pawns of some Jewish indoctrination project. They know full well that they are lying to the public. Nothing on this website would surprise them. You could tell them all about Jewish lobbies or Jews in the NKVD and they wouldn't care. Leftists have an egalitarian vision and don't care about what you have to say.

    Rurik , says: Show Comment February 4, 2020 at 9:48 pm GMT
    @John Johnson

    Not everything has to be about the Jews.

    not everything is..

    But the Eternal Wars for Israel, are.

    Btw, you're an imbecile

    Johnny Smoggins , says: Show Comment February 4, 2020 at 9:57 pm GMT
    @John Johnson Can we agree that a person needn't actually be a believer himself to carry the ideals that the religion espoused?

    Marx may have never worn a yarmulke or even believed in God but that doesn't mean that his actions, perhaps unconsciously, weren't rooted in Jewish ideals. And every single SJW, even the most stridently atheist, is animated by Christian ideals about making the world a better place.

    Bottom line – Whites are in the sorry state we're in because of both Jews and Christians but Jews were, and are, motivated by a poisonous hatred of Whites. We'll have to deal with dumb Christians and SJWs on our own, we don't need Jews with all their money, power and hate helping them.

    You're right though; Before we can tackle the Jewish problem we have to clean our own house first.

    SeekerofthePresence , says: Show Comment February 4, 2020 at 10:43 pm GMT
    @Priss Factor Sounds like the couple on their honeymoon who went over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Not sure if they survived.
    eah , says: Show Comment February 4, 2020 at 11:04 pm GMT
    a Failing Establishment

    Actually the Establishment is doing fine: the government employs more people, spends more money, and exerts more influence than ever, while big tech censors legitimate opposition/dissent.

    It's the American people who are screwed by being chained to this freak show by the coercive tax system, especially when it's obvious voting makes no difference.

    "Already, the odds of a modern 30-50-year-old dying from suicide, alcohol, or drugs in America are 10 times as high as the odds an 18-35-year-old in 1960 had of dying in Vietnam." https://t.co/RrudZ1cvwX

    -- Christoph Nahr (@ChrisNahr) January 27, 2020

    John Chuckman , says: Website Show Comment February 5, 2020 at 12:54 am GMT
    Ridiculous use of the word "coup."

    https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2020/02/01/john-chuckman-comment-the-destructive-outcome-of-trumps-impeachment-ugly-precedents-set-for-the-future-and-accommodating-a-man-with-perhaps-the-most-dangerous-personality-ever-to-serve-as-presi/

    https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2020/01/22/john-chuckman-comment-more-on-the-nature-of-american-impeachment-why-it-is-and-has-been-a-political-act-the-american-constitutions-limits-and-how-it-is-treated-by-washingtons-political-establ/

    Crazy Horse , says: Website Show Comment February 5, 2020 at 1:23 am GMT
    @Corvinus Maybe you should contact Gordon Duff over at VT. He'd probably hire you in a New York minute. It seems that you don't even have the decency to admit that the Impeachment was nothing but a Deep State orchestrated circus or more accurately farce actually unbelievably promoting the NeoNazi State of Ukraine as our "ally" who were fighting the evil Rooskies on our behalf.

    Number one. Why would it be in the interest of the American people to get involved in a proxy war with Russia? A nation that happens to have more nukes and a more effective and deadlier method of delivering them than we do. According to military analysts we are at least two decades behind them.

    Next even if Russia was a valid target. They are not attacking Russia they are attacking Dombass, dumb ass which happens to be a breakaway region of Ukraine.

    Two. Talk about being low life sniffling scum they embrace John Bolton the epitome of Neocon subversion as an "ally". Just shows how low the establishment demoncrats have sank proving that they have no moral compass whatsoever and like the CIA the ends justify the means.

    What you and the DemonCrats have shown is that you aren't any better than Trumpenstein but probably in many ways far worse.

    Well done! Shit head.

    David Walters , says: Website Show Comment February 5, 2020 at 1:45 am GMT
    "The damage they have inflicted upon our country's institutions is serious."

    No more true words have ever been printed.

    I fear for my country.

    SeekerofthePresence , says: Show Comment February 5, 2020 at 1:47 am GMT
    Coup is 'Murikan as apple pie.
    "It's Californication!"
    Destroy the other or say good bye.
    Devil's inauguration.
    SeekerofthePresence , says: Show Comment February 5, 2020 at 2:12 am GMT
    @Crazy Horse The Sarmat ICBM is now in serial production and being deployed. Range: 18,000km. Payload: 10 nuclear or hypersonic warheads.
    Sulu , says: Show Comment February 5, 2020 at 4:38 am GMT
    @Corvinus Hey Corvinus,
    The Democrats swung and missed. It was a Hail Mary effort that was bound to fail but their blind hatred of Trump would not allow them to see the inevitable outcome. The Democrats simply can't accept that their annotated one (Hillary) was just not Presidential timber, but many voting Americans could see it. You lost in 2016 and you will lose the Presidency in 2020, almost certainly. If you lose the house too that will simply be the icing on the cake. Democrats will then be relegated to the sidelines and will be able to do nothing but squall impotently from the dark spaces they all inhabit. I await your lamenting and gnashing of teeth after Nov.

    The Democratic party may be done for a decade because of this. Their continued actions have damaged themselves and strengthened Trump but their denial does not allow them to see it.

    Democrats are like the tranny males they claim to espouse. When they look in the mirror the reflection they see is that of a beautiful girl. But in reality all they are is just a bunch of dicks.

    Crazy Horse , says: Website Show Comment February 5, 2020 at 5:15 am GMT
    @SeekerofthePresence Exactly we're at least 20 years beyond the Rooskies as far as hypersonic weapons. They're still on the drawing boards here while:

    https://www.fort-russ.com/2019/08/russia-is-ahead-of-us-in-hypersonic-technologies-experts-say/

    John Johnson , says: Show Comment February 5, 2020 at 5:21 am GMT
    @Johnny Smoggins And every single SJW, even the most stridently atheist, is animated by Christian ideals about making the world a better place.

    Bottom line – Whites are in the sorry state we're in because of both Jews and Christians but Jews were, and are, motivated by a poisonous hatred of Whites. We'll have to deal with dumb Christians and SJWs on our own, we don't need Jews with all their money, power and hate helping them.

    I don't actually believe this is the case and I'm not trying to be argumentative.

    If Christianity is the underlying problem then European countries with greater declines in Christianity should see less support for liberalism. Children raised in secular households should be less like to be liberal.

    This hasn't happened and in fact the opposite is true. Sweden is very secular and very leftist. Children raised in secular homes are far more likely to be liberal. The data is clear on this.

    We aren't dealing with Christianity or some pseudo form. We are dealing with a new egalitarian religion called liberalism. The leaders are secular are fully conscious of what they are doing. If anything Christianity in the right form can provide a layer of inoculation.

    So no I don't think blaming Jews or Christians is valid or helpful.

    John Johnson , says: Show Comment February 5, 2020 at 5:22 am GMT
    @Rurik Btw, you're an imbecile

    Ur Stooped.

    Did you get an award from the Unz Joo Hatin' club for that brilliant retort?

    anon [311] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment February 5, 2020 at 6:11 am GMT
    @Corvinus Hey. Some Democrat candidates got what they wanted. Old Joe Biden barely survived Iowa, which was not unintended collateral damage, but rather very intended and targeted. I can imagine Elizabeth Warren's fingerprints all over this one.

    We will see in November exactly who was too clever by half.

    Crazy Horse , says: Website Show Comment February 5, 2020 at 7:45 am GMT
    @Crazy Horse Meant to say behind not "beyond" oopsie
    redhorse , says: Show Comment February 5, 2020 at 9:18 am GMT
    The french had a solution during their revolution!
    swamped , says: Show Comment February 5, 2020 at 9:19 am GMT
    @John Johnson "This hasn't happened and in fact the opposite is true. Sweden is very secular and very leftist" Sweden is not as 'leftist' as often portrayed. In the last election the Social Democrats fell to their lowest vote share in over 100 years. They were reduced to only 100 seats in the Riksdag (less than a 1/3)& formed a minority coalition govt. with the Greens & Commies comprising only 144 seats. The centrist Alliance coalition picked up 143 seats & the rising stars – the right-wing Sweden Democrats, rose to 62 seats. The coalition was slightly revamped after an early vote of no-confidence but the Social Democrats are waning & the centrist & right-wing Parties are gaining. The most recent polls in the country show the Sweden Democrats actually running ahead of the Social Democrats now, making it the most popular Party in the country at this time. Most of those "Johnson's" aren't very leftist anymore. But this still doesn't detract from the fact that Christianity is NOT the problem. After all, our greatest living pundit, Pat Buchanan, is Christian & he's no raving, leftist loony.
    KenH , says: Show Comment February 5, 2020 at 2:03 pm GMT
    Like a coup really matters when Trump has turned into either Jeb Bush or Lindsey Grahamnesty without the lisp and the drawl. Trump has become orange Jebulus. He's not the Donald Trump I voted for in 2016. The Potomoc fever bug finally bit him.

    At Trump's State of the Zionist Union speech (SOTZU) he received raucous applause and shouts of "four more years" from the Republican side of the chamber. Most of these people used to oppose him but now that Trump has sold out to the deep state (if he ever really opposed it in the first place), especially on foreign policy, they love him and have accepted him as one of their own.

    Tulip , says: Show Comment February 5, 2020 at 4:22 pm GMT
    @KenH Orange golem good, muh capitalism!
    follyofwar , says: Show Comment February 5, 2020 at 4:45 pm GMT
    @SolontoCroesus Not to worry, Pelosi got her revenge last night when she churlishly tore up her copy of Trump's SOTU address right after he was done speaking. What a classless little tramp that woman is.

    Is it not true, though, that the three biggest Jewish plotters in Congress (Schiff, Nadler, and Schumer) have been equally humiliated?

    Virgile , says: Show Comment February 5, 2020 at 6:26 pm GMT
    Hillary Clinton, Nany Pelosi and her likes have poisoned deaply the democratic party without any chance of cure soon.
    Revenge for their humiliation has been the engine behind the Muller trial and the impeachment circus.
    They failed dramatically and now the DNC is not only more humiliated but it has lost the little credibility it still had.
    Only an old fashioned democrat leader can bring back confidence in the democratic ideology that has been lost by Hillary and Cie. It seems too late for this to happen and Trump will be back . As it is expected that the economy in the US may enter into a recession in the second term, why taking away from him the humiliation he will face?
    siberiancat , says: Show Comment February 5, 2020 at 8:27 pm GMT
    @John Johnson Marx himself was of a pure ethnic Jewish stock. His father converted to Christianity.
    His wife was German.
    John Johnson , says: Show Comment February 5, 2020 at 8:50 pm GMT
    @swamped Sweden Democrats actually running ahead of the Social Democrats now, making it the most popular Party in the country at this time. Most of those "Johnson's" aren't very leftist anymore. But this still doesn't detract from the fact that Christianity is NOT the problem.

    They have around 20% of the vote which is significant but the majority still buys into mainstream leftist BS.

    After all, our greatest living pundit, Pat Buchanan, is Christian & he's no raving, leftist loony.

    Good point and quite ironic that we have someone here blaming Christians when PB is a stalworth against the left. Some of the strongest anti-left parties in Europe are in Eastern Europe where support for the church is strong. The belief that secularism undermines liberalism simply doesn't match the data. If anything it seems that secular Whites double down on liberalism because they don't have a religion.

    John Johnson , says: Show Comment February 5, 2020 at 9:01 pm GMT
    @siberiancat Marx himself was of a pure ethnic Jewish stock. His father converted to Christianity.
    His wife was German.

    There is no such thing as pure German-Jewish stock. They are all mixed. There was a DNA test a while back proved this.

    anonymous [284] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment February 5, 2020 at 10:35 pm GMT
    It is Feb 5th and teh US Senate has absolve the President, thus ending 4yrs of endless Conspiracies, coups and impeachments. Trump has emerge victorious and single handedly destroy the DEMs party , this in spite of the Fake news establishment, the deepstate and people within his own innercircle. Trump with the support of the American Deplorables have defeated the DEM/LEFT/Antifa continues attacks. BUT it seems that the GOP does NOT understand, realize the golden historical unprecendentes opportunity to REnake the party, rolled back the Great BLUE wave that never was. The GOP is poised to recover the House, turn the Blue states RED again. IF the GOP does NOT keep this momentum going, if they break their inner discipline, or the GOP makes the ILL mistake to sabotage Trump the GOP will go back to playing second fiddle to the DEMs and will probably lose their best chance to REmake, REimagine, REorganize, REdefine REunite the GOP and the Conervative movement in America Trumpism is on the March..
    Corvinus , says: Show Comment February 5, 2020 at 11:15 pm GMT
    @Crazy Horse "It seems that you don't even have the decency to admit that the Impeachment was nothing but a Deep State orchestrated circus or more accurately farce actually unbelievably promoting the NeoNazi State of Ukraine as our "ally" who were fighting the evil Rooskies on our behalf."

    Why are you spreading Fake News?

    "Why would it be in the interest of the American people to get involved in a proxy war with Russia?"

    I never directly nor indirectly made any comment about this situation. Pray tell, are you a Russian troll?

    "Talk about being low life sniffling scum they embrace John Bolton the epitome of Neocon subversion as an "ally"."

    Why not let him, the Bidens, Mulvaney, Pompeo, Guiliani, and Parnas have the opportunity to speak before the Senate if it was the "perfect call"? What does Trump have to hide?

    Furthermore, do you support any president digging up dirt on a political rival while in office by way of a proxy?

    Corvinus , says: Show Comment February 5, 2020 at 11:17 pm GMT
    @Sulu "The Democrats swung and missed."

    Actually, democracy swung and missed. But there are over two dozen investigations taking place relating to Trump and his associates, and more information will be coming about the Ukraine fiasco.

    "The Democrats simply can't accept that their annotated one (Hillary) was just not Presidential timber, but many voting Americans could see it."

    Actually, she won the popular vote. But I do agree that she was, along with Trump, not "presidential timber".

    "You lost in 2016 and you will lose the Presidency in 2020 "

    I didn't run. Moreover, I'm an educated white married man who makes his own decisions about politics, race, and culture. You?

    anastasia , says: Show Comment February 5, 2020 at 11:23 pm GMT
    What this impeachment hoax so rawly exposes is that the politicians who brought on the impeachment and voted in favor of it (and that includes Romney) think very little, in fact, nothing about what Joe Biden and his son did. They think it was perfectly OK. What that should tell everyone is that they too would do (if they haven't already) the same thing given the opportunity as Congressmen, Senators, a Vice President, or President. They would fill their pockets and the pockets of their families given the same opportunity. People should reflect on that next time these people run for office.
    Crazy Horse , says: Website Show Comment February 6, 2020 at 12:25 am GMT
    @Corvinus Russian troll? My question is are you a moron? You don't have to answer because the question is rhetorical.

    Seems anyone who disagrees with dipshits like you must be "agents of Putin Inc". McCarthy would be sooo proud of brain dead assholes like you and to answer your question. NO!

    Now go fuck yourself.

    Crazy Horse , says: Website Show Comment February 6, 2020 at 12:40 am GMT
    @Virgile They lost whatever credibility they had by rigging the primary and accusing anyone that disagreed with the Queen of the Damned that they must be a Russian Troll or Agent. Corvinus perfectly epitomizes this idiocy.
    Crazy Horse , says: Website Show Comment February 6, 2020 at 12:46 am GMT
    @Corvinus "Won" the popular vote is a consolation prize in a presidential election. Besides that's questionable due to the fact she "won" 1) in states that used Soros owned Smartmatic Voting Machines 2) reported votes that far exceeded the number eligible voters registered. For instance LA County reported that 145% of eligible voters "voted" in the last general election.
    danand , says: Show Comment February 6, 2020 at 12:52 am GMT

    "includes Romney) think very little, in fact, nothing about what Joe Biden and his son did."

    Anastasia, it's not disputed that Romney has a least one close associate who worked with Hunter, but actually in the Ukraine, at Burisma; but I don't believe that's Romney's angle here.

    I think Romney is setting up to run 3rd party for President. Of course the objective will not be to become the next president: it will be to take out Trump, and make possible a Bloomberg victory. I would guess Romney will hold off announcement as long as possible to ensure maximum chaos. Doesn't even need to make all the state ballots to achieve "victory".

    [Feb 07, 2020] This has led to the need to cover up their corruption which the Trump Presidency would eventually expose. Corrupt Dem elite projected onto Trump and his associates all their crimes in Ukraine. While sucking off the $5billion + "invested" in programming the Ukie hatred of Russia.

    Notable quotes:
    "... About the Dem Party: It is a [neo[Liberal Cult, deeply flawed psycho-socially as any cult is. They are at the terminal phase, ready to take down their own people into the abyss. Suicidal. Physically ready to bleed out millions of people in civil war. ..."
    "... Involved in all this corruption were players within the CIA, State Dept, NSC, FBI and all the other Intel agencies needed to cover the crimes. The Clinton-Obama administration had scores of corrupt officials and associates (the Podestas, for instance). It was necessary to create a firewall once Trump won the nomination. As so, they attacked his campaign manager, his national security adviser, his family, himself, using all the means of FISA, wire tapping done by NSA and CIA and Mi6 and probably Mossad. ..."
    Feb 07, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    Red Ryder , Feb 6 2020 16:56 utc | 14

    About the Dem Party: It is a [neo[Liberal Cult, deeply flawed psycho-socially as any cult is. They are at the terminal phase, ready to take down their own people into the abyss. Suicidal. Physically ready to bleed out millions of people in civil war.

    Layered under the globalism, and progressive extremism is a many-generational fanatic Russophobia.

    And this is where the nexus of Ukraine comes into play with the corrupt elites of the Party. They have sucked off the $5billion + "invested" in programming the Ukie hatred of Russia. This has led to the need to cover up their corruption which the Trump Presidency would eventually expose.

    So, they projected onto Trump and his associates all their crimes in Ukraine.

    Involved in all this corruption were players within the CIA, State Dept, NSC, FBI and all the other Intel agencies needed to cover the crimes. The Clinton-Obama administration had scores of corrupt officials and associates (the Podestas, for instance). It was necessary to create a firewall once Trump won the nomination. As so, they attacked his campaign manager, his national security adviser, his family, himself, using all the means of FISA, wire tapping done by NSA and CIA and Mi6 and probably Mossad.

    The rest has played out, all futile attempts to coup the Presidency.

    The Dems now will "kill off" one another, a political savaging in a desperate attempt to get the White House.

    As a Cult they will do what cults always do. The ideology, layered deep with fanaticism, demands death as its ritual, but, unable to get Trump, it will turn on one another.

    After they lose again in November, they will unleash their street thugs, Antifa, to terrorize the winners. Meanwhile for the purists of the Liberal Cult there will be many real suicides. So, bloodshed and death will become reality.

    [Feb 07, 2020] Democrats impeached Trump for withholding arms to Neo-Nazis by Max Parry

    Feb 07, 2020 | off-guardian.org

    Feb 6, 2020 46 Democrats impeached Trump for withholding arms to Neo-Nazis Kit Knightly Max Parry

    Please note flags of the Azov Battalion, centre, NATO left, and Nazi, right. As this article was going to press, it was formally confirmed – as was long expected – that the Senate had found Donald Trump not guilty of both abuse of power and obstruction of congress. – Ed

    On December 18th, Donald Trump became the third U.S. president in history to be impeached by the House of Representatives. The second to be indicted before completing a first term, the 45th commander-in-chief must now survive a Senate trial before seeking reelection later this year.

    As many nonpartisan analysts predicted, the charges appear to have only improved his chances with the electorate as his approval rating saw an uptick after the articles were approved on grounds of "obstruction of Congress and abuse of power."

    After dragging the country through three years of Russiagate which never panned out, the Democrats appear to be scoring yet another own goal. Even a near brush with war against Iran does not seem to have impacted Trump's favorability, which could have been seen as a reversal of his campaign pledges to end America's forever wars that were arguably a significant factor in his unlikely victory.

    It was Trump's rhetoric as a peace candidate suggesting rapprochement with Russia which made him a target of the political establishment and intelligence community, who subsequently blamed his shocking win on still-unproven allegations of election interference by the Kremlin.

    Since he took office, Trump has done nearly everything short of declaring war on Moscow to appease the bipartisan anti-Russia consensus in Washington but to no avail. One such step was the decision to provide military aid to Ukraine amid its ongoing war in the eastern Donbass region against Russian-speaking separatists, a move the Obama administration decided against because of Kiev's rampant corruption.

    Trump's predecessor tapped his Vice President, Joe Biden, to head up an anti-corruption drive in Ukraine who instead used the opportunity to personally enrich his family by landing his son, Hunter, a job on the executive board of the country's largest private gas company, Burisma Holdings.

    Biden led the U.S. role in the 2014 coup d'etat in Ukraine which overthrew the democratically-elected government of Viktor Yanukovych after he turned down a European Union Association Agreement for an economic bail-out from Russia that was the flashpoint for the subsequent Donbass war.

    Contrary to the Trump-Russia 'collusion' narrative, one figure who tried to lobby Yanukovych into signing the pro-austerity treaty was none other than Paul Manafort, the future Trump campaign manager indicted during the Russia probe for failing to register as a foreign agent while consulting for the deposed Ukrainian president.

    Manafort's influence went against Russian interests in favor of the EU and was years before Trump was ever a candidate, but this did not stop the Democrats from later misconstruing it as evidence he was a backchannel to the Kremlin. Meanwhile, Biden's hand in the junta was revealed in an infamous leaked phone call between Victoria Nuland, Obama's Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, and Geoffrey Pyatt, then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine.

    Nuland, who is the wife of leading neoconservative figure Robert Kagan, also spilled the beans that the U.S. invested as much as $5 billion dollars on regime change in Kiev when we were led to believe the Maidan was a spontaneous, popular revolt.

    Shortly after the putsch, Hunter Biden joined the board of directors at Burisma despite having no experience in Ukraine or the energy sector.

    The embattled fracking company was founded by a notorious oligarch and corrupt minister from the Yanukovych era, Mykola Zlochevsky, yet who unlike the former did not have to flee to Russia and curiously escaped prosecution in a money laundering case under the new Western-friendly regime -- did he obtain immunity with Hunter Biden's appointment?

    When the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Viktor Shokin, reportedly began to investigate the energy firm, the elder Biden did not just blackmail the post-Maidan government of Petro Poroshenko into sacking him by threatening to withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees but openly bragged about it on camera:

    https://www.youtube.com/embed/RpQZ0e-Ux7w

    As a reward, Poroshenko -- nicknamed the "Chocolate King" for his background as a business tycoon in the confectionary industry -- was touted as a reformer by the Obama administration despite multiple Wikileaks diplomatic cables featuring U.S. officials describing him as a "disgraced oligarch" "tainted by credible corruption allegations" and "a deeply unpopular politician that has widespread support among party leaders due to his past financial/organizational roles."

    Incredibly, Poroshenko would replace Shokin with a former Minister of Internal Affairs, Yuriy Lutsenko, who had previously been imprisoned for embezzlement and corruption himself.

    It is still a matter of debate whether the top prosecutor was even actually looking into the activities of Burisma, but what is not in dispute -- except to corporate media -- is the criminal nature of Biden's conduct who clearly allowed his family to profiteer off U.S. meddling in the country.

    After he became a 2020 presidential candidate and frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, the subject of Biden's past wrongdoing was broached by Trump last July during a phone call with current Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky.

    The controversial exchange occurred just a day after former FBI director Robert Mueller delivered his anticlimactic testimony before congress where the lead investigator in the Russia investigation did not appear familiar with the details of his own inquiry.

    The call transcript shows that Trump asked the newly elected Zelensky if he would assist U.S. Attorney General William Barr in determining whether there was truth to the rumors that the infamous Democratic National Committee (DNC) computer server given by the FBI to CrowdStrike Holdings was located in Ukraine.

    CrowdStrike was one of the cybersecurity firms hired by the DNC which questionably determined it was Russian intelligence which perpetrated alleged cyber attacks during the 2016 election. In other words, Trump wanted to find out if it was actually Kiev which "meddled" and framed the Kremlin.

    While he did not offer Zelensky compensation, it is true Trump asked for the favor shortly after mentioning the javelin missiles being provided to Ukraine in the military assistance. However, Biden's extortion and the firing of Shokin is only raised later in the conversation and whether or not either matter was contingent upon the military aid is dubious and implicit at best.

    At the time of the correspondence, Zelensky and his government were unaware that the nearly $400 million in aid had been withheld and did not learn of it's freezing until a month later, making any alleged 'quid pro quo' doubtful.

    The ambiguity of the conversation has not prevented Democrats from surmising that the security aid was suspended on the condition that Zelensky cooperate with Trump's requests. While the exploits were arguably unethical, for the content of the exchange to be considered sufficient grounds for impeachment would set a very low bar and virtually ensure any future president can be indicted on a technicality for politicized reasons.

    In the meantime, the focus has shifted to Trump's firing of former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, because if threatening to withhold foreign aid alone qualifies, Biden is not only guilty of the same crime but more explicitly. Forget that from a procedural standpoint, without the required constitutional majority in the GOP-controlled Senate, the chances of removing Trump are dead in the water anyway.

    This can only mean the trial is really meant to be a smokescreen for Biden's own palm-greasing in Ukraine while legally requiring his biggest primary rival, Senator Bernie Sanders, to spend time away from the campaign trail in attendance.

    Some of the 'aid' held up to Ukraine

    Not only has the legitimate question of whether the former Vice President and his son should also be probed been dismissed by mainstream media as a "conspiracy theory," but completely lost in the political theater of the proceedings is if Washington ought to be providing defense assistance and fueling a proxy war with Russia to begin with.

    The Russiagate hoax successfully transformed the entirety of the Democratic Party into new cold warriors and its Ukrainegate sequel has only continued that hawkish trajectory.

    To make matters worse, Western media coverage of the scandal has omitted that many of the militias fighting with the Ukrainian army in Donbass are far-right, neo-Nazi groups previously instrumental in transforming the 2014 Maidan protests into violence.

    One of the three main political parties which formed the opposition to Yanukovych was the ultra-nationalist Svoboda party whose leader, Oleh Tyahnybok, personally met with Biden in 2014 despite having been barred from entering the U.S. for his anti-semitism just a year prior.

    Svoboda and its militant offshoots like the Azov regiment fighting in Donbass are the self-proclaimed ideological progeny of the fascist collaborators led by the Ukrainian nationalist, Stepan Bandera, who sided with Nazi Germany during its invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.

    In the Cold War, the CIA provided covert assistance to the post-war remnants of Bandera's faction as it waged a failed insurgency in the 1950s.

    In post-Soviet Ukraine, a disturbing campaign of historical revisionism has rewritten Bandera's fifth column as nationalist heroes who fought solely for Ukrainian independence.

    This is not reflected in the historical record which shows they not only participated in the Third Reich's war crimes but shared their racist ideology, as admitted in the CIA's own declassified documents :

    Altogether, during the 5 weeks of its existence the Bandera "state" destroyed over 5,000 Ukrainians, 15,000 Jews, and several thousand Poles. The "Ukrainian State" Of Stepan Bandera ended its short but ignominious existence in August 1941, when it was announced in Lvov that Western Ukraine had been incorporated as the "District of Galicia" in the "General Governorship" (occupied Poland). And then a "new order," Hitler style began to be introduced in the Ukraine.

    This in short, the story of Bandera's "one-day holiday," which his followers, relying on people's forgetfulness, now try to present as a glorious and heroic page in the history of the Ukrainian liberation movement. In reality, it would be best, especially for the supporters of a free Ukraine, to erase from the history of their .. movement this infamous Hitlerite, fascist episode, which brought nothing. but shame and sorrow to the Ukraine.

    Despite provisions in the aid barring weapons from going to the Azov detachment, the U.S. military has continued to provide them with arms and training. We are already witnessing blowback for this decision in the case of Jarrett William Smith , an ex-Army soldier arrested by the FBI for planning to assassinate former Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke and plotting terrorist attacks against major news networks.

    Smith had made plans to travel to Ukraine to fight with the Azov battalion and had previously volunteered in the Donbass war in 2017 with another Ukrainian neo-fascist paramilitary, the Right Sector.

    Smith reportedly sought help in making contact with Azov from another AWOL soldier, Craig Lang, currently under house arrest in Ukraine and wanted for extradition to the U.S. for killing a Florida couple.

    Lang, who is considered a hero in the country for serving as a private mercenary with Right Sector, also spent time with Georgian Legion , a unit formed by ethnic Georgians conscripted on the Ukrainian side in the War in Donbass whose members are believed to have perpetrated the 'false flag' sniper attacks on the Maidan that was blamed on the government of Yanukovych.

    Coincidentally, just as Americans are following the impeachment, trending on the internet streaming service Netflix is a new documentary by a pair of Israeli filmmakers that touches upon U.S. harboring of a Ukrainian Nazi called The Devil Next Door .

    The series recaps the fascinating case of John Demjanjuk, a retired autoworker and Ukrainian-born immigrant living in Cleveland, Ohio, who is suddenly accused of being a notoriously sadistic Nazi guard at Treblinka concentration camp in eastern Poland during World War II known as "Ivan the Terrible" and is extradited to Israel in 1986 to face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

    After impassioned but inconsistent eyewitness testimony by camp survivors, he was mistakenly found guilty of being the mysterious guard by an Israeli court and sentenced to death until his conviction was overturned under appeal in 1993.

    Years later, Demjanjuk is identified as a different prison guard at another camp in Sobibor and re-convicted, this time more convincingly by a German court.

    He maintained until his death in 2012 that he was again a victim of mistaken identity and during the war was a POW himself after serving in the Red Army until his capture by the Germans who then "forced" him to work as a guard at Trawniki, but never Sobibor.

    However, newly discovered photos of Demjanjuk at the death camp were just released which contradict his denials and increase the likelihood he was a willing defector.

    The documentary sheds light on how Demjanjuk was able to gain safe harbor in the U.S. because of amendments to the Displaced Persons Act of 1948 which restricted immigration of those persecuted by the Nazis while giving preferential treatment to Polish and Ukrainian nationals who hid under new aliases in refugee camps while fleeing the Soviets.

    U.S. immigration services were only able to detect the entry of formal members of the Nazi regime while their local collaborators like Demjanjuk often snuck through unnoticed.

    The show also speaks briefly of the U.S. embrace of many "former" Nazis such as Wernher von Braun and the thousands of other German scientists recruited in Operation Paperclip who were employed by the U.S. government during the Cold War in order to gain an advantage over Moscow in the space race.

    However, the series neglects to mention the CIA's support for Stepan Bandera's Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), much less their descendants in Kiev today who are renaming city streets after SS veterans and tearing down Soviet statues to replace them with effigies of fascist quislings.

    Unfortunately, it is unlikely viewers will make any connection between the show and the current political scandal gripping Washington.

    https://www.youtube.com/embed/J8h16g1cVak

    Netflix did receive objections over The Devil Next Door from the Polish government and its right-wing populist Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, who accused the streaming giant of "rewriting history" in its production by using a map of the country's post-1945 borders while implying that Poland shared culpability for Nazi war crimes that occurred in its territory.

    Much of western Ukraine became eastern Poland overnight with the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and the German occupation, one of the reasons why a native of northwestern Ukraine like Demjanjuk ended up in the neighboring country.

    Like the Banderites doctoring history in Kiev, Polish nationalists are seeking to revise the historical record of the many Poles who collaborated with the Germans in the slaughter of their fellow compatriots as well.

    This historical negationism continued in Poland's recent row with Russia over the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz in which Morawiecki despicably made a false equivalency between the USSR and Nazi Germany with a disturbing reinterpretation encouraged by the U.S. who seek to take credit for the Soviet accomplishment of freeing the concentration camp in 1945.

    Nothing is sacred to the Atlanticists who are willing to politicize anything in the name of their geostrategy of encircling Moscow and ultimate goal of conquering Eurasia.

    That the Democrats are not impeaching Trump for an actual unconstitutional offense like the diverting of military funds to his border wall without congressional approval is revealing of its true motivations. Trump only crossed a line when he went after another member of the political establishment and fleetingly halted the U.S. war machine in its aggression toward Moscow.

    It is reminiscent of what some have argued were the real reasons for the impeachment of Richard Nixon that resulted from the Watergate scandal. Similarly, Nixon was forced to resign in 1974 after he targeted other members of the elite in the wire-tapping and break-in of the DNC headquarters, not his use of the CIA to violate its own charter for domestic espionage on American citizens active in the anti-war movement.

    Like Trump's rhetoric toward Moscow, Nixon had also broken with foreign policy orthodoxies both in his unprecedented restoration of diplomacy with China and détente with the Soviet Union negotiating arms control.

    The dangerous consequences of the campaign against Trump for deviating from the anti-Russia foreign policy dogma can be seen in the unparalleled recent NATO war games and the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists pushing the hand of the Doomsday Clock forward to just 100 seconds to midnight , its closest-ever approach which even exceeds that of the beginning of the Cold War in the early 1950s.

    Trump would never have armed Ukraine to begin with if not for the constant pressure of the Russia investigation and the need to not appear soft on Moscow.

    It is clear that the impeachment is nothing more than an inter-war between different factions of the elite and not only has it reduced the American people to onlookers, it may get us all killed in a nuclear holocaust in the process.

    For an excellent in-depth investigation of the roots of the crisis, Revealing Ukraine, the anticipated follow-up to the 2016 documentary Ukraine on Fire directed by Igor Lopatonok and produced by Oliver Stone, is highly recommended.

    https://www.youtube.com/embed/DCiQTCSgw_M Facebook Twitter Reddit Pinterest WhatsApp vKontakte Email Filed under: featured , latest , Ukraine , United States Tagged with: corruption , Donald trump , Hunter Biden , impeachment , Joe Biden , Max Parry , ukraine , Vlodymyr Zelensky can you spare $1.00 a month to support independent media

    OffGuardian does not accept advertising or sponsored content. We have no large financial backers. We are not funded by any government or NGO. Donations from our readers is our only means of income. Even the smallest amount of support is hugely appreciated.

    Connect with Connect with Subscribe newest oldest most voted Notify of

    Arby ,

    I don't agree with Max about everything he asserts here. I also find some of his statements to be unnecessarily tentative. The objective of those launching the impeachment hoax was simply to smear Trump – to the general public. No smearing is needed among progressives paying attention.

    Antonym ,

    The US Democratic Party is theoretically a democratic political party for average American citizens.
    It has become a crack / coke party for US deep state manipulation. Even quick easy money naive rich from Californian IT companies and Texas oil pumpers are being taken for a ride.

    Tim Jenkins ,

    " the lead investigator in the Russia investigation did not appear familiar with the details of his own inquiry."

    The ghost of journalism past, wailed.

    Sums it up, no different from the WTC7 investigation & the then FBI Boss Bob Mueller, who got the job 2 days before the controlled demolition, same ole' story Melancholy Mule Mueller . . . Trump cannot make things clearer to the world's politicians, other than stamping "guilty & complicit" on Mueller's forehead and lest anybody forget that Trump specialises still, in steel frame architecture & function, just ask yourself why Mueller has not said a word about his old corrupted FBI best buddy Comey, (guilty of Treason) or WTC7 Physics, either absobleedin'lutelyobvious Trump would tweet, "MIT ..Mueller, 'innit', "thickly, und dass mit Mitt Romney, arrrgh du, Scheisse, Mueller is German name und Romney may be a derivative of Rommel surely?"

    Arrest Murdoch, Mueller, Mifsud, Merkel, Milliband, May & Macron, after Bolton, Blair & Bush, just for starters but we gotta' get to guys like Comey, Cheney & Corbyn ? 🙂 please, must I further alliterate: heads must roll for professional incompetence, amongst judges, too Laws were broken, massively!
    Arrrrgh but not: just silence Julian Assange instead, simples. Whatever you decide, Don't arrest Killary, please, I couldn't handle the public hanging, a military solution will suffice and I'm sure there are many worthy & justified candidates who would opt 'in' for the 'Hit', ex-vets naturally: History will show, Mainstream Journalism died thanks to HRC 😉
    Today, re-writing history is the name of the game of thrones, drones & malicious tones, for digestive spirits addicted to capitalistic narcissism, serving no purpose.
    Not even learning . . .
    Great article, Max 🙂

    Frank Speaker ,

    Excellent article.
    What puzzles me is why Trump / his AG aren't prosecuting Biden.

    wardropper ,

    Perhaps they're letting it simmer for a while first, so that all the details will have sunk in by the time we're ready for the meal

    Jack_Garbo ,

    You still believe Trump's running the show? The clown is following orders, stumbling over the big two-syllable words, and too often exposing his puerile predilection for tantrums. But he makes no decisions worthy of the name.
    The Impeachment charade was to distract the drooling public and was handled artfully by the Dems, since their abject failure had to look sincere. Trouble is, little Master Petulance took it seriously (didn't he get the memo? Oh, he doesn't read ) and fought back all nasty. The rulers ares simply stringing out the game till elections, but their child emperor is impatient. Was he the best clown in the circus after all?

    Charlotte Russe ,

    It's quite obvious, popular opposition on issues of social justice were suppressed and diverted by the Dems exclusively attacking Trump on whether he's sufficiently militarily aggressive towards Russia.
    And this is why, the Wall Street Journal can flagrantly gloat and mockingly say Trump's impeachment may have cinched his victory in 2020.

    The "security state attack" against Trump was all a big joke. In other words, Trump's "disposal" was not really important. The Idiot was no real threat to the affluent–they had nothing on the line. The 10% enjoy excellent healthcare, terrific housing, and high quality childcare. Their children are attending top private schools and will not worry about student debt. The older bunch in this well-heeled crowd will never look at a meager social security check as their only owner source of income and worry about paying utility bills, buying food, or filling a prescription which literally keeps them alive. They'll never have to think about finding enough cash for an unexpected emergency to fix a broken car, a busted furnace, or a leaking roof.

    The comfortably well-to-do couldn't care less if three years were squandered humiliating themselves promoting a Russian invasion, while the working-class looked at this fiasco like a deer in the headlights worrying about paying the monthly mortgage or the rent.

    The scorn towards the working-class by the Democratic Party leadership is directly reflected in an impeachment trial which attacks Trump for temporarily blocking $390 million in military aid to Ukraine. The working-class are quite happy Trump temporarily blocked military aid to Ukraine. In fact, they wish the Buffoon would permanently block all military aid to every foreign country where US tax dollars are continually being squandered. The working-poor had enough of these military misadventures. They want their tax dollars to provide healthcare, affordable housing, quality childcare, clean drinking water, and a livable minimum wage.

    Trump the shameless lying street fighter, knows all of this and he'll exploit it fully as he marches through the rust-belt victoriously proclaiming judicial vindication over the feckless feeble Dems. From day one the antidote ridding the world of this orange bullshitter was apparent– attack the Idiot from the Left–
    specifically point out every lie, but most importantly prove how his policies, legislation, and Executives Orders are screwing over the working-class. However, to do all that the Democratic Party would need to be a genuine "opposition political party" and not a private organization representing Wall Street, the big banks, and the surveillance state.

    Capricornia Man ,

    Absolutely correct, Charlotte! The Democrats' relentless pursuit of the Russiagate and Ukrainegate nonsense was intended to distract people from the fact that they would sooner do almost anything than fight Trump's pro-corporate policies.

    If the Dems put forward another war-and-Wall Street candidate who offers nothing to the working class, then Trump is assured of another four years in office – unfortunately.

    Antonym ,

    Trump just wanted to make business deals with anybody, be they Russia or China or Z.

    US Deep state needs an Enemy to justify their monster budgets and full spectrum domination, but only an enemy that does not upset their Lower Manhattan branch, so China was out being too good for US investors, but Russia or Iran are perfect. A repeat of what happened after WWII and the fall of the Berlin Wall.
    9/11 "Global Terrorism" is now a bit passe.
    In its search for an Enemy it became the Enemy / Devil.

    Louis N. Proyect ,

    This article elides important elements, namely that Zelensky is a Jew and that he is regarded as pro-Russian by Ukrainian nationalists. With so many on the left trying to paint all Ukrainians as neo-Nazis, there's the inconvenient fact of Ukraine being the only country in all of Europe to elect a Jew as head of state.

    He was elected largely on the basis for fighting corruption and for ending the war with the secessionists. He was not only undermined by Trump. Putin took advantage of his dovish politics as this article points out:

    Mr. Zelensky, under mounting pressure at home from nationalists who accuse him of capitulating to Russia, arrived in Paris with limited room to maneuver and far fewer military or political resources to call on than Mr. Putin. His previous gestures of good will, notably the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the front line, have won no reciprocal steps by Russia or the rebels it supports in the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

    His position was further weakened by the absence of strong support from the United States, something that Ukraine had previously relied on as it struggles to hold its own on the battlefield against Russian troops -- which the Kremlin has insisted are not serving soldiers but merely Russians "on vacation" -- as well as armed separatists supported by Moscow.

    NY Times, December 9, 2019

    Max Parry ,

    By your logic on Ukraine electing a Jew, when Obama was elected here it meant America had less of a racism problem, which is absurd. The left, which certainly does not include you, does NOT paint all Ukrainians as neo-Nazis and has made it quite clear the resurgence in nationalism is in the Western part of the country and is being normalized by the oligarchic parties.

    paul ,

    There is an alliance of convenience between Jewish oligarchs like Kolomoisky and Nazi thugs like the Azov battalion, with the latter playing the part of useful idiots/ cannon fodder. Rather like Tommy Robinson and his £10,000 a month Zionist stipend. Incidentally, it is not correct that only Ukraine has had a Jewish president – the same applies to Austria and the Baltics.

    Ukraine is a real tragedy. Since independence in 1991, it has lost nearly half its population, down from 52 to 30 million, if you take the loss of Crimea/ Donbas/ 1.5 million refugees/ millions of economic migrants scratching a living abroad picking cabbages or working as prostitutes into account. It was previously the most prosperous and highly developed part of the Soviet Union, with advanced industries and a highly educated and skilled work force. All this is now gone, the result of years of uncontrolled non stop looting by the Kolomoiskys. The average standard of living in Ukraine is now significantly lower than that of Egypt.

    Washington will ally itself with any group of thugs to achieve its ends in its regime change projects, Ukrainian Nazis or an alphabet soup of Islamist head choppers and throat slitters. America constantly plays the part of the comic villain Hedley Lamar in Blazing Saddles, recruiting an army of villains to achieve his ends. There are no depths Uncle Shmuel will not plumb. The Nazi thugs who staged the Maidan Coup were on the US embassy payroll, given $25 a day and provided with free booze, free drugs and free prostitutes.

    Ukraine is one of the most corrupt countries on earth. $50 billion of western taxpayers' money has been poured into the country to prop up the Kiev Regime. There is nothing to show for this. It has flowed out of the country into the private bank accounts of the oligarchs, politicians and US dual/ triple national carpetbaggers, who have descended on the country like the Nulands, the Vindmans, the Ioanovitches. Almost without exception, these are rabid professional Russia hater Jews, though the Bidens could also wet their beaks. There was enough to go round.

    Clinton, the most corrupt politician in US history, was supposed to have won the election to keep this gravy train rolling, and the "Ukrainians" actively meddled in the 2016 election to bring about the desired result. When Trump won, these characters reacted with all the fury of a dog that has had its bone taken away.

    Baron ,

    @ paul.

    Short, but spot on, paul, from the first to the last word.

    A friend goes to Ukraine regularly to recruit people, he claims corruption's unbelievable, often he has to pay to park a car on a street with unrestricted parking, one doesn't, the tyres get slashed; old people barely surviving on pitiful pensions, a 1000 hrivnas pension is considered good, some pensioners get less (100 hrivnas = £3 approx; the chain Lidl operates in the country, its prices similar to the UK prices, the pensioners cannot afford them), in villages domestic animals live together with families, tyres are used for heating, as are empty plastic bottles stuffed with paper, old textile.

    A true tragedy so close to the prosperous Western Europe, and nobody cares, certainly not the poodles of the MSM. Criminal this.

    Richard Le Sarc ,

    Ukraine is the future as envisaged by the global overlords. A sort of Petri Dish in which to breed the enforcer thugs that will be needed to consolidate oligarch rule as the whole farce crumbles.

    lundiel ,

    As Anders Breivik said in his manifesto, "my enemies enemy is my friend ..we can deal with the Jews later".

    Tim Jenkins ,

    LouisP. (no idea what the fuck the new added 'N' is all about, like new year for peeing ourselves laughing over a 'NONSE' or what? ) 'woteva', did you get a pay rise with a new year agenda, LOUIS, Louis, louise, stop prostitution, I say, especially your kind !
    You honky mofo and may I add a pretty second rate honky mofo @that

    When will you stop quoting the NYT and finally comprehend that they are complicit,
    in every sense, arrrrgh 'Ja' die 'N' is for New Young Turk NYT Louis, now I get it . . .

    FFS, Louis, have you had a brain scan recently ?

    Max Parry ,

    The N is for NATO

    nottheonly1 ,

    It might be helpful to remind people that the terms 'Democrats' and 'Republicans' are merely the acronyms for 'head' or 'tale'. 'Up' and 'Down'. 'Left' and 'Right'. 'Trump' and 'Pelosi'.

    All are:

    Two Sides – One Coin

    But who could blame the masses for focusing on who is not allowed to exist based on their delusion. It is this deep sitting delusion that has created the present day 'western' society. This deepsitting and hardwired belief, that everything, or anyone that does not conform to their delusions is immediately doused with vile hate. The people in the picture above are only the tiniest tip of the Nazi-Iceberg that will sink a Humanity called 'Titanic'.

    Since it no longer actually matters what the truth really is, or what really is the truth, one can certainly write whatever one feels like. Like if you say that Adolf Hitler (the person, the people in the picture above have sworn posthum allegiance into death) was a product of american fascists and not the product of the German population of that day – then you are anti-semitic.

    The people in the image above are not anti-semitic. They are for a world without gay people (they don't use the term 'people'), in which there are only boys and girls, women and men and nothing else. The women are were they belong – into the kitchen – and the men watch 'Die Wochenschau' drink beer and go out to bash the heads of 'things' they don't like.

    All the ham theater of the U.S. regime aside, americans should take a good look at Ukraine as a template of what is coming to them too, now.

    To make that clear: There are Americans and there are americans. Americans are those who were present before the first europeans arrived and a very, very few contemporary minds. americans in low caps are the same low conscious human equivalents.

    That should do it for now. The sad part though is, that the folks in question will not be reformed. They have the backing of the orthodox church. You remember? 'A love story: religion and fascism'?

    No wonder the Jimmy Dore show is so popular.

    I dare him to come up with a 24/7 political satire news channel. Quite the redundancy.

    Harry Stotle ,

    'It is clear that the impeachment is nothing more than an inter-war between different factions of the elite and not only has it reduced the American people to onlookers, it may get us all killed in a nuclear holocaust in the process.' – this is the take-home message.

    The MSM maintains a charade that we live in a democracy and can exercise something called political choice – we can't, the deep state and lobby groups get on with making decisions that serve only their interests while damaging many others, especially overseas.

    It never ceases to amaze me how more people can't see it, or how easy it is to channel public rage toward selected targets.

    Cosmopolitans liberals generally focus on identity politics (how dare he say or think that) while the less culturally engaged are taught to hate and fear Russians, Iranians and of course North Korea without ever understanding why – needless to say both groups are oblivious to the crimes committed by western leaders that have led to millions of deaths while contributing to the biggest refugee crises since WWII.

    The likes of the BBC and Guardian pretend that all of this is normal and can always be counted on to back the intelligence community whenever further blood-shed is required.

    Only in a system this rotten can public figures like Trump, Hillary, Obama, or nearer to home Johnson, IDS, Priti Patel, thrive.

    Tim Jenkins ,

    "It never ceases to amaze me how more people can't see it, or how easy it is to channel public rage toward selected targets."

    Consider yourself quoted: but, what about the North Iranians, Harry? If they unite with Northern Koreans & Northern Russians to boot, think about it

    The North KIRaneans could access evil 😉 shiver me timbers

    Harry Stotle ,

    When I think of the west's reaction to 'the axis of evil' (and yes, I admit I have substituted Russia for Iraq, but such targets are pretty fluid on the neocon kill list) I think of the 'little Albert' experiment.

    This seminal experiment found that it all it took was 6 pairings to condition the subject (in this instance the hapless baby Albert).
    In the case of western societies, especially the USA it is more like 60 or 600 pairings associating various targets, such as Assad with negative or evil traits.

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

    For reasons not even they (the public) understand they find themselves automatically hating counties or politicians that have been selected for them by the MSM (on behalf of their handlers in the intelligence or military community).

    Evidence or rational thinking seems to play almost no part in the 2-minute hate.

    Hugh O'Neill ,

    http://monologues.co.uk/Albert-and-the-Lion.htm
    When I saw the baby was called Albert, I was immediately reminded of another young Albert who had no fear of lions alas .

    George Cornell ,

    "Shortly after the putsch, Hunter Biden joined the board of directors at Burisma despite having no experience in Ukraine or the energy sector."

    It was a lot more than that, which should raise eyebrows or have you reaching for a kidney basin.
    Divorce proceedings don't usually bring to light the most flattering assessments, but his ex-wife did note his gambling and sex addictions and his habitual residence in the front rows of topless bars, strip clubs and suggested his lap did double duty as a dance floor.

    While he was in a sexual relationship with his dead brothers wife, he was sued for paternity by a Louisiana stripper. He completely denied having sex with her but DNA proved her claim, notwithstanding her public humiliation by having to admit she had sex with the man known as "cunter". He was shown the door by the Navy, days after joining it, when his urine tested positive for coke, a test he knew would be done, but he was still unable to forgo the coke for even a few days in advance.

    In the NYT, it was claimed that Burisma hired Biden to gain the respectability he would engender. How valuable is that Hunter-borne respectability? A million a year.

    Now let's get down to the real issue. The new bribery aka THE SHAM CONTRACT.

    Pioneered or honed to a fine art in our times by the notorious larger than life scumbags Hillary Clinton and Tony Blair, it consists of being paid for a non-service, or one masquerading as a service, grotesquely disproportionate to its value. Formerly known as a bribe.

    So Hillary gives a speech to Goldman Sachs. No matter that the audience is not listening, texting their insider trading orders, or simply bored stiff. GS gives her $250k.Tony Blair , now worth well over 75 million quid substantially on the back of "lectures" to American neocons. But who is to know if the lectures were any good or if it was just a payoff to the " Middle East Peace Envoy" for sending young men off to die in Iraq etc.

    So it is with "Hunter", being paid a million dollars a year to be on the board of Burisma when his cv seems to warrant a different board (water board?). If you wish to offload your breakfast, read the former president of Poland extol Hunter's board activities.

    So Trump wanted to know what "Hunter " was doing for the million/year. Hell, inquiring minds want to know. I want to know. But you can bet your Maltese bippy that his advice on lap dancing or whatever it was, might not have been worth a million/ year. And Trump's curiosity led to governmental (emphasis on the mental) paralysis so the Democratic Party having made fools of themselves over Russiagate, could make scurrilous accusations in prime time. Some of which are surely true, but wasting time and resources with an all-consuming hysterical smoke and mirrors operation aimed at hiding what?

    paul ,

    No, you're quite wrong, Biden Junior had to work hard for those millions.
    Hunter had to smile a lot and have his photograph taken, and read a couple of speeches that were written for him.

    Tim Jenkins ,

    brilliant synopsis G.C. Top Cat Comment 🙂

    So, were I refer to the CBT 's actions, ("Cunter" Bribe Tribe), in future we would be on the same the page, I figure: the hunters & gatherers know no limits and it's high time law was applied, coz' laws exist . . .

    hard to believe, in justice, today !

    Antonym ,

    Count down for resident jokers blaming this or US Neo-Ukraine support on "the Zionists": 3,2,1 .

    lundiel ,

    Trump aside, I still can't get my head around the total silence on the Bidens.

    Antonym ,

    Biden in a clog in the CIA's foreign policy, which needs enemies to stay flush in money hence
    MSM silence.
    The "department of Homeland security" after 9/11 was their coup d'etat of the US; it should translate as "Ministry of Deep State truth & security".

    TFS ,

    Surely Democrats could Impeach Donald for the following:

    1.
    Iraq voted for America to leave its country
    America refused to do so, whilst admitting to stealing their oil.
    This is in contravention of International Law.

    Impeach That.

    2.
    America just outline the deal of the century, peace plan for Israel/Palestine.
    It's in contravention of International Law

    Impeach That.

    Why are the Dems, those notorious sticklers for the rule of law, so silent?

    nottheonly1 ,

    They are of the same coin, whose 'other' side they are supposedly opposing.

    Richard Le Sarc ,

    So-called 'International Law' is 'antisemitic'.

    Gall ,

    Yeah the whole "impeachment" circus pulled up its stakes and Trump was acquitted. The Democrats remind me of Wile E Coyote.It used to be that the Democrats were called the Evil Party and the Republicans Stupid but it seems the roles have reversed or maybe one is more stupid than evil.

    Here's hoping that the clown car drives itself into the Potomac which would be the American Dream for some.

    nottheonly1 ,

    You are aware of the fact, that Wile E. Coyote was also a Rocket Scientist, correct? Only the bias of the producers prevented him from ever succeeding with his brilliant attempts to gather food.

    The democrats are no match for Wile E. Coyote.

    Jen ,

    Wile E Coyote did insist on using Acme Corporation products. In those halcyon days of Bugs Bunny cartoons, Acme Corporation was the Boeing Corporation of its time with Acme products liable to fail, peter out, backfire or explode at the most inconvenient time. Why that rocket scientist didn't try the competition's products in his hunter-gatherer lifestyle forever remains a mystery.

    sharon marlowe ,

    Thanks, Off Guardian:)

    I generally like this article, but there is what I see as a myth about Trump vs the Establishment:

    "It was Trump's rhetoric as a peace candidate suggesting rapprochement with Russia which made him a target of the political establishment and intelligence community "

    Trump could not be looked at as a "peace candidate" by anyone but his weirdo crazy fans when he was running for President. He could only be looked at as a liar-conman. That he wanted to make money off Russia, and therefore would not be as likely to call for a no-fly zone in Syria as Hillary, doesn't remotely come close to being for peace. It appears to me that Trump and Netanyahu were united, and Netanyahu had support from many russian-israelis in the Israel regime. Putin has expressed a real kinship with the russian-israelis(which could be why Putin doesn't stop the israelis from bombing Syria whenever they wish?). Perhaps that is where one can find "russian collusion"–the russians though, are citizens of Israel;)

    So, just that problem with the article. The myth that Trump posed as a peace candidate shouldn't turn into revisionism, like how people today claim that Obama ran on stopping the wars.

    Max Parry ,

    Actually there was an academic study released which indicates voters in key battleground states saw him as the peace candidate relative to Hillary Clinton.

    https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2989040

    Gary Weglarz ,

    Max – that is the key point I'd say – that "relative" to Hillary 'the rot' Clinton, Attila the Hun could be legitimately seen as a "peace candidate." As completely odious and amoral as the Orange One is, clearly before "Russiagate" magically erupted and then morphed again quite magically into impeachment, Trump had simply not appropriately 'rattled the saber' toward Russia as required by America's deep state and MSM institutional structures.

    I dare say that many of us on the left in the U.S. (those long outside the two party structures) saw HRC as arguably the most clearly militarily dangerous of these two corrupt oligarchs when it came to the rather important – foreign policy front. For some reason many seen to have trouble tracking this bit of nuance.

    SharonM ,

    Hello, Max Parry. That was a very good article you wrote, thank you:)
    There are assumptions in that study. Often they cite "sacrifice" made by the U.S. military for U.S. "security". None of that goes on and hasn't gone on this entire century. The U.S. military is used as an invading force, not as defenders of their country. I don't think the people who sign up to be mercenaries for hegemony can claim ignorance for much longer and still be believed. American voters can vote for peace by voting for antiwar parties. It makes no sense to claim that american voters want peace while voting for the two major war parties. The americans who truly want peace vote for ant-war parties, or they're not voters. The war party voters just don't give a shit about war, or worse, they really like war.

    Max Parry ,

    I certainly wouldn't argue for the authenticity of Trump's campaign rhetoric since he reversed nearly all of it as president, just like Obama. And many forget even George W. Bush made some anti-interventionist statements in the debates against Al Gore in 2000.

    SharonM ,

    Yes. Trump was nowhere close to being considered a peace candidate. It is common for the two war parties to criticize each other's wars, but both parties are pro-war..and so are their voters..and their volunteer mercenaries.

    alsdkfj ,

    Ah, more propaganda for the fascist Trump I see. What else is new for Off Guardian?

    What, Trump wouldn't sell arms to Neo-Nazis?

    You're kidding me right?

    Off Guardian loves their fascist racist misogynist epic jerk Trump.

    Gall ,

    The farce runs deep in this one. Obviously you didn't read the article either because you are illiterate or your brain has been sucked by a giant Arachnid.

    George Cornell ,

    Not really. There isn't and wasn't much value difference between Trump and the warmongering, murderous, unprincipled neocon candidate harridan known as Hillary. It might seem that way as anyone trying to enable some semblance of balance is immediately attacked by the Democratic party's stormtroopers and internet battalions.

    lundiel ,

    It's all gone straight over your head. Read George Cornell's comment above, then read Harry Stotle's and come back with an argument as to why Biden should be the democrat candidate and Trump should be impeached.
    I doubt if any here share Trump's politics, or admire him, but we can all see a stitch-up when it's as plain as this one.

    Max Parry ,

    He did sell them arms. He was impeached when he momentarily stopped. Are you illiterate?

    Tim Jenkins ,

    If you like, I could teach you how to troll & shill, project & transfer, to a much higher standard, with far more intrigue and far far less obvious . . . tell your bosses.

    Do you mind if I ask what your boss & you get, collectively, paid and if you respect him?
    And,for that matter, yourself (lol 🙂 )
    Coz', by my standards, I'd fire the pair of you and do a much better job in the process,

    & much cheaper, Alone . . . so, I figure, applications to M.O.D.@77thBrigadeLYS, lonely young souls,
    the younger the better, just kids.
    No Men Required for propaganda purposes.
    That's all
    Over & Out.

    [Feb 07, 2020] It should be clear on what the fight is really about in the US. It's about stopping the rise of socialism. Regardless of party affiliation, the elites know what the populace wants and are desperately trying to stop it. I refuse to accept that the Democrats have no idea what they're doing.

    Feb 07, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    Ian2 , Feb 6 2020 20:02 utc | 65

    It should be clear on what the fight is really about in the US. It's about stopping the rise of socialism. Regardless of party affiliation, the elites know what the populace wants and are desperately trying to stop it. I refuse to accept that the Democrats have no idea what they're doing.

    I honestly can't see Sanders getting the nomination with all the corruption openly being displayed. I would be pleasantly surprised if Sanders did manage to get it, but he still have to deal with the ELECTORAL COLLEGE (EC). The Electors have the final say. Yes, one can point out that some States have laws forcing Electors to vote what the populace wants, but that is being challenged in court. The debate on whether such laws are unconstitutional or not, remains to be seen. It's too late now to deal with the EC for this election, but people need to be more active in politics at the State level as that's where Electors are (s)elected.

    IF Sanders is genuine then he should prepare to run as an independent just to get the EC attention.

    ben , Feb 6 2020 22:01 utc | 79

    RR @ 14;
    Everything in the U$A today, is driven by the unofficial Party of $, and it's reach transcends both Dems & repubs. It's cadre is the majority of the D.C. "rule makers", so we get what they want, not what "we the people" want or need.

    They own the banks, MSM media, and even our voting systems.

    IMO, to assume one party is to blame for conditions in the U$A is a bit naive.

    Question is, can anything the masses do, change the system? Or is rank and file America just along for the ride?

    I'm assuming us peons will get what the party of $ wants this November also.

    P.S. If any blame is given, it needs to go to the American public, because " you get the kind of Gov. you deserve" through your inactions...

    It's a lot like living, death is certain, but until that occurs, I'll move forward trying to mitigate current paradigms.

    [Feb 05, 2020] Trump as a middle level gangster

    There is a real danger for gangstrism mode of forign policy -- policimakers live in a bubble, an echo chamber, and all of their conclusions are based on faulty inputs...
    Feb 05, 2020 | consortiumnews.com

    Diplomacy, accommodation, compromise, mutuality, the perspectives of others: It is already clear these are among the defining features of 21 st century statecraft. Jealous of its dissipating preeminence, the U.S. proves indifferent to all such considerations. There is no longer even the pretense of deriving authority by way of example, so radical is Washington's preference for coercive might alone. The paradox is not difficult to grasp: In displays of unadorned power we also find the limits of power. The Trump administration's conduct of foreign policy -- primarily but not only in the Mideast -- makes failure and an American comeuppance inevitable.

    ... ... ...

    Many years ago, during the first term of George W. Bush, Karl Rove gave an interview in which he asserted that the U.S. was no longer bound by "discernible reality," as the White House aide put it. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," Rove explained. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out."

    Rove Warning Overlooked

    This singularly arrogant remark was much noted at the time but was thought to reflect only the kookier extremes of the Bush II administration. What a misinterpretation that has proven to be. Rove was effectively warning us that the U.S. had already begun its fundamental shift toward sheer power as the instrument of its foreign policies. This is plain in hindsight.

    ... These policies share two features. They rest on power alone -- in this they are Karl Rove's dream made flesh -- and they are bound to fail, if they are not already failing.

    It is evident now that the European allies will defy U.S. efforts to sabotage NordStream 2 and keep Huawei out of 5–G. London announced last week that it will allow Huawei to participate in its 5–G development program. Germany made a similar decision last autumn.

    In the Middle East, it is equally clear that Iran has no intention of buckling under U.S. sanctions and military threats. U.S. influence in the region has already begun to decline since the drone assassination of a top Iranian general on Iraqi soil early last month. The Pentagon now faces popular Iraqi demands to withdraw its troops.

    And now the Mideast -- Israel and Palestine. The Trump administration sacrificed all claim to "honest broker" status when it recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital in December 2017 -- a unilateral move that prompted the Palestinians to stop talking to the U.S. about the plan Jared Kushner was by then developing. Of all that is wrong with the new Trump–Kushner plan, the absence of Palestinian input more or less assures that it will prove dead on arrival.

    Power alone is power blind. Power blind is certain to fail, for it cannot see its way.

    [Feb 05, 2020] Stumbling Into Catastrophe by Daniel McAdams

    Feb 04, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    Authored by Daniel McAdams via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

    There is a real danger for foreign policy advisors and analysts – and especially those they serve – when they are in a bubble, an echo chamber, and all of their conclusions are based on faulty inputs. Needless to say it's even worse when they believe they can create their own reality and invent outcomes out of whole cloth.

    Things seldom go as planned in these circumstances.

    President Trump was sold a bill of goods on the assassination of Iran's revered military leader, Qassim Soleimani, likely by a cabal around Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the long-discredited neocon David Wurmser. A former Netanyahu advisor and Iraq war propagandist, Wurmser reportedly sent memos to his mentor, John Bolton, while Bolton was Trump's National Security Advisor (now, of course, he's the hero of the #resistance for having turned on his former boss) promising that killing Soleimani would be a cost-free operation that would catalyze the Iranian people against their government and bring about the long-awaited regime change in that country. The murder of Soleimani – the architect of the defeat of ISIS – would "rattle the delicate internal balance of forces and the control over them upon which the [Iranian] regime depends for stability and survival," wrote Wurmser.

    As is most often the case with neocons, he was dead wrong.

    The operation was not cost-free. On the contrary. Assassinating Soleimani on Iraqi soil resulted in the Iraqi parliament – itself the product of our "bringing democracy" to the country – voting to expel US forces even as the vote by the people's representatives was roundly rejected by the people who brought the people the people's representatives. In a manner of speaking.

    Trump's move had an effect opposite to the one promised by neocons. It did not bring Iranians out to the street to overthrow their government – it catalyzed opposition across Iraq's various political and religious factions to the continued US military presence and further tightened Iraq's relationship with Iran. And short of what would be a catastrophic war initiated by the US (with little or no support from allies), there is not a thing Trump can do about it.

    Iran's retaliatory attack on two US bases in Iraq was initially sold by President Trump as merely a pin-prick. No harm, no foul, no injuries. This despite the fact that he must have known about US personnel injured in the attack. The reason for the lie was that Trump likely understands how devastating it would be to his presidency to escalate with Iran. So the truth began to trickle out slowly – 11 US military members were injured, but it was just "like a headache." Now we know that 50 US troops were treated for traumatic brain injury after the attack. This may not be the last of it – but don't count on the mainstream media to do any reporting.

    The Iranian FARS news agency reported at the time of the attack that US personnel had been injured and the response by the US government was to completely take that media outlet off the Internet by order of the US Treasury !

    Last week the US House voted to cancel the 2002 authorization for war on Iraq and to prohibit the use of funds for war on Iran without Congressional authorization. It is a significant, if largely symbolic, move to rein in the oft-used excuse of the Iraq war authorization for blatantly unrelated actions like the assassination of Soleimani and Obama's thousands of airstrikes on Syria and Iraq .

    President Trump has argued that prohibiting funds for military action against Iran actually makes war more likely, as he would be restricted from the kinds of military-strikes-short-of-war like his attack on Syria after the alleged chemical attack in Douma in 2018 (claims which have recently fallen apart ). The logic is faulty and reflects again the danger of believing one's own propaganda. As we have seen from the Iranian military response to the Soleimani assassination, Trump's military-strikes-short-of-war are having a ratchet-like effect rather than a pressure-release or deterrent effect.

    As the financial and current events analysis site ZeroHedge put it recently:

    [S]ince last summer's "tanker wars", Trump has painted himself into a corner on Iran, jumping from escalation to escalation (to this latest "point of no return big one" in the form of the ordered Soleimani assassination) -- yet all the while hoping to avoid a major direct war. The situation reached a climax where there were "no outs" (Trump was left with two 'bad options' of either back down or go to war).

    The Iranians have little to lose at this point and America's European allies are, even if impotent, fed up with the US obsession with Saudi Arabia and Israel as a basis for its Middle East policy.

    So why open this essay with a photo of Trump celebrating his dead-on-arrival "Deal of The Century" for Israel and Palestine? Because this is once again a gullible and weak President Trump being led by the nose into the coming Middle East conflagration. Left without even a semblance of US sympathy for their plight, the Palestinians after the roll-out of this "peace" plan will again see that they have no friends outside Syria, Iran, and Lebanon. As Israel continues to flirt with the idea of simply annexing large parts of the West Bank, it is clear that the brakes are off of any Israeli reticence to push for maximum control over Palestinian territory. So what is there to lose?

    Trump believes he's advancing peace in the Middle East, while the excellent Mondoweiss website rightly observes that a main architect of the "peace plan," Trump's own son-in-law Jared Kushner, "taunts Palestinians because he wants them to reject his 'peace plan.'" Rejection of the plan is a green light to a war of annihilation on the Palestinians.

    It appears that the center may not hold, that the self-referential echo chamber that passes for Beltway "expert" analysis will again be caught off guard in the consequence-free profession that is neocon foreign policy analysis. "Gosh we didn't see that coming!" But the next day they are back on the teevee stations as great experts.

    Clouds gathering...


    Minamoto , 23 minutes ago link

    It is hard to believe that Trump has any confidence in Jared Kushner. Yet, he does enough to go public with a one-sided plan developed without Palestinian input.

    francis scott falseflag , 41 minutes ago link

    a real danger for foreign policy advisors and analysts – and especially those they serve – when they are in a bubble, an echo chamber, and all of their conclusions are based on faulty inputs.

    The same is true of the economists and financial analysts who live in the bubble of the NSYE and the echo chamber of Manhattan. All of their conclusions are based on faulty inputs.

    Ruler , 1 hour ago link

    The problem all incompetent leaders have, is seeing how their opponents see them.

    Bokkenrijder , 1 hour ago link

    If Trump continues to be 'dumb' enough to consistently hire these people and consistently listen to them, and if his supporters continue to be dumb enough to consistently believe all the lies and excuses, then Trump and his supporters are 100% involved in the neoCON.

    RafterManFMJ , 1 hour ago link

    Dude, it's 666D chess!

    The Real John Bolton

    [Feb 04, 2020] The FBI is the secret police force of the authoritarian (aching to be totalitarian) govt hidden behind "Truth, Justice the American Way"

    Highly recommended!
    Feb 04, 2020 | off-guardian.org

    Jack_Garbo ,

    OK, baby steps. The FBI is the secret police force of the authoritarian (aching to be totalitarian) govt hidden behind "Truth, Justice & the American Way". The "democratic" facade of the US politics is, in fact, close to the Greek original: A cabal of oligarchs who decide distribution of power without daggers, and naturally exclude slaves (workers), landless peons (minorities), women (grudgingly later included, once indoctrinated) to maintain the status quo.

    The "vote" the oligarchs advertise as proof of their democratic credentials in allowing the hoi polloi to have a say is insultingly quaint and blatantly futile. All elections are rigged. Of course! The outcome is preordained. Would you let some naive do-gooder wreck your decades of building an empire? Never!

    If a "ringer" sneaks through the gauntlet of oligarchic vetting and slips the leash, he (always HE) is put down and the Electoral College is invoked to re-establish the status quo with an acceptable front man.

    Foreign policy? Long ago decided and continued regardless of who inhabits the White House this season. He follows the script, is handsomely paid and retires famous and breathing. Go off-script and doom is certain, the funeral subdued.

    In closing the class, we can conclude that the FBI is not rogue; it is functioning as intended and professionally considering the gangly amateurs it has to herd along path.

    Tea break.

    [Feb 04, 2020] I was obvious that Flynn was targeted for elimination by what ludicrously calls itself the "resistance" right from the beginning using Hoover's G-boys and girls who have by the way been heavily infiltrated by CIA to get him

    Feb 04, 2020 | off-guardian.org

    OK, let's assume Flynn was targeted for elimination. but why he behaved so stupidly ?


    Gall ,

    I was obvious that Flynn was targeted for elimination by what ludicrously calls itself the "resistance" right from the beginning using Hoover's G-boys and girls who have by the way been heavily infiltrated by CIA to get him.

    Many of the players involved in this act worked in CI which is closely connected to the CIA's own counter intelligence. In fact the connections are so incestuous that many of the FBI's "agents" are sheep dipped Agency officers.

    One has to ask themselves why the FBI would be so interested in foreign policy? Hoover despite his many failings stayed out of the area of Foreign Intel yet the Bureau currently seems obsessed by it.

    Why? Probably because they are working on the same team as CIA, NSA, DIA, DHS and the other alphabet soup agencies who gain their power from what could be correctly called the War of Terror. Flynn being a threat because he was in agreement with Trump's proposed noninterventionist foreign policy.

    The same one he promised his voters but has currently reneged on. Remember the "resistance" as they call themselves but are really the same ol' shit faction want America constantly embroiled in Foreign conflicts and the operation known as the "Purple Revolution"by the same group who likes to color code their regime changes was not only to take down Flynn but Trump as well. A soft coup in other words.

    Now that Trump's playing ball they can go after his base and those on the left who oppose the usual that the so called "resistance' offers.

    Seamus Padraig ,

    One has to ask themselves why the FBI would be so interested in foreign policy? Hoover despite his many failings stayed out of the area of Foreign Intel yet the Bureau currently seems obsessed by it.

    The FBI does have a counter-intelligence function, so that would give them some legitimate interest in the activities of foreign intelligence services, at least; but I suspect their obsession with Trump and Flynn goes far, far beyond any legitimate legal mandate.

    Gall ,

    True they've always had a CI function but it was more like a total Keystone Kops' operation. Still is probably when you consider that Hannssen worked in their CI for over two decades without being detected.

    Of there's CIA with James Jesus Angleton who was a good friend of Kim Philby who wrecked any CI capability both FBI and CIA had by being suspicious of any Russiaphile.

    In fact this whole Russiaphobia and hoax is probably the resurrection of the ghost of Angleton.

    Seamus Padraig ,

    And the ghost of J. Edgar Hoover, too!

    Gall ,

    True Hoover spent more time chasing Commie and creating the Red Scare than he did cross dressing and hanging out a Mob hangouts which he assured us didn't exist.

    [Feb 04, 2020] Fusion Centers. Created and run by the very same Andrew McCabe at the centre of Crossfire Hurricane and subsequently fired for malfeasance and abuse of public office. The same Fusion centers were behind America's biggest "terror" attacks, in the same way MI5 tend to be behind (or at least have very good knowledge of prior to) our own "attacks"

    Feb 04, 2020 | off-guardian.org

    Yarkob ,

    "Many of the players involved in this act worked in CI which is closely connected to the CIA's own counter intelligence. "

    Fusion Centers. Created and run by the very same Andrew McCabe at the centre of Crossfire Hurricane and subsequently fired for malfeasance and abuse of public office.

    The same Fusion centers were behind America's biggest "terror" attacks, in the same way MI5 tend to be behind (or at least have very good knowledge of prior to) our own "attacks"

    (just to let the admins know, I had Seamus Padraig's details pre-filled in my text box)

    [Feb 03, 2020] 'Trump Might Trade Alaska To The Russians!' Cries Schiff During Closing Impeachment Remarks

    Notable quotes:
    "... Adam Schiff: If Trump isn't removed he "could offer Alaska to the Russians in exchange for support in the next election or decide to move to Mar-a-Lago permanently and leave Jared Kushner to run the country, delegating to him the decision whether they go to war." pic.twitter.com/VBzkonqpmH ..."
    Feb 03, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    Impeachment manager Adam Schiff (D-CA) argued on Monday during closing remarks that if President Trump isn't removed from office, he " could offer Alaska to the Russians in exchange for support in the next election or decide to move to Mar-a-Lago permanently and leave Jared Kushner to run the country , delegating to him the decision whether they go to war."

    Adam Schiff: If Trump isn't removed he "could offer Alaska to the Russians in exchange for support in the next election or decide to move to Mar-a-Lago permanently and leave Jared Kushner to run the country, delegating to him the decision whether they go to war." pic.twitter.com/VBzkonqpmH

    -- Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) February 3, 2020

    [Feb 03, 2020] White House Warriors: How the National Security Council Transformed the American Way of War

    Highly recommended!
    This book sheds some light into the story of how Administrative assistants to Present became independent heavily influenced by CIA body controlling the USA foreign policy and to a large extent controlling the President. Recent revolt of NSC (Aka Ukrainegate) shows that the servant became the master
    The books contains some interesting information about forming NSC by Truman --- the father of the US National Security State. And bureaucratic turf war the preceded it. It wwas actually Eisenhower who created forma position of a "special assistant to the president for national security affairs"
    The author also cover a little bit disastrous decision to launch a "surge" (ironically by the female chickenhawk Meghan O'Sullivan), -- which attests neocon nature of current NSC and level of indoctrination of staffers in "Full Spectrum Dominance" doctrine quite clearly. That's why a faction of NSC launched a coup d'état against Trump in t he form of Ukrainegate and probably was instrumental in Russiagate as well.
    Notable quotes:
    "... Starting in the 1960s, the NSC dethroned the State Department in providing analysis, intelligence, and even some diplomacy to the diplomat in chief. In the years after September 11th, the staff also began to take greater responsibility, especially for planning, from the military and the rest of the Pentagon. Both departments have struggled and often failed to reclaim lost ground and influence in Washington. ..."
    "... Yet war is a hard thing to try to manage from the Executive Office Building. Thousands of miles from the frontlines and far from harm, the NSC make recommendations based on what they come to know from intelligence reports, news sources, phone calls, video-teleconferences, and visits to the front. Even with advice based only on this limited and limiting view, the NSC staff has transformed how the United States fights its wars. ..."
    "... Although presidents bear the ultimate responsibilities for these decisions, the NSC staff played an essential, and increasing, role in the thinking behind each bold move. In conflict after conflict, a more powerful NSC staff has fundamentally altered the American way of war. It is now far less informed by the perspective of the military and the view from the frontlines. It is less patient for progress and more dependent on the clocks in the Executive Office Building and Washington than those in theater. It is far more combative, less able to accept defeat, and more willing to risk a change of course. ..."
    "... The NSC common law's kept the peace in Washington for years after Iran-Contra. The restrictions against outright advocacy and outsized operational responsibilities were accepted by those at the White House as well as in the agencies during Republican and Democratic administrations. Yet as many in Washington believed the world grew more interconnected and the national security stakes increased, especially after September 11th, a more powerful NSC has given staffers the opportunity to bend, and occasionally break, the common laws, as they have been expected to and allowed to take on more responsibilities for developing strategies and new r ideas from those in the bureaucracy and military. ..."
    "... ...Meanwhile, others, including the anonymous author of the infamous September 2018 New York Times opinion piece, believe government officials who comprise a "steady state" amid Trump's chaotic presidency are "unsung heroes" resisting his worst instincts and overreaches. 13 Thus, it is no surprise that more and more Americans are concerned: a 2018 poll found that 74 percent of Americans feel a group of officials arc able to control government policy without accountability. ..."
    "... it is no wonder some Americans have taken to assuming the worst of their public servants. ..."
    "... Each member of the NSC staff needs to remember that their growing, unaccountable power has helped give evidence to the worries about a deep state. Although no one in Washington gives up influence voluntarily, the staff, even its warriors, need to remember it is not just what they fight for but whether a fight is necessary at all. ..."
    "... ... Too many in Washington, including at the Executive Office Building, have forgotten that public service is a privilege that bestows on them great responsibility. Although the NSC has long justified its actions in the name of national security, the means with which its members have pursued that objective have made for a more aggressive American way of war, a more fractious Washington, and more conspiracies about government. ..."
    "... The question is for what and for whom they will fight in the years and wars ahead. ..."
    Feb 03, 2020 | www.amazon.com

    The men and women walking the hushed corridors of the Executive Office Building do not look like warriors. Most are middle-aged professionals with penchants for dark business suits and prestigious graduate degrees, who have spent their lives serving their country in windowless offices, on far-off battle-fields, or at embassies abroad. Before arriving at the NSC, many joined the military or the nation's diplomatic corps, some dedicated themselves to teaching and writing about national security, and others spent their days working for the types of politicians who become presidents. By the time they joined the staff, each had shown the pluck -- and the good fortune -- required to end up staffing a president.

    When each NSC staffer first walks up the steps to the Executive Office Building, he or she joins an institution like no other in government. Compared to the Pentagon and other bureaucracies, the staff is small, hierarchically flat with only a few titles like directors and senior directors reporting to the national security advisor and his or her deputies. Compared to all those at the agencies, even most cabinet secretaries, the staff are also given unparalleled access to the president and the discussions about the biggest decisions in national security.

    Yet despite their access, the NSC staff was created as a political, legal, and bureaucratic afterthought. The National Security Council was established both
    to better coordinate foreign policy after World War II and as part of a deal to create what became known as the Defense Department. Since the army and navy only agreed to be unified under a single department and a civilian cabinet secretary if each still had a seat at the table where decisions about war were expected to be made, establishing the National Security Council was critical to ensuring passage of the National Security Act of 1947. The law, as well as its amendments two years later, unified the armed forces while also establishing the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Office of the Secretary of Defense, as well as the CIA.

    ... ... ...

    Fans of television's the West Wing would be forgiven for expecting that once in the Oval Office, all a staffer needs to do to change policy is to deliver a well-timed whisper in the president's car or a rousing speech in his company. It is not that such dramatic moments never occur, but real change in government requires not just speaking up but the grinding policy work required to have something new to say.

    A staffer, alone or with NSC and agency colleagues, must develop an idea until feasible and defend it from opposition driven by personal pique, bureaucratic jealousy, or substantive disagreement, and often all three.

    Granted none of these fights are over particularly new ideas, as few proposals in war are truly novel. If anything, the staffs history is a reminder of how little new there is under the guise of national security. Alter all, escalations, ultimatums, and counterinsurgency are only innovative in the context of the latest conflicts. The NSC staff is usually proposing old ideas, some as old as war itself like a surge of troops, to new circumstances and a critical moment.

    Yet even an old idea can have real power in the right hands at the right time, so it is worth considering how much more influence the NSC brings to its fights today.

    ... ... ...

    A larger staff can do even more thanks to technology. With the establishment of the Situation Room in 1961 and its subsequent upgrades, as well as the widespread adoption of email in the 1980s, the classified email system during the 2000s, and desktop video teleconferencing systems in the 2010s, White House technology upgrades have been justified because the president deserves the latest and the fastest. These same advances give each member of the staff global reach, including to war zones half a world away, from the safety of the Executive Office Building.

    The NSC has also grown more powerful along with the presidency it serves. The White House, even in the hands of an inexperienced and disorganized president like Trump, drives the government's agenda, the news media's coverage, and the American public's attention. The NSC staff can, if skilled enough, leverage the office's influence for their own ideas and purposes. Presidents have also explicitly empowered the staff in big ways -- like putting them in the middle of the policymaking process -- and small -- like granting them ranks that put them on the same level as other agency officials.

    Recent staffers have also had the president's ear nearly every day, and sometimes more often, while secretaries of state and defense rarely have that much face time in the Oval Office. Each has a department with tens of thousands (and in the Pentagon's case millions) of employees to manage. Most significantly, both also answer not just to the president but to Congress, which has oversight authority for their departments and an expectation for regular updates. There are few more consequential power differences between the NSC and the departments than to whom each must answer.

    Even more, the NSC staff get to work and fight in anonymity. Members of Congress, journalists, and historians are usually too busy keeping track of the National Security Council principals to focus on the guys and gals behind the national security advisors, who are themselves behind the president. Few in Washington, and fewer still across the country, know the names of the staff advising the president let alone what they arc saying in their memos and moments with him.

    Today, there arc too many unnamed NSC staffers for anyone's good, including their own. Even with the recent congressional limit on policy staffers, the NSC is too big to be thoroughly managed or effective. National security advisors and their deputies are so busy during their days that it is hard to keep up with all their own emails, calls, and reading, let alone ensure each member of the staff is doing their own work or doing it well. The common law and a de tacto honor system has also struggled to keep staff in check as they try to handle every issue from war to women's rights and every to-do list item from drafting talking points to doing secret diplomacy.

    Although many factors contribute to the NSC's success, history suggests they do best with the right-size job. The answer to better national security policy and process is not a bigger staff but smaller writs. The NSC should focus on fewer issues, and then only on the smaller stuff, like what the president needs for calls and meetings, and the big, what some call grand strategic, questions about the nation's interests, ambitions, and capacities that should be asked and answered before any major decision.

    ... ... ...

    Along the way, the staff has taken on greater responsibilities from agencies like the departments of state and defense as each has grown more bureaucratic and sclerotic. Starting in the 1960s, the NSC dethroned the State Department in providing analysis, intelligence, and even some diplomacy to the diplomat in chief. In the years after September 11th, the staff also began to take greater responsibility, especially for planning, from the military and the rest of the Pentagon. Both departments have struggled and often failed to reclaim lost ground and influence in Washington.

    As a result, today the NSC has, regretfully, become the strategic engine of the government's national security policymaking. The staff, along with the national security advisor, determine which issues -- large and small -- require attention, develop the plans for most of them, and try to manage day-to-day the implementation of each strategy. That is too sweeping a remit for a couple hundred unaccountable staffers sitting at the Executive Office Building thousands of miles from war zones and foreign capitals. Such immense responsibility also docs not make the best use of talent in government, leaving the military and the nation's diplomats fighting with the White House over policies while trying to execute plans they have less and less ownership over.

    ... ... ...

    Although protocol still requires members of the NSC to sit on the backbench in National Security Council meetings, the staff s voice and advice can carry as much weight as those of the principals sitting at the table, just as the staff has taken on more of each department's responsibilities, the NSC arc expected to be advisors to the president, even on military strategy. With that charge, the staff has taken to spending more time and effort developing their own policy ideas -- and fighting for them.

    Yet war is a hard thing to try to manage from the Executive Office Building. Thousands of miles from the frontlines and far from harm, the NSC make recommendations based on what they come to know from intelligence reports, news sources, phone calls, video-teleconferences, and visits to the front. Even with advice based only on this limited and limiting view, the NSC staff has transformed how the United States fights its wars.

    The American way of war, developed over decades of thinking and fighting, informs how and why the nation goes to battle. Over the course of American history and, most relevantly, since the end of World War II, the US military and other national security professionals have developed, often through great turmoil, strategic preferences and habits, like deploying the latest technology possible instead of the largest number of troops. Despite the tremendous planning that goes into these most serious of undertakings, each new conflict tests the prevailing way of war and often finds it wanting.

    Even knowing how dangerous it is to relight the last war, it is still not easy to find the right course for a new one. Government in general and national security specifically are risk-averse enterprises where it is often simpler to rely on standard operating procedures and stay on a chosen course, regardless of whether progress is slow and the sense of drift is severe. Even then, many in the military, who often react to even the mildest of suggestions and inquiries as unnecessary or even dangerous micromanagement, defend the prevailing approach with its defining doctrine and syndrome.

    As Machiavelli recommended long ago, there is a need for hard questions in government and war in particular. He wrote that a leader "ought to be a great askcr, and a patient hearer of the truth." 7 From the Executive Office Building, the NSC staff, who are more distanced from the action as well as the fog of war, have tried to fill this role for a busy and often distracted president. They are, however, not nearly as patient as Machiavelli recommended: they have proven more willing, indeed too willing at times, to ask about what is working and what is not.

    Warfighters are not alone in being frustrated by questions: everyone from architects to zookeepers believes they know how best to do their job and that with a bit more time, they will get it right. Without any of the responsibility for the doing, the NSC staff not only asks hard questions but, by avoiding implementation bias, is willing to admit, often long before those in the field, that the current plan is failing. A more technologically advanced NSC, with the ability to reach deep into the chain of command and war zones for updates, has also given the staff the intelligence to back up its impatience.

    Most times in history, the NSC staff has correctly predicted that time is running against a chosen strategy. Halperin. and others on the Nixon NSC, were accurate in their assessments of Vietnam. Dur and his Reagan NSC colleagues were right to worry that diplomacy was moving too slowly in Lebanon. Haass and Vershbow were correct when they were concerned with how windows of opportunity for action were shrinking in the Gulf and Balkans respectively, just as O'Sullivan was right that things needed to change relatively soon in Iraq.

    Yet an impatient NSC staff has a worse track record giving the president answers to what should come next. The NSC staff naturally have opinions and ideas about what can be done when events and war feel out of control, but ideas about what can be done when events and war feel out of control, but the very distance and disengagement that allow' the NSC to be so effective at measuring progress make its ideas less grounded in operational realities and more clouded by the fog of Washington. The NSC, often stridently, wants to do something more, to "go big when wc can," as one recent staffer encouraged his president, to fix a failing policy or win a w r ar, but that is not a strategy, nor does that ambition make the staff the best equipped to figure out the next steps."

    With their proposals for a new plan, deployment, or initiative, the staff has made more bad recommendations than good. The Diem coup and the Beirut mission are two examples, and particularly tragic ones at that, of NSC staff recommendations gone awry. The Iraq surge was certainly a courageous decision, but by committing so many troops to that country, the manpower w r as not available for a war in Afghanistan that was falling off track. Even the more successful NSC recommendations for changes in US strategy in the Gulf War and in Bosnia did not end up exactly as planned, in part because even good ideas in war rarely do.

    Although presidents bear the ultimate responsibilities for these decisions, the NSC staff played an essential, and increasing, role in the thinking behind each bold move. In conflict after conflict, a more powerful NSC staff has fundamentally altered the American way of war. It is now far less informed by the perspective of the military and the view from the frontlines. It is less patient for progress and more dependent on the clocks in the Executive Office Building and Washington than those in theater. It is far more combative, less able to accept defeat, and more willing to risk a change of course.

    And it is characterized by more frequent and counterproductive friction between the civilian and military leaders.

    ... ... ...

    Through it all, as the NSC's voice has grown louder in the nation's war rooms, the staff has transformed how Washington works, and more often does not work. The NSC's fights to change course have had another casualty: the ugly collapse of the common law' that has governed Washington policymaking for more than a generation. The result today is a government that trusts less, fights more, and decides much slower.

    National security policy- and decision-making was never supposed to be a fair fight. Eliot Cohen, a civil-military scholar with high-level government experience, has called the give-and-take of the interagency process an "unequal" dialogue -- one in which presidents are entitled to not just make the ultimate decision but also to ask questions, often with the NSC's help, at any time and about any topic.* Everyone else, from the secretaries of state and defense in Washington dow r n to the commanders and ambassadors abroad, has to expect and tolerate such presidential interventions and then carry out his orders.

    Even an unfair fight can have rules, however. The NSC common law's kept the peace in Washington for years after Iran-Contra. The restrictions against outright advocacy and outsized operational responsibilities were accepted by those at the White House as well as in the agencies during Republican and Democratic administrations. Yet as many in Washington believed the world grew more interconnected and the national security stakes increased, especially after September 11th, a more powerful NSC has given staffers the opportunity to bend, and occasionally break, the common laws, as they have been expected to and allowed to take on more responsibilities for developing strategies and new r ideas from those in the bureaucracy and military.

    ... ... ...

    ...Meanwhile, others, including the anonymous author of the infamous September 2018 New York Times opinion piece, believe government officials who comprise a "steady state" amid Trump's chaotic presidency are "unsung heroes" resisting his worst instincts and overreaches. 13 Thus, it is no surprise that more and more Americans are concerned: a 2018 poll found that 74 percent of Americans feel a group of officials arc able to control government policy without accountability.

    In an era when Americans can see on reality television how their fish are caught, meals arc cooked, and businesses are financed, it is strange that few have ever heard the voice of an NSC staffer. The Executive Office Building is not the only building out of reach: most of the government taxpayers' fund is hard, and getting harder, to see. With bigger security blockades, longer waits on declassification, and more severe crackdowns on leaks, it is no wonder some Americans have taken to assuming the worst of their public servants.

    The American people need to know the NSC's war stories if for no other reason than each makes clear that there is no organized deep state in Washington. If one existed, there would be little need for the NSC to fight so hard to coordinate the government's various players and parts. However, this history also makes plain that though the United States can overcome bad decisions and survive military disasters, a belief in a deep state is a threat to the NSC and so much more.

    ... ... ...

    Each member of the NSC staff needs to remember that their growing, unaccountable power has helped give evidence to the worries about a deep state. Although no one in Washington gives up influence voluntarily, the staff, even its warriors, need to remember it is not just what they fight for but whether a fight is necessary at all. Shortcuts and squabbles may make sense when every second feels like it counts, but the best public servants do what is necessary for the president even as they protect, for years to come, the health of the institutions and the very democracy in which they serve. As hard as that can be to remember when the clock in the Oval Office is ticking, doing things the right way is even more important than the latest crises, war, or meeting with the president.

    ... ... ...

    ... Too many in Washington, including at the Executive Office Building, have forgotten that public service is a privilege that bestows on them great responsibility. Although the NSC has long justified its actions in the name of national security, the means with which its members have pursued that objective have made for a more aggressive American way of war, a more fractious Washington, and more conspiracies about government.

    Centuries ago, Plato argued that civilians must hope for warriors who could be trusted to be both "gentle to their own and cruel to their enemies." At a time when many doubt government and those who serve in it, the NSC staff s history demonstrates just what White House warriors arc capable of. The question is for what and for whom they will fight in the years and wars ahead.

    ... ... ...

    The legendary British double agent Kim Philby wrote: "just because a document is a document it has a glamour which tempts the reader to give it more weight than it deserves An hour of a serious discussion with a trustworthy informant is often more valuable than any number of original documents. Of course, it is best to have both."

    Alexandra Jones , September 15, 2019

    The Untold History of the NSC

    A must-read for anyone interested in history or foreign policy. Gans pulls back the curtain on arguably the most powerful yet opaque body in foreign policy decision-making, the National Security Council. Each chapter recounts a different administration -- as told through the work of an NSC staffer. Through these beautifully-written portraits of largely unknown staffers, Gans reveals the chilling, outsized influence of this small, unelected institution on American war and peace. From this perspective, even the policy success stories seem more luck than skill -- leaving readers concerned about the NSC's continued unchecked power.

    [Feb 03, 2020] Did the FBI Sabotage Trump's Foreign Policy by Renee Parsons

    Among other things there were way too many Polish guys in Flynn witch hunt squad... They usually can be certified as adamant Russophobes.
    Pientka remains a central figure in the FBI scam against Flynn as well as other clandestine activities identified within the Crossfire operation – and there's more.
    Notable quotes:
    "... The IG Report confirms that, after the election, top FBI officials discussed 'interview strategies' regarding how to set Flynn up in an ostensibly innocent conversation. Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe arranged the meeting with the goal to walk Flynn into a well-laid trap without informing him that there was a criminal investigation underway or that he was a target. ..."
    "... On January 24, 2017, four days after the Inaugural, Peter Strzok, former FBI Chief of counterespionage and the same unnamed SSA1 (Supervisory Special Agent) who led the August briefing met with Flynn for a friendly chat, more popularly referred to as the Ambush Interview. ..."
    "... What does that tell you? Powell believes, based on sworn witness testimony, that the final 302 is not an accurate reflection of the 302 notes or Flynn's statements of January 24th. ..."
    "... It is curious that an SSA1 whose identity remained cloaked in secrecy throughout the entire IG FISA Report continues to be mentioned as a significant participant in the Bureau's Crossfire Hurricane while his name remains redacted on official documents. Disguising his identity may simply be attributed to activities worth concealing. ..."
    "... In an unexpected turn, it was Sen. Chuck Grassley, Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee who outed the SSA1 as agent Joe Pientka in his May 11, 2018 letter to the Bureau . ..."
    "... Grassley's May 11th letter confirms that Comey was aware that Flynn had not lied regarding the Kislyak conversation and further points out the stunning revelation that Pientka was 'on detail' as staff on the Judiciary Committee, presumably with the Democrats. For all his persistence, the FBI continues to rebuff Grassley's assertions for a transcript of the Kislyak conversation as well as demanding Pientka's presence "for a transcribed interview with Committee staff." ..."
    Feb 03, 2020 | off-guardian.org

    We now know that, before Donald Trump's inauguration on January 20, 2017, the FBI had the ouster of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the President's National Security Adviser, in its sights. By February 13th, Flynn was out the door .

    Think about it. Why was Flynn's removal of the utmost importance to the FBI, more vital than removal of any other cabinet officer like the Pentagon or State Department?

    So crucial was it that they created a specific strategy willing to embrace prosecutorial misconduct and agency malfeasance to take Flynn down. Prosecutorial misdeeds are nothing new to the FBI as they have a well-founded history of corruption over the years with its warts now publicly displayed.

    It does not take a poli sci major to figure out that Flynn's immediate removal from the Administration was essential to undermining Trump's entire foreign policy initiatives including no new interventionist wars, peace with Russia and US withdrawal from Syria and Afghanistan.

    In retrospect, the entire fraudulent Russiagate conspiracy makes sense when viewed from the perspective of an effort to rein in Trump's foreign policy goals of which Flynn would have been a necessary, integral part.

    The question is where did the first glimmer of setting up Flynn originate? Who had the most to gain by disrupting Trump's foreign policy agenda? A number of suspects come to mind including the evil Brennan/Clapper twins, a bureaucratically well-placed neocon, an interested foreign entity like Israel or somewhere deep within the dark bowels of the FBI, all of which are in sync with the Democratic leadership and its corporate media minions.

    At the time, the Washington Post, a favorite CIA organ, was reporting that Flynn had 'hinted' to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak that Trump might be willing to 'relax' sanctions against Russia. It was then claimed that Flynn had 'misled' VP Pence by denying that he had had a conversation regarding sanctions with Kislyak. None of it was true.

    With Flynn removed, Trump never regained his footing on foreign policy – which no doubt was exactly as intended; thereby opening the door for the likes of Jared Kushner to assume the role of 'trusted adviser."

    Let's examine how the FBI eliminated Flynn:

    In August, 2016, an FBI 'strategic intelligence briefing' was conducted for candidate Trump with Flynn as his national security adviser in attendance. The briefing, which was not a traditional 'defensive' briefing in which a presidential candidate is alerted of a foreign government's effort to intercede in their campaign, was led by an anonymous "experienced FBI counter intelligence agent." According to the IG Report on FISA abuses, at that time Flynn was already a "subject in the ongoing Crossfire Hurricane investigation."

    The IG Report confirms that, after the election, top FBI officials discussed 'interview strategies' regarding how to set Flynn up in an ostensibly innocent conversation. Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe arranged the meeting with the goal to walk Flynn into a well-laid trap without informing him that there was a criminal investigation underway or that he was a target.

    Such a procedure is called 'entrapment' and considered illegal. (See Clint Eastwood's new film Richard Jewell for details on the FBI's entrapment techniques).

    On January 24, 2017, four days after the Inaugural, Peter Strzok, former FBI Chief of counterespionage and the same unnamed SSA1 (Supervisory Special Agent) who led the August briefing met with Flynn for a friendly chat, more popularly referred to as the Ambush Interview.

    At that time, either one or both agents took handwritten notes while neither provided the usual heads-up about penalties for making a false statement – since that would have tipped their hand. Since Flynn believed this was an informal visit, he did not feel the need to have an attorney present or inquire why, if this was a friendly get-to-know chat, the need to take notes.

    That conversation led to Flynn being charged with 'lying to the FBI' regarding his conversation with Kislyak.

    After the interview, preparation of a 302 form is normal procedure. A 302 is a summary of and a formalizing of those notes taken during the conversation. It is those original 302 notes which are in dispute and which the FBI refuses to provide to either the Senate Judiciary Committee or to Flynn's attorney, Sidney Powell.

    What does that tell you? Powell believes, based on sworn witness testimony, that the final 302 is not an accurate reflection of the 302 notes or Flynn's statements of January 24th.

    It is curious that an SSA1 whose identity remained cloaked in secrecy throughout the entire IG FISA Report continues to be mentioned as a significant participant in the Bureau's Crossfire Hurricane while his name remains redacted on official documents. Disguising his identity may simply be attributed to activities worth concealing.

    In an unexpected turn, it was Sen. Chuck Grassley, Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee who outed the SSA1 as agent Joe Pientka in his May 11, 2018 letter to the Bureau .

    Pientka remains a central figure in the FBI scam against Flynn as well as other clandestine activities identified within the Crossfire operation – and there's more.

    According to Strzok, Pientka was "primarily responsible" as the 'note taker' and prepared the 302 report of the interview on which Flynn's prosecution is based. Powell has challenged authorship since the final 302 version contains falsified statements never made in the original interview that are now being criminalized.

    In a message to his paramour Lisa Page, Strzok thanked Page for her 'edits' on the 302 regarding the Flynn-Kislyak conversation on sanctions that never occurred while Strzok suggested that, at some future time, they discuss a 'media leak strategy.'

    Soon after Flynn's resignation, a skeptical Grassley requested unredacted transcripts of the Flynn – Kislyak conversation with the FBI repeatedly refusing to comply.

    Grassley's May 11th letter confirms that Comey was aware that Flynn had not lied regarding the Kislyak conversation and further points out the stunning revelation that Pientka was 'on detail' as staff on the Judiciary Committee, presumably with the Democrats. For all his persistence, the FBI continues to rebuff Grassley's assertions for a transcript of the Kislyak conversation as well as demanding Pientka's presence "for a transcribed interview with Committee staff."

    In response to an 'insufficient' FBI reply, Grassley then let loose with a June 6th zinger detailing a compilation of FBI lies, failures and hypocrisies too numerous to be articulated (but worth reading) here .

    While a review of the FBI's entire prosecution of Flynn raises considerable legal and ethical questions, the Bureau's consistent refusal to turnover evidentiary material is indicative of a deceitful agency protecting its own criminal behavior.

    Why is the FBI embedding an SSA1 with the Senate Committee that has legislative jurisdiction over its mission? Does this strike anyone else like the tactic of a totalitarian state? How does Flynn's case move forward without the FBI providing the necessary exculpatory documents legally required for every defendant? How does a Congressional Committee provide effective oversight and accountability if they are continually stonewalled by the very agency within their legal authority? How can the FBI ever be rehabilitated if Congress, fearful of a constitutional crisis, has no political will to assert its proper authority and issue a Contempt of Congress subpoena? With the FBI out of control, Is this any way to run a country?

    Renee Parsons has been a member of the ACLU's Florida State Board of Directors and President of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter. She has been an elected public official in Colorado, an environmental lobbyist with Friends of the Earth and staff member in the US House of Representatives in Washington, DC. Renee is also a student of the Quantum Field and may be reached at @reneedove31.

    Antonym ,

    Better ask: did Trump sabotage the foreign policy of the FBI – CIA – FED hydra?

    Obama, the Clintons and the Bushes didn't.

    [Feb 02, 2020] The most interesting issue is the role of NSC in this impeachment story

    Highly recommended!
    Edited for clarity
    Notable quotes:
    "... Currently they can wrap themselves into constitution defenders flag and be pretty safe from any criticism. Because charges that Schiff brought to the floor are bogus, and probably were created out of thin air by NSC plotters. Senators on both sides understand this, creating a classic Kabuki theater environment. ..."
    "... In any case, it is clear that Trump is just a marionette of more powerful forces behind him, and his impeachment does not means much, if those forces are untouchable. Impeachment Kabuki theatre is an attempt of restoration of NSC (read neocons) favored foreign policy from which Trump slightly deviated. ..."
    Feb 02, 2020 | angrybearblog.com

    likbez , February 2, 2020 10:40 pm

    Far more interesting issue is the role of NSC in this impeachment story.

    Potential whistleblower (actually CIA informant) was from NSC as were Fiona Hill, Alex Vindman and a couple of other major Ukrainegate players.

    In this NSC coup d'état against the President or what ? About earlier role of NSC see

    https://off-guardian.org/2020/02/01/secret-wars-forgotten-betrayals-global-tyranny-who-is-really-in-charge-of-the-u-s-military/

    As for "evil republican senators", they would be viewed as evil by electorate if and only only if actual crimes of Trump regime like Douma false flag, Suleimani assassination (actually here Trump was set up By Bolton and Pompeo) and other were discussed.

    Currently they can wrap themselves into constitution defenders flag and be pretty safe from any criticism. Because charges that Schiff brought to the floor are bogus, and probably were created out of thin air by NSC plotters. Senators on both sides understand this, creating a classic Kabuki theater environment.

    Both sides are afraid to discuss real issues, real Trump regime crimes.

    Schiff proved to be patently inept in this whole story even taking into account limitations put by Kabuki theater on him, and in case of Trump acquittal *which is "highly probable" borrowing May government terminology in Skripals case :-) to resign would be a honest thing for him to do.

    Assuming that he has some honestly left. Which is highly doubtful with statements like:

    "The United States aids Ukraine and her people so that we can fight Russia over there so we don't have to fight Russia here."

    And

    "More than 15,000 Ukrainians have died fighting Russian forces and their proxies. 15,000."

    Actually it was the USA interference in Ukraine (aka Nulandgate) that killed 15K Ukrainians, mainly Donbas residents and badly trained recruits of the Ukrainian army sent to fight them, as well as volunteers of paramilitary "death squads" like Asov battalion financed by oligarch Igor Kolomyskiy

    In any case, it is clear that Trump is just a marionette of more powerful forces behind him, and his impeachment does not means much, if those forces are untouchable. Impeachment Kabuki theatre is an attempt of restoration of NSC (read neocons) favored foreign policy from which Trump slightly deviated.

    [Feb 02, 2020] Despite being told for years that "Internet Research Agency" was working for Putin the DOJ admits it's not going to offer any evidence in the case "that the Russian Government sponsored the alleged conspiracy"

    Feb 02, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    Qparticle , Feb 2 2020 16:13 utc | 2

    Russiagate:

    Rosie memos @almostjingo - 1:40 UTC · Jan 30, 2020

    Well geez this is awkward. Despite being told for years that "Internet Research Agency" was working for Putin the DOJ admits it's not going to offer any evidence in the case "that the Russian Government sponsored the alleged conspiracy" MUH RUSSIA. @TheJusticeDept
    -- --

    Neither The DoJ or the FBI are aware of the fact that more than 60% of Israeli army speak Russian fluently just like their native hebrew, or better!?

    JUST SAYING...

    [Feb 01, 2020] Even After the Afghanistan Papers, the Washington 'Blob' Still Embraces Staying Forever

    Feb 01, 2020 | responsiblestatecraft.org

    Even After the Afghanistan Papers, the Washington 'Blob' Still Embraces Staying Forever January 30, 2020 Written by
    Mark Perry
    Share Copy Print

    James Clad, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asia, remembers the exact moment, back in 2001, when he learned that the U.S. had invaded Afghanistan. As chance would have it, he was in a meeting with a dozen or so South Asia experts at the Council on Foreign Relations. "It was in early October of 2001," he recalls, "and word came that U.S. warplanes had attacked three Afghan cities. Well, you could have heard a pin drop. I looked around the room and everyone was studying their shoes. And I thought, 'well, this isn't going to work.' And we all knew it. All of us. This was going to be a morass."

    Clad wasn't alone in his thinking. In the wake of the December 9 publication of the Afghanistan Papers in the Washington Post, retired CIA officer Robert Grenier, who ran covert operations in support of the 2001 U.S. intervention, reflected on the papers' key finding – that U.S. officials lied about the 18-year campaign, hiding "unmistakable evidence" that the Afghan war had become unwinnable. "Frankly, it strikes me as weird that people should only be waking up to this now," he told me. "The Washington Post series doesn't convey anything which those who've been watching with even moderate attention should long since have understood."

    Which may be why the papers, comprising some 2000-plus pages of interviews with generals, diplomats, aid workers and Afghan officials conducted by SIGAR, the Pentagon's Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, landed with a thud – "a bombshell that has yet to explode," as one commenter described it . For good reason: celebrated as a second Pentagon Papers (the 1971 documents that bared the lies of the Vietnam War) the Afghanistan revelations didn't actually reveal anything that foreign policy officials, or the American people, didn't already know: that the U.S. was not winning and could not win in Afghanistan, that senior U.S. diplomats and U.S. military commanders knew this soon after the 2001 intervention, that the hundreds of billions of dollars spent to build a responsive Afghan government was squandered, misspent, diverted or stolen, and that officials consistently misled the American people about the prospects for victory in the war – promoting optimistic assessments in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

    "In news conferences and other public appearances," the Post report noted, "those in charge of the war have followed the same talking points for 18 years. No matter how the war is going – and especially when it is going badly – they emphasized how they are making progress." Among the most outspoken critics quoted by the papers is retired Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, who served as the Afghan war czar during the Bush and Obama years. "We were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan – we didn't know what we were doing," Lute told SIGAR officials in an oft-quoted judgment . "What are we trying to do here? We didn't have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking."

    In truth, the big "reveal" of the Afghanistan Papers came after their release, when most of official Washington reacted to their publication with a collective shrug. Despite this, though not surprisingly, while the State Department and White House remained silent on the revelations, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley rejected the claim that officials had purposely misled the public about the war. "I know there's an assertion out there of some sort of coordinated lie over the course of 18 years," Milley told reporters . "I find that a bit of a stretch. More than a bit of a stretch, I find that a mischaracterization." Optimistic reports on the war in Afghanistan, he argued, were "honest assessments" that were "never intended to deceive the Congress or the American people." While Milley's response was unusually strident, it was not a surprise for most Pentagon reporters, many of whom knew that senior military officers and Pentagon policy makers were carefully studying proposals that would keep U.S. troops in Afghanistan for at least the next five years – if not longer.

    Among these is a paper authored by Michael O'Hanlon, the high profile Foreign Policy Director of Research at the influential Brookings Institution. Entitled "5,000 Troops for 5 Years," O'Hanlon's offering was previewed in an op-ed in The Hill in late October, presented formally by Brookings officials on the same day as the Post published the Afghanistan Papers, then circulated to a wider audience in an O'Hanlon-authored op-ed in USA Today on January 3. O'Hanlon provides a less outspoken critique of the Post story than Milley (calling it "badly misleading" and arguing that U.S. officials "have been consistently and publicly realistic about the difficulty of making progress" in the war), while acknowledging the "limits of the possible" in a "beleaguered and weak country." Even so, O'Hanlon says in taking issue with the Post report, the Afghanistan mission "has not been an abject failure" because, as he argues, the Afghan government "continues to hold all major and midsize cities" and the U.S. has "not again been attacked by a group that plotted or organized its aggression from within Afghan borders."

    O'Hanlon concedes that while these are modest accomplishments, they are sustainable "at a far lower cost in blood and treasure than before." Here then, is O'Hanlon's payoff: "The United States needs a policy that recognizes Afghanistan for what it is – a significant, but not a top-tier, U.S. strategic interest – and builds a plan accordingly. That overall strategy should still seek peace, but its modest military element should be steady and stable, and not set to a calendar. Roughly 5,000 troops for at least five years could be the crude mantra."

    O'Hanlon's proposal has gained traction among a number of senior military officers who are frustrated with a war that drains military assets and erodes readiness, but who are loathe to concede Afghanistan to the Taliban – an outcome they believe is certain to follow a full U.S. withdrawal. Then too, O'Hanlon confirms, his proposal reflects the thinking of a large swath of Washington's foreign policy community. "I think I am codifying and encapsulating and distilling the wisdom of a lot of people here, with a couple of my own twists," he told me in response to a series of questions I posed to him in an email exchange. "I think the chances of something like this [being adopted] are therefore pretty good."

    Indeed, the O'Hanlon proposal seems to have something for everyone: it foregoes the large nation building expenditures that have characterized the U.S. intervention ($7 billion to $8 billion each year – "not trivial, but only 1 percent of the defense budget"), it maintains enough military capacity to check the growth of ISIS or al-Qaeda (the U.S. would maintain "two or three major airfields and hubs of operations" in the country), it allows time for the U.S. to put in place a more effective Afghan military presence (O'Hanlon provides five specific recommendations on how this can be done), it signals the Taliban that the U.S. will not leave the country out of frustration (that they cannot simply "stall for time"), and perhaps most crucially, it gelds the controversy surrounding the conflict by taking it out of public view: "By laying out a plan designed to last for several years," O'Hanlon writes, "Washington would be avoiding the drama and the huge consumption of policy bandwidth associated with annual Afghanistan policy reviews that have typified the late Obama and early Trump years." Which is to say:

    maintaining a presence in Afghanistan at 5,000 troops ("I'd rather see 5,000 as a rough goal not a formal or legislated ceiling or floor," O'Hanlon says) over an extended period takes the war off the nation's front pages – it regularizes the U.S. deployment at an acceptable cost (that's what sustainable means) and it makes the war in Afghanistan publicly palatable.

    If any of this sounds familiar, it's because it is. "5,000 Troops for 5 Years" seemingly institutionalizes what then-Afghan commander General David Petraeus called "Afghanistan Good Enough" in August of 2010: "This isn't to say that there's any kind of objective of turning Afghanistan into Switzerland in three to five years or less," he said at the time. "Afghan good enough is good enough." At the time, any number of pundits predicted that the Petraeus statement would come back to haunt him, but his mantra has been adopted by senior military officers who cite the O'Hanlon paper as a means of, if not exactly winning the Afghanistan war, at least not losing it – if victory isn't possible, they argue, then "good enough" is next best. Or, as one senior military officer told me, the O'Hanlon proposal recasts the political calculus of Vermont Senator George Aiken on Vietnam, who said that the U.S. should "declare victory and get out." In this case, the officer said, O'Hanlon is proposing that "the U.S. declare a stalemate and stay in."

    The O'Hanlon proposal details what has been quietly talked about in military circles for the last decade, but was given credence in a monograph written by retired Army Colonel David Johnson ("Doing What You Know") published in 2017. Johnson, whose paper circulated widely in Army circles, argues that "good enough" might well be the most appropriate model for fighting counter-insurgencies – a form of warfare that has traditionally been outside of the U.S. military's "strategic culture." In these conflicts, what Johnson calls a "least bad outcome" might be all that the U.S. military should expect. In Afghanistan, this means accepting limits to success. "In Afghanistan, what is good enough is a government that can successfully protect itself and take the fight to the Taliban with minimal U.S. support," Johnson wrote. "Whether the Kabul government is corrupt or not representative is secondary to its ability to prevent Afghanistan from again becoming a terrorist haven. That would be good enough."

    That this model might well be adopted in Afghanistan (and in Iraq), and in any of the other "grey zone" conflicts of the Middle East, is no longer at issue. The model is already in place, while O'Hanlon's 5000 Troops for 5 Years is fast becoming a reality. But the adoption of the program has come at a price – in Afghan lives. While the U.S. has continued to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, it has escalated its air campaign against the Taliban (U.S. aircraft dropped 7423 bombs on Afghanistan in 2019 – more than any other year), thereby embracing a strategy that allows U.S. deployments to remain in place, but without the consequent escalation in U.S. casualties. ("More U.S. troops die in training accidents than in Afghanistan so, you know, there's that," a senior military officer told me.) Meanwhile, Afghan civilian casualties have spiked, reaching unprecedented levels in the period of July to September of 2019. That trend is likely to continue.

    And so, the results of the Washington Post's publication of the Afghanistan Papers "bombshell" in December have now come sharply into focus: Afghanistan is off the nation's front pages, American casualties are "sustainable," the war continues – and, ironically, the chances for ending it are now even more remote than before the Post published its revelations.

    [Feb 01, 2020] Tweets to tickle your innards! #CiaramellaWTF

    Feb 01, 2020 | caucus99percent.com

    wendy davis on Fri, 01/31/2020 - 11:01am

    Sen. Rand Paul left the chamber after Chief Justice John Roberts declined to read his question.

    "The presiding officer declines to read the question as submitted," the Chief Justice said. https://t.co/T1f9qedcWT pic.twitter.com/7irW4UtprU

    -- ABC News (@ABC) January 30, 2020

    My exact question was:

    Are you aware that House intelligence committee staffer Shawn Misko had a close relationship with Eric Ciaramella while at the National Security Council together 1/2

    -- Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) January 30, 2020

    RT.com, Jan. 30, 2020 has the back story:
    "Ciaramella, a CIA analyst, is widely believed to be the 'whistleblower' who kickstarted the impeachment inquiry by alleging that Trump tried to strong-arm Zelensky into reopening a corruption investigation into Joe Biden's son, Hunter, and his business activities in Ukraine." [snip]

    Schiff, the lead prosecutor in the impeachment trial, has both denied knowing the identity of the whistleblower and called the report of Ciaramella's plot a "conspiracy theory." Schiff has also repeatedly warned Republicans against naming the whistleblower, citing a need to protect his or her identity – though no statutory requirement for that actually exists.

    However, Roberts' refusal to read Ciaramella's name and the media furor that followed Paul's question – with mostly liberal pundits hounding the senator for "naming the whistleblower" – all but confirms that he is indeed Schiff's source. Paul never mentioned the term "whistleblower" in his written question, yet Roberts still refused to read Ciaramella's name. Earlier, Roberts had vowed not to read any question that might "out" the whistleblower."

    RT had also linked to this Jan. 22 2020 piece at realcrealinvestigations.com:

    "Barely two weeks after Donald Trump took office, Eric Ciaramella – the CIA analyst whose name was recently linked in a tweet by the president and mentioned by lawmakers as the anonymous "whistleblower" who touched off Trump's impeachment – was overheard in the White House discussing with another staffer how to remove the newly elected president from office, according to former colleagues.

    Sources told RealClearInvestigations the staffer with whom Ciaramella was speaking was Sean Misko. Both were Obama administration holdovers working in the Trump White House on foreign policy and national security issues. And both expressed anger over Trump's new "America First" foreign policy, a sea change from President Obama's approach to international affairs.
    "Just days after he was sworn in they were already talking about trying to get rid of him," said a White House colleague who overheard their conversation.

    "They weren't just bent on subverting his agenda," the former official added. "They were plotting to actually have him removed from office."

    Misko left the White House last summer to join House impeachment manager Adam Schiff's committee, where sources say he offered "guidance" to the whistleblower, who has been officially identified only as an intelligence officer in a complaint against Trump filed under whistleblower laws. Misko then helped run the impeachment inquiry based on that complaint as a top investigator for congressional Democrats." [snip]

    "The coordination between the official believed to be the whistleblower and a key Democratic staffer, details of which are disclosed here for the first time, undercuts the narrative that impeachment developed spontaneously out of what Trump's Democratic antagonists call the "patriotism" of an "apolitical civil servant."

    Today's the day ♫the Teddy Bears have their picnic♪♫ Senate will decide if any more witnesses will be permitted to testify/testilie...or not.

    The Voice In th... on Fri, 01/31/2020 - 11:29am
    So they are the traitors to the Constitution

    "They weren't just bent on subverting his agenda," the former official added. "They were plotting to actually have him removed from office."

    And Pelosi and Schiff are co-conspirators.
    They should be arrested by the FBI for conspiring to overthrow the elected government.

    Democrats may feel that anything goes to get rid of Trump, but forget that they could be next. No Democrat would be safe from Deep state machinations.

    It's time to purge the intelligence agencies of anyone doing anything but actual data gathering and analysis.

    wokkamile on Fri, 01/31/2020 - 11:46am
    Dems are already

    @The Voice In the Wilderness well aware of Deep State machinations should they dare to wander off the reservation. Dallas lesson has been learned -- maybe a little too well.

    Dems also are aware their D president could be next -- in fact, one was already next, not too long after Nixon, when the R Congress decided to seek revenge and impeach B Clinton over a trivial personal dalliance. At least U=gate involves actual conduct by the president acting in his official not personal capacity, so at least is sufficient enough for an argument on impeachment grounds. Unfortunately for the Trump team, Alan Dershowitz' bizarre Louis XIV defense makes for an embarrassing attempt at rebutting the charges.

    "They weren't just bent on subverting his agenda," the former official added. "They were plotting to actually have him removed from office."

    And Pelosi and Schiff are co-conspirators.
    They should be arrested by the FBI for conspiring to overthrow the elected government.

    Democrats may feel that anything goes to get rid of Trump, but forget that they could be next. No Democrat would be safe from Deep state machinations.

    It's time to purge the intelligence agencies of anyone doing anything but actual data gathering and analysis.

    doh1304 on Fri, 01/31/2020 - 3:19pm
    About that "Louis XIV" defense I cannnot disagree more

    @wokkamile
    The Washington "royal court" has degenerated so far that impeachment over trivialities (and comparing them to his real crimes only proves the pettiness) has been established as the norm. It is the Democrats who have crossed the line that should never be crossed. (actually it was the Republicans who did with Clinton, but that was quickly forgotten.(but not punished) This will not) America is now officially a failed state, a chaotic oligarchy where debauchery and intrigue rules.

    #1 well aware of Deep State machinations should they dare to wander off the reservation. Dallas lesson has been learned -- maybe a little too well.

    Dems also are aware their D president could be next -- in fact, one was already next, not too long after Nixon, when the R Congress decided to seek revenge and impeach B Clinton over a trivial personal dalliance. At least U=gate involves actual conduct by the president acting in his official not personal capacity, so at least is sufficient enough for an argument on impeachment grounds. Unfortunately for the Trump team, Alan Dershowitz' bizarre Louis XIV defense makes for an embarrassing attempt at rebutting the charges.

    wendy davis on Fri, 01/31/2020 - 6:44pm
    an excellent rebuttal,

    @doh1304

    and this can't be said often enough:

    "...impeachment over trivialities (and comparing them to his real crimes only proves the pettiness) has been established as the norm.

    he belongs in the hague, with at least the last four presidents before him. but compared to what biden actually did in ukraine. .

    i'll just add this groaner, but big $$$ feature big time: ' Pompeo in Kiev: Ukrainians want to be more than friends but Trump's team ain't interested' , jan. 31 , bryan macDonald

    #1.1
    The Washington "royal court" has degenerated so far that impeachment over trivialities (and comparing them to his real crimes only proves the pettiness) has been established as the norm. It is the Democrats who have crossed the line that should never be crossed. (actually it was the Republicans who did with Clinton, but that was quickly forgotten.(but not punished) This will not) America is now officially a failed state, a chaotic oligarchy where debauchery and intrigue rules.

    doh1304 on Fri, 01/31/2020 - 3:21pm
    Duplicate deleted

    up 0 users have voted.

    wendy davis on Fri, 01/31/2020 - 5:44pm
    oh, laird;

    @wokkamile

    that's the same excuse obomabots used to give: "he had to do it to or they'd JFK him ! (bail out the banks to the tune of $1,7 trillion, drone murder hundreds in afghanistan, (sorry for the Bug Splat), and on down the list.

    Hint to Presidential Hopefuls: if ya think ya might not be able to handle the heat: stay out of the kitchen! and again, i can't imagine anyone believing they should be president, let alone imaging they'd be 'good' at it, whatever that low bar means by now.

    #1 well aware of Deep State machinations should they dare to wander off the reservation. Dallas lesson has been learned -- maybe a little too well.

    Dems also are aware their D president could be next -- in fact, one was already next, not too long after Nixon, when the R Congress decided to seek revenge and impeach B Clinton over a trivial personal dalliance. At least U=gate involves actual conduct by the president acting in his official not personal capacity, so at least is sufficient enough for an argument on impeachment grounds. Unfortunately for the Trump team, Alan Dershowitz' bizarre Louis XIV defense makes for an embarrassing attempt at rebutting the charges.

    Roy Blakeley on Fri, 01/31/2020 - 12:23pm
    Pelosi, Shiff and their ilk

    @The Voice In the Wilderness are inextricably linked to the deep state. They sold their souls long ago. If it ever comes to be a choice between a Democratic President and the deep state, Pelosi and Schiff will do the bidding of the deep state.

    "They weren't just bent on subverting his agenda," the former official added. "They were plotting to actually have him removed from office."

    And Pelosi and Schiff are co-conspirators.
    They should be arrested by the FBI for conspiring to overthrow the elected government.

    Democrats may feel that anything goes to get rid of Trump, but forget that they could be next. No Democrat would be safe from Deep state machinations.

    It's time to purge the intelligence agencies of anyone doing anything but actual data gathering and analysis.

    ovals49 on Fri, 01/31/2020 - 6:42pm
    Yes, the deep state is our permanent government.

    @Roy Blakeley
    Their puppeteering strings reach into the White House, both houses of Congress and the Supreme Court.
    Our elections are designed to manufacture consent and prevent change. The last President to take steps to rein in the overreach of the CIA component of the deep state is probably going to be the only one to challenge on our permanent government in a serious manner.

    God help Bernie, if he should manage to get through the DNC gauntlet to occupy the White House!

    #1 are inextricably linked to the deep state. They sold their souls long ago. If it ever comes to be a choice between a Democratic President and the deep state, Pelosi and Schiff will do the bidding of the deep state.

    Anja Geitz on Fri, 01/31/2020 - 11:30am
    In the midst of this convoluted political shit show

    this piece of information did catch my attention. Regardless of which "side" wins, plotting to "remove them" from the moment they do take office is a horrendous precedent to set.

    Get out the popcorn because this development is worth watching.

    wendy davis on Fri, 01/31/2020 - 6:29pm
    it is indeed;

    @Anja Geitz

    and i'm pretty sure that it was the NY/CIA times that brought the 'whistleblower story'. t'was that stellar paper of record that also brought the 'trump means to leave NATO anonymous military insiders report' which immediately spawned 'the NATO defense' bill, unanimous 'aye' vote in the senate.

    but no new witnesses permitted, dagnabbit, we won't hear from CIA ciarmarella. so here's whassup according to CNN (they have mcConnell's resolution):

    closing arguments will be heard on feb. 3 for four hours, and the court will reconvene on feb. 5 for a vote.

    lol; on the left sidebar is:

    About the final vote : A tentative agreement has been made for the acquittal vote to be held next week. Closing arguments for both sides would occur Monday through Wednesday. The vote would occur Wednesday afternoon.

    save your popcorn for wednesday?

    this piece of information did catch my attention. Regardless of which "side" wins, plotting to "remove them" from the moment they do take office is a horrendous precedent to set.

    Get out the popcorn because this development is worth watching.

    entrepreneur on Fri, 01/31/2020 - 11:45am
    He's not a whistleblower. He's CIA. You can tell that he is not

    a real whistleblower because he is not in federal prison and Rachael Madcow is not calling for him to be executed. He's a tool in a beltway pissing match.

    snoopydawg on Fri, 01/31/2020 - 12:31pm
    "Impeach the mo'fcker"

    said Waters right after Trump was elected so they went looking for a reason to do just that.

    "They weren't just bent on subverting his agenda," the former official added. "They were plotting to actually have him removed from office."

    Sure lots of the witnessed said that Trump did the deed and withheld aid to Ukraine when the dems were questioning them. But on cross exam from the republicans they all admitted that they did not have first hand knowledge of Trump saying that. Why the GOP isn't hammering on this is beyond me. They could run ad after ad of Sondland saying that it was hs 'presumption' that Trump wanted that done.

    They should be arrested by the FBI for conspiring to overthrow the elected government.

    So far the justice department has held no one accountable for abusing the FISA court. Page should never have had a warrant taken out on his because he was working with the CIA at the time it was. Comey leaked his conversation with Trump because he wanted Rosenstein to appoint a special prosecutor. Comey committed a few other crimes and yet the justice department said that he will go scott free.

    Horowitz basically said that what happened was beyond the pale, but then he walked most of it back and said let's just let bygones be bygones.

    SO it now comes down to Durham and Barr to give the country some justice. But does anyone actually believe that Barr will be allowed to trash the reputation of the FBI or the CIA? Of course not.

    Then there's Trump who has continued to play along with this farce and farce it has been. WHy hasn't he fired all of the Obama holdovers that have been working to take him down as Ron Paul alluded to? Why is his personal mouthpiece, Rudy allowed to go on Fox Snooze and lay out the case instead of working with prosecutors to bring it to the American people?

    I am saying this has been a farce committed on the American people by both parties who agree that Russia did interfere with the election although no one has shown just how the did that. Facebook ads and Wikileaks emails? Puleese! The new Cold War with Russia has always been the goal and the consequences of it have been very damaging to our first amendment rights and to people's liberties. I am so disgusted that too many people can't see through what is happening. Not here. Kudos again to the site for seeing it for what it was. Now how to wake up the ones who think Putin is actually running the president and his party.

    Examples:

    We'll be fighting against everything an emboldened Trump -- and Putin -- throw at us. It means we unify behind the Democratic candidate for president except Tulsi Gabbard

    People also believe that Vlad got Britains to vote for Brexit. Nothing like telling people that they are too stupid to know what they are voting for.

    Now Nancy should rescind the invitation to the State of the Union?

    The GOP under orders from tRump/Putin are destroying everything in their path that holds America together.

    SMDH!! Seriously how can grown adults believe that?

    snoopydawg on Fri, 01/31/2020 - 12:55pm
    More info from Bolton's book hitting the news

    Bolton is saying that Trump told him to get info on democrats though everyone involved in the meeting deny it happened. Here's the part:

    Over several pages, Mr. Bolton laid out Mr. Trump's fixation on Ukraine and the president's belief, based on a mix of scattershot events, assertions and outright conspiracy theories, that Ukraine tried to undermine his chances of winning the presidency in 2016.

    In 2014, Hunter joined the board of Burisma, which was then mired in a corruption scandal . Authorities in Ukraine, Britain and the United States had opened investigations into the company's operations. Mr. Zlochevsky had also been accused of marshaling government contracts to companies he owned and embezzling public money.

    At the time of his board appointment, the younger Mr. Biden had just been discharged from the Navy Reserve for drug use. He had no apparent experience in Ukraine or natural gas. And while accepting the board position was legal, it reportedly raised some eyebrows in the Obama administration. The Burisma board position was lucrative: Mr. Biden received payments that reached up to $50,000 per month.

    (hmm no CT there)

    "The server, they say Ukraine has it," Mr. Trump said, according to notes describing the call.

    There is no evidence to support Mr. Trump's assertions, which have spread widely online.

    Okay this part is not true. However there were numerous articles written in 2015 about how people with ties to Hillary did try to derail Trump's election and they wrote how Ukraine now having mud on their faces were worried about how Trump would work with them. As for the 'hit job' on the US ambassador to Ukraine and getting her fired, that apparently happened a year before Trump actually fired after word of her bad mouthing Trump got back to him. Don't people serve at the pleasure of the president? And can't he have someone that works with him in place instead of working against him? Yep.

    Back to the book:

    Mr. Trump also repeatedly made national security decisions contrary to American interests,

    Ahh yes back to Trump not sending weapons to Ukraine that can not be used on the front line and are now still sitting in a warehouse in Kiev. But who decides US policy? And how did not sending them weapons hurt national security? Oh yeah according to Schiff we have to fight the Russian over there instead of fighting them here even though there hasn't been a lot of fighting since 2014 or 15. But whatever. Now just imagine Russia overthrowing the president of Mexico and installing a Russian friendly president and then tried to get him into whatever the Russian federation is. Countries want Ukraine to become part of NATO. Yeah great idea. On Russia's border. R2P in case Russia did something and wham we are off to WWIII.

    The New York Times reported this week on another revelation from Mr. Bolton's book draft: that Mr. Trump told him in August that he wanted to continue freezing $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine until officials there helped with investigations into Democrats including former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son Hunter.

    Lots of reports that democrats were skimming tax paid funds meant for Ukraine into their pockets including Biden taking $900,000 for his lobbying group. Pelosi's son was involved as were some member of the GOP. If corruption happened I'd like the pres to look into it and especially because of how bad the Ukraine economy is after Obama's brutal coup and the millions there that are suffering. Maybe that's just me.

    But how is this being interpreted?

    That information includes how Donald Trump ordered Bolton to squeeze Ukrainian officials for damaging slander of political opponents two months earlier than was known. T

    Just making shitte up.

    The Voice In th... on Fri, 01/31/2020 - 1:56pm
    Isn't the truth a defense of slander?

    @snoopydawg
    IOW it's not slander if it's true.

    And I'd like to send Bolton to Gitmo so he can review again his position that waterboarding isn't torture. After about a dozen sessions he can tell us.

    Trump has a lot of problems. One is trusting those neocon scum.

    Bolton is saying that Trump told him to get info on democrats though everyone involved in the meeting deny it happened. Here's the part:

    Over several pages, Mr. Bolton laid out Mr. Trump's fixation on Ukraine and the president's belief, based on a mix of scattershot events, assertions and outright conspiracy theories, that Ukraine tried to undermine his chances of winning the presidency in 2016.

    In 2014, Hunter joined the board of Burisma, which was then mired in a corruption scandal . Authorities in Ukraine, Britain and the United States had opened investigations into the company's operations. Mr. Zlochevsky had also been accused of marshaling government contracts to companies he owned and embezzling public money.

    At the time of his board appointment, the younger Mr. Biden had just been discharged from the Navy Reserve for drug use. He had no apparent experience in Ukraine or natural gas. And while accepting the board position was legal, it reportedly raised some eyebrows in the Obama administration. The Burisma board position was lucrative: Mr. Biden received payments that reached up to $50,000 per month.

    (hmm no CT there)

    "The server, they say Ukraine has it," Mr. Trump said, according to notes describing the call.

    There is no evidence to support Mr. Trump's assertions, which have spread widely online.

    Okay this part is not true. However there were numerous articles written in 2015 about how people with ties to Hillary did try to derail Trump's election and they wrote how Ukraine now having mud on their faces were worried about how Trump would work with them. As for the 'hit job' on the US ambassador to Ukraine and getting her fired, that apparently happened a year before Trump actually fired after word of her bad mouthing Trump got back to him. Don't people serve at the pleasure of the president? And can't he have someone that works with him in place instead of working against him? Yep.

    Back to the book:

    Mr. Trump also repeatedly made national security decisions contrary to American interests,

    Ahh yes back to Trump not sending weapons to Ukraine that can not be used on the front line and are now still sitting in a warehouse in Kiev. But who decides US policy? And how did not sending them weapons hurt national security? Oh yeah according to Schiff we have to fight the Russian over there instead of fighting them here even though there hasn't been a lot of fighting since 2014 or 15. But whatever. Now just imagine Russia overthrowing the president of Mexico and installing a Russian friendly president and then tried to get him into whatever the Russian federation is. Countries want Ukraine to become part of NATO. Yeah great idea. On Russia's border. R2P in case Russia did something and wham we are off to WWIII.

    The New York Times reported this week on another revelation from Mr. Bolton's book draft: that Mr. Trump told him in August that he wanted to continue freezing $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine until officials there helped with investigations into Democrats including former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son Hunter.

    Lots of reports that democrats were skimming tax paid funds meant for Ukraine into their pockets including Biden taking $900,000 for his lobbying group. Pelosi's son was involved as were some member of the GOP. If corruption happened I'd like the pres to look into it and especially because of how bad the Ukraine economy is after Obama's brutal coup and the millions there that are suffering. Maybe that's just me.

    But how is this being interpreted?

    That information includes how Donald Trump ordered Bolton to squeeze Ukrainian officials for damaging slander of political opponents two months earlier than was known. T

    Just making shitte up.

    wendy davis on Fri, 01/31/2020 - 2:35pm
    my apologies.

    i've gotten my tit into a time wringer, as they say around here (and if you've ever had that happen while using an electric wringer washer, you'll know what i mean). the stack of mending near the sewing machine had reached critical mass, then mr. wd had come home for lunch with nuttin' scavenged from the fridge and so on.

    by now, having been awake again since 3:30, i need some rest. back later.

    WaterLily on Fri, 01/31/2020 - 3:59pm
    Tit into a time wringer.

    @wendy davis Isn't that called "a mammogram?"

    (Signed, the former bald avian, now flying under the radar).

    i've gotten my tit into a time wringer, as they say around here (and if you've ever had that happen while using an electric wringer washer, you'll know what i mean). the stack of mending near the sewing machine had reached critical mass, then mr. wd had come home for lunch with nuttin' scavenged from the fridge and so on.

    by now, having been awake again since 3:30, i need some rest. back later.

    Pluto's Republic on Fri, 01/31/2020 - 3:40pm
    Do people in Congress have any idea how much we know?

    Or do they not know how exposed they are?

    Back in November 2019, the whistleblower's handlers were trying to hide hisidentity so people wouldn't realize Eric Ciaramella, National Security Council member, had an office in the Obama White House during the final year of Obama's presidency. While there, Ciaramella was involved in Ukraine's meddling in the US Presidential Election, on behalf of Hillary Clinton.

    This past December, 2019, the Democrats were puffing up with the urgency of finding the right impeachment charge to wage against President Trump -- one that sounded like a real crime people can envision.

    Just a few blocks away, Judicial Watch was pouring over FOIA docs and analyzing the 2016 Obama White House visitor logs that had just arrived. The visitor logs revealed frequent meetings between CIA operative Eric Ciaramella and a parade of State Department spooks who were operating in Ukraine. Other frequent visitors included the Soros-funded social engineers and marginal Ukrainian officials who were running their various cons and payoffs in both countries.

    Ciaramella began operating out of the White House in 2015 -- and continued through 2016, when he Russia Hoax was hatched. He returned to the CIA when the Trump administration arrived in 2017. There, we loose track of him until summer of 2019, when he would turn up transformed into a whistleblower of hearsay, frightened for his life because he had overheard someone talking about a banal conversation that President Trump had with another President on the telephone. I don't think anyone felt very threatened.

    The 2016 White House logs reveal a much clearer picture of the political shenanigans Ciaramella was engaged in. The logs reveal frequent meetings with Alexandra Chalupa, a contractor hired by the DNC during the 2016 election. Chalupa would later coordinated with corrupt Ukrainian officials to smuggle evidence to the US that could be used against President Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort. It was going to be a very important election year, filled with spying and lying and geopolitical chaos. Chalupa would visit the White House 27 times that year.

    The White House visitor logs revealed the following individuals met with Eric Ciaramella while he was detailed to the Obama White House:

    Daria Kaleniuk: Co-founder and executive director of the Soros-funded Anticorruption Action Center (AntAC) in Ukraine. She visited on December 9, 2015. (The Hill reported that in April 2016, during the U.S. presidential race, the U.S. Embassy under Obama in Kiev, "took the rare step of trying to press the Ukrainian government to back off its investigation of both the U.S. aid and (AntAC).")

    Gina Lentine: Now a senior program officer at Freedom House, she was formerly the Eurasia program coordinator at Soros funded Open Society Foundations . She visited on March 16, 2016.

    Rachel Goldbrenner: Now an NYU law professor, she was at that time an advisor to then-Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power. She visited on both January 15, 2016 and August 8, 2016.

    Orly Keiner: A foreign affairs officer at the State Department who is a Russia specialist. She is also the wife of State Department Legal Advisor James P. Bair. She visited on both March 4, 2016 and June 20, 2015.

    Nazar Kholodnitzky: The lead anti-corruption prosecutor in Ukraine. He visited on January 19, 2016.On March 7, 2019, The Associated Press reported that the then-U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch called for him to be fired.

    Michael Kimmage: Professor of History at Catholic University of America, at the time was with the State Department's policy planning staff where specialized in Russia and Ukraine issues. He is a fellow at the German Marshall Fund. He was also one of the signatories to the Transatlantic Democracy Working Group Statement of Principles. He visited on October 26, 2015.

    Victoria Nuland : who at the time was assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs met with Ciaramella on June 17, 2016.

    (Judicial Watch has previously uncovered documents revealing Nuland had an extensive involvement with Clinton-funded dossier. Judicial Watch also released documents revealing that Nuland was involved in the Obama State Department's "urgent" gathering of classified Russia investigation information and disseminating it to members of Congress within hours of Trump taking office.)

    Artem Sytnyk: the Ukrainian Anti-Corruption Bureau director visited on January 19, 2016.
    On October 7, 2019, the Daily Wire reported leaked tapes show Sytnyk confirming that the Ukrainians helped the Clinton campaign.

    .

    By the middle of the 2016, according to the White House visitor logs, Alexandra Chalupa, then a DNC contractor, was setting up her own meetings in the White House. On May 4, 2016, Chalupa emailed DNC official Luis Miranda to inform him that she had spoken to investigative journalists about Paul Manafort in Ukraine. The Trump campaign was being spied on by then, and in a few months the scheme to cast suspicion on Trump because Manafort had consulted years earlier with Ukraine's 'ethnic-Russian' President, snapped into place. The unholy ghost of faux Russian collusion was born in the summer of 2016, and it would haunt America, and cripple it intellectually, for many long years to come.

    The timing was such that this evidence of election sabotage in 2016 happened to surfaced in the midst of the impeachment hearings in December 2019. In announcing the evidence, Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statemen t:

    Judicial Watch's analysis of Obama White House visitor logs raises additional questions about the Obama administration, Ukraine and the related impeachment scheme targeting President Trump. Both Mr. Ciaramella and Ms. Chalupa should be questioned about the meetings documented in these visitor logs.

    .

    These are not the impeachment witnesses that the Democrats had in mind.

    snoopydawg on Fri, 01/31/2020 - 4:13pm
    But but but judicial watch is a right wing site

    @Pluto's Republic

    "We don't look at sites that debunk what we believe to be the truth." Kinda like consortium news, Aaron Mate, Glenn Greenwald and every one else who has debunked every damn thing about Russia Gate.

    Careful there, Pluto, any criticism of Soros is anti Semitic. So what if he has been behind all the violent color revolutions he's off limits for criticism. Yup....

    Also that little black book that Alexandra found that was tied to Paul Manafort was never verified that it did. No matter...he did bad things. Like tried to get the Ukraine president to accept the EU deal instead of the Russia was offering.

    Marie Yovanovitch called for him to be fired.

    Karma baby!

    These are not the impeachment witnesses that the Democrats had in mind.

    Would the republicans have called for those witnesses if it had ever gotten that far? I'm sure that if we know what we do then the republicans know it too. Lindsay was going to have Biden testify, but then he changed his mind and wanted him protected.

    In addition to the brutal coup it was a crime spree where lots of people had their sticky fingers in the money pie. Lots of money laundering happened with that money meant for the Ukraine people who are suffering with economy problems since it happened. I was hoping that this information would come out, but now I wonder if it would have even mattered to the people who have had their minds made up since they first heard about this?

    Or do they not know how exposed they are?

    Back in November 2019, the whistleblower's handlers were trying to hide hisidentity so people wouldn't realize Eric Ciaramella, National Security Council member, had an office in the Obama White House during the final year of Obama's presidency. While there, Ciaramella was involved in Ukraine's meddling in the US Presidential Election, on behalf of Hillary Clinton.

    This past December, 2019, the Democrats were puffing up with the urgency of finding the right impeachment charge to wage against President Trump -- one that sounded like a real crime people can envision.

    Just a few blocks away, Judicial Watch was pouring over FOIA docs and analyzing the 2016 Obama White House visitor logs that had just arrived. The visitor logs revealed frequent meetings between CIA operative Eric Ciaramella and a parade of State Department spooks who were operating in Ukraine. Other frequent visitors included the Soros-funded social engineers and marginal Ukrainian officials who were running their various cons and payoffs in both countries.

    Ciaramella began operating out of the White House in 2015 -- and continued through 2016, when he Russia Hoax was hatched. He returned to the CIA when the Trump administration arrived in 2017. There, we loose track of him until summer of 2019, when he would turn up transformed into a whistleblower of hearsay, frightened for his life because he had overheard someone talking about a banal conversation that President Trump had with another President on the telephone. I don't think anyone felt very threatened.

    The 2016 White House logs reveal a much clearer picture of the political shenanigans Ciaramella was engaged in. The logs reveal frequent meetings with Alexandra Chalupa, a contractor hired by the DNC during the 2016 election. Chalupa would later coordinated with corrupt Ukrainian officials to smuggle evidence to the US that could be used against President Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort. It was going to be a very important election year, filled with spying and lying and geopolitical chaos. Chalupa would visit the White House 27 times that year.

    The White House visitor logs revealed the following individuals met with Eric Ciaramella while he was detailed to the Obama White House:

    Daria Kaleniuk: Co-founder and executive director of the Soros-funded Anticorruption Action Center (AntAC) in Ukraine. She visited on December 9, 2015. (The Hill reported that in April 2016, during the U.S. presidential race, the U.S. Embassy under Obama in Kiev, "took the rare step of trying to press the Ukrainian government to back off its investigation of both the U.S. aid and (AntAC).")

    Gina Lentine: Now a senior program officer at Freedom House, she was formerly the Eurasia program coordinator at Soros funded Open Society Foundations . She visited on March 16, 2016.

    Rachel Goldbrenner: Now an NYU law professor, she was at that time an advisor to then-Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power. She visited on both January 15, 2016 and August 8, 2016.

    Orly Keiner: A foreign affairs officer at the State Department who is a Russia specialist. She is also the wife of State Department Legal Advisor James P. Bair. She visited on both March 4, 2016 and June 20, 2015.

    Nazar Kholodnitzky: The lead anti-corruption prosecutor in Ukraine. He visited on January 19, 2016.On March 7, 2019, The Associated Press reported that the then-U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch called for him to be fired.

    Michael Kimmage: Professor of History at Catholic University of America, at the time was with the State Department's policy planning staff where specialized in Russia and Ukraine issues. He is a fellow at the German Marshall Fund. He was also one of the signatories to the Transatlantic Democracy Working Group Statement of Principles. He visited on October 26, 2015.

    Victoria Nuland : who at the time was assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs met with Ciaramella on June 17, 2016.

    (Judicial Watch has previously uncovered documents revealing Nuland had an extensive involvement with Clinton-funded dossier. Judicial Watch also released documents revealing that Nuland was involved in the Obama State Department's "urgent" gathering of classified Russia investigation information and disseminating it to members of Congress within hours of Trump taking office.)

    Artem Sytnyk: the Ukrainian Anti-Corruption Bureau director visited on January 19, 2016.
    On October 7, 2019, the Daily Wire reported leaked tapes show Sytnyk confirming that the Ukrainians helped the Clinton campaign.

    .

    By the middle of the 2016, according to the White House visitor logs, Alexandra Chalupa, then a DNC contractor, was setting up her own meetings in the White House. On May 4, 2016, Chalupa emailed DNC official Luis Miranda to inform him that she had spoken to investigative journalists about Paul Manafort in Ukraine. The Trump campaign was being spied on by then, and in a few months the scheme to cast suspicion on Trump because Manafort had consulted years earlier with Ukraine's 'ethnic-Russian' President, snapped into place. The unholy ghost of faux Russian collusion was born in the summer of 2016, and it would haunt America, and cripple it intellectually, for many long years to come.

    The timing was such that this evidence of election sabotage in 2016 happened to surfaced in the midst of the impeachment hearings in December 2019. In announcing the evidence, Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statemen t:

    Judicial Watch's analysis of Obama White House visitor logs raises additional questions about the Obama administration, Ukraine and the related impeachment scheme targeting President Trump. Both Mr. Ciaramella and Ms. Chalupa should be questioned about the meetings documented in these visitor logs.

    .

    These are not the impeachment witnesses that the Democrats had in mind.

    Pluto's Republic on Fri, 01/31/2020 - 4:55pm
    You're right. Judicial Watch is damaged neurons.

    @snoopydawg

    But, I follow evidence. And they document the evidence.

    How they interpret it is a problem. They have no 'First Principle' to guide them. @snoopydawg

    As for witnesses, there is so much askew here that I am beginning to think the DC people are hopeless.

    Like, do the Republicans know that Eric Ciaramella is dating Adam Schiff's daughter?

    Do they know that Members of Parliament have been trying to confess in detail to what they did to rig the 2016 US elections? They did a lot of stuff. It's crazy,

    https://en.interfax.com.ua/news/interview/618506.html

    Do they know the Ukraine is on the brink of filing criminal charges against Joe Biden? The Ukrainian people are demanding it.

    https://en.interfax.com.ua/news/general/638150.html

    They don't act like they know what is going on.

    #7

    "We don't look at sites that debunk what we believe to be the truth." Kinda like consortium news, Aaron Mate, Glenn Greenwald and every one else who has debunked every damn thing about Russia Gate.

    Careful there, Pluto, any criticism of Soros is anti Semitic. So what if he has been behind all the violent color revolutions he's off limits for criticism. Yup....

    Also that little black book that Alexandra found that was tied to Paul Manafort was never verified that it did. No matter...he did bad things. Like tried to get the Ukraine president to accept the EU deal instead of the Russia was offering.

    Marie Yovanovitch called for him to be fired.

    Karma baby!

    These are not the impeachment witnesses that the Democrats had in mind.

    Would the republicans have called for those witnesses if it had ever gotten that far? I'm sure that if we know what we do then the republicans know it too. Lindsay was going to have Biden testify, but then he changed his mind and wanted him protected.

    In addition to the brutal coup it was a crime spree where lots of people had their sticky fingers in the money pie. Lots of money laundering happened with that money meant for the Ukraine people who are suffering with economy problems since it happened. I was hoping that this information would come out, but now I wonder if it would have even mattered to the people who have had their minds made up since they first heard about this?

    snoopydawg on Fri, 01/31/2020 - 5:51pm
    For some reason my snark isn't coming through

    @Pluto's Republic

    But, I follow evidence. And they document the evidence.

    Is Adam's daughter really dating Eric? Literally LMAO.

    But I did know that Ukraine has opened an investigation into Biden and son. Hopefully they will get to exposing all of the people involved in the corruption from both parties.

    #7.1

    But, I follow evidence. And they document the evidence.

    How they interpret it is a problem. They have no 'First Principle' to guide them. #7.1

    As for witnesses, there is so much askew here that I am beginning to think the DC people are hopeless.

    Like, do the Republicans know that Eric Ciaramella is dating Adam Schiff's daughter?

    Do they know that Members of Parliament have been trying to confess in detail to what they did to rig the 2016 US elections? They did a lot of stuff. It's crazy,

    https://en.interfax.com.ua/news/interview/618506.html

    Do they know the Ukraine is on the brink of filing criminal charges against Joe Biden? The Ukrainian people are demanding it.

    https://en.interfax.com.ua/news/general/638150.html

    They don't act like they know what is going on.

    snoopydawg on Fri, 01/31/2020 - 4:23pm
    This is a good read from Aaron

    The holes in the Democrats' impeachment case were apparent from the start, and the House proceedings and Senate trial brought them to the fore. The lone witness who communicated with Trump about the frozen military funding to Ukraine -- and, even more crucially, the only Trump official thought to have relayed a quid pro quo to the Ukrainian side -- is EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland. But Sondland testified that the link between aid and the opening of investigations was only his " presumption" and that he had communicated this presumption only in passing. Ukrainian officials, including President Volodymyr Zelensky, Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko, and Zelensky aide Andriy Yermak, have all said that they saw no ties between the frozen funding and pressure to open investigations.

    In the face of rejections by top Ukrainian officials of his core allegation, Schiff has LIED mischaracterized the available evidence and engaged in supposition. Sondland, according to Schiff's account, told Yermak, " You ain't getting the money until you do the investigations." But both Sondland and Yermak offer a radically different account. According to Sondland, he told Yermak in "a very, very brief pull-aside conversation," that he "didn't know exactly why" the military funding was held up, and that its linkage to opening an investigation was only his "personal presumption" in the absence of an explanation from Trump. Yermak does not even recall the issue of the frozen aid being mentioned.

    wendy davis on Fri, 01/31/2020 - 4:58pm
    ack! i'd put this up for the hilarity of it,

    and now all you brainiacs with huge memory head spaces are giving us homework? can i rent some of yours?

    way-ull. there seems to be some disagreement as to the additional witnesses. ooopsie: update: roll call's impeachment news roundup says: Senate votes against motion to call witnesses

    Updated 5:43 p.m.

    The Senate is in recess after a motion to call witnesses at the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump was unsuccessful Friday evening, on a 49-51 vote.

    murkowski and collins wanted to hear from john bolton, but now the arguments slide into if, and how much time, to allot for closing arguments. so who knows how long it will drag on? didn't see anything about #ciarmarella, sadly. guess that un's a Dead Duck?

    but wasn't it great that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court let it slip that EC IS the CIA whistleblower? file under: Ooopsie.

    TheOtherMaven on Fri, 01/31/2020 - 5:48pm
    Catch-22'ed

    @wendy davis

    Chief Justice Roberts said he wouldn't read any questions that outed the whistleblower - and his very refusal outed the whistleblower.

    and now all you brainiacs with huge memory head spaces are giving us homework? can i rent some of yours?

    way-ull. there seems to be some disagreement as to the additional witnesses. ooopsie: update: roll call's impeachment news roundup says: Senate votes against motion to call witnesses

    Updated 5:43 p.m.

    The Senate is in recess after a motion to call witnesses at the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump was unsuccessful Friday evening, on a 49-51 vote.

    murkowski and collins wanted to hear from john bolton, but now the arguments slide into if, and how much time, to allot for closing arguments. so who knows how long it will drag on? didn't see anything about #ciarmarella, sadly. guess that un's a Dead Duck?

    but wasn't it great that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court let it slip that EC IS the CIA whistleblower? file under: Ooopsie.

    The Voice In th... on Fri, 01/31/2020 - 5:55pm
    I can only hope that Trump's well-known

    @wendy davis
    vindictiveness will lead to a purge at the CIA. They seem way more involved in domestic politics than foreign intelligence gathering.

    and now all you brainiacs with huge memory head spaces are giving us homework? can i rent some of yours?

    way-ull. there seems to be some disagreement as to the additional witnesses. ooopsie: update: roll call's impeachment news roundup says: Senate votes against motion to call witnesses

    Updated 5:43 p.m.

    The Senate is in recess after a motion to call witnesses at the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump was unsuccessful Friday evening, on a 49-51 vote.

    murkowski and collins wanted to hear from john bolton, but now the arguments slide into if, and how much time, to allot for closing arguments. so who knows how long it will drag on? didn't see anything about #ciarmarella, sadly. guess that un's a Dead Duck?

    but wasn't it great that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court let it slip that EC IS the CIA whistleblower? file under: Ooopsie.

    [Feb 01, 2020] Has The FBI Been Lying About Seth Rich by Craig Murray

    Notable quotes:
    "... Finally, and perhaps this is the most important point, the FBI was at this time supposed to be in the early stages of an investigation into how the DNC emails were leaked to Wikileaks. The FBI here believed Wikileaks to be indicating the material had been leaked by Seth Rich who had then been murdered. Surely in any legitimate investigation, the investigators would have been absolutely compelled to check out the truth of this possibility, rather than treat it as a media issue? ..."
    Authored by Craig Murray,

    A persistent American lawyer has uncovered the undeniable fact that the FBI has been continuously lying , including giving false testimony in court, in response to Freedom of Information requests for its records on Seth Rich. The FBI has previously given affidavits that it has no records regarding Seth Rich.

    A Freedom of Information request to the FBI which did not mention Seth Rich, but asked for all email correspondence between FBI Head of Counterterrorism Peter Strzok, who headed the investigation into the DNC leaks and Wikileaks, and FBI attorney Lisa Page, has revealed two pages of emails which do not merely mention Seth Rich but have "Seth Rich" as their heading. The emails were provided in, to say the least, heavily redacted form.

    Before I analyze these particular emails, I should make plain that they are not the major point. The major point is that the FBI claimed it had no records mentioning Seth Rich, and these have come to light in response to a different FOIA request that was not about him. What other falsely denied documents does the FBI hold about Rich, that were not fortuitously picked up by a search for correspondence between two named individuals?

    To look at the documents themselves, they have to be read from the bottom up, and they consist of a series of emails between members of the Washington Field Office of the FBI (WF in the telegrams) into which Strzok was copied in, and which he ultimately forwarded on to the lawyer Lisa Page.

    The opening email, at the bottom, dated 10 August 2016 at 10.32am, precisely just one month after the murder of Seth Rich, is from the media handling department of the Washington Field Office. It references Wikileaks' offer of a reward for information on the murder of Seth Rich, and that Assange seemed to imply Rich was the source of the DNC leaks. The media handlers are asking the operations side of the FBI field office for any information on the case. The unredacted part of the reply fits with the official narrative. The redacted individual officer is "not aware of any specific involvement" by the FBI in the Seth Rich case. But his next sentence is completely redacted. Why?

    It appears that "adding" references a new person added in to the list. This appears to have not worked, and probably the same person (precisely same length of deleted name) then tries again, with "adding for real" and blames the technology – "stupid Samsung". The interesting point here is that the person added appears not to be in the FBI – a new redacted addressee does indeed appear, and unlike all the others does not have an FBI suffix after their deleted email address. So who are they?

    (This section on "adding" was updated after commenters offered a better explanation than my original one. See first comments below).

    The fourth email, at 1pm on Wednesday August 10, 2016, is much the most interesting. It is ostensibly also from the Washington Field Office, but it is from somebody using a different classified email system with a very different time and date format than the others. It is apparently from somebody more senior, as the reply to it is "will do". And every single word of this instruction has been blanked. The final email, saying that "I squashed this with ..", is from a new person again, with the shortest name. That phrase may only have meant I denied this to a journalist, or it may have been reporting an operational command given.

    As the final act in this drama, Strzok then sent the whole thread on to the lawyer, which is why we now have it. Why?

    It is perfectly possible to fill in the blanks with a conversation that completely fits the official narrative. The deletions could say this was a waste of time and the FBI was not looking at the Rich case. But in that case, the FBI would have been delighted to publish it unredacted. (The small numbers in the right hand margins supposedly detail the exception to the FOIA under which deletion was made. In almost every case they are one or other category of invasion of privacy).

    And if it just all said "Assange is talking nonsense. Seth Rich is nothing to do with the FBI" then why would that have to be sent on by Strzok to the FBI lawyer?

    It is of course fortunate that Strzok did forward this one email thread on to the lawyer, because that is the only reason we have seen it, as a result of an FOI(A) request for the correspondence between those two.

    Finally, and perhaps this is the most important point, the FBI was at this time supposed to be in the early stages of an investigation into how the DNC emails were leaked to Wikileaks. The FBI here believed Wikileaks to be indicating the material had been leaked by Seth Rich who had then been murdered. Surely in any legitimate investigation, the investigators would have been absolutely compelled to check out the truth of this possibility, rather than treat it as a media issue?

    We are asked to believe that not one of these emails says "well if the publisher of the emails says Seth Rich was the source, we had better check that out, especially as he was murdered with no sign of a suspect". If the FBI really did not look at that, why on earth not? If the FBI genuinely, as they claim, did not even look at the murder of Seth Rich, that would surely be the most damning fact of all and reveal their "investigation" was entirely agenda driven from the start.

    In June 2016 a vast cache of the DNC emails were leaked to Wikileaks. On 10 July 2016 an employee from the location of the leak was murdered without obvious motive, in an alleged street robbery in which nothing at all was stolen. Not to investigate the possibility of a link between the two incidents would be grossly negligent. It is worth adding that, contrary to a propaganda barrage, Bloomingdale where Rich was murdered is a very pleasant area of Washington DC and by no means a murder hotspot. It is also worth noting that not only is there no suspect in Seth Rich's murder, there has never been any semblance of a serious effort to find the killer. Washington police appear perfectly happy simply to write this case off.

    I anticipate two responses to this article in terms of irrelevant and illogical whataboutery:

    Firstly, it is very often the case that family members are extremely resistant to the notion that the murder of a relative may have wider political implications. This is perfectly natural. The appalling grief of losing a loved one to murder is extraordinary; to reject the cognitive dissonance of having your political worldview shattered at the same time is very natural. In the case of David Kelly, of Seth Rich, and of Wille Macrae, we see families reacting with emotional hostility to the notion that the death raises wider questions. Occasionally the motive may be still more mixed, with the prior relationship between the family and the deceased subject to other strains (I am not referencing the Rich case here).

    You do occasionally get particularly stout hearted family who take the opposite tack and are prepared to take on the authorities in the search for justice, of which Commander Robert Green, son of Hilda Murrell, is a worthy example.

    (As an interesting aside, I just checked his name in the Wikipedia article on Hilda, which I discovered describes Tam Dalyell "hounding" Margaret Thatcher over the Belgrano and the fact that ship was steaming away from the Falklands when destroyed with massive loss of life as a "second conspiracy theory", the first of course being the murder of Hilda Murrell. Wikipedia really has become a cesspool.)

    We have powerful cultural taboos that reinforce the notion that if the family do not want the question of the death of their loved one disturbed, nobody else should bring it up. Seth Rich's parents, David Kelly's wife, Willie Macrae's brother have all been deployed by the media and the powers behind them to this effect, among many other examples. This is an emotionally powerful but logically weak method of restricting enquiry.

    Secondly, I do not know and I deliberately have not inquired what are the views on other subjects of either Mr Ty Clevenger, who brought his evidence and blog to my attention, or Judicial Watch, who made the FOIA request that revealed these documents. I am interested in the evidence presented both that the FBI lied, and in the documents themselves. Those who obtained the documents may, for all I know, be dedicated otter baiters or believe in stealing ice cream from children. I am referencing the evidence they have obtained in this particular case, not endorsing – or condemning – anything else in their lives or work. I really have had enough of illogical detraction by association as a way of avoiding logical argument by an absurd extension of ad hominem argument to third parties.

    * * *

    Unlike his adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, Craig's blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with the every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate. Subscriptions to keep Craig's blog going are gratefully received .


    Smi1ey , 19 minutes ago link

    It's weird how everybody except the Mockingbird Media knows.

    Ed Butowsky on the ongoing Seth Rich controversy

    JasperEllings , 32 minutes ago link

    " We have powerful cultural taboos that reinforce the notion that if the family do not want the question of the death of their loved one disturbed, nobody else should bring it up. "

    Yeah. We see that all the time on ID Network ... whenever a family member wants authorities to stop investigating their "loved one's" death, it usually means they're protecting the guilty party. But the cases are solved by good cops who ignore the family and do what's right.

    Investigating and prosecuting murders is not all about the family. It's also about finding and removing murderers from society so they can't hurt anyone else.

    Vesta , 37 minutes ago link

    Craig is the former UK diplomat who says he picked up the thumb drive from the leaker. Craig has since deleted that post from his blog.

    Lord Raglan , 1 hour ago link

    And neither Mueller nor any other government official ever bothered to interview Julian Assange even though he agreed to do so. That Mueller didn't but took CrowdStrike's word for the fact that so-called "Russians" hacked the DNC computer and then gave it to Wikileaks tells you about all you need to know. Mueller knew who likely did it but didn't want to make it part of his Report or let it be made public. Meanwhile the Russia Collusion Hoax marched on, got a life of its own and is allowed to continue in its various forms like the impeachment of a Donald Trump.

    Smi1ey , 1 hour ago link

    Seymour Hersh says they have documents.

    What I know comes off an FBI report.

    - Seymour Hersh

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYzB96_EK7s

    hardmedicine , 30 minutes ago link

    "Is it true that the hidden metadata contained within the FIRST WikiLeaks DNC files batch clearly shows sequential time stamps (on each file copied) proving that a very high speed transfer rate took place that could only be done with direct internal access to a DNC computer on the network (i.g., a USB thumb drive or NAS drive plugged directly into a local PC or a LAN network jack within the building) as opposed to the much slower file transfer rate that would be recorded in the metadata if Russia or other hackers had remotely accessed a DNC computer or local DNC network via a remote WAN/Internet connection (to transfer those files from the outside)? Another rumor that needs to be put to rest is a SECOND batch of files may exist (that is almost identical to the FIRST batch), except it includes some fake Russian breadcrumb "fingerprints" that may have been added to support the "Russian's hacked it" story that was circulated within the intelligence agencies and leaked out to the media. IDK, true or false? "

    synopsis of the real whistleblower Bill Binney, ex-NSA Technical director who has had his life ruined because he published this info.

    [Feb 01, 2020] In case of Ukraine The World Elite Using A Rise In Nationalism To Reassert Globalization

    Ukrainian nationalists serve as the Trojan horse of neoliberal globalization and fleecing the nation by international corporations and institutions. Ukraine now is a deft slave.
    Like A Canadian identity amounted to 'we're not American', Ukrainian identity is limited to "We are not Russians".
    Feb 01, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
    Authored by Steven Guinness,

    Putting yourself in the mind of someone who commits an act of illegality is perhaps the only way we can begin to understand the motivation behind the transgression. A common reflex reaction to the most heinous of crimes is to simply call for the perpetrator to be removed from society and put in prison. Out of sight, out of mind. Whilst this is not an unreasonable expectation, it does not get to the root of why he or she became a criminal.

    We can take a similar stance when it comes to globalism. If a self appointed elite who permeate institutions like the Bank for International Settlements and the IMF share a desire to concentrate world power through a centralized network of global governance, rather than simply rebel against this vision is it not equally as important to try and understand the vision from the perspective of those who created it? I would argue that to comprehend the minds of global planners it is necessary to mentally place yourself into their way of thinking.

    A couple of years ago I published an article called, Order Out of Chaos: A Look at the Trilateral Commission , where I examined some of the key motivations behind this particular institution's goals. I quoted past members of the Commission openly rejecting national sovereignty and championing the interdependence of nations. One of those quotes was from Sadako Ogata, a former member of the Trilateral Commission's Executive Committee, who at an event to mark 25 years of the institution remarked how ' international interdependence requires new and more intensive forms of international cooperation to counteract economic and political nationalism '.

    Shortly after the Trilateral Commission was founded in 1973, one of its members, Richard Gardner, wrote an essay for Foreign Affairs magazine (the official publication of the Council on Foreign Relations). In ' The Hard Road to World Order ' , Gardner emphasised the objective of dismantling national sovereignty:

    In short, the 'house of world order' will have to be built from the bottom up rather than from the top down. It will look like a great 'booming, buzzing confusion,' to use William James' famous description of reality, but an end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece, will accomplish much more than the old-fashioned frontal assault.

    With Britain in the process of leaving the European Union, you could argue that one of the main planks of the Commission's agenda has failed. If the global elite want the integration of European nations, and for the majority of those nations to be controlled through a centralised behemoth like the EU, surely seeing the UK become independent from the union goes against everything they believe in? Not necessarily.

    Back in 2014 and before globalists began touting political protectionism / nationalism as a danger to financial stability, the Trilateral Commission published a paper called,' Credible European Governance '. Within the paper the UK's membership of the single market is discussed, an issue which has been central to the narrative on Brexit since the referendum:

    A debate on competences has been launched by the British government on Britain's future position in Europe where reference is made to the Single Market. Today, most EU countries accept that the euro area represents what President Van Rompuy calls the "symbolic heart of the European Union". For the United Kingdom, the single market is the essence of the EU. Can these two visions continue to coexist within the EU, now that the euro area is surmounting its "existential crisis"?

    I asked in 2017 whether this passage in particular was not only questioning the UK's position inside the single market, but by extension it's membership of the European Union. It was the same paper that quoted Jean Monnet, one of the founding fathers of the European Union:

    People only accept change when they are faced with necessity, and only recognize necessity when crisis is upon them.

    As I have discussed in previous articles, this philosophy gives credence to the theory that crisis scenarios, rather than being a detriment to the aspirations of globalists, present an opportunity to further their grip on power.

    At the latter end of 2015, just months before the EU referendum, the Commission produced another paper conceived by four David Rockefeller fellows – ' EUROPE'S NEW NORMAL: SIMULTANEOUS CRISES THAT THREATEN TO UNRAVEL THE EU '. The authors wrote at length about the growing distrust of ' ever closer union ' following the European debt crisis that originated after the collapse of Lehman Brothers:

    Many Europeans have come to suspect that the EU's institutions have become overly powerful and some think that they have even used the latest crises for a further power grab.

    A solution put forward by the fellows was that ' some flow into the opposite direction might help Europeans to regain trust in the European process '.

    This was my response published back in 2017 :

    One interpretation of this remark is that countries be granted a platform to express their grievances with the European Union, perhaps even to the point of seeking renewed independence or opting to withdraw from the bloc altogether. From their own perspective the union desires a sharing of sovereignty rather than individual expressions of it. Therefore, a nation instigating a greater level of autonomy (dubbed protectionism / populism in some quarters) might eventually suffer lasting consequences given the steadfast and federalist nature of the supranational EU. Over time countries demonstrating more nationalistic tendencies could quite easily unravel into crisis. Especially if separation from the union results in a nation being compromised economically. In this scenario, might those same Europeans opposed to further integration become more receptive to the idea?

    The ultimate question then is whether the outbreak of a 'crisis' is organic, in the sense that it happens beyond the control of government and globalist institutions. Or whether instances such as Brexit were designed to happen to further the agenda for more power. You may ask why the UK would be permitted to leave the EU when the objective is for ' ever closer union '. But without Brexit and further instances of a rise in ' populism ', calls for reform have no traction. Crisis must either originate or be instigated to achieve the desired response from the electorate. Calling for reform inside a vacuum of no discernible unrest on a geopolitical level leaves institutions like the EU exposed to greater scrutiny.

    Moving forward to the present day, last week Chatham House published an article ( Managing the rising influence of nationalism ) that was part of a special report from the World Economic Forum titled, ' Shaping a Multiconceptual World '.

    Here, Chatham House observed that ' the process of globalization demanded that all states adapt to being part of a shared project and subject themselves to its norms and laws ', and that ' the European Union became the vanguard of this process of post‑nationalism .'

    They identified that European identity was essentially anti-nationalist in nature. But the growth of nationalism witnessed throughout Europe over the past five years has distorted this belief. Combating it will require ' investing over the coming years in the legitimacy of major international institutions such as the United Nations, World Trade Organization, and the International Monetary Fund .'

    According to Chatham House, without investment, ' these institutions will find they are increasingly ineffective .' In short, the advent of a new wave of nationalism has created a narrative that global bodies will require more power to shore up both trade and economic stability now and into the future.

    At the same time this article was published, it was announced at the World Economic Forum that businessman George Soros is to launch a ' global network of higher education ' against nationalism , with investment of $1 billion. By coincidence or otherwise, Chatham House is involved in the initiative. Here is what Soros himself said about it:

    I believe that as a long-term strategy our best hope lies in access to quality education, specifically an education that reinforces the autonomy of the individual by cultivating critical thinking and emphasising academic freedom.

    The tide turned against open societies after the crash of 2008 because it constituted a failure of international co-operation. This in turn led to the rise of nationalism, the great enemy of open society.

    But is a resurgence of nationalism really the ' great enemy ' that Soros makes out, given that crisis on a global scale invariably leads to opportunity? One example is from an op-ed written by former IMF Deputy Director Mohamed A. El-Erian, who in 2017 questioned whether a rise in populism and nationalism throughout the world could be remedied by revamping the IMF's Special Drawing Rights:

    So, do today's anti-globalisation winds – caused in part by poor global policy coordination in the context of too many years of low and insufficiently inclusive growth – create scope for enhancing the SDR's role and potential contributions?

    We have seen as well how the EU and the World Trade Organisation have presented proposals for the wide scale reformation of the WTO in the wake of renewed nationalism. And as regular readers will know, central banks led by the BIS and IMF are rapidly advancing plans to reform global payment systems and introduce digital currencies. These were not public considerations prior to the likes of Brexit. They only started to gather momentum after nationalism became a permanent fixture on the geopolitical landscape.

    The overriding sentiment from globalists has been that a combination of political and economic protectionism is a direct threat to financial stability. The IMF, the BIS and the World Bank have all over recent months been ramping up warnings about the dangers of an impending economic downturn. Two weeks ago the IMF's new Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva commented at the Peterson Institute of International Economics in Washington :

    We have to learn the lessons of history while adapting them for our times. We know that excessive inequality hinders growth and hollows out a country's foundations. It erodes trust within society and institutions. It can fuel populism and political upheaval.

    As well as the IMF, the start of 2020 saw the World Bank warn of a impending global debt crisis and how persistently low interest rates might not be enough to stave off a downturn. In the autumn of 2019 the BIS warned how an unsustainable rise in leveraged loans could jeopardise the financial system . The IMF joined them a few weeks later by declaring that ' accommodative monetary policy is supporting the economy in the near-term, but easy financial conditions are encouraging financial risk-taking and are fuelling a further build-up of vulnerabilities .'

    The one issue binding all these warnings together is trade protectionism, which stems directly from the resurgence in political nationalism.

    Beyond the global economic houses, France's President Macron said in 2018 that in relation to trade conflict, ' economic nationalism leads to war .' BHP boss Andrew Mackenzie said in August 2019 that the rise of nationalism presented a risk to the global economy . Even China and Russia have spoken out against the build up of trade protectionism, saying it will compromise the global economy.

    Now is the time to put yourself into the mind of a globalist. Whether it be the Innovation BIS 2025 project or the UN's Agenda 2030 sustainability goals, what circumstances would benefit these people the most in furthering their ambitions? What would have to occur for the elite to gain widespread public support for policies that would fundamentally change our way of life? If an increased break out of trade protectionism and political populism triggered an economic collapse, would this impair the autonomy of global institutions? Or would it serve to reinvigorate them in the sense of scapegoating nationalism as being responsible for the rupture of the ' rules based global order ' founded after World War Two?

    From a globalist perspective, national sovereignty – the independent nation state – has no place in an interconnected world. It is an outmoded concept. The goal is always to further centralise power. But by what means exactly?

    Recall what Richard Gardner said back in 1974: ' an end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece, will accomplish much more than the old-fashioned frontal assault .'

    The institutions cited in this article are not ignorant to the plight of the global economy. The policies enacted since 2008, from near zero interest rates and trillions of dollars in quantitative easing measures to rising interest rates and quantitative tightening, has brought the financial system to where it is today. Central banks know perfectly well the effect their policies have on the health of economies , evidenced by comments from Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell back in 2012:

    Right now, we are buying the market, effectively, and private capital will begin to leave that activity and find something else to do. So when it is time for us to sell, or even to stop buying, the response could be quite strong; there is every reason to expect a strong response.

    Meanwhile, we look like we are blowing a fixed-income duration bubble right across the credit spectrum that will result in big losses when rates come up down the road. You can almost say that that is our strategy.

    From a UK standpoint, the country's departure from the EU may appear on the surface to be rallying against the tide of globalism. But my concern is that globalists will successfully manage to position Brexit and the spectre of a global trade conflict as causes for an economic collapse, when in fact it is monetary policy over the last twelve years which will be the primary culprit.

    Rather than heavy handedly marching into western nations and claiming their sovereignty, I would be concerned that the global elite will allow nationalist movements to fall on their own sword, and for the onset of a series of crises to consume geopolitics throughout the next decade. The job then would be to implement a whole raft of reforms and to educate the next generation on the perils of self determination.

    The realisation of a ' new world order ' means tearing down existing structures, or at the very least jeopardising them to the point of collapse, to facilitate the new. Out of resurgent nationalism may come a swathe of centralised directives that make today's level of globalisation seem tame by comparison.

    pcrs , 2 hours ago link

    Depends on your definitions. But although the elites prefer the bigger cartel to run, with no competition on tax levels and freedoms, they are also quiet happy for nationalistic, flag waving, I'm happy to die for my country and **** them others nationalism. These wars of the past were pretty profitable for those whipping up the masses. And it is an easy scape goat if you have ruined and plundered the economy.

    They are not going to take the blame themselves for the economic disaster taking place after extracting trillions out of the hands of citizens for a green new deal.

    Foreigners are easy to blame. With globalism, who will they blame?

    [Feb 01, 2020] As repellent as Trump and his policies are, the Democrats' impeachment bid deserves to fail because they did not attempt to impeach Bush II, whose offences were far graver.

    Feb 01, 2020 | off-guardian.org

    Capricornia Man ,

    As repellent as Trump and his policies are, the Democrats' impeachment bid deserves to fail because they did not attempt to impeach Bush II, whose offences were far graver.

    My prediction: Trump will beat the impeachment. If Bernie were, by a miracle, to get the nomination, he could beat him. If the Democratic establishment scuppers Bernie in favour of a right-wing Democrat who offers little to blue-collar workers, their chance of winning will be slim. HRC, as a war-and-Wall Street type, would surely go down like a lead balloon with the 'battlers'.

    The outlook is not good.

    [Jan 31, 2020] Trump excoriates Bolton in tweets this morning

    Highly recommended!
    Trump is lying. Bolton was appointed by Adelson and Trump can't refuse Adelson protégé.
    Jan 31, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    Trump excoriates Bolton in tweets this morning:
    "For a guy who couldn't get approved for the Ambassador to the U.N. years ago, couldn't get approved for anything since, 'begged' me for a non Senate approved job, which I gave him despite many saying 'Don't do it, sir,' takes the job, mistakenly says 'Libyan Model' on T.V., and ... many more mistakes of judgement [sic], gets fired because frankly, if I listened to him, we would be in World War Six by now, and goes out and IMMEDIATELY writes a nasty & untrue book. All Classified National Security. Who would do this?"

    IMO, Trump is a fantastic POTUS for this day and age, but he wasn't on his A game when he brought Bolton onboard. He should have known better and, was, apparently, warned. Maybe Trump thought he could control him and use him as a threatening pit bull. Mistake. Bolton is greedy as well as vindictive.

    Posted by: Eric Newhill | 29 January 2020 at 09:30 AM

    [Jan 31, 2020] Tucker John Bolton has always been a snake

    Bolton was appointed by Adelson.
    Jan 27, 2020 | www.youtube.com

    Bolton's tell-all book leaks during Senate trial. #FoxNews


    Yamaha Venture , 3 days ago

    Mitt Romney is a joke.

    Michael Harvey , 2 days ago

    John Bolton wants war everywhere to line his pockets with money.

    Stephen C , 1 day ago

    The "right" gets the left, but doesn't agree with them. The "left" doesn't understand the "right".

    Citizen Se7en , 2 days ago

    "Bolton's resignation was one of the highlights of the president's first term." Truer words have never been spoken.

    Jack Albright , 2 days ago

    This story is also called "the scorpion and the frog".

    Ragnar Lothbrok , 3 days ago

    John Bolton should be given a helmet and a gun and sent to the next war. Let's see how he likes it.

    Stratchona , 1 day ago

    Trump.." I don't know John Bolton,never met him,don't know what he does."

    Jaret Glenn , 2 days ago

    Time to investigate Romney's son working for the oil company in the Ukraine.

    Regan Orr , 2 days ago

    Romney's Holy Underwear is Cutting off the Blood Supply to his Deep St Brain!

    Marjo , 2 days ago (edited)

    I never liked Bolton. I sensed he was out for himself, at anyone's expense. War monger too. He had many people fooled.

    Shara Kirkby , 3 days ago

    Bolton wants war anywhere and forever!

    David Dorrell , 1 day ago (edited)

    Frickin' Globalist peckerwoods. John Bolton and his pal, Mitt Romney.

    Olivier Bolton , 2 days ago

    Bolton wanted war so he got the boot...the fact he brings out his book now just looks like vengean$$

    Max Liftoff , 2 days ago

    2:30 Because Bolton never served in the military he truly passionately loved war :)) LMAO Tucker nailed it.

    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ , 1 day ago

    The left's championing of John Bolton is further proof that TDS has made their minds turn to sludge.

    j abe , 3 days ago

    Can someone expaine to me how mit romney is still geting votes from ppl

    Mark Whitley , 2 days ago

    Bolton is a war mongering narcissist that wanted his war, didn't get it, & is now acting like a spoilt child that didn't get his way & is laying on the floor kicking & screaming!

    Tim Fronimos , 2 days ago

    Regarding John Bolton's book, is this the first book that he's colored. just curious

    newuserandhiscrew 22 , 2 days ago

    Everyone: Bolton: "take me in oh tender woman, take me in for heaven's sake"

    Brittany Ward , 1 day ago

    I can't fathom that people actually believe everything the media says!

    [Jan 31, 2020] This Youtube breakdown of Adam Schiff's closing statement, gives insight into some of the tactics I am speaking of

    Notable quotes:
    "... This gave meaning to the quote from Larry Johnson from "Intelligence: The Human Factor" by Col Lang. "Be quick to ask ask why and insist on hard empirical evidence to corroborate or refute a statement claimed as fact. Hopefully, you will discover that National Security is not based on on deploying the the most technologically sophisticated metal detector or hiring new thousands of new specialists -- but on freedom and " the rule of law". The freedoms we enjoy belong to citizens who know their rights and understand how their government works." ..."
    Jan 31, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    Re | 29 January 2020 at 06:55 PM

    I agree with you. I saw elements of the color revolution that the previous administration used to destabilize governments being used in the U.S. at that time. It seems the man behind the curtain is using skilled rhetoric, linguistics, NLP, persuasion principles and hypnosis tactics. These tactics are are also pointedly being used, to get around the law and and any meaningful accountability. This appears to being done in a coordinated, organized and continuous method.

    This gave meaning to the quote from Larry Johnson from "Intelligence: The Human Factor" by Col Lang. "Be quick to ask ask why and insist on hard empirical evidence to corroborate or refute a statement claimed as fact. Hopefully, you will discover that National Security is not based on on deploying the the most technologically sophisticated metal detector or hiring new thousands of new specialists -- but on freedom and " the rule of law". The freedoms we enjoy belong to citizens who know their rights and understand how their government works."

    This Youtube breakdown of Adam Schiff's closing statement, gives insight into some of the tactics I am speaking of, better than I could explain it.
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U0ipS5gjmDc

    [Jan 30, 2020] Rand Paul Reads Eric Ciaramella Question After Getting Snubbed By Chief Justice

    Notable quotes:
    "... Update (4:55 p.m.): ..."
    "... Update (1:45 p.m.): ..."
    "... Via Jonathan Turley ..."
    "... (emphasis ours) ..."
    "... So we are to know nothing about an accuser, his history, his motives, his loyalties? It seems that servants of the deep state are to be believed and protected without question... ..."
    "... Let's be clear ~ Whistleblower/CIA who started this plan in January 2016... probably mentored by Brennan. ..."
    "... This whole impeachment is sham much like the Russian investigation, it is clear just from the actions that we all have witnessed that the US intelligence agencies are guilty of attempting to overthrow the elected government. ..."
    Jan 30, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    Update (4:55 p.m.): After getting snubbed by Chief Justice Roberts, Rand Paul read his question aloud.

    Sen. @RandPaul : "My question made no reference to any whistleblower "

    He then reads the question.

    "I think this is an important question. One that deserves to be asked." pic.twitter.com/D2iafDrv4X

    -- CSPAN (@cspan) January 30, 2020

    Update (1:45 p.m.): Paul was once again denied a question about whistleblower Eric Ciaramella by Chief Justice Roberts during Thursday's round of impeachment questions in the Senate.

    He refused to read the question @RandPaul : "My question today is about whether or not individuals who were holdovers from the Obama NSC and Democrat partisans conspired with Schiff staffers to plot impeaching the President before there were formal House impeachment proceedings." pic.twitter.com/8FIcu47PBl

    -- ALX 🇺🇸 (@alx) January 30, 2020

    Paul then took to Twitter - writing "My question today is about whether or not individuals who were holdovers from the Obama National Security Council and Democrat partisans conspired with Schiff staffers to plot impeaching the President before there were formal House impeachment proceedings."

    My question today is about whether or not individuals who were holdovers from the Obama National Security Council and Democrat partisans conspired with Schiff staffers to plot impeaching the President before there were formal House impeachment proceedings.

    -- Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) January 30, 2020

    Here was Paul's exact question :

    " Are you aware that House intelligence committee staffer Shawn Misko had a close relationship with Eric Ciaramella while at the National Security Council together and are you aware and how do you respond to reports that Ciaramella and Misko may have worked together to plot impeaching the President before there were formal house impeachment proceedings. "

    ***

    Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) was spitting mad Wednesday night after Chief Justice John Roberts blocked his question concerning the CIA whistleblower at the heart of the impeachment of President Trump.

    According to both Politico and The Hill , Roberts told Senators that he wouldn't read Paul's question, or any other question which would require him to publicly say the whistleblower's name or otherwise reveal his identity - which has been widely reported as CIA analyst Eric Ciaramella, who worked for the National Security Council under the Obama and Trump administrations - and who consulted with Rep. Adam Schiff's (D-CA) staff prior to filing the complaint.

    Stunning that Adam Schiff lies to millions of Americans when he says he doesn't know the identity of the whistleblower.

    He absolutely knows the identity of the whistleblower b/c he coordinated with the individual before the whistleblower's complaint! His staff helped write it!

    -- Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) January 29, 2020

    A frustrated Paul was overheard expressing his frustration on the Senate floor during a break in Wednesday's proceedings - telling a Republican staffer " If I have to fight for recognition, I will. "

    Roberts signaled to GOP senators on Tuesday that he wouldn't allow the whistleblower's name to be mentioned during the question-and-answer session that started the next day, the sources. Roberts was allowed to screen senators' questions before they were submitted for reading on the Senate floor, the sources noted.

    Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other top Republicans are also discouraging disclosure of the whistleblower's identity as well . Paul has submitted at least one question with the name of a person believed to be the whistleblower, although it was rejected. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) composed and asked a question regarding the whistleblower earlier Wednesday that tiptoed around identifying the source who essentially sparked the House impeachment drive. - Politico

    "We've got members who, as you have already determined I think, have an interest in questions related to the whistleblower," said Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-SD), adding "But I suspect that won't happen. I don't think that happens. And I guess I would hope it doesn't."

    That said, Paul says he's not giving up - telling reporters "It's still an ongoing process, it may happen tomorrow."

    Does Ciaramella deserve 'anonymity'?

    Of note, Roberts did not offer any legal argument for hiding the whistleblower's identity - which leads to an interesting argument from Constitutional law expert and impeachment witness Johnathan Turley concerning whistleblower anonymity.

    Via Jonathan Turley (emphasis ours)

    Federal law does not guarantee anonymity of such whistleblowers in Congress -- only protection from retaliation . Conversely, the presiding officer rarely stands in the path of senators seeking clarification or information from the legal teams. Paul could name the whistleblower on the floor without violation federal law. Moreover, the Justice Department offered a compelling analysis that the whistleblower complaint was not in fact covered by the intelligence law (the reason for the delay in reporting the matter to Congress). The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel found that the complaint did not meet the legal definition of "urgent" because it treated the call between Trump and a head of state was if the president were an employee of the intelligence community. The OLC found that the call "does not relate to 'the funding administration, or operation of an intelligence activity' under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence . . . As a result, the statute does not require the Director to transmit the complaint to the congressional intelligence committees. " The Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and EfficiencyCouncil strongly disagree with that reading.

    Regardless of the merits of this dispute, Roberts felt that his position allows him to curtail such questions and answers as a matter of general decorum and conduct. It is certainly true that all judges are given some leeway in maintaining basic rules concerning the conduct and comments of participants in such "courts."

    This could lead to a confrontation over the right of senators to seek answers to lawful questions and the authority of the presiding office to maintain basic rules of fairness and decorum . It is not clear what the basis of the Chief Justice's ruling would be in barring references to the name of the whistleblower if his status as a whistleblower is contested and federal law does not protect his name. Yet, there are many things that are not prohibited by law but still proscribed by courts. This issue however goes to the fact-finding interests of a senator who must cast a vote on impeachment. Unless Majority Leader Mitch McConnell can defuse the situation, this afternoon could force Roberts into a formal decision with considerable importance for this and future trials.


    MartinG , 13 minutes ago link

    Technically he's not a Whistleblower, he's an Informant. To be a whistleblower Ciaramella would have to inform on the CIA. Because that's who he worked for.

    Walter Melon , 10 minutes ago link

    So far you're the only one who gets this.

    Forest43 , 4 minutes ago link

    If the Senate is truly the Chief Justices Court the Chief Justice can modify the rules case by case. In this case he made the wrong decision and Senator Paul is concerned I agree with Senator Paul.

    DEDA CVETKO , 17 minutes ago link

    Funny that the guy who ruled in favor of mandatory Obamacare (Roberts) would be caught carrying water for the deep state. How so shocking!

    moonmac , 17 minutes ago link

    Rand is taking it on the chin by leftist MSM.

    God Bless Dr. Paul's bravery!

    Yog Soggoth , 15 minutes ago link

    Already has some broken ribs for mowing his lawn.

    GoldRulesPaperDrools , 6 minutes ago link

    I'd have double-tapped that ****** and pissed in his face while he bled to death. And I'd have been a little bit "slow" to dial 911 after I'd dialed 9MM.

    winston84 , 5 minutes ago link

    The attack on Rand, is a good example of why we should always be packing protection. Too many crazies among us now, to be caught off guard.

    JLee2027 , 21 minutes ago link

    John Roberts, apparently, is in Epsteins flight logs, according to people on Twitter.

    winston84 , 18 minutes ago link

    Nothing is surprising anymore

    Boris Badenov , 4 minutes ago link

    Interesting how Trump does not need to make any more appointments to SCOTUS. I figure RBG is not long for the court, but Roberts might beat her to it. Either way, the majority strengthens by subtraction.

    PN7 , 28 minutes ago link

    Calling witnesses can backfire. Ya gotta be careful. You might call Hunter Biden, and he might begin answering questions in Ukranian.

    arthgallo , 25 minutes ago link

    he doesn't know Ukranian!

    CIARAMELLA probably does though.............................and he's boinking Schiff's daughter

    Boris Badenov , 49 seconds ago link

    Poor lad. Total lack of judgment.

    Gringo Viejo , 34 minutes ago link

    Roberts has show again and again that he's nothing but a deep state bought and paid for shill.

    The only thing he's worthy of judging would be a wet T shirt contest.

    MrAToZ , 36 minutes ago link

    So we are to know nothing about an accuser, his history, his motives, his loyalties? It seems that servants of the deep state are to be believed and protected without question...

    ChickaBoom , 45 minutes ago link

    Let's be clear ~ Whistleblower/CIA who started this plan in January 2016... probably mentored by Brennan.

    Death2Fiat , 46 minutes ago link

    The Deep State agents must be protected at all costs, including obstruction of justice and failing to allow relevant information to be submitted without reference to a whistleblower.

    The chief justice will not allow CIA agents who conspire and plan a coup to overthrow the president to be revealed for it would destroy any sliver of credibility they have left.

    MCLoweDallas , 42 minutes ago link

    I think it's hilarious that they actually believe they can remove a President based on nothing but hidden "evidence" and that we will all just accept that! These people are the Alpha and Omega of stupid!

    Summers Eve , 50 minutes ago link

    I do believe Roberts just violated his oath!

    AnMonist275 , 19 minutes ago link

    The problem is, there seems to be no court to try him. Actually SCOTUS would be that court, but it's questionable, if the Conservative bench at SCOTUS would dare to take that case, even though they would be in majority, since „Chief Judge" Roberts would - as party in the case - not be allowed to vote in that matter

    Anderson Coopers Gerbil , 51 minutes ago link

    The way Roberts bent over backwards for O care is all you need to know about his ethics.

    realitybiter , 52 minutes ago link

    The problem with all these compromised a-holes, like Roberts is they are slaves to the state. Their oath to office needs to be rewritten, with hand placed on an enormous money vault.

    GoldHermit , 52 minutes ago link

    I had little respect for Roberts leading up to this, now I have none.

    John Hansen , 46 minutes ago link

    Why call someone clearly guilty of sedition a whistle blower?

    This whole impeachment is sham much like the Russian investigation, it is clear just from the actions that we all have witnessed that the US intelligence agencies are guilty of attempting to overthrow the elected government.

    [Jan 30, 2020] Impeachment's Biggest Absurdity Our Toxic Fixation On Useless And Corrupting Ukraine Aid

    They are not helping Ukraine citizen of which after 2014 live in abject poverty. So in now way this an aid. They are arming Ukraine to kill Russians and maintain a hot spot on Russian border.
    The USA, specifically Brennan, Nuland and Biden create civil war out of nothing pushing far right nationalist to suppress eastern population by brute forces (they burned alive 200 hundred or more people on Odessa and killed people in Mariupol before Donbass flared up)
    They are despicable MIC bottomfeeders. Neocon calculation is that Russia will not respond to this provocation, because it is too weak after the economic rape of 1991-2000. While Putin is a very patient politician they might be wrong.
    Notable quotes:
    "... Authored by James Bovard via JimBovard.com, ..."
    "... "corruption is positively correlated with aid received from the United States." ..."
    "... "I think it makes no sense to give aid money to countries that are corrupt." ..."
    "... " remains skeptical after a history of broken promises [from the Ukraine govt]. Kiev hasn't successfully completed any of a series of IMF bailout packages over the past two decades, with systemic corruption at the heart of much of that failure." ..."
    "... "Most foreign aid winds up with outside consultants, the local military, corrupt bureaucrats, the new NGO [nongovernmental organizations] administrators, and Mercedes dealers." ..."
    "... James Bovard is the author of " ..."
    "... Attention Deficit Democracy ..."
    "... The Bush Betrayal ..."
    "... Terrorism and Tyranny ..."
    "... ," and other books. Bovard is on the USA Today Board of Contributors. He is on Twitter at @jimbovard. His website is at ..."
    "... www.jimbovard.com ..."
    Jan 30, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
    Authored by James Bovard via JimBovard.com,

    The campaign to convict and remove President Donald Trump in the Senate hinges on delays in disbursing U.S. aid to Ukraine. Ukraine was supposedly on the verge of great progress until Trump pulled the rug out from under the heroic salvation effort by U.S. government bureaucrats. Unfortunately, Congress has devoted a hundred times more attention to the timing of aid to Ukraine than to its effectiveness. And most of the media coverage has ignored the biggest absurdity of the impeachment fight.

    The temporary postponement of the Ukrainian aid was practically irrelevant considering that U.S. assistance efforts have long fueled the poxes they promised to eradicate – especially kleptocracy, or government by thieves .

    A 2002 American Economic Review analysis concluded that "increases in [foreign] aid are associated with contemporaneous increases in corruption" and that "corruption is positively correlated with aid received from the United States."

    Then-President George W. Bush promised to reform foreign aid that year, declaring , "I think it makes no sense to give aid money to countries that are corrupt." Regardless, the Bush administration continued delivering billions of dollars in handouts to many of the world's most corrupt regimes .

    Then-President Barack Obama, recognizing the failure of past U.S. aid efforts, proclaimed at the United Nations in 2010 that the U.S. government is " leading a global effort to combat corruption ." The following year, congressional Republicans sought to restrict foreign aid to fraud-ridden foreign regimes. Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wailed that restricting handouts to nations that fail anti-corruption tests "has the potential to affect a staggering number of needy aid recipients."

    The Obama administration continued pouring tens of billions of U.S. tax dollars into sinkholes such as Afghanistan, which even its president, Ashraf Ghani, admitted in 2016 was "one of the most corrupt countries on earth ." John Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR), declared that "U.S. policies and practices unintentionally aided and abetted corruption" in Afghanistan.

    Since the end of the Soviet Union, the U.S. has provided more than $6 billion in aid to Ukraine. At the House impeachment hearings, a key anti-Trump witness was acting U.S. ambassador to the Ukraine, William B. Taylor Jr. The Washington Post hailed Taylor as someone who " spent much of the 1990s telling Ukrainian politicians that nothing was more critical to their long-term prosperity than rooting out corruption and bolstering the rule of law, in his role as the head of U.S. development assistance for post-Soviet countries." A New York Times editorial lauded Taylor and State Department deputy assistant secretary George Kent as witnesses who "came across not as angry Democrats or Deep State conspirators, but as men who have devoted their lives to serving their country."

    After their testimony spurred criticism, a Washington Post headline captured the capital city's reaction: "The diplomatic corps has been wounded. The State Department needs to heal." But not nearly as much as the foreigners supposedly rescued by U.S. bureaucrats.

    The Wall Street Journal reported on Oct. 31 that the International Monetary Fund, which has provided more than $20 billion in loans to Ukraine, " remains skeptical after a history of broken promises [from the Ukraine govt]. Kiev hasn't successfully completed any of a series of IMF bailout packages over the past two decades, with systemic corruption at the heart of much of that failure."

    The IMF concluded that Ukraine continued to be vexed by " shortcomings in the legal framework, pervasive corruption, and large parts of the economy dominated by inefficient state-owned enterprises or by oligarchs." That last item is damning for the U.S. benevolent pretensions. If a former Soviet republic cannot even terminate its government-owned boondoggles, then why in hell was the U.S. government bankrolling them?

    Transparency International, which publishes an annual Corruption Perceptions Index, shows that corruption surged in Ukraine in the late 1990s (after the U.S. decided to rescue them) and remains at abysmal levels. Ukraine is now ranked as the 120th most corrupt nation in the world -- a lower ranking than received by Egypt and Pakistan, two other major U.S. aid recipients also notorious for corruption.

    Actually, the best gauge of Ukrainian corruption is the near-total collapse of its citizens' trust in government or in their own future. Since 1991, the nation has lost almost 20% of its population as citizens flee abroad like passengers leaping off a sinking ship.

    And yet, the House impeachment hearings and much of the media gushed over career U.S. government officials despite their strikeouts. It was akin to a congressional committee resurrecting Col. George S. Custer in 1877 and fawning as he offered personal insights in dealing with uprisings by Sioux Indians (while carefully avoiding awkward questions about the previous year at the Little Big Horn ).

    Foreign aid is virtue signaling with other people's money. As long the aid spawns press releases and photo opportunities for presidents and members of Congress and campaign donations from corporate and other beneficiaries, little else matters. Congress almost never conducts thorough investigations into the failure of aid programs despite their legendary pratfalls. The Agency for International Development ludicrously evaluated its programs in Afghanistan based on their "burn rate" – whether they were spending money as quickly as possible, almost regardless of the results. SIGAR's John Sopko "found a USAID lessons-learned report from 1980s on Afghan reconstruction but nobody at AID had read it ."

    After driving around the world, investment guru Jim Rogers declared: "Most foreign aid winds up with outside consultants, the local military, corrupt bureaucrats, the new NGO [nongovernmental organizations] administrators, and Mercedes dealers." After the Obama administration promised massive aid to Ukraine in 2014, Hunter Biden jumped on the gravy train – as did legions of well-connected Washingtonians and other hustlers around the nation. Similar largesse assures that there will never be a shortage of overpaid individuals and hired think tanks ready to write op-eds or letters to the editor of the Washington Post whooping up the moral greatness of foreign aid or some such hokum.

    When it comes to the failure of U.S. aid to Ukraine, almost all of Trump's congressional critics are like the " dog that didn't bark " in the Sherlock Holmes story. The real outrage is that Trump and prior presidents, with Congress cheering all the way, delivered so many U.S. tax dollars to Kiev that any reasonable person knew would be wasted. If Washington truly wants to curtail foreign corruption, ending U.S. foreign aid is the best first step.

    * * *

    James Bovard is the author of " Attention Deficit Democracy ," " The Bush Betrayal ," " Terrorism and Tyranny ," and other books. Bovard is on the USA Today Board of Contributors. He is on Twitter at @jimbovard. His website is at www.jimbovard.com Tags Politics


    Pair Of Dimes Shift , 12 minutes ago link

    ALL foreign aid is a kickback scheme.

    End it!

    Savyindallas , 27 minutes ago link

    paying billions to corrupt Jewish Ukranians is just another way to support Israel. Christian Zionists understand and approve of this. So what's the big deal? It's free money. Money that grows on trees. What does it cost to print billions of free money by a few electronic entries? Nothing. We should print more. Free **** is a beautiful thing.

    We can postpone judgment day for at least another decade or so. By then, all the smart Harvard educated guys and gals at Goldman Sachs and Wall Street will figure out how to kick the can down the road for another decade or so.

    When it all collapses, half of India and Africa and central America will already have replaced what used to be the American population. The few remaining Americans aside from the immigrants will be unrecognizable anyway. many will have left. Many more will have been reduced by failure to procreate and replace themselves. Christians will be a despised,(even the idiotic Zio-Christians who looked the other way on important issues as long as we were bombing and killing for their beloved Israel) We will have a dying population as many will have chosen the gay LGBTQ lifestyle and we are replaced by subservient obedient, uneducated immigrants who are happy to work for $8 an hour and live in a single room apartment they share with other immigrant families.

    NosferatuZodd , 27 minutes ago link

    Ukraine was a failed state since day one and it got much worse since US/EU instigated coup. I don't see any light at the end of tunnel. Zielensky is a more friendly face, but that's it. He obviously doesn't have power to change the course. He can promise anything while abroad, but he has to appease the nazis at home or they will get rid of him. In other words Ukraine is doomed.

    SadhakaPadma , 19 minutes ago link

    Zielensky is more than friendly face...he signed many deals with Putin and behave as responsible politician who wanna bring normalization and peace. Same forces overthrow Yanukovitch will try it with Zielensky, because they not wanna peace, but their interest is war....so Zielensky is in danger.

    various1 , 31 minutes ago link

    TF are you talking about, idiot!

    Ukraine has biggest potential of all countries. Has richest on a planet soil, educated European population, is poor so money go long way. And of course bridge to forcing Russia being our ally, and adhere to nationalism, vs being corrupted by globalists.

    chunga , 45 minutes ago link

    No ****, it's absurd. The Wretched City was practically unanimous in the screeching about sending weapons to Ukraine because Crimea voted to join Russia, something they describe up there as being "annexed". Especially so now because since then Iraq voted to kick the US out of their country and has been ignored, themselves being "annexed".

    This is something that is accepted to a certain degree as a result of Bob Mueller.

    wehadtopullit , 5 minutes ago link

    3 words: Victoria J. Nuland

    John Hansen , 49 minutes ago link

    Certainly makes you wonder if there was a reason the Russians only took Crimea.

    Corruption ridden Ukraine certainly is a "gift" that keeps on giving.

    SadhakaPadma , 47 minutes ago link

    Crimea is military important for their security...that why they had naval base there..they cant afford lose this point and Black Sea....

    Soviets were not willing to colonize these satelites like Poland, Czechoslovakia etc. they were relevant after ww2 and Russians were scared of another war...day they become irrelevant thanks of new weapons they abandon these states.

    Russians are not hurry up into wars.

    John Hansen , 45 minutes ago link

    You are missing the point.

    Ukraine is a corrupt, corrupting mess, now it is the West's mess.

    SadhakaPadma , 43 minutes ago link

    I know they are corrupted one...but USA is careless toward Ukraine fortunes...they use them to provoke conditions to create cold war two...military industry need big enemies for sake of hundreds bilions usd profits...how would you explain your citizens you pay one third of budget and no enemies??? so Deep state want cold war two.

    More than milion Ukrainians left to Russia...while EU has closed Ukrainian borders...so who care more of Ukrainian people?

    John Hansen , 37 minutes ago link

    They could have had their cold war for MIC without absorbing the Ukraine. The whole cold war thing is obvious and academic.

    The Russians wanted the West to have Ukraine. It is like the Americans giving the aboriginals the Small Pox blankets.

    The corruption in the Ukraine is like a virus and it has spread West, just look at how it has infected the US political process.

    SadhakaPadma , 29 minutes ago link

    Russians were victims of all of this...red line was Crimea...and Putin did right...otherwise Russian nuclear security would be doomed if you allow NATO troops to Crimea.

    US politicians not do it first time...did you know most wealthy Kosovian is Magdalene All Bright?? i live in postcommunist state and whole my life witness western proxies stealing all valuable stakes here....Communism created state ownership of big industries...domestic politicians alongside western snakes steal it very ugly way.IN SO CALLED PRIVATIZATION..wheather it is Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania etc. even information networks are owed by westeners....we are absolutely blackmailed.

    Russians and partly Ukrainians did not allow foreigers to entry ...they tried it..here and there something got, whole 90s was going on this big fight among Russians and plus western snakes for stakes....Putin created order in it alongside Russian oligarchy and normalization....that why Russians like him.

    bismillah , 51 minutes ago link

    Are these idiotic Democrats and Russia haters crazy?

    Russia has a population and GDP roughly the same as Mexico and they're on the other side of the planet (unless you're in Alaska). There is exactly zero chance Russia will invade or attack Western Europe or the USA.

    The USA should be concerned with the USA, and not whether Russia will act to safeguard its border.

    SadhakaPadma , 53 minutes ago link

    When Soviet Union left...military industry for sake of their profits needed to create big enemy....they created terrorism and islamic wars......now as it failing apart they need new enemies..big one to explain you why is necessary to give one third of your taxes into military toys...so they create conflicts around China and Russia with hope to dig in into cold war two.

    Russians and Chinese have not big corporate bussines behind their military...their spending is tiny compared to US military industry profits....so they have no interest in wars...while US seek them.

    Be aware Americans...your military is not only milking you, but risking of whole humanity throwing into military disasters even as an accidents . Putin explained it many times...computer supersystems can be activated so easily if some misteps happen...

    MushroomCloud2020 , 56 minutes ago link

    If Quid Pro Que is legal, then the swamp is drained. The swamp isn't doing anything wrong. They have been following the law all this time. Ask the president.

    [Jan 30, 2020] Carter Page Sues DNC Over Steele Dossier In Opening Salvo

    Jan 30, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    Carter Page is suing the DNC and the Perkins Coie law firm for their roles in funding the infamous Steele dossier, which was used as the foundation for controversial surveillance warrants used by the Obama administration to spy on him during and after the 2016 US election. The former Trump campaign adviser filed a lawsuit Thursday in the Northern District of Illinois' Eastern Division, which his attorneys described as the "first of multiple actions in the wake of historic" Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuse, according to Fox News .

    "Defendants developed a dossier replete with falsehoods about numerous individuals associated with the Trump campaign -- especially Dr. Page . Defendants then sought to tarnish the Trump campaign and its affiliates (including Dr. Page) by publicizing this false information," reads the lawsuit, which adds "Even the DOJ and the FISC have recognized that the false information spread by Defendants led to invalid FISA warrants against Dr. Page. "

    Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz announced in a December report that the FBI made repeated errors and misrepresentations to the FISA court in the agency's ham-handed efforts to surveil Page and those in his orbit in 2016 and 2017.

    Horowitz confirmed that the FBI's FISA applications to monitor Page heavily relied on the dossier and news reports rooted in Steele's unverified research.

    Just last week, the FISC released a newly declassified summary of a Justice Department assessment revealing at least two of the FBI's surveillance applications to monitor Page lacked probable cause. -Fox News

    " This is a first step to ensure that the full extent of the FISA abuse that has occurred during the last few years is exposed and remedied," said attorney John Pierce on Thursday, adding "Defendants and those they worked with inside the federal government did not and will not succeed in making America a surveillance state."

    " This is only the first salvo. We will follow the evidence wherever it leads, no matter how high. The rule of law will prevail. "

    Page first filed a defamation suit on his own against the parties in October 2018 in federal court in Oklahoma, but that suit was dismissed in January 2019 after the judge ruled the court lacked jurisdiction over the case because neither Page nor the DNC had strong enough ties to the state.

    Page is now represented by Pierce, the global managing partner of Pierce Bainbridge Beck Price & Hecht LLP. They filed in Illinois because they allege the relationship with the firm behind the dossier, Fusion GPS, was "orchestrated" through law firm Perkins Coie's Chicago office. The suit also claims the DNC "has a historical pattern" of making Chicago its principal place of business . - Fox News

    Read the complaint

    [Jan 30, 2020] Total lack of judgment

    Jan 30, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    PN7 , 28 minutes ago link

    Calling witnesses can backfire. Ya gotta be careful. You might call Hunter Biden, and he might begin answering questions in Ukranian.

    arthgallo , 25 minutes ago link

    he doesn't know Ukranian!

    CIARAMELLA probably does though.............................and he's boinking Schiff's daughter

    Boris Badenov , 49 seconds ago link

    Poor lad. Total lack of judgment.

    [Jan 30, 2020] The Impeachment Trial Isn't a Legal Process. It's a Proxy War for voters by Osita Nwanevu

    January 29, 2020
    Notable quotes:
    "... Mueller and Schiff are similar figures, who have filled the same thematic space. From the moment Trump took office, a particularly plugged-in segment of the Democratic electorate has been waiting for a Boy Scout with a law degree to take him down. ..."
    "... At the Center for American Progress's Ideas Conference in June, for instance, Schiff alluded to the norms of the criminal justice system as he argued that the House should gather enough evidence to convince Republicans to convict Trump in an eventual trial. "How many of you are former prosecutors who indicted someone in the knowledge that you would be unsuccessful in trying to prove the case to a jury?" he asked. "Probably none of you." ..."
    "... That, of course, is precisely what Schiff and the House's managers are now doing, House leadership having decided that the revelation of Trump's Ukraine scheme meant that impeachment could wait no longer. ..."
    "... "A dangerous moment for America when an impeachment of the president of the United States is being rushed through because of lawyer lawsuits," he intoned. "The Constitution allows it; if necessary, the Constitution demands it if necessary." ..."
    "... Everyone participating in the trial knows full well that Trump's acquittal is certain. The real task at hand is speaking to audiences beyond the chamber -- including, at least as far as the defense is concerned, one particular viewer in the White House. ..."
    "... When the House managers gave you their presentation -- when they submitted their brief -- they repeatedly referenced Hunter Biden and Burisma," said Bondi. "They spoke to you for over 21 hours and they referenced Biden or Burisma over 400 times. And when they gave these presentations, they said there was nothing to see, it was a sham. ..."
    Jan 30, 2020 | newrepublic.com

    With acquittal a foregone conclusion, Trump's accusers and defenders strive to reach audiences beyond the Senate.

    The impeachment trial of President Trump has been short on drama. The rules that govern the proceedings effectively preclude it -- senators observing the trial sit testily, but quietly, through presentations from either side and submit their questions in writing directly to Chief Justice John Roberts. It's been left to the two legal teams in the room -- the House managers prosecuting the case against Trump and the president's defenders -- to craft those moments that might resonate with the public. Now and again, over the course of their arguments, they've delivered. In this way, the dueling attorneys don't merely represent two sides in the impeachment debate -- they've served as stand-ins for the two parties themselves.

    The most viral moment of the trial thus far came at the end of last Thursday's session, when House Intelligence Committee chair and impeachment manager Adam Schiff choked up in an earnest defense of constitutional order: "If right doesn't matter, we're lost. If the truth doesn't matter, we're lost. The Framers couldn't protect us from ourselves if right and truth don't matter. And you know that what he did was not right....

    "Here right is supposed to matter. It's what's made us the greatest nation on earth. No Constitution can protect us if right doesn't matter anymore. And you know you can't trust this president to do what's right for this country."

    Figures ranging from Star Wars icon Mark Hamill to former Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal offered Schiff rapturous praise for the speech on Twitter, where hashtags like "#AdamShiffROCKS [sic]" and "#AdamSchiffHasMyRespect" quickly took off. MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell called Schiff "the greatest defender of the Constitution in the twenty-first century." "Thank God," The Washington Post 's Jennifer Rubin said, "I was alive to hear Schiff speak these past few days."
    The reception from liberals and Never Trumpers was reminiscent of special counsel Robert Mueller's many months in the sun, prior to the release of his Russia report and his testimony before the House -- although Schiff, to be fair, has yet to make a shirtless cameo appearance in a children's book. All told, Mueller and Schiff are similar figures, who have filled the same thematic space. From the moment Trump took office, a particularly plugged-in segment of the Democratic electorate has been waiting for a Boy Scout with a law degree to take him down. The thirst for a legal fight stems not only from impeachment's offer of a nonelectoral remedy for Trump but also from the way the legalism and rhetoric that surrounds any discussion about sustaining Constitutional norms offers a stark contrast to Trump's style of politics. The knotty work of trying to best Trump methodically through a legal process feels, for some, inherently restorative.

    But it's worth remembering that a year ago, the rhetoric of legalism was being deployed to suppress calls for Trump's impeachment in the first place. Those who advocated for Trump's removal were told that hearings would have to wait indefinitely until Mueller's deliberate and disciplined gathering of evidence and the House's various legal battles with the administration reached their conclusions. Schiff himself was among those defending the party line. At the Center for American Progress's Ideas Conference in June, for instance, Schiff alluded to the norms of the criminal justice system as he argued that the House should gather enough evidence to convince Republicans to convict Trump in an eventual trial. "How many of you are former prosecutors who indicted someone in the knowledge that you would be unsuccessful in trying to prove the case to a jury?" he asked. "Probably none of you."

    That, of course, is precisely what Schiff and the House's managers are now doing, House leadership having decided that the revelation of Trump's Ukraine scheme meant that impeachment could wait no longer.

    As for Trump's defenders, there has been clear separation between the attorneys responsible for sketching out a half-plausible legal defense for Trump -- as best they can -- and the lawyers tasked mostly with providing a steady stream of tangential obfuscation and misdirection. Jay Sekulow, one of Trump's personal lawyers and a fixture on Fox News, has clearly been in the latter camp, reviving familiar lines about a conspiracy against the president in the booming tones he's honed on his radio show, Jay Sekulow Live. In an initially befuddling moment on the first day of the trial, Sekulow pivoted into a harangue against the House managers for complaining about "lawyer lawsuits" -- complaints they hadn't actually made. It later emerged that Sekulow had simply misheard the phrase "FOIA lawsuits" -- although the White House's legislative affairs office insisted, naturally, that Sekulow had been correct. The salient point is that Sekulow powered through his remarks anyway, defending the principles embedded in the inherently redundant and nonsensical phrase he'd invented. "A dangerous moment for America when an impeachment of the president of the United States is being rushed through because of lawyer lawsuits," he intoned. "The Constitution allows it; if necessary, the Constitution demands it if necessary."

    On Tuesday, Sekulow delivered one of the final speeches before the trial's questioning phase. Most of it was dedicated to relitigating Mueller's report, with a few declamations against an election year impeachment scattered throughout. But he also tried out, almost as an aside, one of the most absurd defenses for the president's actions yet. Trump, he argued, couldn't have been looking out for his own interests in his dealings with Ukraine because he's proven himself genuinely interested enough in world affairs to seek peace in the Middle East: "The one that still troubles me -- this idea that the president, it was said by several of the managers, is only doing things for himself. Understanding what's going on in the world today as we're here. They raised it, by the way. I'm not trying to be disrespectful. They raised it! This president is only doing things for himself, while the leaders of opposing parties, by the way, at the highest level, to obtain peace in the Middle East. To say you're only doing that for yourself."

    This, putting it mildly, is not the kind of argument one makes in an earnest attempt at swaying jurors. Everyone participating in the trial knows full well that Trump's acquittal is certain. The real task at hand is speaking to audiences beyond the chamber -- including, at least as far as the defense is concerned, one particular viewer in the White House.

    This goes some way toward explaining former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi's involvement in the trial. She's perhaps best known for her run-in with Anderson Cooper after the Orlando nightclub shooting in 2016, during which Cooper criticized her for professing support for the LGBT community after her efforts to block gay marriage in Florida. Three years earlier, Bondi, having announced an investigation into fraud allegations against Trump University, suddenly closed the investigation after a group affiliated with her reelection campaign received an illegal donation from Trump's charitable foundation. After a stint as a lobbyist for Qatar, she's back in Trump's orbit, and she took up half an hour Monday airing the dirt on Hunter Biden that Trump had badgered the Ukrainians to promote in the first place. It would have been a slightly shorter speech had she not stumbled through the text laid in front of her so clumsily. " When the House managers gave you their presentation -- when they submitted their brief -- they repeatedly referenced Hunter Biden and Burisma," said Bondi. "They spoke to you for over 21 hours and they referenced Biden or Burisma over 400 times. And when they gave these presentations, they said there was nothing to see, it was a sham. This is fiction. In their trial memorandum, the House managers described this as baseless. Now, why did they say that? Why did they invoke Biden or Burisma over 400 times? The reason they needed to do that is because they're here saying that the president must be impeached and removed from office for raising a concern. And that's why we have to talk about this today. They say sham, they say baseless. Because -- they say this -- because if it's OK for someone to say, 'Hey, you know what, maybe there's something here worth raising,' then their case crumbles."

    The remarks as delivered don't seem too far off from one of Trump's digressive riffs. Like Trump, she managed to get at least the right nouns in circulation as red meat for a base less interested in the formal arguments being concocted by Trump's team. By contrast, Schiff's earnestness and reason is the corresponding cri de coeur for a meaningful proportion of Democratic voters, as well as -- Democratic leaders hope -- an affect that will reassure those voters who have remained on the fence about impeachment.

    [Jan 29, 2020] Flynn's Defense Files Motion Saying His Former Legal Team Betrayed Him Zero Hedge

    Jan 29, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    by Tyler Durden Wed, 01/29/2020 - 18:45 0 SHARES Authored by Sara Carter via SaraACarter.com,

    Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn filed a supplemental motion to withdraw his guilty plea Wednesday citing failure by his previous counsel to advise him of the firm's 'conflict of interest in his case' regarding the Foreign Agents Registration Act form it filed on his behalf, and by doing so "betrayed Mr. Flynn," stated Sidney Powell, in a defense motion to the court.

    Flynn's case is now in its final phase and his sentencing date, which was scheduled for Jan. 28, in a D.C. federal court before Judge Emmet Sullivan was changed to Feb. 27. The change came after Powell filed the motion to withdraw his plea just days after the prosecutors made a major reversal asking for up to six months jail time. The best case scenario for Flynn, is that Judge Sullivan allows him to withdraw his guilty plea, the sentencing date is thrown-out and then his case would more than likely would head to trial.

    Powell alleged in a motion in December, 2019 that Flynn was strong-armed by the prosecution into pleading guilty to one count of lying to FBI investigators regarding his conversation with former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Others, close to Flynn, have corroborated the accounts suggesting prosecutors threatened to drag Flynn's son into the investigation, who also worked with his father at Flynn Intel Group, a security company established by Flynn.

    In the recent motion Flynn denounced his admission of guilt in a declaration,

    "I am innocent of this crime, and I request to withdraw my guilty plea. After I signed the plea, the attorneys returned to the room and confirmed that the [special counsel's office] would no longer be pursuing my son."

    He denied that he lied to the FBI during the White House meeting with then FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok and FBI Special Agent Joe Pientka. The meeting was set up by now fired FBI Director James Comey and then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who was also fired for lying to Inspector General Michael Horowitz's investigators. Strzok was fired by the FBI for his actions during the Russia investigation.

    Flynn stated:

    "When FBI agents came to the White House on January 24, 2017, I did not lie to them. I believed I was honest with them to the best of my recollection at the time. I still don't remember if I discussed sanctions on a phone call with Ambassador Kislyak nor do I remember if we discussed the details of a UN vote on Israel."

    Powell Targets Flynn's Former Legal Team

    Powell noted in Wednesday's motion that Flynn's former defense team at Covington & Burling, a well known Washington D.C. law firm, failed to inform Flynn that their lawyers had made "some initial errors or statements that were misunderstood in the FARA registration process and filings." She also reaffirmed her position in the motion that government prosecutors are continuing to withhold exculpatory information that would benefit Flynn.

    A spokesperson with Flynn's former law firm Covington & Burling, stated in an email to SaraACarter.com that "Under the bar rules, we are limited in our ability to respond publicly even to allegations of this nature, absent the client's consent or a court order."

    In Powell's motion, she stated that Covington and Burling was well aware that it had a 'conflict of interest' in representing Flynn after November 1, 2017. She stated in the motion it was on that day, when Special Counsel prosecutors had notified Covington that "it recognized Covington's conflict of interest from the FARA registration." Moreover, the government had asked Covington lawyers to discuss the discrepancy and conflict with Flynn, Powell stated in the motion.

    "Mr. Flynn's former counsel at Covington made some initial errors or statements that were misunderstood in the FARA registration process and filings, which the SCO amplified, thereby creating an 'underlying work' conflict of interest between the firm and its client," stated Powell in the motion.

    "Government counsel specified Mr. Flynn's liability for 'false statements' in the FARA registration, and he told Covington to discuss it with Mr. Flynn," states the motion.

    "This etched the conflict in stone. Covington betrayed Mr. Flynn."

    Powell included in her motion an email from Flynn's former law firm Covington & Burling between his former attorney's Steven Anthony and Robert Kelner. The email was regarding the Special Counsel's then-charges against Paul Manafort, who had been a short term campaign manager for Trump. Manafort and his partner Rick Gates, were then faced with 'multiple criminal violations, including FARA violations."

    Internal Email From the motion:

    In the internal email sent to Kelner, Anthony addresses his concerns after the Manafort order was unsealed.

    I just had a flash of a thought that we should consider, among many many factors with regard to Bob Kelley, the possibility that the SCO has decided it does not have, [with regard to] Flynn, the same level of showing of crime fraud exception as it had [with regard to] Manafort. And that the SCO currently feels stymied in pursuing a Flynn-lied-to-his-lawyers theory of a FARA violation. So, we should consider the conceivable risk that a disclosure of the Kelley declaration might break through a wall that the SCO currently considers impenetrable.

    In February, 2017, then Department of Justice official David Laufman had called Flynn's lawyers to push them to file a FARA, the motion states. In fact, it was a day after Flynn was fired as the National Security Advisor for Trump. Laufman made the call to the Covington and Burling office "to pressure them to file the FARA forms immediately," according to the motion.

    Laufman's push for Flynn's FARA seemed peculiar considering, Flynn's company 'Flynn Intel Group' had filed a Lobbying Registration Act in September, 2016. Former partner to Flynn Bijan Rafiekian, had been advised at the time by then lawyer Robert Kelly that there was no need for the firm to file a FARA because it was not dealing directly with a foreign country or foreign government official, as stated during his trial. In Rafiekian's trial Kelly testified that he advised the Flynn Intel Group that by law they only needed to file a Lobbying Disclosure Act and suggested they didn't need to file a FARA when dealing with a foreign company. In this instance it was Innova BV, a firm based in Holland and owned by the Turkish businessman, Ekim Alptekin.

    Flynn's former Partner's Case Overturned, Powell Cites Case In Motion

    In September, 2019, however, in a stunning move Judge Anthony Trenga with the Eastern District of Virginia Rafiekian's conviction was overturned. Trenga stated in his lengthy acquittal decision that government prosecutors did not make their case and the "jury was not adequately instructed as to the role of Michael Flynn in light of the government's in-court judicial admission that Flynn was not a member of the alleged conspiracy and the lack of evidence sufficient to establish his participation in any conspiracy "

    An important side note, Laufman continually posts anti-Trump tweets and is frequently on CNN and MSNBC targeting the administration and its policies.

    These despicable remarks reflect contempt for democracy and government accountability, and constitute further evidence of the President's unfitness to lead our great nation. Republican Members of Congress, stand up and fulfill your oaths. https://t.co/a8BwWkLTkv

    -- David Laufman (@DavidLaufmanLaw) September 26, 2019

    Powell said prosecutors reversed course on their decision to not push for jail time for Flynn in early January because she said, her client "refused to lie for the prosecution" in the Rafiekian case.


    Erwin643 , 1 minute ago link

    Why can't guys like Flynn just take their military retirement and call it good?

    Jesus, the guy retired as a three-star!!!!

    gilhgvc , 3 minutes ago link

    do yourselves a favor and read her brief...Covington and the FBI are EVIL BASTARDS......god help any of us who find ourselves in the govt crosshairs..I don't give a rat's *** how much you despise Trump...these bastards in DC would cut your heads off if they could profit from it.

    PigMan , 11 minutes ago link

    This is how prosecutors in the federal courts get a 98% conviction rate.

    Take 5 years or risk 20 to life. "But I'm innocent".. So what.

    NoDebt , 8 minutes ago link

    Worse than that in this case. He had a deal that if he plead guilty they wouldn't go after his son and they wouldn't recommend prison time for him. He did what they asked. Then they recommended prison time in the end anyway.

    How that isn't legal malpractice, I'm sure I don't know.

    YouPi , 11 minutes ago link

    Brave Flynn was the first victim of the backstabbing MIC/Neocon-deep state and he must be the first to be rehabilitated!

    LetThemEatRand , 12 minutes ago link

    Good luck, Flynn. You're deep in the machine. The machine has one function -- to grind people up who dare defy the empire.

    hardmedicine , 19 minutes ago link

    Flynn needs to sue Comey after this for entrapment.

    ToWo , 14 minutes ago link

    Strzok needs to be sued many times too

    WhiteHose , 8 minutes ago link

    Sued? Not exactly the word i was thinking of.

    LetThemEatRand , 10 minutes ago link

    He may as well try suing the Queen of England. Federal prosecutors and federal law enforcement agents have almost complete immunity from civil causes of action arising from the performance of their duties, even if they acted maliciously, lied, etc. It's good to be the King (or Queen, or a federal prosecutor). People generally have no idea how badly the deck is stacked against them if they end up in the cross hairs of these people.

    [Jan 29, 2020] Former private equty shark now senator wants to derail Trump by calling witnesss in the Senate trial

    Earlier today Graham and Cruz turned the question back on Schiiff of Romney's son engaged with Burisma and colored it with enough language to subtly tell Romney to get in line as his control file is brimming with corruption in Ukraine. Notice how he became curiously quiet for the rest of the questioning leaving Murkowski and Collins to ask their own questions, which is why Burr joined their team.
    Notable quotes:
    "... Yup did you catch the Graham/Cruz question back to Schitt regarding Romney's son involved with Burisma? It was an epic take down letting him know his control file has a lot of evidence...Romney has been very quiet since them. Look for his vote to acquit. ..."
    "... This whole impeachment sham has been two-fold: ..."
    "... try and damage Trump as much as possible, but more importantly, ..."
    "... Try and take the spotlight off the total cesspool the Dem's and, possibly some Republicans (i.e., Romney), have made of the Ukraine. ..."
    "... All to cover the monstrous corruption of $multi Billion+ Ukraine aid that was funneled from Obummer's Administration to all the sons, daughters, brothers and phony front companies of the criminal Dimwits and RINOS. Same model in China and Iran. ..."
    Jan 29, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) - who has forcefully advocated for testimony from former national security adviser John Bolton after a leaked manuscript from his upcoming book claims President Trump directly tied Ukraine aid to investigations into the Bidens - said nothing after the lunch, which Murkowski did not attend.

    Mitt Romney created Obamacare for Massachusetts ... as anti American and anti republican as you can get... throw the two out.


    OpenEyes

    Mitt Romney is about to get thrown under the bus by the republican establishment.

    Then comes the Durham report

    Then comes the official investigation into the Ukraine corruption

    The comes the orange jumpsuit

    For Mittens, the hits will just keep coming

    Totally_Disillusioned

    Yup did you catch the Graham/Cruz question back to Schitt regarding Romney's son involved with Burisma? It was an epic take down letting him know his control file has a lot of evidence...Romney has been very quiet since them. Look for his vote to acquit.

    artvandalai , 7 minutes ago link

    Romney has something up his sleeve. Just wait.

    vmccord , 7 minutes ago link

    This whole impeachment sham has been two-fold:

    1) try and damage Trump as much as possible, but more importantly,

    2) Try and take the spotlight off the total cesspool the Dem's and, possibly some Republicans (i.e., Romney), have made of the Ukraine. Congress and other agencies could spend years investigating all the corruption there with starring roles by: Obama, Soros, much of the Obama State Department, CIA, Obama Defense Dept...........the list is quite long.

    MedTechEntrepreneur , 14 minutes ago link

    Eric CIAremella....IT WAS A SETUP.....A COUP

    Totally_Disillusioned , 11 minutes ago link

    All to cover the monstrous corruption of $multi Billion+ Ukraine aid that was funneled from Obummer's Administration to all the sons, daughters, brothers and phony front companies of the criminal Dimwits and RINOS. Same model in China and Iran.

    VodkaInKrakow , 1 hour ago link

    The American Enterprise Institute and The Heritage Foundation which shapes Republican policy, came up with that.

    Bush was going to present his plan in 2005 but was sidetracked by his Iraqi War Crimes. Romney tested it in Massachusetts.

    Democrats passed Republican ACA to woo industry donations to themselves. Republicans are pissed at that and want the donors back. THIS IS WHAT THE REAL FIGHT IS ABOUT.

    [Jan 29, 2020] Is It Over GOP Reportedly Has Votes To Block Witnesses In Early End To Impeachment

    Jan 29, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    VodkaInKrakow , 1 hour ago link

    Barr can investigate Biden's under US laws such as The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Why doesn't he?

    1. Barr and Trump know they have nothing.

    2. Barr and Trump are protecting the Bidens.

    Choose your poison. Any other choice is simply bullsh*t.

    Dan The Man , 1 hour ago link

    Barr isn't working with Trump..hes working against him

    ...jeeze where have you been?

    Dan The Man , 1 hour ago link

    Totally within his rights to restart an investigation into misappropriation of the aid money.

    Only a miopic fool would overlook that

    VodkaInKrakow , 1 hour ago link

    Trump didn't start an investigation otherwise The FBI would have started the investigation and sent investigators to Ukraine.

    Trump asked for a favor - quid pro quo Trump - from a foreign President, to interfere in US elections, for personal benefit.

    Again,

    Barr can investigate Biden's under US laws such as The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Why doesn't he?

    1. Barr and Trump know they have nothing.

    2. Barr and Trump are protecting the Bidens.

    Choose your poison. Any other choice is simply bullsh*t.

    [Jan 29, 2020] Top GOP Senators Say Horowitz Report Misled Public, Demand AG Barr Declassify Some Footnotes

    Jan 29, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    Top GOP Senators Say Horowitz Report "Misled Public", Demand AG Barr Declassify Some Footnotes by Tyler Durden Tue, 01/28/2020 - 21:35 0 SHARES Authored by Sara Carter via SaraACarter.com,

    Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee and Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee have formerly requested that Attorney General William Barr declassify four footnotes in Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz's report on the FBI's FISA abuse investigation. The letter states that the classified footnotes contradict information in Horowitz's report that appears to have misled the public.

    U.S. Sens. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, sent the classified letter Tuesday evening and questioned the contradiction between the footnotes and what was made public by Horowitz's team regarding the bureau's Crossfire Hurricane investigation.

    However, the Senator's did not disclose what section of the December FISA report contradicts the footnotes in their findings.

    The Senator's state in their letter to Barr that certain sections of Horowitz's report on the FBI are misleading the public.

    Part of the classified letter, which was obtained by SaraACarter.com states:

    "We have reviewed the findings of the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) with regard to the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane investigation, and we are deeply concerned about certain information that remains classified ," the letter states.

    "Specifically, we are concerned that certain sections of the public version of the report are misleading because they are contradicted by relevant and probative classified information redacted in four footnotes.

    This classified information is significant not only because it contradicts key statements in a section of the report , but also because it provides insight essential for an accurate evaluation of the entire investigation.

    The American people have a right to know what is contained within these four footnotes and, without that knowledge, they will not have a full picture as to what happened during the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. "

    Johnson and Grassley's office noted that "for maximum public transparency, the senators wrote a separate unclassified cover letter to describe their request."

    Full text of the unclassified letter to Barr below:

    Tags Politics


    dustinwind , 1 hour ago link

    I wonder what kind of back room deals are going on right now that got the establishment working so hard to make sure the people are distracted from?

    The impeachment is a giant nothing burger considering democrats lack the votes and any reasonable person knows that Barr was destined to return a giant nothing burger from the beginning so there must be something important the establishment wants to keep hidden by keeping these nothing burgers alive and in our faces.

    MadelynMarie , 1 hour ago link

    Didn't NeoCon puppet Trump order Barr to declass the Russia hoax docs?? Then deep state/CIA Barr and dirty corrupt DOJ turned everything around on Trump, and said Barr was ordered to determine IF anything needed to be declassified, which means, it will NEVER HAPPEN!!!

    Trump had leverage over the domestic/global swamp when he held the thread of declassification over their heads, but once he ordered Barr to do it, and Barr turned it around on him, he lost all of his leverage/power. More here on leverage and declassification:

    https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/10/trump_declassification_and_leverage.html

    GreatSunnyDays , 1 hour ago link

    .Horowitz discredited himself in an earlier report and Congress testimony when he said "there was no bias in the FBI's efforts to surveil Trump"

    He's a Democrat. Wanna know why some businesses fail? They let 'qualified' but sabotaging people stay around.

    Governments can fail too. Looks like Horowitz has proven once again he's not neutral. I actually emailed the White House, I believe after he testifyied in that hearing, to get rid of him. Barr is likewise useless in terms of protecting the government and citizens from the deep state.

    ScratInTheHat , 1 hour ago link

    The US government is for the US government. The system protects the system! It does not matter who it looks like is running it because the system is running the system and the system is covering for everyone in the system that needs to be protected to protect the system.

    SRV , 1 hour ago link

    If they were Democrats the footnotes would already be splashed all over the front page of today's NYTs

    [Jan 28, 2020] Pompeo's Petty Despotism

    Pompeo proved to be impulsive bully. Like Bolton, he is yet another "wise" Trump choice that disqualifies Trump for running in 2020 elections.
    Jan 28, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com
    Nomuka 15 hours ago • edited
    Well, it looks like I'll need to start contributing to NPR again. They are a little too woke for my tastes, but Pompeo is a liar, and frankly beyond the pale. A perfect representative of the current administration by the way. Kudos to NPR for standing up to him.
    TomG 10 hours ago
    One correction--instead of "by acting as if he is a petty despot" it should read "evermore blatantly showing the world the petty despot he is."
    bumbershoot 10 hours ago
    The Secretary of State has all of the vanity and arrogance of a diva, but none of the talent.

    Hmm, that seems to remind me of someone else in this administration...

    FL_Cottonmouth 9 hours ago
    Much like U.S. foreign policy, it seems that Mike Pompeo is going to ignore the facts and keep recklessly escalating the conflict. Surely he's aware that The Washington Post published the email correspondence between Ms. Kelley and press aide. This just makes him look like a coward.
    ZizaNiam 9 hours ago
    From the Trump voter perspective, this journalist should feel lucky that she wasn't sent to Guantanamo Bay. All Trump voters think this way, there is no exception.
    Taras77 6 hours ago
    Absolutely no longer any surprises about this pathetic individual!

    [Jan 28, 2020] Previously considered lost Seth Rich-related emails have been uncovered. These emails weren't just from anybody. These emails were between FBI lovebirds Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, the two most corrupt individuals involved in the Russia Collusion Hoax

    Jan 28, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    hooligan2009 , 39 seconds ago link

    remember seth rich!

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/01/breaking-exclusive-christopher-wrays-fbi-caught-in-another-lie-and-cover-up-fbi-emails-on-seth-rich-uncovered/

    "Today, January 27, 2020, we have a stunning update ==>>

    After previously claiming no FBI records could be found related to Seth Rich, emails have been uncovered. These emails weren't just from anybody. These emails were between FBI lovebirds Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, the two most corrupt individuals involved in the Russia Collusion Hoax.

    In a set of emails released by Judicial Watch on January 22, 2020, provided by a FOIA request on Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, two pages on emails refer to Seth Rich:"

    https://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/JW-v-DOJ-Strzok-Page-Prod-16-00154.pdf

    [Jan 28, 2020] Impeachment Trump Team Nails Bidens, Burisma, And Obama's Hot-Mic Moment With Russia

    Jan 27, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    Impeachment: Trump Team Nails Bidens, Burisma, And Obama's Hot-Mic Moment With Russia by Tyler Durden Mon, 01/27/2020 - 20:05 0 SHARES

    President Trump's defense team cut straight to the heart of the impeachment on Monday, insisting that Democrats have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the Bidens didn't engage in textbook corruption in Ukraine - and that President Trump's request to investigate it was out of line.

    Former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi, a recent addition to the White House communications team, walked the Senate through the entire malarkey for 30 minutes , including Hunter Biden's 'nepotistic at best, nefarious at worst' board seat at Ukrainian gas giant Burisma.

    "All we are saying is that there was a basis to talk about this, to raise this issue, and that is enough," said Bondi, who noted that Hunter Biden was paid over $83,000 per month to sit on Burisma's board even though he had zero experience in natural gas or Ukrainian relations while his father was Vice President and in charge of Ukraine policy for the United States.

    Pam Bondi explains the Bidens' connection to the corrupt Ukrainian gas company Burisma https://t.co/SpmArCYbb7 pic.twitter.com/aKNqQKo8cl

    -- RNC Research (@RNCResearch) January 27, 2020

    https://www.youtube.com/embed/6kqmojRRqB0

    Why should the American people care about Hunter Biden & #Burisma ?

    The answer is simple: there is significant evidence of corruption.

    WATCH Pam Bondi break down #BurismaBiden . ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/wokNp2vpXl

    -- Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) January 28, 2020

    Even CNN had to give it to the Trump team...

    CNN's Toobin: Bondi showed Hunter Biden's "sleazy" hiring by Burisma https://t.co/PgZePnlVHE pic.twitter.com/d2N6cXki46

    -- RNC Research (@RNCResearch) January 27, 2020

    Trump attorney Eric Herschmann said that Democrats have been "circling the wagons" to protect the Bidens - and are refusing to investigate the Bidens, claiming without conducting an investigation that all allegations against them are 'debunked.'

    Herschmann: Democrats "circling the wagons" to protect Joe Biden during impeachment proceedings https://t.co/HUUzQN4MX4 pic.twitter.com/qzmsVbetDO

    -- RNC Research (@RNCResearch) January 27, 2020

    Herschmann then laid into former President Obama, who was caught on a hot mic asking Russian President Dmitry Medvedev for "space" until after his election .

    One can only imagine what would happen if the Left & the media applied their manufactured outrage to Obama's actions & statements.

    Remember when Obama was caught asking Russian President Dmitry Medvedev for "space" until after his election?

    Democrats hope you don't remember. pic.twitter.com/dWy24Qc7TD

    -- Rep Andy Biggs (@RepAndyBiggsAZ) January 27, 2020

    Attorney Jay Sekulow argued that Democrats have been trying to "interfere with the President's capability to govern" since he was elected.

    . @JaySekulow is spot on.

    Democrats have been trying to "interfere with the President's capability to govern" since the day @realDonaldTrump was elected. #StopTheMadness pic.twitter.com/ft7hkk6EsE

    -- Ronna McDaniel (@GOPChairwoman) January 27, 2020

    CheapBastard , 31 minutes ago link

    Jane Raskin, another Trump lawyer, gave a brilliant defense also:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opUEUiOgz5Y

    Everyone should listen to her 15 minute defense and learn just in case you are attacked some day with false allegations.

    [Jan 27, 2020] Trump's Faith Advisor Paula White: To say no to president Trump would be saying no to God

    From comments: "The Christian Taliban." George Carlin: "GOD NEEDS MORR MONNEEYYY"
    Nov 05, 2019 | www.youtube.com

    'When I walk on White House grounds, God walks on White House grounds.' -- Meet Paula White, spiritual adviser to President Trump and the latest addition to the White House staff.
    " Subscribe to NowThis: http://go.nowth.is/News_Subscribe

    Hansel Ontaneda , 2 months ago

    "To say no to president Trump would be saying no to God" this s**t is just mind blowing

    [Jan 27, 2020] The end of Trump? Trump betrayed all major promises of his 2016 election campaign. Trump needs to go...

    Highly recommended!
    Notable quotes:
    "... This may well be a fatal mistake of his. And while i have thought Trump to be the lesser evil compared to Clinton, i am now at a point where i seriously fear what his ignorance and slavery to the neocon doctrine may bring the world in 4 more years. ..."
    "... besides much talk and showmastery, he has not really changed anything substantial in this regard; Nothing that could seriously change the course. ..."
    "... So he stripped himself of any true argument to vote for him, besides for ultra neocons and ultra fundamental evangelical Christians. And even they don't seem to trust in his intentions. ..."
    Jan 27, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    EveryoneIsBiased , 26 January 2020 at 04:40 PM

    Thank you Colonel; I have been waiting for your take on this. And thank you for opening the comments again. If there is a problem with my post, please point them out to me.

    And i agree. This may well be a fatal mistake of his. And while i have thought Trump to be the lesser evil compared to Clinton, i am now at a point where i seriously fear what his ignorance and slavery to the neocon doctrine may bring the world in 4 more years.

    Still, immigration is another important issue, but besides much talk and showmastery, he has not really changed anything substantial in this regard; Nothing that could seriously change the course.

    So he stripped himself of any true argument to vote for him, besides for ultra neocons and ultra fundamental evangelical Christians. And even they don't seem to trust in his intentions.

    And China? He may have changed some small to medium problems for the better, but nothing is changed in the overall trend of the US continuing to loose while China emerges as the next global superpower.

    It may have been slowed for some years; It may even have been accelerated, now that China has been waken up to the extend of the threat posed by the US.

    North Korea? They surely will never denuclearize. Even less after how Trump showed the world how he treats international law and even allies.

    With Trump its all photo ops and showmanship. And while he senses what issues are important, it is worth a damn if he butchers the execution, or values photo ops more than substantial progress.

    Not that i would see a democratic alternative. No. But at least now everyone who wants to know can see, that he is neither one.

    4 years ago, democracy was corrupted, but at least there was someone who presented himself as an alternative to that rotten establishment.
    Now, even that small ray of light is as dark as it gets.
    And that is the saddest thing. What worth is democracy, when one does not even have a true alternative, besides Tulsi on endless wars, and Bernie for the socialist ;) ?

    I just have watched again the Ken Burns documentary of the civil war. I know it is not perfect (Though i love Shelby Foote's parts), but the sense of the divided 2 Americas there, is still the same today. Today, America seems to break apart culturally, socially and economically on the fault lines that have sucked it into the civil war over 150 years ago.

    And just like with seeing no real way out politically, i sadly can see no way to heal and unite this country, as it never was truly united after the civil war, if not ever before. As you Colonel said some weeks ago, the US were never a nation.

    And looking at other countries, only a major national crisis may change this.
    A most sad realization. But this hold true also for other western countries, including my own.

    An even worse decade seems to be ahead.

    [Jan 27, 2020] The Dangers of Conflating and Inflating Interests

    Notable quotes:
    "... Taylor exaggerates what the conflict is about by saying that Ukraine is defending "the West." That's not true. Ukraine is defending itself. The U.S. does not have a vital interest in this conflict, but Taylor talks about it as if we do. He says that the relationship with Ukraine is "key" to our national security, but that is simply false. To say that it is key to our national security means that we are supposed to believe that it is crucially important to our national security. That suggests that U.S. national security would seriously compromised if that relationship weakened, but that doesn't make any sense. We usually don't even talk about our major treaty allies this way, so what justification is there for describing a relationship with a weak partner government like this? ..."
    "... The op-ed reads like a textbook case of clientitis, in which a former U.S. envoy ends up making the Ukrainian government's argument for them ..."
    "... To support Ukraine is to support a rules-based international order that enabled major powers in Europe to avoid war for seven decades. It is to support democracy over autocracy. It is to support freedom over unfreedom. Most Americans do. ..."
    "... These make for catchy slogans, but they are lousy policy arguments. This rhetoric veers awfully close to saying that you aren't on the side of freedom if you don't support a particular policy option. In my experience, advocates for more aggressive measures use rhetoric like this because the rest of their argument isn't very strong. It is possible to reject illegal military interventions of all governments without wanting to throw weapons at the problem. ..."
    "... Taylor has set up the policy argument in such a way that there seems to be no choice, but the U.S. doesn't have to support Ukraine's war effort. He oversells Ukraine's importance to the U.S. to justify U.S. support, because an accurate assessment would make the current policy of arming their government much harder to defend. Ukraine isn't really that important to U.S. security and our security doesn't require us to provide military assistance to them. Of course, our government has chosen to do it anyway, but this is just one more optional entanglement that the U.S. could have avoided without jeopardizing American or allied security. ..."
    Jan 27, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

    ormer ambassador William Taylor wrote an op-ed on Ukraine in an attempt to answer Pompeo's question about whether Americans care about Ukraine. It is not very persuasive. For one thing, he starts off by exaggerating the importance of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine to make it seem as if the U.S. has a major stake in the outcome:

    Here's why the answer should be yes: Ukraine is defending itself and the West against Russian attack. If Ukraine succeeds, we succeed. The relationship between the United States and Ukraine is key to our national security, and Americans should care about Ukraine.

    Taylor exaggerates what the conflict is about by saying that Ukraine is defending "the West." That's not true. Ukraine is defending itself. The U.S. does not have a vital interest in this conflict, but Taylor talks about it as if we do. He says that the relationship with Ukraine is "key" to our national security, but that is simply false. To say that it is key to our national security means that we are supposed to believe that it is crucially important to our national security. That suggests that U.S. national security would seriously compromised if that relationship weakened, but that doesn't make any sense. We usually don't even talk about our major treaty allies this way, so what justification is there for describing a relationship with a weak partner government like this?

    The op-ed reads like a textbook case of clientitis, in which a former U.S. envoy ends up making the Ukrainian government's argument for them. The danger of exaggerating U.S. interests and conflating them with Ukraine's is that we fool ourselves into thinking that we are acting out of necessity and in our own defense when we are really choosing to take sides in a conflict that does not affect our security. This is the kind of thinking that encourages people to spout nonsense about "fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here." If we view Ukraine as "the front line" of a larger struggle, that will also make it more difficult to resolve the conflict. When a local conflict is turned into a proxy fight between great powers, the local people will be the ones made to suffer to serve the ambitions of the patrons. Once the U.S. insists that its own security is bound up with the outcome of this conflict, there is an incentive to be considered the "winner," but the reality is that Ukraine will always matter less to the U.S. than it does to Russia.

    If this relationship were so important to U.S. security, how is it that the U.S. managed to get along just fine for decades after the end of the Cold War when that relationship was not particularly strong? As recently as the Obama administration, our government did not consider Ukraine to be important enough to supply with weapons. Ukraine was viewed correctly as being of peripheral interest to the U.S., and nothing has changed in the years since then to make it more important.

    Taylor keeps repeating that "Ukraine is the front line" in a larger conflict between Russia and the West, but that becomes true only if Western governments choose to treat it as one. He concludes his op-ed with a series of ideological assertions:

    To support Ukraine is to support a rules-based international order that enabled major powers in Europe to avoid war for seven decades. It is to support democracy over autocracy. It is to support freedom over unfreedom. Most Americans do.

    These make for catchy slogans, but they are lousy policy arguments. This rhetoric veers awfully close to saying that you aren't on the side of freedom if you don't support a particular policy option. In my experience, advocates for more aggressive measures use rhetoric like this because the rest of their argument isn't very strong. It is possible to reject illegal military interventions of all governments without wanting to throw weapons at the problem.

    Taylor has set up the policy argument in such a way that there seems to be no choice, but the U.S. doesn't have to support Ukraine's war effort. He oversells Ukraine's importance to the U.S. to justify U.S. support, because an accurate assessment would make the current policy of arming their government much harder to defend. Ukraine isn't really that important to U.S. security and our security doesn't require us to provide military assistance to them. Of course, our government has chosen to do it anyway, but this is just one more optional entanglement that the U.S. could have avoided without jeopardizing American or allied security.

    [Jan 27, 2020] Guess Who Was In Charge Of Reviewing Bolton's Leaked Book At The NSC

    Bolton is pretty dangerous neocon scum... Now he tried to backstab Trump, so Trump gets what he deserves as only complete idiot or a fully controlled puppet would appoint Bolton to his Administration.
    Notable quotes:
    "... Breitbart News ..."
    "... Wall Street Journal ..."
    Jan 27, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
    Breitbart News , which would include the recently leaked manuscript of former National Security adviser John Bolton.

    The report describes the reviews as a "standard process that allows the NSC to review book manuscripts, op-eds, or any other material for any classified material to be eliminated before publication."

    The New York Times reported Sunday evening that Bolton's draft book manuscript, which had been submitted to the NSC for prepublication review on Dec. 30, alleged that President Trump told Bolton in August 2019 that he wanted to withhold security assistance to Ukraine until it agreed to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, among others.

    It was not clear if the Times had seen the Bolton manuscript; its sources were "multiple people" who "described Mr. Bolton's account of the Ukraine affair."

    Bolton's lawyer, Chuck Cooper, issued a statement in which he said: "It is clear, regrettably, from The New York Times article published today that the prepublication review process has been corrupted ." He did not confirm or deny the Times ' reporting on the content of the manuscript. - Breitbart News

    What a coincidence! While Alexander Vindman at the NSC testifies against Trump at the House impeachment, the other brother (Yevgeny) appears to be in charge of clearing John Bolton's book for publication.

    If you believe in coincidences. https://t.co/qtpoqeGpaj

    -- Emerald Robinson ✝️ (@EmeraldRobinson) January 27, 2020

    Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman famously testified against President Trump during House impeachment hearings in November, where he admitted to violating the chain of command when he reported his concerns over a July 25 phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky.

    Nunes: Did you know that financial records show a Ukrainian natural gas company, Burisma, routed more than $ 3 million to American accounts tied to Hunter Biden?

    Vindman, whose job is to handle Ukraine policy: "I'm not aware of this fact." pic.twitter.com/6yFbWkufmH

    -- Nate Madden (@NateOnTheHill) November 19, 2019

    Breitbart notes that the Vindman brothers have offices across from each other at the NSC , and that the Wall Street Journal describes Vindman as "an NSC lawyer handling ethics issues." Alexander Vindman, meanwhile, has said that his brother was the " lead ethics official " at the agency.

    Meanwhile, looks like people are already distancing themselves from Bolton's claims that President Trump explicitly linked Ukraine aid with an investigation into the Bidens.

    And now contradicted by Mick Mulvaney. https://t.co/1dhuCQ8UHZ

    -- Sean Davis (@seanmdav) January 27, 2020

    hooligan2009 , 39 seconds ago link

    remember seth rich!

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/01/breaking-exclusive-christopher-wrays-fbi-caught-in-another-lie-and-cover-up-fbi-emails-on-seth-rich-uncovered/

    "Today, January 27, 2020, we have a stunning update ==>>

    After previously claiming no FBI records could be found related to Seth Rich, emails have been uncovered. These emails weren't just from anybody. These emails were between FBI lovebirds Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, the two most corrupt individuals involved in the Russia Collusion Hoax.

    In a set of emails released by Judicial Watch on January 22, 2020, provided by a FOIA request on Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, two pages on emails refer to Seth Rich:"

    https://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/JW-v-DOJ-Strzok-Page-Prod-16-00154.pdf

    Moneycircus , 1 minute ago link

    The Vindman brothers are being "handled" by someone.

    I wager they have political "groomers", just like Obama did.

    A Jewish photographer has been capturing Alexander Vindman and his twin for nearly 4 decades
    https://www.jta.org/2019/11/06/culture/a-jewish-photographer-has-been-capturing-alexander-vindman-and-his-twin-for-nearly-4-decades

    They were also featured in a 1985 Ken Burns documentary about immigrants.

    Crush the cube , 7 minutes ago link

    These guys are Ukrainian mob moles, sent here by their Ukie Jewish oligarchs when their positions of privilege went into decline with the collapse of communism. Because its typical for three first generation schmucks fresh off the immigrant boat to end up with two as officers both working in the white house, and the third brother back in Ukie Euro land controlling a major bank hip deep in all the scandal.

    Think any investigative agency will touch it, don't **** with the mossad.

    Attitude_Check , 7 minutes ago link

    The rats are starting to tear into each other - good.

    Moneycircus , 13 minutes ago link

    Retired Army Officer Remembers Lt. Col. Vindman as Partisan Democrat Who Ridiculed America

    https://tennesseestar.com/2019/11/05/retired-army-officer-remembers-lt-col-vindman-as-partisan-democrat-who-ridiculed-america/

    Nov 5, 2019In an eye-opening thread on Twitter last week, retired U.S. Army Lt. Colonel Jim Hickman said that he "verbally reprimanded " Vindman after he heard some of his derisive remarks for himself. " Do not let the uniform fool you," Hickman wrote. "He is a political activist in uniform."

    Harley Vet , 14 minutes ago link

    Donald Trump is the most unqualified person ever to be elected president.

    Southern_Boy , 19 minutes ago link

    So why isn't Vindman doing contracts in North Alaska or deputy attache in Namibia tonight until he gets passed over 3 times for promotion and forced to retire unless Durham can find evidence of his guilt?

    Obake158 , 26 minutes ago link

    Speaking of Vindman, an Obama holdover, White House HR head, has prohibited Vindman's removal from the NSC. He even gets a $30k raise and is permitted to serve out his term until June. You can't make this **** up:

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AV9-7R5or6w

    Deep Snorkeler , 30 minutes ago link

    John Bolton Trump's Sidekick

    1. manifestly guilty of the planning, preparation, initiation and execution of the crime of aggression against Iraq
    2. promoted the US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal
    3. setting the stage for an unlawful US military intervention in Venezuela - plotting a coup against a foreign government
    4. hates the United Nations and international law
    5. protected Israel by vetoing all UN resolutions targeting Israel and supported Jerusalem as Israel's capital
    6. against the International Criminal Court

    [Jan 27, 2020] Trump, yes Trump, screamed at the top of his lungs and I believe took out a full page ad in the newspapers that we should close the borders to all travelers from Africa. On the advise of the CDC, Obama refused to do this. The people, sensing that Obama was not interested in their welfare, elected a Republican Congress in a landslide. Trump basically was saying that Obama was soft on his birthplace, Africa.

    Jan 27, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    Stephanie , 26 January 2020 at 07:39 PM

    One other thing. Coronavirus. He could emerge the Hero of Wuhan, like a modern Flashman, but there are many forces at play. Or I should say, there is *a* force at play going against his ability to do that.

    A little history. I believe it was the first midterms of Obama's Presidency, the Ebola scare hit right before the election. Trump, yes Trump, screamed at the top of his lungs and I believe took out a full page ad in the newspapers that we should close the borders to all travelers from Africa. On the advise of the CDC, Obama refused to do this. The people, sensing that Obama was not interested in their welfare, elected a Republican Congress in a landslide. Trump basically was saying that Obama was soft on his birthplace, Africa.

    Well, the shoe is on the other foot now. The force that is now in play, that was definitely not in play with Ebola, is money. The economic consequences of a serious epidemic, a bit or maybe a lot more intense than SARS, because that is what they're talking about, will wreak havoc on the world economy. Just start with China. However severe the disease is, the Chinese are going completely nuts about it. The second largest economy on earth.

    Trump's tweets thus far do not mention coronavirus. Schiff exists, but the coronavirus doesn't. Eventually, he will have to say something, and it will be very hard for him to say anything except that health professionals are doing an incredibly good job... without going into the details of what that might mean. Sort of like saying we have the best military on earth and brushing off traumatic brain injuries to 34 service men and women as headaches. Because if he says anything that isn't happy talk, the markets, the rentiers, are not going to like it. Essentially, he can close the borders to illegal Latin Americans, but he can't tamper with China.

    Viruses are spread by touching something with living virus on it and then touching your nose. We touch are noses countless times a day. Handwashing is the absolute key. True droplet spread--someone across the room sneezes and you inhale the droplets--is exceedingly rare.

    Artemesia -> Stephanie... , 27 January 2020 at 09:09 AM
    Iran Lawmaker Warns About Spread Of Coronavirus By Chinese Tourists
    https://en.radiofarda.com/a/iran-lawmaker-warns-about-spread-of-coronavirus-by-chinese-tourists/30397701.html

    Significant part is that the legislator for a province where an annual festival is to take place, that attracts many Chinese tourists, is seeking to ban Chinese participation this year.

    Gutsy move, to forego tourist revenue to protect the locals.

    [Jan 27, 2020] The ME may yet destroy Trump

    Trump outlived his shelf life. Money quote: "This may well be a fatal mistake of his. And while i have thought Trump to be the lesser evil compared to Clinton, i am now at a point where i seriously fear what his ignorance and slavery to the neocon doctrine may bring the world in 4 more years."
    Notable quotes:
    "... Some combination of the disasters that may emerge from these ME factors might well turn Trump's base against him and this result would be entirely of his own making ..."
    "... This may well be a fatal mistake of his. And while i have thought Trump to be the lesser evil compared to Clinton, i am now at a point where i seriously fear what his ignorance and slavery to the neocon doctrine may bring the world in 4 more years. ..."
    "... besides much talk and showmastery, he has not really changed anything substantial in this regard; Nothing that could seriously change the course. ..."
    "... So he stripped himself of any true argument to vote for him, besides for ultra neocons and ultra fundamental evangelical Christians. And even they don't seem to trust in his intentions. ..."
    "... Trump stands no chance if things get hot with Iran. He didn't win by enough to sacrifice the antiwar vote. ..."
    "... Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo have got themselves in a no-win situation. NATO cannot occupy both Syria and Iraq, illegally. There are way too few troops. The bases in these nations are sitting ducks for the next precision ballistic missile attack. Any buildup would be contested. Ground travel curtailed. A Peace Treaty and Withdrawal is the only safe way out. ..."
    "... Donald Trump is blessed with his opponents. Democrats who restarted the Cold War with Russia in 2014 are now using it to justify his Impeachment. If leaders cannot see reality clearly, they will keep making incredibly stupid mistakes. If Joe Biden is his opponent, I can't vote for either. Both spread chaos. ..."
    "... President Trump controls part of the White House -- definitely not the NSC ..."
    "... His hold elsewhere in the DC bureaucracy may be 5 - 15%. When the President decided to pull US troops out of Syria, his NSC Director flew to Egypt and Turkey to countermand the order. Facing the opposition of a united DC SWAMP, the President caved, and thereby delayed his formal impeachment by a year. ..."
    "... Going out on a limb, President Trump continues to play a very weak hand and may survive to fight another day. Fortunately for the US, his tax and regulatory policies, as well as his economic negotiations with China, Japan, Korea and Mexico seem to be on target and successful. ..."
    Jan 26, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    President Trump will easily be acquitted in the senate trial. This may occur this week and there will probably be no witnesses called. That will be an additional victory for him and will add to the effect of his trade deal victories and the general state of the US economy. These factors should point to a solid victory in November for him and the GOP in Congress.

    Ah! Not so fast the cognoscenti may cry out. Not so fast. The Middle East is a graveyard of dreams:

    1. Iraq. Street demonstrations in Iraq against a US alliance are growing more intense. There may well have been a million people in Muqtada al-Sadr's extravaganza. Shia fury over the death of Soleimani is quite real. Trump's belief that in a contest of the will he will prevail over the Iraqi Shia is a delusion, a delusion born of his narcissistic personality and his unwillingness to listen to people who do not share his delusions. A hostile Iraqi government and street mobs would make life unbearable for US forces there.

    2. Syria. The handful of American troops east and north of the Euphrates "guarding" Syrian oil from the Syrian government are in a precarious position with the Shia Iraqis at their backs across the border and a hostile array of SAA, Turks, jihadis and potentially Russians to their front and on their flanks.

    3. Palestine. The "Deal of the Century" is approaching announcement. From what is known of its contours, the deal will kill any remaining prospects for Palestinian statehood and will relegate all Palestinians (both Israeli citizens and the merely occupied) to the status of helots forever . Look it up. In return the deal will offer the helotry substantial bribes in economic aid money. Trump evidently continues to believe that Palestinians are untermenschen . He believe they will sell their freedom. The Palestinian Authority has already rejected this deal. IMO their reaction to the imposition of this regime is likely to be another intifada.

    Some combination of the disasters that may emerge from these ME factors might well turn Trump's base against him and this result would be entirely of his own making . pl


    Elora Danan , 26 January 2020 at 11:24 AM

    ...and his unwillingness to listen to people who do not share his delusions...

    That precisely is the problem, apart from explosive shouting Pompeo, it seems he has recruited this extravanza of woman as adviser into the WH...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w0kSkvusjI&feature=emb_title

    Could it be true? If that is the case, it´s more scary than Elora thought when that of Soleimani happened....This starts to look as a frenopatic...isn´t it?

    HK Leo Strauss , 26 January 2020 at 01:12 PM
    With Iran and her allies holding the figurative Trump Card on escalation, will they ramp up the pressure to topple him? They could end up with a Dem who couldn't afford to "lose" Syria or Iraq.
    JamesT , 26 January 2020 at 04:14 PM
    I submit to you, Colonel, that the biggest threat to Trump is a Bernie/Tulsi ticket. Bernie is leading in the Iowa and NH polls, and the recent spat with Warren (in my opinion) leaves Bernie with no viable choice for VP other than Tulsi.
    Barbara Ann said in reply to JamesT ... , 26 January 2020 at 05:32 PM
    JamesT

    Judging by what just happened at the embassy in Baghdad, the intentions of the Iraqi electorate would seem to be a more pressing concern.

    EveryoneIsBiased , 26 January 2020 at 04:40 PM
    Thank you Colonel; I have been waiting for your take on this. And thank you for opening the comments again. If there is a problem with my post, please point them out to me.

    And i agree. This may well be a fatal mistake of his. And while i have thought Trump to be the lesser evil compared to Clinton, i am now at a point where i seriously fear what his ignorance and slavery to the neocon doctrine may bring the world in 4 more years.

    Still, immigration is another important issue, but besides much talk and showmastery, he has not really changed anything substantial in this regard; Nothing that could seriously change the course.

    So he stripped himself of any true argument to vote for him, besides for ultra neocons and ultra fundamental evangelical Christians. And even they don't seem to trust in his intentions.

    And China? He may have changed some small to medium problems for the better, but nothing is changed in the overall trend of the US continuing to loose while China emerges as the next global superpower.

    It may have been slowed for some years; It may even have been accelerated, now that China has been waken up to the extend of the threat posed by the US.

    North Korea? They surely will never denuclearize. Even less after how Trump showed the world how he treats international law and even allies.

    With Trump its all photo ops and showmanship. And while he senses what issues are important, it is worth a damn if he butchers the execution, or values photo ops more than substantial progress.

    Not that i would see a democratic alternative. No. But at least now everyone who wants to know can see, that he is neither one.

    4 years ago, democracy was corrupted, but at least there was someone who presented himself as an alternative to that rotten establishment.
    Now, even that small ray of light is as dark as it gets.
    And that is the saddest thing. What worth is democracy, when one does not even have a true alternative, besides Tulsi on endless wars, and Bernie for the socialist ;) ?

    I just have watched again the Ken Burns documentary of the civil war. I know it is not perfect (Though i love Shelby Foote's parts), but the sense of the divided 2 Americas there, is still the same today. Today, America seems to break apart culturally, socially and economically on the fault lines that have sucked it into the civil war over 150 years ago.

    And just like with seeing no real way out politically, i sadly can see no way to heal and unite this country, as it never was truly united after the civil war, if not ever before. As you Colonel said some weeks ago, the US were never a nation.

    And looking at other countries, only a major national crisis may change this.
    A most sad realization. But this hold true also for other western countries, including my own.

    An even worse decade seems to be ahead.

    turcopolier , 26 January 2020 at 05:15 PM
    everyoneisbiased

    The economy is actually quite good and he is NOT "a dictator." Dictators are not put on trial by the legislature. He is extremely ignorant and suffers from a life in which only money mattered.

    emboil , 26 January 2020 at 05:27 PM
    Once Bernie wins the nomination, it's going to be escalation time. Trump stands no chance if things get hot with Iran. He didn't win by enough to sacrifice the antiwar vote.
    walrus , 26 January 2020 at 06:14 PM
    I'm starting to think that Trumps weakness is believing that everyone and everything has a monetary price. I think perhaps his dealings with China may reinforce his perception, as, also, his alleged success in bullying the Europeans over Iran -- with the threat of tariffs on European car imports. His almost weekly references to Iraqi and Syrian oil, allies "not paying their way", financial threats to the Iraq Government, all suggest a fixation on finance that has served him well in business.

    The trouble is that one day President Trump is going to discover there is something money can't buy, to the detriment of America.

    VietnamVet , 26 January 2020 at 07:28 PM
    Colonel,

    Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo have got themselves in a no-win situation. NATO cannot occupy both Syria and Iraq, illegally. There are way too few troops. The bases in these nations are sitting ducks for the next precision ballistic missile attack. Any buildup would be contested. Ground travel curtailed. A Peace Treaty and Withdrawal is the only safe way out.

    Donald Trump is blessed with his opponents. Democrats who restarted the Cold War with Russia in 2014 are now using it to justify his Impeachment. If leaders cannot see reality clearly, they will keep making incredibly stupid mistakes. If Joe Biden is his opponent, I can't vote for either. Both spread chaos.

    My subconscious is again acting out. The mini-WWIII with Iran could shut off Middle Eastern oil at any time. The Fed is back to injecting digital money into the market. China has quarantined 44 million people. Global trade is fragile. Today there are four cases of Wuhan Coronavirus in the USA.

    If confirmed that the virus is contagious without symptoms and an infected person transmits the virus to 2 to 3 people and with a 3% mortality rate and a higher 15% rate for the infirmed, the resupply trip to Safeway this summer could be both futile and dangerous.

    Haralambos , 26 January 2020 at 07:48 PM
    Two Greek words: "hubris" and "nemesis" come to mind.
    Patrick Armstrong , 26 January 2020 at 08:19 PM
    It's an old story. Mr X is elected POTUS; going to do this and that; something happens in the MENA. That's all anyone remembers. Maybe time to kiss Israel goodbye, tell SA to sell in whatever currency it wants, and realise that oil producers have to sell the stuff -- it's no good to them in the ground...
    Petrel , 26 January 2020 at 08:31 PM
    President Trump controls part of the White House -- definitely not the NSC -- and much of the Department of Commerce & Treasury. His hold elsewhere in the DC bureaucracy may be 5 - 15%. When the President decided to pull US troops out of Syria, his NSC Director flew to Egypt and Turkey to countermand the order. Facing the opposition of a united DC SWAMP, the President caved, and thereby delayed his formal impeachment by a year.

    Going out on a limb, President Trump continues to play a very weak hand and may survive to fight another day. Fortunately for the US, his tax and regulatory policies, as well as his economic negotiations with China, Japan, Korea and Mexico seem to be on target and successful.

    Godfree Roberts , 26 January 2020 at 09:19 PM
    As Richard Nixon told a young Donald Rumsfeld when he asked about specializing in Latin America, "Nobody gives a shit about Latin America."

    Nobody gives a shit about the Middle East.

    Johnb , 26 January 2020 at 11:27 PM
    We may yet see John McCains Revenge in the Senate Colonel, it only requires 4 Republican votes to move into Witnesses.
    EEngineer , 26 January 2020 at 11:27 PM
    Carthage must be destroyed! I don't know if Trump is going to war with Iran willingly or with a Neocon gun to his head, but if he's impeached I expect Pence to go on a holy crusade.

    [Jan 27, 2020] 'This Looks Like A Tactic To Sell Books' GOP Senators Pan 11th Hour Bolton Leak While Romney And Collins Play Ball Zero Hedg

    Jan 27, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine supported comments made by Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) over whether former National Security Adviser John Bolton should testify in President Trump's impeachment trial, after a manuscript of his upcoming book was leaked to the New York Times which claims that President Trump explicitly linked a hold on Ukraine aid to an investigation of the Bidens. "The reports about John Bolton's book strengthen the case for witnesses and have prompted a number of conversations among my colleagues," said Collins.

    JUST IN: GOP Sen. Susan Collins: "The reports about John Bolton's book strengthen the case for witnesses and have prompted a number of conversations among my colleagues." https://t.co/wDglFX1ipA pic.twitter.com/DlSjXMfDsk

    -- ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) January 27, 2020

    Collins echoed Monday comments by Romney, who said " it is increasingly apparent that it would be important to hear from John Bolton ," adding that it is "increasingly likely" that other GOP senators would join the 11th hour call.

    ... ... ...

    Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said " This looks like a marketing tactic to sell books is what it looks like to me."

    Sen. Blunt on John Bolton:

    "I can't imagine that anything he would have to say would change the outcome of the final vote. Might be interesting, might be an oversight question that Congress wants to take months to pursue."

    "I think Bolton is credible, he's a friend of mine."

    -- Alan He (@alanhe) January 27, 2020

    [Jan 27, 2020] Adam Schiff The Perfect Scoundrel

    Jan 27, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    Adam Schiff: "The Perfect Scoundrel"? by Tyler Durden Mon, 01/27/2020 - 14:35 0 SHARES

    Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

    Canary Trap

    What is the canary's purpose in life? Why, to sing, of course - at least from the human's point-of-view.

    What is the canary trap? Why, to catch humans who are singing like canaries.

    The latest occult dish served up by Democratic Party spirit cookers in the impeachment ritual is the release of "bombshell" news leaked to The New York Times late Sunday from a new book by Mr. Trump's erstwhile National Security Advisor, John Bolton, purporting verbal evidence of a quid pro quo in the Ukraine aid-for-investigations allegation. Better hold the premature ejaculations on that one.

    The canary trap is a venerable ploy of intelligence tradecraft for flushing out info-leakers. You send slightly different versions of an info package to suspected leakers in a leaky agency, and when the info materializes somewhere like The New York Times , you can tell exactly which canary crooned the melody. In this case, the agency was the White House National Security Council, the notorious nest of intriguers lately the haunts of impeachment stars Col. Alexander Vindman and alleged "whistleblower" Eric Ciaramella (on loan from the CIA, and now back there). Another bird in that nest is Alexander Vindman's twin brother Col. Eugene (Yevgeny) Vindman, a military lawyer posted as chief ethics counsel for the NSC, of all things.

    The info-package in this case was the manuscript of John Bolton's book, The Room Where It Happened , relating his brief and tumultuous misadventures in Trumpland, slated for release March 17. Someone in the White House chain of command ordered a security review of the manuscript by the NSC -- a curious detail. Why there, of all places, given the recent exploits of Ciaramella, Vindman & Vindman, Sean Misko, Abigail Grace, current or former NSC employees now in the service of Adam Schiff's House Intel Committee, which kicked off the latest mega-distraction from the nation's business? Why not give the manuscript to the Attorney General's counsel, or some other referee to determine what in the book might qualify as privileged communication between a president and a top national security advisor?

    Well, before you go tripping off on a tear about the suspect loyalties of William Barr, consider that the chief byproduct of the entire three-year RussiaGate flimflam and all its subsequent offshoots by the Lawfare Resistance has been to completely undermine Americans' faith in federal institutions, including the DOJ, the FBI, the CIA. Perhaps what we're seeing is the convergence of two perfect setups.

    Surely Adam Schiff thinks that testimony from John Bolton was his ace-in-the-hole to corroborate the House's impeachment case. Maybe his staff (of former NSC moles) had a hand in orchestrating the leaks from the NSC to The New York Times at exactly the right moment -- hours before Mr. Trump's lawyers would begin to argue the main body of his defense in the Senate, to produce an orgasmic gotcha . But what if Mr. Trump's lawyers and confidents were ahead of the scheme and knew exactly when and how Mr. Schiff would call the play?

    It's actually inconceivable that that Mr. Trump's team did not know this play was coming. Do you suppose they didn't know that Mr. Bolton had written a book on contract for Simon & Schuster, and much more? After all, a president has access to information that even a sedulous bottom-feeder like Mr. Schiff just doesn't command. Maybe the canary trap is only the prelude to a booby trap -- and remember, boobies are much larger birds than canaries. Maybe, despite prior protestations about not calling witnesses, the Bolton ploy will actually be an excuse for Mr. Trump's defense team to run the switcheroo play and accede to the calling of witnesses.

    Perhaps they are not afraid of what Mr. Bolton might have to say in the 'splainin' seat. Perhaps what he has to say turns out to be, at least, the proverbial nothingburger with mayo and onion, or, at worst, a perfidious prevarication motivated by ill-will against the employer who sacked him ignominiously. Perhaps Mr. Trump's lawyers are longing for the chance to haul in some witnesses of their own, for instance the "whistleblower." It is also inconceivable that the actual progenitor of this mighty hot mess would not be called to account in the very forum that his ploy was aimed to convoke.

    And from the unmasked "whistleblower," the spectacle would proceed straightaway to Adam Schiff himself in the witness chair. That will be an elongated moment of personal self-disfigurement not seen in American history since William Jennings Bryan was left blubbering in the courtroom at Dayton, Tennessee, 1925, after he spearheaded the malicious prosecution of John Scopes for teaching evolution in a high school biology class or the moment of national wonder and nausea in June 1954 when Army Chief Counsel Joseph Welch rose from his chair and asked witch-hunting Senator Joseph McCarthy, "At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"

    In a deeply imperfect world, California's 28th congressional district has produced a true marvel: the perfect scoundrel. Adam Schiff has been hurling false accusations and retailing mendacious narratives for three years. He deserves the most public disgrace that can possibly be arranged, on nationwide television, with all his many media enablers at CNN and MSNBC having to call the play-by-play. Then the nation needs to expel him from the House of Representatives. And then, maybe, the USA can get on with other business.

    [Jan 27, 2020] UK Espionage Historian Says Steele Dossier on Trump Was Highly Likely 'Fabricated'

    Jan 27, 2020 | sputniknews.com

    The controversial dossier served as the pretext for the FBI to start spying on Donald Trump's campaign members. A 2019 probe into the agency's activities didn't rule that is actions were inappropriate, but still criticised the FBI over how it handled FISA surveillance requests. Former Conservative lawmaker Rupert Allason, also known under his alias, Nigel West, is the author of numerous fiction spy books based on historical research, and has concluded in a 2017 research paper that the so-called Steele Dossier was largely made-up by its author, rather than being based on reliable sources, The Sunday Times reported citing the paper which they obtained. He assembled the report at the request of a Republican law firm after the Steele Dossier had been published by the Buzzfeed media outlet.

    The former British lawmaker opined that "there is [...] a strong possibility that all Steele's material has been fabricated" after studying the former MI6 spy's findings and 11 sources he used to draft them.

    "From a professional intelligence perspective, the dossier as a whole is profoundly troubling and cannot be taken at face value", Allason said.

    Allason said that he was "frankly stunned" by what he saw in Steele's reports, whom he took for a respected former intelligence officer. He specifically cast doubt on one of the more notorious allegations made by Steele – that the Russian government had a compromising video, dubbed a "pee tape", in order to blackmail Trump.

    "The content has such explosive implications that there is an added responsibility on a reporting officer to be entirely unambiguous as to precisely who has said what, and when, while explaining the status of each individual", the former lawmaker noted.

    Rupert Allason, who is believed to be an expert in identifying pristine intelligence reports after he wrote an entire book devoted to identifying fake spy stories, reportedly went on to explain that the authors of made-up papers sometimes confuse themselves and attribute information to the wrong source. In the document, cited by the Times, Allason pointed out that Steele attributes too many of his findings about alleged ties between Trump and Russia to a single source, which appears "unprofessional" to the former lawmaker.

    "Source E is credited with access to Ritz-Carlton staff, knowledge of Russian government involvement with WikiLeaks and the abuse of Russian diplomatic facilities in the United States. This appears to be an extraordinarily wide area of expertise. The apparent lapses bear the hallmarks of invention", Allason said.

    Findings attributed to Source E in Steele's Dossier on Trump paved the road to the FBI's notorious probe, which included espionage on the then presidential candidate's campaign. The FBI later learned that most of information came from a businessman, Sergei Millian (although it's not clear if he was in fact Source E), who claimed that info, which he gave to Steele, was "just talk" one conveys "with friends over beers" and not more than "rumour and speculation" in some cases.

    Christopher Steele, former British intelligence officer in London Tuesday March 7, 2017 where he has spoken to the media for the first time . Steele who compiled an explosive and unproven dossier on President Donald Trump's purported activities in Russia has returned to work © AP Photo / Victoria Jones/PA MI6 Assessed Discredited 'Trump-Russia' Dossier Author Steele to Have Questionable Judgment - Report

    The FBI still failed to notify the FISA court that it considered its own source of information unreliable when it requested the prolongation of surveillance over Carter Page, a member of Trump's campaign team. Such handling of FISA warrants received harsh condemnation from the US justice department's inspector-general Michael Horowitz, who probed the FBI for misconduct but found no grave violations or bias against Trump in the process.

    The Steele Dossier was initially funded by Trump's GOP opponents, but eventually the Democratic National Committee and its candidate in 2016 election, Hillary Clinton, became its main sponsors.

    [Jan 26, 2020] GOP Senators Say Sekulow 'Shredded' Impeachment Case; Schiff Calls A 'Distortion'

    Jan 26, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    Watch Live:

    https://www.youtube.com/embed/j474fOoeEak

    * * *

    Update (0130ET) : The word of the day is "Shredded" - as in, several Republicans have described the White House counsel's presentation as having shredded House Democrats' impeachment arguments.

    venturen , 2 hours ago link

    Schiff, Nadler and Pelosi should be tried for conspiracy and treason

    snowshooze , 2 hours ago link

    I have never seen a Prosecution so quickly and thouroughly gutted in my life.

    The Defense is clearly 20 levels above them.

    And the poor bastards have to show up on Monday to take more medicine.

    This is almost sadistic.

    Do you suppose they might ALL come in via video?

    But, the Defense has no choice but to address every detail.

    They have to finish them off to put them out of their misery.

    It's like watching an All-Pro football team going up against a pack of 3rd graders.

    [Jan 26, 2020] The announcement that Ukraine is now completly under the foreign (read the USA) control came too late

    Notable quotes:
    "... Former Ukrainian Prime Minister and now leader of the opposition party "Batkivshchyna" Yulia Tymoshenko on the ZIK TV channel announced the beginning of the process of "liquidation" of Ukraine. According to her, since independence, the country has fallen under external "curatorship", lost its suvereignity and turned into an object that "everyone uses as they want". ..."
    "... "We must recognize that this period of independence, when we had to live with our intellect, our science, our reason, our interests, we lost, replacing all this with advice from the outside," the former Prime Minister was quoted by RIA Novosti. ..."
    "... "It is surprising that Yulia Tymoshenko, who made a huge effort to establish external curatorship and earned very solid funds (or at least she was given the opportunity to earn), today, being an outsider, made the right statement. It seems that she understands that this is the only way to return to Ukrainian politics. After all, people's patience is not unlimited, " a member of the Federation Council, Franz Klintsevich, told the newspaper VZGLYAD when commenting on the former Prime Minister's statement. ..."
    "... The small managerial experience of Zelensky and Goncharuk (who, as you know, almost lost the post of Prime Minister because of a rather ridiculous story) became a trump card for Tymoshenko. On the eve of the parliamentary elections, she called for protecting the country from the incompetence of the future President. The former head of the government responded immediately to the recent request for Goncharuk's resignation: "This power must be removed, starting with the incompetent President and ending with every incompetent official he brought in." ..."
    "... "By and large, the differences between Tymoshenko and Zelensky are stylistic. At its core, one or the other represents the interests of various oligarchic groups." ..."
    "... It is clear why Tymoshenko decided to earn points on the protests against the lifting of the moratorium on land sales. According to a survey conducted last October by the Ukrainian sociological service "Rating", 53% of Ukrainians opposed the lifting of the moratorium, and a much larger number (69%) opposed the sale of land to foreigners. ..."
    "... "The West needs Ukraine only as an anti-Russia, no more." ..."
    Jan 26, 2020 | vz.ru

    Ukraine came under external supervision, everyone uses it as they want, Yulia Tymoshenko said. And although the big words relate to the entire period of Ukraine's independence, the critical attack has a specific addressee-President Zelensky. Experts note that Tymoshenko has no reason to act as a fighter against external management, and Ukraine itself has no chance of an independent policy for many years of loan payments.

    Former Ukrainian Prime Minister and now leader of the opposition party "Batkivshchyna" Yulia Tymoshenko on the ZIK TV channel announced the beginning of the process of "liquidation" of Ukraine. According to her, since independence, the country has fallen under external "curatorship", lost its suvereignity and turned into an object that "everyone uses as they want".

    "We must recognize that this period of independence, when we had to live with our intellect, our science, our reason, our interests, we lost, replacing all this with advice from the outside," the former Prime Minister was quoted by RIA Novosti. At the moment, Ukraine has entered the stage when its leadership will either draw conclusions and put an end to this state of Affairs, or will allow the country to be completely deprived of resources and property, Tymoshenko concluded.

    "It is surprising that Yulia Tymoshenko, who made a huge effort to establish external curatorship and earned very solid funds (or at least she was given the opportunity to earn), today, being an outsider, made the right statement. It seems that she understands that this is the only way to return to Ukrainian politics. After all, people's patience is not unlimited, " a member of the Federation Council, Franz Klintsevich, told the newspaper VZGLYAD when commenting on the former Prime Minister's statement.

    In Tymoshenko's statement, which may look like an Epiphany or remorse, the key words are "resources" and "property," experts say. "Yulia Vladimirovna in this case continues to develop her main political theme-opposition to the opening of the land market," Ukrainian political analyst Vasyl Stoyakin told the newspaper VZGLYAD.

    Back in December, Batkivshchyna, together with nationalists from the Svoboda party, launched a protest campaign that continued last week. The reason was the adoption by the Verkhovna Rada of the bill, according to which the sale of agricultural land is allowed from October 1, 2020. "This topic remains the main one for Tymoshenko, and she continues to work actively in this direction," Stoyakin said. The political scientist believes that we should not expect any far-reaching consequences of the ex-Prime Minister's loud statement.

    But it is obvious that the current President should be considered the addressee of the accusation, although it mentions the entire period of Ukrainian independence. "Naturally, this is largely addressed to Vladimir Zelensky, who has the government of Alexey Goncharuk, who does not understand a damn thing about the economy. Who now manages the Ukrainian economy, in General, it is completely unclear-people like Goncharuk absolutely can not manage anything, " - said Stoyakin.

    The small managerial experience of Zelensky and Goncharuk (who, as you know, almost lost the post of Prime Minister because of a rather ridiculous story) became a trump card for Tymoshenko. On the eve of the parliamentary elections, she called for protecting the country from the incompetence of the future President. The former head of the government responded immediately to the recent request for Goncharuk's resignation: "This power must be removed, starting with the incompetent President and ending with every incompetent official he brought in."

    In previous and current statements of Tymoshenko, the interests of oligarchic structures in their struggle against other structures that support the "Zelensky team" are primarily overlooked, says TV host Vladimir Solovyov.

    "By and large, the differences between Tymoshenko and Zelensky are stylistic. At its core, one or the other represents the interests of various oligarchic groups."

    The conflict between Tymoshenko and Zelensky is not in relation to the land, but in the clash of interests of these groups. For this type of politician, what matters is not what will happen to the land, but who will get it, " Solovyov told the VZGLYAD newspaper. "It's just that Yulia Tymoshenko has been in this business for a long time, has been integrated into it for a long time, and can already rightfully be considered an oligarch herself," the source explained. - Zelensky is still only gaining financial capital, while political capital is already a problem: there is a position, and he is losing authority at a high rate."

    It is clear why Tymoshenko decided to earn points on the protests against the lifting of the moratorium on land sales. According to a survey conducted last October by the Ukrainian sociological service "Rating", 53% of Ukrainians opposed the lifting of the moratorium, and a much larger number (69%) opposed the sale of land to foreigners.

    However, as noted by critics, Tymoshenko looks quite strange in the role of the main fighter with the sale of Ukrainian black soil. After all, in 2008, it was under her leadership that the Cabinet of Ministers introduced a draft law on the land market to the Parliament. This document was supposed to lift the moratorium on purchase and sale and allow the purchase of land plots not only for Ukrainian, but also for foreign citizens. The bill was withdrawn already under Yanukovych by the government of Mykola Azarov, but before that, Tymoshenko's Cabinet did quite a lot to simplify the sale of land.

    For example, in 2009, the simplified procedure for registration of acts of tranfere of the land ownership was declared in force indefinitely. "In General, the flexible attitude of Ukrainian politicians to the land issue is quite a funny story. They often change their position, " said Vladimir Solovyov.

    However, Vasily Stoyakin is sure, "Tymoshenko wasn't going to open the land market and to achieve entry of the land law into force". "This was a requirement of the International monetary Fund to get a loan. The bill was developed solely to meet the requirements of the IMF, " the Ukrainian expert explained.

    But this may just indicate that Tymoshenko at least did not protest against the external management of Ukraine – in this case, from the IMF. Also, as Vladimir Solovyov noted, "I would like to remind you that Yulia Tymoshenko once led the so-called campaign to NATO. "By and large, this was already the surrender of most of the sovereignty," Solovyov said.

    Back in January 2008, Prime Minister Tymoshenko, together with President Viktor Yushchenko and the speaker of the Rada, who was then Arseniy Yatsenyuk, sent an official statement to the NATO headquarters of the Ukrainian authorities about joining the action Plan for membership in the Alliance.

    Tymoshenko did not retreat from her Pro-NATO line. The Batkivshchyna leader, mentioned by Solovyov, led the" campaign "to the Alliance, in particular, during the 2014 election campaign, when she called for an immediate referendum on joining NATO to "protect against aggression".

    "I would like to remind you that Yulia Tymoshenko has long and confidently surrendered the economic sovereignty of Ukraine," Solovyov stated.

    By the way, we note that Tymoshenko's "patriot" was criticized for surrendering Ukrainian economic sovereignty in the early 2010s, including by the "Party of regions" (which is now considered to be almost the "fifth column of the Kremlin"). It is indicative of the statement made in 2013 by the people's Deputy-regional Yaroslav Sukhoi in a comment to Ukrainian Pravda: "High gas prices for Ukraine, which we inherited from Yulia Tymoshenko, kill national sovereignty and bring the country to its knees. Yulia Tymoshenko's gas agreement of 2009 contradicts national interests."

    On this subject

    • Exposing George Soros makes him look stupid
    • What Zelensky changed in Ukraine for the year
    • Ukraine's vice-Prime Minister played on Zelensky's weakness

    The fact that Tymoshenko has now raised the idea of fighting external governance is her last attempt to "jump on the outgoing train" of Ukrainian politics and restore her reputation, Senator Franz Klintsevich believes. "I do not think that it is able to "save Ukraine" or solve the problems of Ukrainian citizens, " the source added.

    The very statement of the former Prime Minister can be characterized by the phrase "late caught on", said in turn Vladimir Solovyov. In the winter of 2018, ex-Minister of economy of Ukraine Viktor Suslov stated on the NewsOne TV channel: Ukraine's foreign exchange reserves are mainly formed at the expense of external loans, and if Kiev ceases to cooperate with the IMF, it will no longer receive support from the European Union and other international partners. The situation has not changed since then.

    But the fact that Tymoshenko raised the issue of withdrawing from external Western control indicates that such a public request exists in Ukraine, Klintsevich said. Ukrainian society has already had the opportunity to make sure that Western curation has not brought anything formally independent Ukraine – "all Ukrainian products, except raw materials, the West does not need, there is no hope that these products will get to the European market," the Senator said. Klintsevich sure:

    "The West needs Ukraine only as an anti-Russia, no more."

    On the other hand, participation in the Eurasian structures-the EEU and other associations of CIS countries-could revive the Ukrainian economy, which is in constant crisis, the source said. "The only way to save Ukraine is to restore relations with Russia," Klintsevich said. In his opinion, "Zelensky's team began to send signals about the desirability of restoring relations with Russia." "But this does not mean that the current Ukrainian government will get rid of the influence of American curators," the Senator concluded.

    [Jan 25, 2020] Trump Could Have Been Impeached for War Crimes, Assassinations and Corruption by Amy Goodman

    Jan 24, 2020 | truthout.org

    Democratic lawmakers are continuing to lay out their case for removing the president from office in the final day of opening arguments by Democrats in the historic impeachment trial of President Trump. Republicans will begin their opening arguments on Saturday. The Senate trial comes a month after the House impeached Trump for withholding congressionally approved military aid to Ukraine as part of an effort to pressure the Ukrainian president to investigate Trump's political rival, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. On Thursday, House impeachment manager Jerrold Nadler made the case that a president can be impeached for noncriminal activity. During another part of Thursday's proceedings, House impeachment manager Congressmember Sylvia Garcia relied on polls by Fox News to make the case that President Trump decided to target Joe Biden after polls showed the former vice president could beat Trump in 2020.

    For more on the impeachment trial, we're joined by Marjorie Cohn, professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and the former president of the National Lawyers Guild. Her most recent book is Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues .

    TRANSCRIPT

    AMY GOODMAN : We turn now to the historic impeachment trial of President Donald J. Trump. Democratic lawmakers are continuing to lay out their case for removing the president from office. Today marks the final day of a 24-hour opening argument by the Democrats. Republicans begin their opening arguments Saturday. The Senate impeachment trial comes a month after the House impeached Trump for withholding congressionally approved military aid to Ukraine as part of an effort to pressure the Ukrainian president to investigate Trump's political rival, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. On Thursday, House impeachment manager Jerrold Nadler made the case that a president can be impeached for noncriminal activity.

    REP . JERROLD NADLER : No one anticipated that a president would stoop to this misconduct, and Congress has passed no specific law to make this behavior a crime. Yet this is precisely the kind of abuse that the Framers had in mind when they wrote the impeachment clause and when they charged Congress with determining when the president's conduct was so clearly wrong, so definitely beyond the pale, so threatening to the constitutional order as to require his removal.

    AMY GOODMAN : During his presentation, Judiciary chair in the House Jerrold Nadler relied in part on past statements made by key supporters of President Trump.

    REP . JERROLD NADLER : And I might say the same thing of then-House manager Lindsey Graham, who, in President Clinton's trial, flatly rejected the notion that impeachable offenses are limited to violations of established law. Here is what he said.

    REP . LINDSEY GRAHAM : What's a high crime? How about if an important person hurt somebody of low means? It's not very scholarly, but I think it's the truth. I think that's what they meant by high crimes. Doesn't even have to be a crime.

    REP . JERROLD NADLER : In Attorney General Barr's view, as expressed about 18 months ago, presidents cannot be indicted or criminally investigated, but that's OK, because they can be impeached. That's the safeguard. And in an impeachment, Attorney General Barr added, the "President is answerable for any abuses of discretion" and may be held "accountable under law for his misdeeds in office."

    AMY GOODMAN : Senator Lindsey Graham reportedly left the Senate chamber shortly before Congressman Nadler played the clip of him from Bill Clinton's impeachment trial in 1999. During another part of Thursday's proceedings, House impeachment manager Congresswoman Sylvia Garcia relied on polls by Fox News to make the case that President Trump decided to target Joe Biden after polls showed the former vice president could beat Trump in 2020.

    REP . SYLVIA GARCIA : It wasn't until Biden began beating him in the polls that he called for the investigation. The president asked Ukraine for this investigation for one reason and one reason only: because he knew he would -- it would be damaging to an opponent who was consistently beating him in the polls, and therefore it could help him get re-elected in 2020. President Trump had the motive, he had the opportunity and the means, to commit this abuse of power. If we allow this gross abuse of power to continue, this president would have free rein -- free rein -- to abuse his control of U.S. foreign policy for personal interests. And so would any other future president. And then this president and all presidents become above the law.

    AMY GOODMAN : House Intelligence chair, House manager Adam Schiff -- he's the lead House impeachment manager -- ended the long day of oral arguments.

    REP . ADAM SCHIFF : It doesn't matter how good the Constitution is. It doesn't matter how brilliant the Framers were. It doesn't matter how good or bad our advocacy in this trial is. It doesn't matter how well written the oath of impartiality is. If right doesn't matter, we're lost. If the truth doesn't matter, we're lost. The Framers couldn't protect us from ourselves, if right and truth don't matter. And you know that what he did was not right.

    AMY GOODMAN : To talk more about the impeachment trial of President Trump, we go to San Diego, California, where we're joined by Marjorie Cohn, professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law. She's the former president of the National Lawyers Guild. Her most recent book, Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues .

    Welcome to Democracy Now! , Marjorie Cohn. Start off by assessing the Democrats' case so far for the removal of President Trump.

    MARJORIE COHN : Well, yes, Amy. The Democratic managers, the House managers, have laid out a meticulous case for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. And many of these Republican senators who are listening, who have to sit in their chairs for eight hours a day without talking, without using cellphones, are a captive audience. And many of them have never heard this before. They didn't follow the case that was made in the House. And this case is so powerful and so deep that Schiff said at the end -- Adam Schiff said at the end, "You know he's guilty. The question is: Will you remove him?"

    Now, these senators, the Republicans, have walked in lockstep with Donald Trump. They are what Frank Rich would call Vichy Republicans, Vichy being the government in France, in Nazi-occupied France, who were doing Hitler's bidding. They walk in lockstep with him, and there is almost no chance that they're not going to acquit him. But what Adam Schiff was trying to get across was, they are going to be on the wrong side of history, because what Donald Trump does -- and he does this consistently -- is to put his own personal interest ahead of the national interest. And that's something that they all have to grapple with.

    Now, one of the things that they focused on yesterday was to refute the allegations that the Bidens did something wrong and therefore there was merit in Trump's, basically, demand that Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, investigate what they did with the Burisma company. And what the Democrats were trying to do is to take the wind out of the sails of the Republican case by bringing it up first. And what the Republicans have said now -- and this is the defense team, Donald Trump's defense team -- is that, "Well, now that they've opened the door, now that the managers have opened the door, we're going to make that probably a focus" of their defense.

    Now, what they did in the House was to focus mainly on process, whereas the managers, the Democrats, focused on the facts and laid out this roadmap to prove abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. What the Republicans did was to focus on process: "Donald Trump was denied due process" -- which he wasn't. He was invited to come and didn't participate. Many process arguments. It's unclear to me, Amy, how the Republicans, how the defense, Donald Trump's defense, is going to take up two or three days -- and they've said now it's probably going to be two days -- in addition to meeting the Biden -- talking about the Biden issue, because they're going to really harp on that. It's not clear what they're going to do. They're going to harp on process.

    But the thing that's really important about this is not so much that -- he's not going to be found guilty. There's no doubt about that. The American people are watching. They're following this. And just like during Watergate, when people were riveted to the television, that is going to be reflected, I believe, in the election. The polls are already showing that people, the majority of American people, think he should be removed. A huge majority think he did something unethical. And a sizable majority think he did something illegal. So, this is really, really important, even though ultimately he won't be removed.

    AMY GOODMAN : And if he is found guilty, is he automatically removed?

    MARJORIE COHN : The Constitution provides that the Senate is to determine his guilt and removal. So it's really part of the same thing, and therefore -- and this is what Adam Schiff was trying to get at -- even though all or most of the Republicans know in their heart of hearts that he's guilty, they don't think he should be removed. And so, therefore, they will probably, in all probability, vote not guilty. But, yes, conviction means removal. That's not going to happen.

    AMY GOODMAN : You said that the senators have to sit there for eight hours. In fact, that's not what's happening. Is that right? I mean, to be very clear, the Republicans are controlling the frame of the TV image. It's no longer, you know, C- SPAN on the floor of the Senate or the House, so you can't see what's actually happening behind the scenes. But you have Tennessee Republican Senator Blackburn. She's got books that she's reading. You have Thom Tillis. I believe he got up and he went into the press gallery to hang out there for a while. And, of course, Lindsey Graham, when Congressmember Nadler played the clip of him saying exactly the opposite of what he's saying now, that it has to be a crime that President Trump has committed, according to the criminal code, saying the opposite during Clinton's trial, he reportedly was not in the Senate chamber.

    MARJORIE COHN : Yes, that's true. There were a handful of senators who were not there, who were coming and going. But the bulk of them are listening to, if not all of it, most of it. They just can't get away from it. They are not allowed to have cellphones, which is probably really difficult for them. And, yes, they do get up and leave and come back, and we're not seeing that, but most of them are hearing most of this very airtight case, really.

    AMY GOODMAN : Can you talk about exactly what President Trump has been impeached for, these two articles of impeachment? And if you think -- I mean, just look at the title of your book, Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues . You have long focused on the issue of war crimes and U.S. presidents guilty of them. The narrow framing of this impeachment?

    MARJORIE COHN : Yes. Well, Nancy Pelosi resisted for many, many months mounting impeachment, an impeachment proceeding in the House. And there are many different grounds that he could have been impeached for: violation of the emoluments clause, corruption and war crimes, as you said, most recently killing Soleimani in violation of the U.N. Charter, in violation of the War Powers Resolution. But when the whistleblower complaint came out and it became so clear what Trump had done with strong-arming Zelensky to mount -- not to mount investigations necessarily, but to announce that he was mounting investigations into Trump's political rival, Joe Biden and this discredited theory that Ukraine had meddled in the 2016 election, Nancy Pelosi understood that this was an airtight case. It was narrow. It was clear. People could get their brains around it.

    And so we have these two articles of impeachment. Abuse of power and quid pro quo , this for that, dirt for dollars -- I think is one of the phrases that we hear -- that Trump really believed that because we've been so good to Ukraine, Ukraine owes us. He really does not understand how foreign policy works. It's all about making a business deal, making himself look good. So, this dirt for dollars -- in other words, if Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, announced an investigation against the Bidens, that would tarnish Biden, who was leading him in the polls at that time, and help Trump's re-election. Patently illegal, a patent abuse of power. And then the second article of impeachment is obstruction of Congress. And in an unprecedented move -- no president ever before has done this, a president facing impeachment, even judges facing impeachment, haven't totally stonewalled the House of Representatives, not producing one document in response to subpoenas, forbidding all officials of the executive branch from testifying. And this is a direct violation of the Constitution's command that the House of Representatives shall have the sole power of impeachment. That means it's not up to the president to decide whether he's going to cooperate with it.

    And now, of course, we move to the Senate trial. We have moved to the Senate trial. And the first day of the trial was filled with pretrial motions, 11 motions, by the House managers for the testimony of four witnesses and the production of documents from a number of government agencies. Two of those witnesses are John Bolton and Mick Mulvaney. Mick Mulvaney said very incriminating things about the president, admitting the quid pro quo . And John Bolton, who left on bad terms, left the White House on bad terms, he says he's prepared to testify if he's subpoenaed. Now, Trump is very, very threatened by Bolton's testimony. And, you know, what Trump thinks comes right out in his tweets. There's no guessing what he's thinking. And most recently he said he doesn't want Bolton to testify because "Bolton knows how I feel about these matters," and it's a national security threat. And he said, "We didn't leave on the best of terms." And he's terrified about what Bolton will say.

    Now, In the pretrial motions, the Republicans, to a person, walked in lockstep with Trump in tabling the whole issue of whether or not witnesses would be allowed, these four witnesses or any witnesses, and whether documents could be subpoenaed, until after six days of argument, opening arguments, by the two parties, by the House managers and by the defense, and 16 hours of questioning by the senators. It's like in Alice in Wonderland : first the trial, then the evidence. So we have the opening statements, and then we have the questions by senators. And then, are we going to have evidence? Looks like we may not. Looks like they may prevent witnesses from testifying, although they have made noises about wanting one of the Bidens to testify, to bolster this spurious theory that they did something wrong. The Bidens have been completely exonerated by everybody who has examined what happened during this time in Ukraine, when Joe Biden was acting as vice president consistent with American policy -- very, very different from what Trump is accused of.

    AMY GOODMAN : Well, let me stick with the Bidens for a minute. I want to read from today's New York Times , the front page . "Joseph R. Biden Jr. called an octogenarian voter a 'damn liar' and challenged him to a push-up contest. He dismissed a heckler as an 'idiot.' He commanded the news media to focus on President Trump instead of the overseas business dealings of his son, Hunter Biden, demanding of one reporter, 'Ask the right question!' For Mr. Biden, the stream of questions about his son touches on a vulnerability for his candidacy and presents a fine line for him to navigate. At issue is an unsubstantiated theory pushed by Mr. Trump that Mr. Biden took action in Ukraine as vice president in order to help his son, who at the time held a lucrative position as a board member of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company."

    So, I mean, let's talk about this for a minute. You know, some have speculated this is a real crisis, the impeachment trial, at this time, because, you know, four senators can't be out on the campaign trail, the leading senators in the Senate, Senator Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren, so Biden is out there along with Buttigieg in Iowa at this key moment. But it could also be a liability for Biden, as he is now open to questions from both Iowans and reporters about what actually happened, not necessarily about what Vice President Biden did. But what about his son, Hunter Biden, on the board of Burisma? If you can talk about what the accusations are and also, significantly, this whole issue of reciprocal witnesses, the idea that the Republicans could call Hunter Biden to testify? Clearly, Biden is getting very nervous about this, too.

    MARJORIE COHN : He is, Amy. And yes, this could cut both ways. People will be very defensive of Biden and say, you know, he's being unfairly attacked, he's been cleared, he didn't do anything wrong. And on the other hand, some people will think, "Well, where there's smoke, there's fire." And this doesn't look good. Biden, Joe Biden, was vice president at the same time that Hunter Biden was on the board of Burisma, this very, very lucrative position. But Biden was vice president at the time, and he -- consistent with the Obama administration's policy, he was pressuring Ukraine to get rid of a corrupt prosecutor, because the U.S. policy was to oppose corruption in Ukraine. And so, really, in that context, Biden did not do anything wrong. However, that doesn't mean that the fact that he is in this position -- was in this position, and his son was on the board of Burisma, is going to raise some questions. Where there's smoke, there's fire. There will be people who will not support Biden for that reason. On the other hand, he may well benefit from being on the defensive by Donald Trump.

    Now, if there are witnesses allowed at all -- and I highly doubt it -- I can't imagine that the Republicans would not push to subpoena one or both of the Bidens. And then it's going to become a mini trial, a trial within a trial, where it's going to focus on what Biden did or didn't do. Did he do something improper? Was Trump justified in asking Zelensky to mount an investigation of Joe Biden? And so, I think this is going to be very interesting. And certainly, the Republicans, Trump's defense, are going to go deeply into the appearance of impropriety with Biden and his son. It remains to be seen whether one or both of the Bidens will actually be called to testify, and whether any witnesses, for that matter, will be called to testify.

    AMY GOODMAN : And, very quickly, this whole issue that Republicans are raising, if the witness issue is going to be -- this impeachment trial could go on for months, because it will go to court. Now, interestingly, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts, is right in the room. He's presiding over this trial. So, where does he weigh in on this? And is this true?

    MARJORIE COHN : I don't see this being hung up in the courts. I think it will be resolved in the Senate. Chief Justice John Roberts is in a very, very delicate position. I'm sure he would rather be anywhere than where he is, presiding over this Senate trial, which the Constitution provides for. And he really doesn't have much power. One of the amendments that the House managers proposed in their pretrial motions was to allow Chief Justice John Roberts to determine whether any prospective witness's testimony would be relevant to the issues. And the Republicans voted that down. Now, even if they had allowed that to happen and he had served that function, any ruling that John Roberts makes could be overruled by 51 senators. So, it's really kind of a ceremonial role that he plays. He is not going to take an active role. He's going to follow what Chief Justice Rehnquist did during the Clinton impeachment trial and really call balls and strikes, for the first time, which is what Roberts promised to do during his confirmation hearings as Supreme Court justice. And, of course, that is not the case at all.

    AMY GOODMAN : Marjorie Cohn, I want to thank you for being with us, professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, member of the advisory board of Veterans for Peace. Her most recent book, Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues .

    ... ... ...

    [Jan 25, 2020] Judge Collyer should be punished for Page's misery.

    Jan 25, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    Rosemary_Mayers_Collyer

    "Judge Collyer did not protect the federal judiciary, she did not protect her own courtroom, she did not protect the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act," Levin said. " For more than 2.5 years, she allowed these perpetrators to get away with what they did. And she could have brought an end to this. She could have had an evidentiary hearing or a contempt hearing if you will, and she chose not to."
    "Now she's jumping on the bandwagon," Levin continued, "after the OIC report, after FBI Director Wray has announced 40 different reforms that he's going to take a look at. After I and others, including Mike Lee, have said, 'you know, we have to abolish the court.' [The court has] failed to do its job and I suspect they won't do its job."
    "Only now does Judge Collyer issue her decision. Only now. Because part of the problem is Judge Collyer and any other judge" working as a FISA judge, he said. "They don't read these documents. Over a 1,000 of them were presented to the FISA courts in 2018 and only one was denied. That is almost a 100 percent approval record . Now that's absurd," Levin explained. "So Judge Collyer has some answering to do. And if Congress is serious about getting to the bottom of this, she and others need to be called before Congress in a legitimate oversight function, not to investigate her for criminal reasons, but to find out exactly what she and others did."" pjmedia

    -------------

    Rosemary Collyer made a living hell of Carter Page's life. She allowed this graduate of USNA who had been a cooperating source for the CIA AND the FBI to be used as a tool for the purpose of gaining legal authority to surveille the Trump political campaign. The FBI in its filing documents asserted that Carter Page's contacts with Russian intelligence officers made it likely that he was himself working for Russia. An FBI staff attorney deliberately altered a letter from the CIA that identified Page as a CIA asset working AGAINST he Russians , The FBI lawyer altered the document and it became part of the case presented to Collyer seeking a FISA warrant against him.

    And, now, having been unmasked as IMO a co-conspirator of the FBI in framing Page, Collyer has abruptly left the FISC and scuttled back to her life appointment as a district court federal judge in Washington, DC.

    Having testified in Rosemary Collyer's district court several times, I remember her to be an extraordinarily pro-DoJ jurist who made every effort to accept the DoJ's position in matters before her.

    IMO her conduct in the matter of the FISA warrant against Carter Page should be examined with a view to impeachment and removal . pl

    https://pjmedia.com/trending/mark-levin-blasts-fisa-judge-rosemary-collyer-you-chose-to-sit-on-your-hands/

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosemary_M._Collyer

    [Jan 25, 2020] This Kabuki theater with Schiff in a major role is outright silly by likbez

    Jan 22, 2019 | angrybearblog.com

    likbez , January 25, 2020 3:10 pm

    While I agree that the removal of Trump might be slightly beneficial (Pence-Pompeo duo initially will run scared), this Kabuki theater with Schiff in a major role is outright silly.

    Adam Schiff physically resembles a typical prosperity theology preacher -- a classic modern American snake oil salesman. And with his baseless accusations and the fear to touch real issues , he is even worse than that -- he looks outright silly even for the most brainwashed part of the USA electorate ;-)

    As he supported the Iraq war, he has no right to occupy any elected office. He probably should be prosecuted as a war criminal.

    Realistically Schiff should be viewed as yet another intelligence agency stooge, a neocon who is funded by military contractors such as Northrop Grumman, which sells missiles to Ukraine.

    The claim that Trump is influenced by Russia is a lie. His actions indicate that he is an agent of influence for Israel, not so much for Russia. Several of his actions were more reckless and more hostile to Russia than the actions of the Obama administration. Anyway, his policies toward Russia are not that different from Hillary's policies. Actually, Pompeo, in many ways, continues Hillary's policies.

    The claim that the withdrawal of military aid from Ukraine somehow influences the balance of power in the region was a State department concocted scam from the very beginning. How sniper rifles and anti-tank missiles change the balance of power on the border with the major nuclear power, who has probably second or third military in the world.? They do not.

    They (especially sniper rifles) will definitely increase casualties of Ukrainian separatists (and will provoke Russian reaction to compensate for this change of balance and thus increase casualties of the Ukrainian army provoking the escalation spiral ), but that's about it. So more people will die in the conflict while Northrop Grumman rakes the profits.

    They also increase the danger of the larger-scale conflict in the region, which is what the USA neocons badly wants to impose really crushing sanctions on Russia. The danger of WWIII and the cost of support of the crumbling neoliberal empire with its outsize military expenditures (which now is more difficult to compensate with loot) somehow escapes the US neocon calculations. But they are completely detached from reality in any case.

    I think Russia can cut Ukraine into Western and Eastern parts anytime with relative ease and not much resistance. Putin has an opportunity to do this in 2014 (risking larger sanctions) as he could establish government in exile out of Yanukovich officials and based on this restore the legitimate government in Eastern and southern region with the capital in Kharkiv, leaving Ukrainian Taliban to rot in their own brand of far-right nationalism where the Ukraine identity is defined negatively via rabid Russophobia.

    His calculation probably was that sanctions would slow down the Russia recovery from Western plunder during Yeltsin years and, as such, it is not worth showing Western Ukrainian nationalists what level of support in Southern and Eastern regions that they actually enjoy.

    My impression is that they are passionately hated by over 50% of the population of this region. And viewed as an occupying force, which is trying to colonize the space (which is a completely true assessment). They are viewed as American stooges, who they are (the country is controlled from the USA embassy in any case).

    And Putin's assessment might be wrong, as sanctions were imposed anyways, and now Ukraine does represent a threat to Russia and, as such, is a huge source of instability in the region, which was the key idea of "Nulandgate" as the main task was weakening Russia. In this sense, Euromaidan coup d'état was the major success of the Obama administration, which was a neocon controlled administration from top to bottom.

    Also unclear what Dems are trying to achieve. If Pelosi gambit, cynically speaking, was about repeating Mueller witch hunt success in the 2018 election, that is typical wishful thinking. Mobilization of the base works both ways.

    So what is the game plan for DemoRats (aka "neoliberal democrats" or "corporate democrats" -- the dominant Clinton faction of the Democratic Party) is completely unclear.

    I doubt that they will gain anything from impeachment Kabuki theater, where both sides are afraid to discuss real issues like Douma false flag and other real Trump crimes.

    Most Democratic candidates such as Warren, Biden, and Klobuchar will lose from this impeachment theater. Candidates who can gain, such as Major Pete and Bloomberg does not matter that much.

    [Jan 25, 2020] GOP Senators Say Sekulow 'Shredded' Impeachment Case; Schiff Calls A 'Distortion'

    While baseless House claims definitely can be shred, the fact that Trump abused his office remains.
    Notable quotes:
    "... Dems do not want Schiff and the whistleblower. So while they publicly say they want witnesses, privately they do not. But they do want to hang the blame on the republicans when Trump is acquitted, noting that this whole process was unfair to the dems (forget the President, he doesn't deserve fairness anyway). As victims, they should recapture some of their losses at the 2020 polls. ..."
    Jan 25, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    Update (0130ET) : The word of the day is "Shredded" - as in, several Republicans have described the White House counsel's presentation as having shredded House Democrats' impeachment arguments.

    "In two hours, the White House counsel entirely shredded the case by the House managers," said Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) in a statement to reporters. "What we saw today was factually relevant ... and (we) saw there were a lot of half-truths from the House managers and, frankly, pushed by the media."

    Rep. Elise Stafanik (R-NY) offered similar comments - saying "It took less than two hours to completely shred and eviscerate Adam Schiff's failed case for impeachment," adding "There is no case for impeachable offenses here. And it took less than two hours to do so. I think the American people understand that."

    While Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) said "3 days of Democrat arguments were just shredded 2 hours."

    Rep. Adam Schiff, meanwhile, says the White House counsel is trying to "deflect" away from Democrats' claims that President Trump abused his office, according to The Hill .

    "After listening to the President's lawyers opening arguments, I have three observations: They don't contest the facts of Trump's scheme. They're trying to deflect, distract from, and distort the truth. And they are continuing to cover it up by blocking documents and witnesses," Schiff tweeted on Saturday.

    After listening to the President's lawyers opening arguments, I have three observations:

    They don't contest the facts of Trump's scheme.

    They're trying to deflect, distract from, and distort the truth.

    And they are continuing to cover it up by blocking documents and witnesses.

    -- Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) January 25, 2020

    * * *

    Update (1130ET) : Trump's lawyers began their opening arguments Saturday by slamming Democrats for having "no evidence" to support their argument that Trump's conduct with Ukraine warrants impeachment and removal.

    "They're asking you not only to overturn the results of the last election but, as I've said before, they're asking you to remove President Trump from the ballot in an election that's occurring in approximately nine months," said White House counsel Pat Cipolline, adding "I don't think they spent one minute of their 24 hours talking to you about the consequences of that for our country."

    Cipollone began on Saturday by reading directly from the transcript of the July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky - claiming Democrats misrepresented it. In particular, the White House counsel played a clip of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) reading a 'parody' of the call .

    The use of the clip is likely to satisfy Trump. The president spent the days after Schiff made the comments calling for the congressman's resignation and suggesting he committed treason. Even months after the September hearing, Trump continues to bring up Schiff's comments in interviews when railing against the impeachment proceedings.

    Trump in his call with Zelensky asked the foreign leader to investigate a debunked theory about 2016 election interference and to probe Joe Biden and his son Hunter's dealings in Ukraine. The call triggered a rare intelligence community whistleblower complaint claiming that Trump solicited foreign interference in a U.S. election, with the complaint being a key piece of evidence in the Democrats' impeachment case. - The Hill

    Following Saturday arguments, Trump's lawyers will pick up again on Monday.

    ***

    After three days of "why" , here comes the "why not" ...

    Beginning at 10am ET, White House lawyers began their defense of the President on Day 5 of the Senate Impeachment Trial.

    The Trump lawyers are expected to speak for upwards of three hours after Democrats wrapped up their opening arguments on Friday night.

    A member of the legal team, Jay Sekulow, referred to Saturday's session as "a trailer" of "coming attractions" for next week's sessions.


    lloll , 4 minutes ago link

    Trump...

    1. Stole the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights for the FAKE HEBREWS

    2. Kept all illegal wars in the Middle East going for APARTHEID Israhell

    3. Faked Epstein's death who's now living comfortably in Apartheid Israhell

    4. Loved the Jewish Deep State so much he failed to dismantle it

    5. Killed Soleimani to please Israhell

    numapepi , 7 minutes ago link

    The English language is very strange...

    Like how debunked used to mean something that had been thoroughly investigated and proven to be false, while now it means something never looked into... that democrats don't want looked into.

    https://incapp.org/blog/?p=4238

    InTylerWeTrust , 16 minutes ago link

    Adam Schiff is pure evil.

    Rubicon727 , 11 minutes ago link

    No. He's simply a paid-off politicians following the financial dictates of his PAYMASTERs.

    Posa , 20 minutes ago link

    I don't have a partisan dog in this fight... I just hope America wins. That said, I do agree that the WH attorneys shredded the flimsy, highly tendentious Dumocratic Party case... testimony was focused and entirely relevant...this whole farce must be put to bed immediately by the Senate... and MAYBE the Congress might try to address unfolding crises on many fronts (though I doubt they have the smarts or integrity to do so)

    commiebastid , 7 minutes ago link

    This is setting an ugly precedent

    TheTrump presidency has been a disaster.

    Let that be lesson enough.

    Do I think Hillary would have been better? NO

    The farce being conducted on the world stage is nonsensical to even an apolitical bystander.

    On the upside... one half of the deep state coin will never recover from this debacle.

    Vince Clortho , 45 minutes ago link

    There never was an impeachable action.

    The entire charade was a propaganda fabrication.

    When Trump took office, the Demsheviks were sheeting tiny purple pellets fearing their criminal activities would be exposed.

    Thus, 3+ years of relentless impeachment mongering was launched.

    Goolie , 1 hour ago link

    I started watching at 42:00 and it was all over for Schiff by 2:38:00. Less than 2 hours to completely gut 3 days and 21 hours of bullSchiff Every American who has critical thinking ability and isn't completely deranged should watch this.

    rkoen , 1 hour ago link

    It's so great the way every democrat has said "We need witnesses!".

    Bolton, Mulvaney--and they will raise executive privilege, which will have to be newly litigated in the impeachment context.

    For how long? Now that the House has rushed the process and left this mess for the Senate, they don't care how long it takes, expecially if it leads to a continuing impeachment during the 2020 election.

    Do they really want witnesses? Because Trump really wants Biden, Schiff, and the whistleblower. On the first day of counsel's argument, did you hear white house counsel say "Schiff is a fact witness" and say how even Schiff started by saying "We have to hear from the whistleblower" before it was revealed that he was all tied up with the whistleblower.

    Dems do not want Schiff and the whistleblower. So while they publicly say they want witnesses, privately they do not. But they do want to hang the blame on the republicans when Trump is acquitted, noting that this whole process was unfair to the dems (forget the President, he doesn't deserve fairness anyway). As victims, they should recapture some of their losses at the 2020 polls.

    [Jan 25, 2020] 'Shifty' Schiff Warmongering Stooge Of The Deep State

    Notable quotes:
    "... Anonymouse sauces (sic) are stating that the FBI conducted electronic surveillance on ALL Republican Presidential candidates in the 2016 election on Obama's instructions who was briefed each week on the surveillance. ..."
    "... In other news, the GAO has declined to publish an internal audit report that details that the level of waste in federal spending has dropped from 20% under Obama to 15% of all federal spending under Trump... ..."
    "... Either way--- Drump or some Dum candidate--- America is screwed. ..."
    "... Even if true, no murders are attributed to Trump even by his nuttiest enemies. He would have a long way to go to reach the depths of the Bushes and the Clintons. ..."
    "... It is fascinating watching the partisan blame game when practically every single one of them up there, regardless of spot or stripe, voted for and supports arming Ukraine. ..."
    Jan 25, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    https://www.dianomi.com/smartads.epl?id=4777 'Shifty' Schiff: Warmongering Stooge Of The Deep State by Tyler Durden Sat, 01/25/2020 - 20:00 0 SHARES

    Authored by Daniel Lazare via AntiWar.com,

    All the usual suspects are praising Adam Schiff's marathon two-and-a-half-hour Senate speech on Wednesday to the skies.

    Neocon columnist Jennifer Rubin calls it "a grand slam" in the Washington Post.

    Legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin describes it as "dazzling" on CNN.

    Hillary Clinton: "Every American should watch this"

    John Legend: "This is brilliantly argued and so compelling. Watch if you have time. Call your senators. Everyone says the outcome is predetermined. But make sure your senators hear from you if you're moved by this. Thank you, Congressman Schiff, for standing up for what's right."

    Debra Messing: " I am in tears. Thank you Chairman Schiff for fighting for our country."

    New York Times columnist Gail Collins says it was "a great job" and that Schiff is "a rock star" for pulling it off.

    But in fact it was the opposite

    a fear-mongering, sword-rattling harangue that will not only raise tensions with Russia for no good reason, but sends a chilling message to dissidents at home that if they deviate from Russiagate orthodoxy by one iota, they'll be driven from the fold.

    What is that orthodoxy?

    It's that Russia invaded poor innocent Ukraine in 2014, that it interfered in the US presidential election in 2016 in order to hurt Hillary Clinton and propel Donald Trump into the White House, and that it's now trying to smear Joe Biden merely because he had allowed his son to take a high-paying job with a notorious Ukrainian oligarch at a time when he was supposedly heading up the Ukrainian anti-corruption effort.

    As Schiff put it with regard to Donald Trump's famous July 25 phone call urging Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to look into Biden's activities:

    "This investigation was related to a debunked conspiracy theory alleging that Ukraine not Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election. This narrative propagated by the Russian intelligence services contends that Ukraine sought to help Hillary Clinton and harm then-candidate Trump . This tale is also patently false and, remarkably, it is precisely the inverse of what the US intelligence community's unanimous assessment was that Russia interfered in the 2016 election in sweeping and systemic fashion in order to hurt Hillary Clinton and help Donald Trump."

    So even though the Financial Times reported during the 2016 election campaign that the threat of a Trump victory was spurring "Kiev's wider political leadership to do something they have never attempted before: intervene, however indirectly, in a US election," articles like that are now down the memory hole because Schiff says they're Russian propaganda that US intelligence agencies have determined to be false.

    The same goes for arguments that it's actually NATO's aggressive expansion to the east that has led to a needless buildup of tensions, not Russia's drive to the west. Recent examples include an article in the National Interest arguing that NATO has "empowered some of the most historically anti-Russian elements in that region – Ukrainian Banderites [i.e. followers of Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera], Polish nationalists, Balkan Islamists" – elements that, not unreasonably, have sparked Russia's worst fears – or one in the Nation stating that NATO's drang nach osten is "the primary cause for the new and very dangerous Cold War."

    Articles like those are verboten as well because they go counter to the new line that Russia is entirely to blame. Declared Schiff:

    "Russia is not a threat to Eastern Europe alone. Ukraine has become the de facto proving ground for just the types of hybrid warfare that the twenty-first century will become defined by: cyberattacks, disinformation campaigns, efforts to undermine the legitimacy of state institutions, whether that is voting systems or financial markets. The Kremlin showed boldly in 2016 that with the malign skills it honed in Ukraine, they would not stay in Ukraine. Instead, Russia employed them here to attack our institutions, and they will do so again."

    As for Biden, a New York Times editorial said about his son's unfortunate new job back in 2015:

    "Sadly, the credibility of Mr. Biden's [anti-corruption] message may be undermined by the association of his son with a Ukrainian natural-gas company, Burisma Holdings, which is owned by a former government official suspected of corrupt practices . Burisma's owner, Mykola Zlochevsky, has been under investigation in Britain and in Ukraine. It should be plain to Hunter Biden that any connection with a Ukrainian oligarch damages his father's efforts to help Ukraine. This is not a board he should be sitting on ."

    We must all put such sentiments behind us now Russia is seeking to "weaponize" such information, according to Schiff, and deploy it "against Mr. Biden just like it did against Hillary Clinton in 2016 when Russia hacked and released emails from her presidential campaign." If Russia wants to weaponize it, then it's best for the rest of us not to breathe a word of it lest people think we've been weaponized as well.

    Bottom line: we must impeach Trump, according to Schiff's epic presentation, not only because he's overstepped his proper constitutional bounds, but because he's part of a grand Russian conspiracy to spread disinformation, undercut US security, undermine faith in US intelligence agencies, and "remake the map of Europe by dent of military force." In order to counter this all-encompassing threat, it is our patriotic duty to do the opposite by believing the CIA and redoubling US defense. If anyone tells us that Biden was guilty of a flagrant conflict of interest, we must stop up our ears because that's what Moscow wants us to think. If anyone says that the entire Russian-interference narrative is just a silly conspiracy theory based on a paucity of facts and an abundance of paranoid speculation, we must do likewise because it's just the Kremlin trying to worm its way into our minds.

    When in doubt, just remember to bleat: America good, Russia baa-aa-aad.

    But while it would be nice to dismiss this as a joke, it's not. Schiff's emergence as leader of the Democratic impeachment drive means that the party is re-grouping along the most retrograde Cold War lines. As reckless and appalling as Trump's behavior is in the Persian Gulf, the emerging Democratic worldview is shaping up as no less extreme. Because it sees Russia as mounting a multi-pronged offensive, the clear implication is that the US must respond in kind. This means more troops deployments, more forces mobilized to counter Russian threats from Venezuela to the Middle East, more TV talking heads going on and on about this or that Kremlin conspiracy, and more labelling of people like Tulsi Gabbard and Jill Stein as Russian assets.

    Remember, this is the Los Angeles neocon who backed the invasion of Afghanistan, the invasion of Iraq, and Saudi Arabia's unprovoked war against Yemen, an assault that, since March 2015, has cost 100,000 lives and brought half the country to the brink of starvation. He supported Obama's war in Libya and called for the establishment of a no-fly zone in Syria and relies on arms manufacturers and military contractors for major financial support .

    But while Bernie supporters may have thought that Democrats were edging away from such views, they're plainly in the wrong. Schiff's new-found prominence shows that the neocons are back in the saddle. Impeachment advocates should be careful of what they wish for because the anti-Trump forces are turning out to be no less dangerous than those helping him to remain.


    dubsea , 8 minutes ago link

    Somebody giving Shifty Shiff a sweet retirement package.. No way this guy actually believes what he's saying. Paid lyer. Nothing more.

    3rdhandgrand , 10 minutes ago link

    What a dumb headline. Every single politician in D.C. is a deep state stooge. Every. Single. One. None of them are even a little bit better than any of the others. Grow up.

    Davidduke2000 , 25 minutes ago link

    this man schiff exhibit symptoms of Schizophrenia .

    Schizophrenia is a mental illness characterized by relapsing episodes of psychosis . [5] Major symptoms include hallucinations (most usually hearing voices ), delusions (having beliefs that are not shared by others), and disordered thinking . [12] Other symptoms may include social withdrawal , decreased emotional expression , and lack of motivation . [5] Symptoms typically come on gradually, begin in young adulthood, and in many cases never resolve. [3] [6] There is no objective diagnostic test; diagnosis is based on observed behavior, a history that includes the person's reported experiences, and reports of others familiar with the person. [6] To be diagnosed with schizophrenia, symptoms and functional impairment need to be present for six months. [6] [13] Many people with schizophrenia have other mental disorders that may include an anxiety disorder such as panic disorder , obsessive-compulsive disorder , depressive disorder , or a substance use disorder . [14]

    hooligan2009 , 19 minutes ago link

    schumer talks to ghosts sitting in his chair as well - play to the end

    https://twitter.com/graenni/status/1219938057668919296?s=11

    Smilygladhands , 11 minutes ago link

    exactly right. the dims have been suffering prolonged hysterical psychosis since Nov 2016.

    1. The economy will tank!
    2. Russian collusion!
    3. Ukraine!
    4. Will start a war with Iran!

    wrong every time and yet refuse to see reality

    GreatSunnyDays , 5 minutes ago link

    "Recreational intoxication - with the strongest pot ever grown, strength-intensified by over 50 years of applied horticultural science." Heavy users of the "recreational pot" are psychos. "Recreational psychosis" - courtesy of your state government

    Cannabis (marijuana, hashish, weed, dope) is the most commonly used illicit recreational drug in Australia. It's a depressant psychoactive substance that can cause temporary psychotic symptoms and, in some cases, full psychotic disorders like schizophrenia.

    Schiff is from the state of legalized 'Recreational pot', maybe that's what's wrong with the dude

    insanelysane , 38 minutes ago link

    It does seem that the impeachment is helping Trump and Bernie as Bernie is taking a clear lead. The Dems badly wanted to impeach Trump and this Ukraine thing was the first viable option after the Mueller report failure. It was a poor choice for the Dems because of Joe Biden's involvement. It got worse when Biden and other Dems say that no one ever thought that the kid's board position was an issue even though Obama administration people brought it up.

    The more interesting trial which no one is covering is Hunter Biden's child support trial. He is refusing to turn over his financials. This should be a huge story.

    Did he file taxes?

    How many foreign companies were sending him money?

    Was he reporting all of the income from Burisma and the other companies? I suspect not because I think he was sending a cut to his father for "getting" him the work.

    hooligan2009 , 40 minutes ago link

    BREAKING NEWS: Anonymouse sauces (sic) are stating that the FBI conducted electronic surveillance on ALL Republican Presidential candidates in the 2016 election on Obama's instructions who was briefed each week on the surveillance.

    These anonymouse sauces also stated that there has been no surveillance of ANY of the Democrat Presidentail candidates in 2019-2020.

    Apparently, the Republican party has been unwilling to maintain the levels of cash bribes, payments in kind etc to senior FBI employees that were paid by the Obama administration.

    In other news, the GAO has declined to publish an internal audit report that details that the level of waste in federal spending has dropped from 20% under Obama to 15% of all federal spending under Trump...

    Promethus , 46 minutes ago link

    I made a Google search about something else and I ran into a half dozen different posts about Shiff having Anthony Bourdain murdered because Bourdain saw Shiff rape and murder a 10 year old African American boy in a snuff video. I think Shiff is creepy and probably a pervert but this was a little much even with my low opinion of Shiff. Has this been debunked?

    SolidGold , 44 minutes ago link

    See Ed Buck.

    Posa , 51 minutes ago link

    The Schiff fan club are all Killary dead enders and liberal neoCons... they're sore at Putin 'cause he wouldn't let Obama openly start a bloodbath in Syria the war Dubya did in Iraq- Afghanistan. Obama and Killary had to use ISIS instead to annihilate some ME countries to lock down US Global Hegemony.

    Adding insult to injury, Drump slam dunked their idol, Killary, in the 2016 election, which just wasn't on the dance card.

    Either way--- Drump or some Dum candidate--- America is screwed.

    Harley Vet , 52 minutes ago link

    List of crimes Trump has committed....

    1. Fraud in the Trump University affair.
    2. Racial discrimination in housing.
    3. Money laundering with one of his casinos.
    4. All these are civil cases Trump lost but won't go to jail, because owning a corporation allows you to commit crimes and not be charged criminally.
    5. Trump admitted on the Access Hollywood tape that he sexually assaulted women.
    6. 22 women have since come forward to say that Trump sexually assaulted them, including his first wife who said in a divorce deposition that Trump raped her.
    7. Then there are the decades of tax evasions documented in the New York Times.
    8. And the insurance scam documented by Michael Cohen's testimony before Congress.
    9. Campaign law violations
    10. witness tampering
    11. obstruction
    12. selling out America to foreign

    There are also 14 on going investigations against Trump as well, but they can't charge Trump in any of those yet, because he is a sitting president.

    James Paterson , 36 minutes ago link

    Even if true, no murders are attributed to Trump even by his nuttiest enemies. He would have a long way to go to reach the depths of the Bushes and the Clintons.

    chunga , 55 minutes ago link

    It is fascinating watching the partisan blame game when practically every single one of them up there, regardless of spot or stripe, voted for and supports arming Ukraine.

    Politicians are bad but voters are worse.

    ThomasEdmonds , 57 minutes ago link

    https://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/03/08/the-hidden-history-of-the-incredibly-evil-khazarian-mafia/

    Gringo Viejo , 1 hour ago link

    Schiff is the kid that got pantzed in Jr. High School.

    The kid that got shoved into lockers and had the "kick me" sign slapped on his back.

    And now the world is going to pay for that.

    [Jan 25, 2020] Trump actions indicate that he is an agent of influence for Israel, not Russia.

    Jan 25, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    Nevertheless, after listening to what Shiff and Nadler said yesterday I conclude that if Trump is re-elected the claim will be made that he stole the election with the help of Russia. This is silly, his actions indicate that he is an agent of influence for Israel, not Russia.

    Call me Turcopolier. I stand here where ignorant armies clash by night and hope to be saved to tell the tale in November. pl

    [Jan 25, 2020] A new act of "Full of Schiff" spectacle

    Jan 25, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    After being held captive for three days while House Democrats litigated their impeachment case against President Trump, House Impeachment Manager Adam Schiff (D-CA) enraged Senate Republicans last night during his closing remarks when he referred to an anonymously sourced media report that they would face retribution from the White House if they voted to convict the president.

    "CBS News reported last night that a Trump confidant said that key senators were warned, 'Vote against the president and your head will be on a pike.' I don't know if that's true," said Schiff, challenging GOP lawmakers to vote with "moral courage" instead of caving to their party.

    GOP senators are heard yelling "that's not true" when House manager Adam Schiff cites a CBS report claiming Pres. Trump told them their heads "will be on a pike" if they voted against him. pic.twitter.com/wrXI4KhGPR
    -- Alex Salvi (@alexsalvinews) January 25, 2020

    Schiff's 'pike' comment enraged several moderate Republicans - who Democrats desperately need on their side for a vote on whether to call witnesses in the trial.

    "I thought he was doing fine with [talking about] moral courage until he got to the 'head on a pike.' That's where he lost me," said one such Senator, Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), adding "He's a good orator. ... It was just unnecessary."


    Cursing Flasher , 29 minutes ago link

    If the facts are on your side, you pound the facts.

    If the law is on your side, you pound the law.

    If neither is on your side, you pound the table.

    If neither is on you side, and you're a democrat, you pound each other.

    Swan , 5 minutes ago link

    Democrats and Republicans working against each other and no one is working for the people.

    Confucious 222 , 11 minutes ago link

    Getting about time to confront Mossad Agent Schiff with some conflict of interest stuff

    [Jan 24, 2020] Martin Indyk An Important Neoliberal Defects From the Blob

    Notable quotes:
    "... Today Israel's IDF faces a combat hardened army in Syria, a combat hardened irregular military force in Lebanon, and increasingly hardened resistance in its own backyard with Hamas. And Iranian ground forces are not pushovers. ..."
    Jan 24, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

    Martin Indyk: An Important Neoliberal Defects From the Blob

    Let's hope the former ambassador's heresy about withdrawing from the Middle East catches fire and spreads. Then-VP of Brookings Martin Indyk in 2017. (Sharon Farmer/sfphotoworks)

    January 22, 2020

    |

    12:01 am

    Andrew J. Bacevich Within the inner precincts of the American foreign policy establishment, last names are redundant. At a Washington cocktail party, when some half-sloshed AEI fellow whispers, "Apparently, Henry is back in Beijing to see Xi," there's no need to ask, "Which Henry?" In that world, there is only one Henry, at least only one who counts.

    Similarly, there is only one Martin. While Martin Indyk may not equal Henry Kissinger in star power, he has for several decades been a major player in U.S. policy regarding Israel and the Middle East more broadly. Founder of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, senior director on the National Security Council, twice U.S. ambassador to Israel, assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs, presidential envoy -- not a bad resume for someone who was born in London, raised in Australia, and became a U.S. citizen only in his 40s.

    Throughout his career, Martin has been deeply invested in the Israeli-Palestinian "peace process" and in the proposition that the United States has a vital interest in pursuing that process to a successful conclusion. More broadly, he has subscribed to the view that the United States has vital interests at stake in the Middle East more generally, with regional stability and the well-being of the people living there dependent on the United States exercising what people in Washington call "leadership." In this context, of course, leadership tends to be a euphemism for the use or threatened use of military power.

    These are, of course, establishment notions, to which all members of the "Blob" necessarily declare their fealty. Indeed, at least until Trump came along, to dissent from such views was to become ineligible for appointment to even a mid-level post in the State Department, the Pentagon, or the White House.

    Yet Martin has now publicly recanted.

    In an extraordinary op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal (of all places), he asserts that "few vital interests of the US continue to be at stake in the Middle East." Policies centered on ensuring the free flow of Persian Gulf oil and the survival of Israel have become superfluous. "The US economy no longer relies on imported petroleum," he correctly notes. "Fracking has turned the US into a net oil and natural-gas exporter." As a consequence, Persian Gulf oil "is no longer a vital interest -- that is, one worth fighting for. Difficult as it might be to get our heads around the idea, China and India need to be protecting the sea lanes between the Gulf and their ports, not the US Navy."

    As for the Jewish State, Martin notes, again correctly, that today Israel has the capacity "to defend itself by itself." Notwithstanding the blustering threats regularly issued by Tehran, "it is today's nuclear-armed Israel that has the means to crush Iran, not the other way around."

    Furthermore, Martin has had his fill of the peace process. "A two-state solution to the Palestinian problem is a vital Israeli interest, not a vital American one," he writes, insisting that "it's time to end the farce of putting forward American peace plans only to have one or both sides reject them."

    Martin does identify one vital U.S. interest in the Middle East: averting a nuclear arms race. Yet "we should be wary of those who would rush to battle stations," he cautions. "Curbing Iran's nuclear aspirations and ambitions for regional dominance will require assiduous American diplomacy, not war."

    That last sentence captures the essence of Martin's overall conclusion: he proposes not disengaging from the Middle East but demilitarizing U.S. policy. "After the sacrifice of so many American lives, the waste of so much energy and money in quixotic efforts that ended up doing more harm than good," he writes, "it is time for the US to find a way to escape the costly, demoralising cycle of crusades and retreats."

    Now such sentiments appear regularly in the pages of The American Conservative and on the website of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft . Yet in establishment circles, a willingness to describe U.S. policy in the Middle East as quixotic is rare indeed. As for acknowledging that we have done more harm than good, such commonsense views are usually regarded as beyond the pale.

    Martin deserves our congratulations. We must hope that his heresy catches fire and spreads throughout the Blob. In the meantime, if he's in need of office space, the Quincy Institute stands ready to help.

    Welcome to the ranks of the truth tellers, comrade.

    Andrew Bacevich is TAC's writer-at-large and president of the Quincy Institute. His new book, The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory , has just been published.

    ReplyShare › Show more replies Show more replies Show more replies − +

    Mark Thomason 2 days ago

    "Martin has been deeply invested in the Israeli-Palestinian "peace process" and in the proposition that the United States has a vital interest in pursuing that process to a successful conclusion. More broadly, he has subscribed to the view that the United States has vital interests at stake in the Middle East more generally, with regional stability and the well-being of the people living there"

    No. The only use he ever had for the peace process was as cover for what Israel was really doing.

    The only interest he ever cared about was Israel, not the stability or well-being of any other people but the hawks among Israelis.

    He perverted US policy from the inside, in pursuit of those ends of those Lobby partisans. He has never been anything else.

    Bianca Mark Thomason 10 hours ago • edited
    And is about to pervert it AGAIN. One must be a total ignoramus not to notice American public's changing attitude towards Israel, as well as Israel's high powered lobbyists.
    Before the change turns into an outright hostility, the apologists of the Empire are defusing the nascent rage. So, HE is the one to be PRAISED for being so wise, and deserving our support?
    This leopard will keep on changing spots, but never his nature.
    He is and will remain ardent apologist of American Empire -- for as long as this Empire serves his primary interest. And that interest is clear -- interest of Israel AND all of its citizens around the globe.
    Joao Alfaiate a day ago
    It is disheartening to read Bacevich praise Indyk-who was, after all, one of the architects of our disastrous Middle East "policy". I guess the Quincy Institute wants to hew a path closer to the mainstream narrative. What will be next? An apologia for Doug Feith and Richard Perle?
    liveload 20 hours ago • edited
    Indyk's comments read like a neo-con who's lost favor and power. This is not a good sign. This points to the internecine warfare within the halls of conceptual power being closer to decided. With the diplomats out, it leaves the apocalypse cult as the de-facto winner.

    Expect more ludicrous demands of US vassals and more effort to attack Iran. They're not going to stop. Where the oil comes from doesn't matter, what currency is used to conduct trade does.

    Bianca liveload 9 hours ago
    It is exactly so -- internecine warfare. But I do not see them loosing power. They are losing NARRATIVE both internationally and domestically. This is a beginning of crafting a new narrative to stem the rising hostility against Israel centric militaristic foreign policy orientation.

    Thus switching to "diplomacy", as military posturing just brings about dead ends to defend.
    He wants results, So, change the narrative, diffuse anti-Israeli tide, and become a beacon of reason and wholesomeness. Who can resist these new spots?

    foodoo 17 hours ago
    Martin Indyk has already done maximal damage. His opportunity to actually help the situation has long past.
    He is and always was an Israeli-firster
    redsocs 13 hours ago • edited
    There was never anything Quixotic about US foreign policy in the ME. As for Israel/Palestine, the policy, and "Martin" was central to it, was to pretend to negotiate in good faith while Israel occupied "the land from the river to the sea." In Iraq, except for Cheney's oil lust, it was to carry out the neo-con chant of "the road to Iran is through Iraq." As for Iran, it has been to barely resist Israel's, and US Israel-firster's, pressure for war, though it may still happen.
    Steve Naidamast 4 hours ago
    You mean to say that some establishment guy finally got fed up with all the bullshit?

    In any event, Indyk is wrong to believe that Israel can defeat Iran in a conflict. Israeli nuclear weapons are really of little consequence in such a situation as the majority of them must be delivered by aircraft which Iran will simply shoot down. Those that are siloed will most likely meet the same fate. But in either case Russia will not allow any such conflict to go nuclear.

    In terms of conventional capabailities, the IDF has never been a very good military unit since it basically has only entered engagements with less than equally capable opponents. However, that has all been changing since Hezbollah's defeat of the IDF in 2006.

    Today Israel's IDF faces a combat hardened army in Syria, a combat hardened irregular military force in Lebanon, and increasingly hardened resistance in its own backyard with Hamas. And Iranian ground forces are not pushovers.

    The Israeli navy is meaningless in this situation so it is only in the air that Israel now has any claim to fame. However, instead of increasing its Air Force with modernized F15x models, Israel has opted to acquire the F35, which no amount of avionics can make the air-frame fly better. Iran still uses the F14 as a heavy fighter, which Israel also requires for her situation making the acquisition of the F35 rather odd.

    In the end, it will be Iranian missile development that places that nation in a position to deal a death blow to the Israeli state.

    [Jan 24, 2020] Adam Schiff Is a Dangerous Warmonger by Liza Featherstone

    Jan 24, 2020 | jacobinmag.com

    Adam Schiff, the liberal hero of impeachment, is a wholly owned subsidiary of the military-industrial complex and a fervent exponent of permanent war.

    o some Democrats and journalists, Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) is a hero. All over the internet, people are thanking him for defending the Constitution, hoping he'll run for president someday. After his performance during this week's impeachment hearing, the worship was especially intense; a letter writer to the New York Times called it "brilliant" and a "tour de force," while the conservative Washington Times made fun of all the blue-checked Twitter accounts losing their objectivity in ecstatic praise. As the face of the impeachment effort, especially for liberals disengaged from the election process, Schiff represents a glimmer of hope for domestic regime change.

    We'd like to be on his side. After all, he's working hard to take down Donald Trump, one of the worst presidents in American history. But let's not get carried away in fandom. Schiff is a dangerous warmonger, and his efforts to fuel paranoia about Russia only serve to feed that agenda. It would be admirable if Schiff's impeachment crusade was limited to Trump's corruption. But something else drives him: he wants a proxy war in Ukraine with Russia, and he has for some time.

    Adam Schiff physically resembles a prosperity preacher. That is to say, he looks like a classic dodgy American salesman, but with a beatific glow of righteousness. This creepily wholesome look lends a corny Cold War ambiance to his constant fulmination about "the Russians." It's hard not to listen to him without thinking of Allen Ginsberg's 1956 poem "America":

    America, it's them bad Russians

    Them Russians, them Russians and them Chinamen.

    And them Russians.

    Assuring us that he is aware, actually, of what century this is, Schiff said in 2015 , "Now, we're not seeing the same bipolar world we had between communism and capitalism." (Phew!) He then added, "But we are seeing a new bipolar world, I think, where you have democracy versus authoritarianism." Schiff has not viewed this as a mere contest of ideas: he constantly advocated for Obama to impose tougher sanctions on Russia and give more weapons to Ukraine.

    Although delicately opposed to violence in some contexts -- he's a vegan! -- this isn't the only war Schiff has championed. He supported the Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya wars, greater US intervention in Syria, as well as the Saudi war with Yemen (although he has, in the past year, turned against the latter adventure, seeming to draw the line at sawing up journalists with bonesaws -- he is a moderate after all, plus very popular with the media), and he has voted for nearly every possible increase in the defense budget.

    As Jacobin 's own Branko Marcetic observed two years ago , Schiff's bellicosity is extensively funded by arms manufacturers and military contractors. A Ukrainian arms dealer named Igor Pasternak held a $2,500 per head fundraiser for Schiff in 2013, as the late Justin Raimondo reported in a terrific analysis on Antiwar.com in 2017, at a time when Ukraine was desperately trying to counter the Obama administration's disinterest in funding its war with Russia. Despite that disinterest, the State Department approved some very profitable dealings for Pasternak in Ukraine after that fundraiser.

    And that's only one example. In the current cycle, donations from the war industry have continued to flood his coffers. Many come from employees of firms with extensive Department of Defense contracts, including Radiance Technologies and Raytheon. PACs representing the defense industry also make a robust showing among Schiff's contributors, according to data on Open Secrets.org; companies funneling money to Schiff -- sorry, contributing to those PACs -- include Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Radiance, and others, including L3Harris Technologies (which got in big trouble with the State Department in September and had to pay $13 million in penalties for illegal arms dealing).

    Guess what these companies want? War with Ukraine. Why wouldn't they? Last October, the United States approved a $39 million sale of anti-tank missiles to Ukraine, a joint contract between Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. The previous year, Ukraine bought $37 million worth of missiles from the same two companies. As a missile-maker, Zacks Equity Research has noted, Northrop Grumman also benefits richly from conflict in Ukraine, as missiles are heavily used in cross-border wars.

    Despite his enthusiastic support for state violence and cozy ties to the makers of deadly weaponry, Schiff, an Alexander Hamilton–quoting windbag, doesn't have much crossover appeal to the sort of people who put "These Colors Don't Run" stickers on their trucks. His impeachment crusade only seems to reinforce Trump's support among the faithful; at this writing, 93 percent of Republicans oppose the president's removal from office.

    Welcome to the #Resistance.

    Liza Featherstone is a columnist for Jacobin , a freelance journalist, and the author of Selling Women Short: The Landmark Battle for Workers' Rights at Wal-Mart .

    This article was originally published by " Jacobin " -

    [Jan 24, 2020] Russiagate Spy Paid $1 Million By Obama Was WaPo Deep Throat

    Jan 24, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    Russiagate Spy Paid $1 Million By Obama Was WaPo Deep Throat by Tyler Durden Thu, 01/23/2020 - 19:44 0 SHARES

    Stephan Halper, the longtime CIA and FBI operative who conducted espionage on the 2016 Trump campaign, was feeding information to Washington Post reporter David Ignatius through his handler , according to The Federalist , which describes his actions as "more evidence that the intelligence community has co-opted the press to push anti-Trump conspiracy theories."

    According to a court filing by Michael Flynn's defense team, Halper's 'handler' in the Office of Net Assessment (ONA), Col. James Baker, "regularly lunched with the Washington Post reporter."

    (Also leaking to Ignatius was Christopher Steele )

    As we noted in May of 2018 , Halper was paid over $1 million by the Obama administration through the Office of Net Assessment - nearly half of which came during 'Russiagate' - in which he not only surveilled multiple Trump campaign aides, he was involved in an effort to tie General Flynn to a Russian academic, Svetlana Lokhova, as part of a smear campaign.

    Svetlana Lokhova, the Russian-born English citizen and Soviet-era scholar, told The Federalist that she only realized the significance of her communications with and about Ignatius following the filing of attorney Sidney Powell's reply brief in the Michael Flynn case.

    In last week's court filing, Powell highlighted how the CIA, FBI, Halper , and possibly James Baker used the unnamed and unaware Lokhova and the complicit Ignatius to destroy Flynn . This James Baker is not the one who worked under James Comey at the FBI, but a James Baker in the Department of Defense Office of National Assessment. - The Federalist

    Powell wrote:

    Stefan Halper is a known long-time operative for the CIA/FBI. He was paid exorbitant sums by the FBI/CIA/DOD through the Department of Defense Department's Office of Net Assessment in 2016. His tasks seem to have included slandering Mr. Flynn with accusations of having an affair with a young professor (a British national of Russian descent) Flynn met at an official dinner at Cambridge University when he was head of DIA in 2014. Flynn has requested the records of Col. James Baker because he was Halper's 'handler' in the Office of Net Assessment in the Pentagon, and ONA Director Baker regularly lunched with Washington Post Reporter David Ignatius. Baker is believed to be the person who illegally leaked the transcript of Mr. Flynn's calls to Ignatius . The defense has requested the phone records of James Clapper to confirm his contacts with Washington Post reporter Ignatius -- especially on January 10, 2017, when Clapper told Ignatius in words to the effect of 'take the kill shot on Flynn.' It cannot escape mention that the press has long had transcripts of the Kislyak calls that the government has denied to the defense.

    Lokhova sued Halper and multiple MSM outlets for defamation after Halper-fuelled rumors that she was a Russian spy who had 'honeypotted' Flynn, which were first promoted by Lokhova's mentor at Cambridge University - Professor Christopher Andrew, who wrote in the London Sunday Times in February 2017 that her brief meeting with Flynnn during a 2015 dinner event was the beginning of the former National Security Adviser's relationship with a Russian spy.

    Prior to Andrew's article, other outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and the New York Times had published rumors of a Flynn connection to a supposed Russian spy, however Lokhova had no clue it was her until she was outed.

    "Halper had been pushing the story that I was a Russian spy and Flynn's mistress since December of 2016," Lokhova told The Federalist . "The New York Times' Mathew Rosenberg told me a source had been circulating these stories since December 2016," she said, adding "but they held the story until they could find a second source and someone at the Cambridge dinner."

    In his book " The Plot Against the President ," Lee Smith confirms that the story about a Flynn-Lokhova intrigue was circulated to the press starting in December 2016.

    But it wasn't until the Wall Street Journal published its March 17, 2017, article suggesting she had inappropriate contacts with Flynn that Lokhova discovered the earlier article Andrew had written about her for the Sunday Times , Lokhova said. Before then, within days of February 28, 2017, several journalists reached out to her for comment, including two working for the Wall Street Journal, but Lokhova didn't know why .

    She also didn't comprehend who the inquiring journalists were at the time. That remained true even after her mentor and unknown betrayer, Andrew, wrote Lokhova telling her that "David Ignatius of Washington Post is in UK at moment. I've known him for years and trust him. I've given him your email and he accepts that if you don't wish to respond, that an end to it." - The Federalist

    Via The Federalist

    It is unknown what Andrew meant by Ignatius's "inside track," however the above email was sent to Lokhova just one month after Ignatus reported the illegally leaked details of Flynn's conversation with Russia's ambassador - leading to his firing .

    Read the rest of the report here .

    Soloamber , 4 hours ago link

    The biggest coup attempt in USA history and most of the media pump the tires of an impeachment scam

    going no where .

    The Democrat hate machine never thought they were going to get caught . WRONG .

    But of course they "didn't intend to " spy on , frame , slander and lie for over 3 years

    about their actions .

    [Jan 24, 2020] They Killed King For The Same Reason They Killed Kennedy Zero Hedge

    Notable quotes:
    "... Amidst all the anti-Russia brouhaha that has enveloped our nation , we shouldn't forget that the U.S. national-security establishment -- specifically the Pentagon, CIA, and FBI -- was convinced that Martin Luther King Jr. was a communist agent who was spearheading a communist takeover of the United States. ..."
    "... State-sponsored assassinations to protect national security were among the dark-side practices that began to be utilized after the federal government was converted into a national-security state . As early as 1953, the CIA was developing a formal assassination manual that trained its agents in the art of assassination and, equally important, in the art of concealing the CIA's role in state-sponsored assassinations. ..."
    "... Why did they target Kennedy? For the same reason they targeted all those other people for assassination -- they concluded that Kennedy had become a grave threat to national security and, they believed, it was their job to eliminate threats to national security. ..."
    "... After the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy achieved a breakthrough that enabled him to recognize that the Cold War was just one great big racket for the national-security establishment and its army of defenseť contractors and sub-contractors. ..."
    "... That's when JFK announced an end to the Cold War and began reaching out to the Soviets and the Cubans in a spirit of peace, friendship, and mutual coexistence. Kennedy's Peace Speech at American University on June 10, 1963, where he announced his intent to end the Cold War and normalize relations with the communist world, sealed President Kennedy's fate. ..."
    Jan 24, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    Authored by Jacob Hornberger via The Future of Freedom Foundation,

    Amidst all the anti-Russia brouhaha that has enveloped our nation , we shouldn't forget that the U.S. national-security establishment -- specifically the Pentagon, CIA, and FBI -- was convinced that Martin Luther King Jr. was a communist agent who was spearheading a communist takeover of the United States.

    This occurred during the Cold War, when Americans were made to believe that there was a gigantic international communist conspiracy to take over the United States and the rest of the world. The conspiracy, they said, was centered in Moscow, Russia. Yes, that Russia!

    That was, in fact, the justification for converting the federal government to a national-security state type of governmental structure after the end of World War II. The argument was that a limited-government republic type of governmental structure, which was the national's founding governmental system, was insufficient to prevent a communist takeover of the United States. To prevail over the communists in what was being called a â€cold War, a€ť it would be necessary for the federal government, they said, to become a national-security state so that it could wield the same type of sordid, dark-side, totalitarian-like practices that the communists themselves wielded and exercised.

    The conviction that the communists were coming to get us became so predominant, primarily through official propaganda and indoctrination, especially in the national's public (i.e., government) schools, that the matter evolved into mass paranoia. Millions of Americans became convinced that there were communists everywhere. Americans were exhorted to keep a careful watch on everyone else, including their neighbors, and report any suspicious activity, much as Americans today are exhorted to do the same thing with respect to terrorists.

    Some Americans would even look under their beds for communists. Others searched for communists in Congress and within the federal bureaucracies, even the Army, and Hollywood as well. One rightwing group became convinced that even President Eisenhower was an agent of the Soviet government.

    In the midst of all this national paranoia, the FBI, the Pentagon, and the CIA became convinced that King was a communist agent. When King began criticizing U.S. interventionism in Vietnam, that solidified their belief that he was a communist agent. After all, they maintained, wouldn't any true-blue American patriot rally to his government in time of war, not criticize or condemn it? Only a communist, they believed, would oppose his government when it was committed to killing communists in Vietnam.

    Moreover, when King began advocating for civil rights, especially in the South, that constituted additional evidence, as far as the FBI, CIA, and Pentagon were concerned, that he was, in fact, a communist agent, one whose mission was to foment civil strife in America as a prelude to a communist takeover of America . How else to explain why a black man would be fighting for equal rights for blacks in nation that purported to be free?

    The website kingcenter.org points out:

    After four weeks of testimony and over 70 witnesses in a civil trial in Memphis, Tennessee, twelve jurors reached a unanimous verdict on December 8, 1999 after about an hour of deliberations that Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. Mrs. Coretta Scott King welcomed the verdict saying, there is abundant evidence of a major high level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband Martin Luther King Jr. The jury was clearly convinced by the extensive evidence that was presented during the trial that, in addition to Mr. Jowers, the conspiracy of the Mafia, local, state and federal governments were deeply involved in the assassination of my husband.”

    And why not? Isn't it the duty of the U.S. national-security state to eradicate threats to national security? What bigger threat to national security than a person who is supposedly serving as an agent for the communists and also as a spearhead for an international communist conspiracy to take over the United States?

    State-sponsored assassinations to protect national security were among the dark-side practices that began to be utilized after the federal government was converted into a national-security state . As early as 1953, the CIA was developing a formal assassination manual that trained its agents in the art of assassination and, equally important, in the art of concealing the CIA's role in state-sponsored assassinations.

    In 1954, the CIA targeted the democratically elected president of Guatemala for assassination because he was reaching out to Russia in a spirt of peace, friendship, and mutual co-existence. In 1960-61, the CIA conspired to assassinate Patrice Lumumba, the head of the Congo because he was perceived to be a threat to U.S. national security. In the early 1960s, the CIA , in partnership with the Mafia, the worldâ's premier criminal organization, conspired to assassinate Fidel Castro, the leader of Cuba, a country that never attacked or invaded the United States. In 1973, the U.S. national-security state orchestrated a coup in Chile, where its counterparts in the Chilean national-security establishment conspired to assassinate the democratically elected president of the country, Salvador Allende, by firing missiles at his position in the national palace.

    The mountain of circumstantial evidence that has accumulated since November 1963 has established that foreign officials werenâ't the only ones who got targeted as threats to national security. As James W. Douglas documents so well in his remarkable and profound book JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters , the U.S. national-security establishment also targeted President John F. Kennedy for a state-sponsored assassination as well.

    Why did they target Kennedy? For the same reason they targeted all those other people for assassination -- they concluded that Kennedy had become a grave threat to national security and, they believed, it was their job to eliminate threats to national security.

    After the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy achieved a breakthrough that enabled him to recognize that the Cold War was just one great big racket for the national-security establishment and its army of defenseť contractors and sub-contractors.

    That's when JFK announced an end to the Cold War and began reaching out to the Soviets and the Cubans in a spirit of peace, friendship, and mutual coexistence. Kennedy's Peace Speech at American University on June 10, 1963, where he announced his intent to end the Cold War and normalize relations with the communist world, sealed President Kennedy's fate.

    Thet's also what had sealed the fate of President Arbenz in Guatemala and what would seal the fate of President Allende in Chile. (See FFFâ's bestselling book JFKâ's War with the National Security Establishment: Why Kennedy Was Assassinated  by Douglas P. Horne, who served on the Assassination Records Review Board in the 1990s. Also see FFFâ's bestselling book The Kennedy Autopsy  by Jacob Hornberger and his recently published The Kennedy Autopsy 2 .”)

    But what many people often forget is that one day after his Peace Speech at American University, Kennedy delivered a major televised address to the nation defending the civil rights movement, the movement that King was leading.

    What better proof of a threat to national security than that â€" reaching out to the communist world in peace and friendship and then, one day later, defending a movement that the U.S. national-security establishment was convinced was a spearhead for the communist takeover of the United States?

    The loss of both Kennedy and King constituted conclusive confirmation that the worst mistake in U.S. history was to abandon a limited-government republic type of governmental system in favor of a totalitarian governmental structure known as a national-security state. A free nation does not fight communism with communist tactics and an omnipotent government. A free nation fights communism with freedom and limited government.

    There is no doubt what both John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. would have thought about a type of totalitarian-like governmental structure that has led our nation in the direction of state-sponsored assassinations, torture, invasions, occupations, wars of aggression, coups, alliances with dictatorial regimes, sanctions, embargoes, regime-change operations, and massive death, suffering, and destruction, not to mention the loss of liberty and privacy here at home.

    [Jan 24, 2020] These swine care nothing about truth--their only object is to create a "narrative" to brainwash what few followers can still stomach it and cover their moral bankruptcy and crimes

    Jan 24, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    Bastiat , 3 minutes ago link

    These swine care nothing about truth--their only object is to create a "narrative" (which used to be known as a "line of ********") to brainwash what few followers can still stomach it and cover their moral bankruptcy and crimes.

    Brazillionaire , 3 minutes ago link

    Schiff is a GD fascist. And a ******* liar. He claims Trump would "cheat again" in 2020. Huh? Does this prick have problems dealing with reality? Seriously, did the Mueller Report not happen in his mind? I don't think I've ever seen someone who believes so much that's just not true. And he's indignant about his own fucked up version of "facts" that are lies. He needs to just go and be with Satan.

    Item N9ne , 4 minutes ago link

    Clearly he didn't awe anyone, but part of the show is to refer to this flop as a sparkling whimsical glory of magical historical spiffyness, by the most grandest superb stunning genius man ever to be televised, ever. Ever.

    They can't help but overplay their hands.

    Bastiat , 44 seconds ago link

    Because all they have to do is look down and see they've got nothin'.

    spork , 4 minutes ago link

    "Many in the media wing of the Democrat party fawn over orange man bad screed from elected party members"

    There. I fixed the headline.

    james diamond squid , 3 minutes ago link

    he just looks like a typical demented pedophile ****** to me. whats the fuss?

    DEDA CVETKO , 4 minutes ago link

    In other words, the Schiff has hit the fans.

    ???ö? , 8 minutes ago link

    They shouted again, "Crucify him!"

    "Why?" Pilate demanded. "What crime has he committed?"

    But the mob roared even louder, "CRUCIFY HIM!"

    nonkjo , 8 minutes ago link

    This isn't news. It's not as if democrats don't already have a very low bar!

    chunga , 9 minutes ago link

    Ok, let's see if the red team has anybody aside from Hamilton Burger. I would not bet on it.

    [Jan 24, 2020] One real Trump crime about which DemoRats are afraid to talk: OPCW Investigator testifies at UN that no Chemical Attack Took Place in Douma, Syria

    Notable quotes:
    "... Video and a transcript of former OPCW engineer and dissenter Ian Henderson's UN testimony appears at the end of this report. ..."
    "... Video of the session follows at the bottom of this article, along with a full transcript of Henderson's testimony ..."
    "... The New York Times ..."
    "... Ian Henderson's testimony begins at 57:30 in this official UN video ..."
    Jan 24, 2020 | dissidentvoice.org

    by Ben Norton / January 23rd, 2020

    Video and a transcript of former OPCW engineer and dissenter Ian Henderson's UN testimony appears at the end of this report.

    A former lead investigator from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has spoken out at the United Nations, stating in no uncertain terms that the scientific evidence suggests there was no gas attack in Douma, Syria in April 2018.

    The dissenter, Ian Henderson, worked for 12 years at the international watchdog organization, serving as an inspection team leader and engineering expert. Among his most consequential jobs was assisting the international body's fact-finding mission (FFM) on the ground in Douma.

    He told a UN Security Council session convened on January 20 by Russia's delegation that OPCW management had rejected his group's scientific research, dismissed the team, and produced another report that totally contradicted their initial findings.

    "We had serious misgivings that a chemical attack had occurred," Henderson said, referring to the FFM team in Douma.

    The former OPCW inspector added that he had compiled evidence through months of research that "provided further support for the view that there had not been a chemical attack."

    Western airstrikes based on unsubstantiated allegations by foreign-backed jihadists

    Foreign-backed Islamist militants and the Western government-funded regime-change influence operation known as the White Helmets accused the Syrian government of dropping gas cylinders and killing dozens of people in the city of Douma on April 7, 2018. Damascus rejected the accusation, claiming the incident was staged by the insurgents.

    At the time, Douma was controlled by the extremist Salafi-jihadist militia Jaysh al-Islam , which was created and funded by Saudi Arabia and formerly allied with Syria's powerful al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra .

    The governments of the United States, Britain, and France responded to the allegations of a chemical attack by launching airstrikes against the Syrian government on April 14. The military assault was illegal under international law, as the countries did not have UN authorization.

    Numerous OPCW whistleblowers and leaks challenge Western government claims

    In May 2019, an internal OPCW engineering assessment was leaked to the public. The document, authored by Ian Henderson, said the "dimensions, characteristics and appearance of the cylinders" in Douma "were inconsistent with what would have been expected in the case of either cylinder having been delivered from an aircraft," adding that there is "a higher probability that both cylinders were manually placed at those two locations rather than being delivered from aircraft."

    After reviewing the leaked report, MIT professor emeritus of Science, Technology and International Security Theodore Postol told The Grayzone, "The evidence is overwhelming that the gas attacks were staged." Postol also accused OPCW leadership of overseeing "compromised reporting" and ignoring scientific evidence .

    In November, a second OPCW whistleblower came forward and accused the organization's leadership of suppressing countervailing evidence , under pressure by three US government officials .

    WikiLeaks has published numerous internal emails from the OPCW that reveal allegations that the body's management staff doctored the Douma report.

    As the evidence of internal suppression grew, the OPCW's first director-general, José Bustani, decided to speak out. "The convincing evidence of irregular behavior in the OPCW investigation of the alleged Douma chemical attack confirms doubts and suspicions I already had," Bustani stated.

    "I could make no sense of what I was reading in the international press. Even official reports of investigations seemed incoherent at best. The picture is certainly clearer now, although very disturbing," the former OPCW head concluded.

    OPCW whistleblower testimony at UN Security Council meeting on Douma

    On January 20, 2020, Ian Henderson delivered his first in-person testimony, alleging suppression by OPCW leadership. He spoke at a UN Security Council Arria-Formula meeting on the fact-finding mission report on Douma.

    ( Video of the session follows at the bottom of this article, along with a full transcript of Henderson's testimony .)

    China's mission to the UN invited Ian Henderson to testify in person at the Security Council session. Henderson said in his testimony that he had planned to attend, but was unable to get a visa waiver from the US government. (The Trump administration has repeatedly blocked access to the UN for representatives from countries that do not kowtow to its interests, turning UN visas into a political weapon in blatant violation of the international body's headquarters agreement .)

    Henderson told the Security Council in a pre-recorded video message that he was not the only OPCW inspector to question the leadership's treatment of the Douma investigation.

    "My concern, which was shared by a number of other inspectors, relates to the subsequent management lockdown and the practices in the later analysis and compilation of a final report," Henderson explained.

    Soon after the alleged incident in Douma in April 2018, the OPCW FFM team had deployed to the ground to carry out an investigation, which it noted included environmental samples, interviews with witnesses, and data collection.

    In July 2018, the FFM published its interim report , stating that it found no evidence of chemical weapons use in Douma. ("The results show that no organophosphorous nerve agents or their degradation products were detected in the environmental samples or in the plasma samples taken from alleged casualties," the report indicated.)

    "By the time of release of the interim report in July 2018, our understanding was that we had serious misgivings that a chemical attack had occurred," Henderson told the Security Council.

    After this inspection that led to the interim report, however, Henderson said the OPCW leadership decided to create a new team, "the so-called FFM core team, which essentially resulted in the dismissal of all of the inspectors who had been on the team deployed to locations in Douma and had been following up with their findings and analysis."

    Then in March 2019, this new OPCW team released a final report, in which it claimed that chemical weapons had been used in Douma.

    "The findings in the final FFM report were contradictory, were a complete turnaround with what the team had understood collectively during and after the Douma deployments," Henderson remarked at the UN session.

    "The report did not make clear what new findings, facts, information, data, or analysis in the fields of witness testimony, toxicology studies, chemical analysis, and engineering, and/or ballistic studies had resulted in the complete turn-around in the situation from what was understood by the majority of the team, and the entire Douma [FFM] team, in July 2018," Henderson stated.

    The former OPCW expert added, "I had followed up with a further six months of engineering and ballistic studies into these cylinders, the result of which had provided further support for the view that there had not been a chemical attack."

    via @ BenjaminNorton

    A former OPCW inspection team leader and engineering expert told the UN Security Council that their investigation in Douma, Syria suggested no chemical attack took place. But their findings were suppressed and reversed

    Read more here: https://t.co/HI028MZl0k

    via @BenjaminNorton pic.twitter.com/rmaSzWzs5Z

    -- The Grayzone (@TheGrayzoneNews) January 22, 2020

    US government pressure on the OPCW

    The US government responded to this historic testimony at the UN session by attacking Russia, which sponsored the Arria-Formula meeting.

    Acting US representative Cherith Norman Chalet praised the OPCW, aggressively condemned the "Assad regime," and told the UN that the "United States is proud to support the vital, life-saving work of the White Helmets" – a US and UK-backed organization that collaborated extensively with ISIS and al-Qaeda and have been involved in numerous executions in Syrian territory occupied by Islamist extremists .

    The US government has a long history of pressuring and manipulating the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, the George W. Bush administration threatened José Bustani, the first director of the OPCW, and pressured him to resign.

    In 2002, as the Bush White House was preparing to wage a war on Iraq, Bustani made an agreement with the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein that would have permitted OPCW inspectors to come to the country unannounced for weapons investigations. This infuriated the US government.

    Then-Under Secretary of State John Bolton told Bustani in 2002 that US Vice President Dick " Cheney wants you out ." Bolton threatened the OPCW director-general, stating, "You have 24 hours to leave the organization, and if you don't comply with this decision by Washington, we have ways to retaliate against you We know where your kids live."

    Attacking the credibility of Ian Henderson

    While OPCW managers have kept curiously silent amid the scandal over their Douma report, an interventionist media outlet called Bellingcat has functioned as an outsourced press shop, aggressively defending the official narrative and attacking its most prominent critics, including Ian Henderson.

    Bellingcat is funded by the US government's regime-change arm, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and is part of an initiative bankrolled by the British Foreign Office.

    Following Henderson's testimony, Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins tried to besmirch the former OPCW engineer's credibility by implying he was being used by Russia . Until 2019, Higgins worked at the Atlantic Council , a pro-war think tank financed by the American and British governments , as well as by NATO.

    Supporters of the OPCW's apparently doctored final report have relied heavily on Bellingcat to try to discredit the whistleblowers and growing leaks. Scientific expert Theodor Postol, who debated Higgins, has noted that Bellingcat "have no scientific credibility at any level." Postol says he even suspects that OPCW management may have relied on Bellingcat's highly dubious claims in its own compromised reporting.

    Higgins has no expertise or scientific credentials, and even The New York Times acknowledged in a highly sympathetic piece that "Higgins attributed his skill not to any special knowledge of international conflicts or digital data, but to the hours he had spent playing video games, which, he said, gave him the idea that any mystery can be cracked."

    In his testimony before the UN Security Council, Ian Henderson stressed that he was speaking out in line with his duties as a scientific expert.

    Henderson said he does not even like the term whistleblower and would not use it to describe himself, because, "I'm a former OPCW specialist who has concerns in an area, and I consider this a legitimate and appropriate forum to explain again these concerns."

    Russia's UN representative added that Moscow had also invited the OPCW director-general and representatives of the organization's Technical Secretariat, but they chose not to participate in the session.

    Video of the UN Security Council session on the OPCW's Douma report

    Ian Henderson's testimony begins at 57:30 in this official UN video :

    https://www.un.org/webcast/1362235914001/B1J3DDQJf_default/index.html?videoId=6125087582001

    Transcript: Testimony by OPCW whistleblower Ian Henderson at the UN Security Council

    "My name is Ian Henderson. I'm a former OPCW inspection team leader, having served for about 12 years. I heard about this meeting and I was invited by the minister, councilor of the Chinese mission to the UN. Unfortunately due to unforeseen circumstances around my ESTA visa waiver status, I was not able to travel. I thus submitted a written statement, to which I will now add a short introduction.

    I need to point out at the outset that I'm not a whistleblower; I don't like that term. I'm a former OPCW specialist who has concerns in an area, and I consider this a legitimate and appropriate forum to explain again these concerns.

    Secondly, I must point out that I hold the OPCW in the highest regard, as well as the professionalism of the staff members who work there. The organization is not broken; I must stress that. However, the concern I have does relate to some specific management practices in certain sensitive missions.

    The concern, of course, relates to the FFM investigation into the alleged chemical attack on the 7th of April in Douma, in Syria. My concern, which was shared by a number of other inspectors, relates to the subsequent management lockdown and the practices in the later analysis and compilation of a final report.

    There were two teams deployed; one team, which I joined shortly after the start of field deployments, was to Douma in Syria; the other team deployed to country X.

    The main concern relates to the announcement in July 2018 of a new concept, the so-called FFM core team, which essentially resulted in the dismissal of all of the inspectors who had been on the team deployed to locations in Douma and had been following up with their findings and analysis.

    The findings in the final FFM report were contradictory, were a complete turnaround with what the team had understood collectively during and after the Douma deployments. And by the time of release of the interim report in July 2018, our understanding was that we had serious misgivings that a chemical attack had occurred.

    What the final FFM report does not make clear, and thus does not reflect the views of the team members who deployed to Douma -- in which case I really can only speak for myself at this stage -- the report did not make clear what new findings, facts, information, data, or analysis in the fields of witness testimony, toxicology studies, chemical analysis, and engineering, and/or ballistic studies had resulted in the complete turn-around in the situation from what was understood by the majority of the team, and the entire Douma team, in July 2018.

    In my case, I had followed up with a further six months of engineering and ballistic studies into these cylinders, the result of which had provided further support for the view that there had not been a chemical attack.

    This needs to be properly resolved, we believe through the rigors of science and engineering. In my situation, it's not a political debate. I'm very aware that there is a political debate surrounding this.

    Perhaps a closing comment from my side is that I was also the inspection team leader who developed and launched the inspections, the highly intrusive inspections, of the Barzah SSRC facility, just outside Damascus. And I did the inspections and wrote the reports for the two inspections prior to, and the inspection after the chemical facility, or the laboratory complex at Barzah SSRC, had been destroyed by the missile strike.

    That, however, is another story altogether, and I shall now close. Thank you."

    • Article first published in The Grayzone

    Ben Norton is a journalist, writer, and filmmaker. He is the assistant editor of The Grayzone, and the producer of the Moderate Rebels podcast, which he co-hosts with editor Max Blumenthal. His website is BenNorton.com and he tweets at @ BenjaminNorton . Read other articles by Ben , or visit Ben's website .

    This article was posted on Thursday, January 23rd, 2020 at 12:37pm and is filed under Chemical weapons , Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) , Syria , United Nations , WikiLeaks .

    [Jan 23, 2020] Guinness record in Presidential twits: Trump broke his previous Twitter record

    Jan 23, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    On Wednesday, Jan 22 Donald Trump wrote his name in the Guinness records books setting Presidential record in Twits. According @FactbaseFeed, an account which tracks Trump's Twitter habits, Trump sent 142 tweets and retweets on Wednesday -- eclipsing his previous single-day presidential record of 123.

    pretzelattack , Jan 23 2020 16:06 utc | 8

    According to the US diplomat, President Trump has made it very "clear that any attack on Americans or American interests will be met with a decisive response, which the president demonstrated on January 2".

    And American interests are defined very flexibly, sometimes in conflicting tweets.

    [Jan 23, 2020] An incredible level of naivety of people who still think that a single individual, or even two, can change the direction of murderous US policies that are widely supported throughout the bureaucracy?

    Highly recommended!
    The deep state clearly is running the show (with some people unexpected imput -- see Trump ;-)
    Elections now serve mainly for the legitimizing of the deep state rule; election of a particular individual can change little, although there is some space of change due to the power of executive branch. If the individual stray too much form the elite "forign policy consensus" he ether will be JFKed or Russiagated (with the Special Prosecutor as the fist act and impeachment as the second act of the same Russiagate drama)
    But a talented (or reckless) individual can speed up some process that are already under way. For example, Trump managed to speed up the process of destruction of the USA-centered neoliberal empire considerably. Especially by launching the trade war with China. He also managed to discredit the USA foreign policy as no other president before him. Even Bush II.
    Jan 23, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
    Trailer Trash , Jan 23 2020 18:30 utc | 44
    >This is the most critical U.S. election in our lifetime
    > Posted by: Circe | Jan 23 2020 17:46 utc | 36

    Hmmm, I've been hearing the same siren song every four years for the past fifty. How is it that people still think that a single individual, or even two, can change the direction of murderous US policies that are widely supported throughout the bureaucracy?

    Bureaucracies are reactionary and conservative by nature, so any new and more repressive policy Trumpy wants is readily adapted, as shown by the continuing barbarity of ICE and the growth of prisons and refugee concentration camps. Policies that go against the grain are easily shrugged off and ignored using time-tested passive-aggressive tactics.

    One of Trump's insurmountable problems is that he has no loyal organization behind him whose members he can appoint throughout the massive Federal bureaucracy. Any Dummycrat whose name is not "Biden" has the same problem. Without a real mass-movement political party to pressure reluctant bureaucrats, no politician of any name or stripe will ever substantially change the direction of US policy.

    But the last thing Dummycrats want is a real mass movement, because they might not be able to control it. Instead Uncle Sam will keep heading towards the cliff, which may be coming into view...


    Per/Norway , Jan 23 2020 19:31 utc | 62

    The amount of TINA worshipers and status quo guerillas is starting to depress me.
    HOW IS IT POSSIBLE to believe A politician will/can change anything and give your consent to war criminals and traitors?
    NO person(s) WILL EVER get to the top in imperial/vassal state politics without being on the rentier class side, the cognitive dissonans in voting for known liars, war criminals and traitors would kill me or fry my brain. TINA is a lie and "she" is a real bitch that deserves to be thrown on the dump off history, YOUR vote is YOUR consent to murder, theft and treason.
    DONT be a rentier class enabler STOP voting and start making your local communities better and independent instead.

    Per
    Norway

    Piotr Berman , Jan 23 2020 20:19 utc | 82
    The amount of TINA worshipers and status quo guerillas is starting to depress me. <- Norway

    Of course, There Is Another Way, for example, kvetching. We can boldly show that we are upset, and pessimistic. One upset pessimists reach critical mass we will think about some actions.

    But being upset and pessimistic does fully justify inactivity. In particular, given the nature of social interaction networks, with spokes and hubs, dominating the network requires the control of relatively few nodes. The nature of democracy always allows for leverage takeover, starting from dominating within small to the entire nation in few steps. As it was nicely explained by Prof. Overton, there is a window of positions that the vast majority regards as reasonable, non-radical etc. One reason that powers to be invest so much energy vilifying dissenters, Russian assets of late, is to keep them outside the Overton window.

    Having a candidate elected that the curators of Overton window hate definitely shakes the situation with the potential of shifting the window. There were some positive symptoms after Trump was elected, but negatives prevail. "Why not we just kill him" idea entered the window, together with "we took their oil because we have guts and common sense".

    From that point of view, visibility of Tulsi and election of Sanders will solve some problems but most of all, it will make big changes in Overton window.

    [Jan 23, 2020] Corruption Ukraine Censored! - YouTube

    Notable quotes:
    "... Watched it. YouTube censored your "graphic content " because you clearly and " graphically " describe the truth. They can't handle the truth. ..."
    "... According to SenBlackburn, Lt Vindman is the whistleblowers's handler. ..."
    Nov 21, 2019 | www.youtube.com

    The Storm seems like it is here!!

    DEEP STATE and the mockingbirds are in FULL PANIC from where I am sitting. In this video the new dig starts at about 10 minutes in but I also go over the fact that my last video was very sneakily taken down!

    Paypal: https://paypal.me/PollyStGeorge
    My web site: amazingpolly.net
    Bitchute: https://www.bitchute.com/channel/99Fr...
    Twitter: https://twitter.com/99freemind

    Links to relevant information:

    For more info simply search AERODYNAMIC at the CIA reading room or use a regular search engine. Also try "Prolog" and "Lebed"


    Amazing Polly , 2 months ago

    The Storm seems like it is almost here! Paypal: https://paypal.me/PollyStGeorge My web site: amazingpolly.net Bitchute: https://www.bitchute.com/channel/99FreeMind/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/99freemind

    Seahog , 2 months ago

    This girl does her homework like nobody else.

    Frederick Muhlbauer , 2 months ago

    God bless you Polly We need millions more Pollies in this world

    Better Days , 2 months ago

    Imagine being on a jury and being told you will only be allowed to hear what the prosecution has to say, because the prosecution doesn't want you to hear what the defense team has to say.

    Jacqueline Grace , 2 months ago

    It's not "your tube" anymore.......it's "their tube".

    RedHCL , 2 months ago

    NWO crowd don't like the truth...their judgement is coming before God himself.

    MJ , 2 months ago

    Watched it. YouTube censored your "graphic content " because you clearly and " graphically " describe the truth. They can't handle the truth.

    overcees1 , 2 months ago

    So true, you cannot turn over a rock without finding one of these worms.

    Torsvag Havfiske , 1 month ago

    This lady was sent by the Lord himself.

    Robert Barry , 2 months ago

    LMFAO when you - "Every time you lift up a rock you uncover a SWAMP Creature" so true! Thank you! QQQQQ

    Mike Hunt , 2 months ago (edited)

    The truth is offensive to those who think the truth is offensive !, truth is the new hate speech, love you, keep up the great work !!

    Jim Con , 2 months ago

    Their ultimate plan is genocide, not censorship. Globalists are psychopaths.

    C change , 2 months ago

    According to SenBlackburn, Lt Vindman is the whistleblowers's handler.

    Nan Ese , 2 months ago

    My husband, a contractor and home builder noticed back in the 70s that there was an incredible influx of Russian Tradesmen in the Chicagoland area. He wondered then if it was the beginning of an infiltration coup.

    catherine kapralova , 2 months ago

    These are Ukraines who sold their own people out for the likes of Bidens

    Lynn Williams , 2 months ago

    Watch Oliver Stones' "Ukraine Revealed"

    NorCal OntheRight , 2 months ago

    We all know this censorship is total Bolshevik!

    plurf3ctblue , 2 months ago

    We are talking about raging fascism here.

    Donald W. C ollins , 2 months ago

    Schiff is also involved in the investment funds!!

    [Jan 23, 2020] The crimes of Iraq war still are unpunished

    Jan 23, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    karlof1 , Jan 23 2020 22:33 utc | 106

    "The REAL 'terrorists' –-death is not a laughing matter, murder is a crime."

    Vanessa Beeley provides a short, incomplete, list.

    I look at the pictures of today's refugees and see the faces of yesterday's. I see the conditions they inhabit, the squalor and filth, and I see the same in pictures from the past. I read the words of hatred directed at those innocents and recall the same words being said of their predecessors.

    And the source of the words and plight of the innocents both present and past come from the same portals or power--The Imperialist West and its Zionist progeny. How many millions have died to enrich their purse, to increase the size of the estates, to serve as their slaves? How many more in the future will share their fate?

    Will humans ever evolve to become peaceful animals and save themselves?

    [Jan 23, 2020] Incredible level of naivety of people who still think that a single individual, or even two, can change the direction of murderous US policies that are widely supported throughout the bureaucracy?

    Elections now serve mainly the legitimizing of the deep state rule function; election of a partuclar induvudual can change little, althouth there is some space of change due to the power of executive branch.
    Jan 23, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
    Trailer Trash , Jan 23 2020 18:30 utc | 44

    For example, Trump managed to speed up the process od destruction of the USA-centered neoliberal empire considerably. Especially by lauching the trade war with China. He also managed to discredit the USA foreign policy as no other president before him. Even Bush II.

    >This is the most critical U.S. election in our lifetime
    > Posted by: Circe | Jan 23 2020 17:46 utc | 36

    Hmmm, I've been hearing the same siren song every four years for the past fifty. How is it that people still think that a single individual, or even two, can change the direction of murderous US policies that are widely supported throughout the bureaucracy?

    Bureaucracies are reactionary and conservative by nature, so any new and more repressive policy Trumpy wants is readily adapted, as shown by the continuing barbarity of ICE and the growth of prisons and refugee concentration camps. Policies that go against the grain are easily shrugged off and ignored using time-tested passive-aggressive tactics.

    One of Trump's insurmountable problems is that he has no loyal organization behind him whose members he can appoint throughout the massive Federal bureaucracy. Any Dummycrat whose name is not "Biden" has the same problem. Without a real mass-movement political party to pressure reluctant bureaucrats, no politician of any name or stripe will ever substantially change the direction of US policy.

    But the last thing Dummycrats want is a real mass movement, because they might not be able to control it. Instead Uncle Sam will keep heading towards the cliff, which may be coming into view...

    [Jan 23, 2020] Who are the Vindmans? Where did they come from? What is their background? Why were they brought here? How and by whom?

    Jan 23, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    Really?? , Jan 24 2020 2:01 utc | 150

    Seer @ 32

    Read the Yasha Levine material. Brilliant! Thanks.

    Weirdly (to me) this evidence and dot-connecting aligns very well with some delving done by the Canadian researcher Polly St. George, who goes by the moniker Amazing Polly. I find nothing to criticize in AP's research and speculations. (She is also getting material from Q, but since her own material is all heavily documented, I don't bother my head with the Q business, as I cannot assess it.)

    In one of her recent videos she traces the background of Lieutenant Vindman and others who testified before Adam Schiff's committee about a month ago. Without recapping her work check this out where she asks: Who are the Vindmans? Where did they come from? What is their background? Why were they brought here? How and by whom?:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6L8ZSxbQBw (starting at about 30:00).

    Published on Nov 21, 2019

    The Storm seems like it is here!!
    DEEP STATE and the mockingbirds are in FULL PANIC from where I am sitting. In this video the new dig starts at about 10 minutes in but I also go over the fact that my last video was very sneakily taken down!

    Paypal: https://paypal.me/PollyStGeorge
    My web site: amazingpolly.net
    Bitchute: https://www.bitchute.com/channel/99Fr...
    Twitter: https://twitter.com/99freemind

    The news business in Ukraine, newpaper article from years ago: https://www.newspapers.com/image/4847...

    Ben Collins NBC spin article on Ukraine story: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet...

    Ben Collins gives lecture to almost no one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ad85...

    Zer -- edge art (you'll have to replace letters & remove "0"s because if I don't take them out I will probably get censored: https://www.zer----e.com/geopolitical...

    Interfax: https://en.interfax.com.ua/news/gener...

    Remembering Roman, Atlantic Council: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs...

    a very very shot summary of QRPLUMB (formerly AERODYNAMIC): https://www.cia.gov/library/readingro...

    For more info simply search AERODYNAMIC at the CIA reading room or use a regular search engine. Also try "Prolog" and "Lebed"

    This whole impeachment farce, November 2019 chapter, relied on the testimony of Soviet Jews who are rabidly russophobic and who were brought to this country by . . . whom, exactly? I believe Yasha Levine should also check out these links that Amazing Polly has revealed.

    [Jan 23, 2020] Bernie has just DOUBLED his lead on Biden in New Hampshire 29 to 14 and is now only 3 points behind Biden nationally in choice for President and leads Trump by 2 points in the general. That figure will rise.

    To the extent you can trust polls, that's an interesting development. biden is losing grip on electorate due to impeachment noise., which hurts him directly.
    Jan 23, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
    Circe , Jan 23 2020 17:46 utc | 37
    Despite the establishment and media shenanigans designed to hurt Sanders, despite Hillary and Warren's attempts to turn women against Sanders:

    Bernie has just DOUBLED his lead on Biden in New Hampshire 29 to 14 and is now only 3 points behind Biden nationally in choice for President and leads Trump by 2 points in the general. That figure will rise.

    Bernie has the wind at his back. This is the most critical U.S. election in our lifetime to stop Trump's escalation on Iran, to stop Trump from turning the judiciary irreversibly to the far right and making it his fascist tool, to make climate change the burning priority that it is and to take power away from the oligarchs and empower people.

    Bernie must make it. He is the only candidate who is genuine and can be trusted and is VIABLE. Yes, many here want Gabbard but she is not viable in the race since she has not gained any traction. The only hope I see for Gabbard's political career is if Sanders offers her a cabinet position later, but not V-P because Gabbard's unpopularity right now will certainly drag him down. Many want her primaried and then she may not win back her seat in Congress. If he offers her an important cabinet position, she will regain in stature and prove that she is presidential material. I see her as UN Ambassador and maybe at DoD. But right now the V-P choice must be wisely assigned.

    Sanders now has momentum and everyone must do their part to help him sustain it. This opportunity must not be squandered! His defeat of the CORRUPT establishment is FUNDAMENTAL. The entire planet needs a Sanders presidency to stop military escalation and address the urgency of climate change. He must be supported all the way and Trump must fall to someone of Sanders' authentic calibre.

    This is the last opportunity we all have to stop the madness and corrupt oligarch control, and make a global correction towards peace. I believe in this guy; I fear the irreversible changes happening. I HAVE BEEN RIGHT ON MANY THINGS AND I'M CONVINCED OF THIS: EITHER WE ALL, EVERYWHERE ON THIS PLANET, SUPPORT THIS MAN OR WE WILL BE POWERLESS
    AND ARE DOOMED TO WHAT'S ALREADY UNFOLDING.

    [Jan 23, 2020] Mueller's cases down the drain.How many millions did Mueller rack up?

    Jan 23, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    Likklemore , Jan 24 2020 0:29 utc | 132

    Mueller's cases down the drain.How many millions did Mueller rack up?
    If I were Carter Page, someone would be making a direct deposit to my bankers.

    DOJ: Surveillance Of Carter Page Based On Insufficient Evidence, No Probable Cause

    The DOJ delivered its conclusion to the FISA court in December filing unsealed on Thursday.

    The Justice Department now appears to have concluded that there was ""insufficient predication to establish probable cause" in the last two renewals in 2017. Probable cause is the legal standard to obtain a secret warrant against suspected agents of a foreign power.

    The letter is classified, but is referenced in a new order declassified by a judge on Thursday. The Justice Department said it would sequester all the material it collected against Mr. Page pending further internal review of the matter.
    -Wall Street Journal

    "The court understands the government to have concluded, in view of the material misstatements and omissions, that the court's authorizations in (two applications) were not valid," wrote Judge James Emanuel Boasberg, a federal district judge in Washington who also sits on the FISA court.

    As The Federalist notes, this could have far-reaching consequences for special counsel Robert Mueller's findings.

    [Jan 23, 2020] Elisabeth Warren as a politically incompetent wannabe

    She is now trapped and has no space for maneuvering. She now needs to share the path to the cliff with Pelosi gang to the very end. Not a good position to be in.
    Apr 20, 2019 | www.nbcnews.com

    On impeachment, Warren just stole the show from her dodging Democratic rivals By Jonathan Allen

    Analysis: The Massachusetts senator's forceful call to begin the process of removing Trump set her apart from the crowded primary field.

    While most fellow 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls ducked and dived to find safe ground -- and party elders solemnly warned against over-reach -- Sen. Elizabeth Warren stepped boldly out into the open late Friday and called on the House to begin an impeachment process against President Donald Trump based on special counsel Robert Mueller's report.

    The Massachusetts senator and 2020 Democratic presidential contender slammed Trump for having "welcomed" the help of a "hostile" foreign government and having obstructed the probe into an attack on an American election.

    "To ignore a President's repeated efforts to obstruct an investigation into his own disloyal behavior would inflict great and lasting damage on this country," Warren tweeted. "The severity of this misconduct demands that elected officials in both parties set aside political considerations and do their constitutional duty. That means the House should initiate impeachment proceedings against the President of the United States."

    It was a rare moment in a crowded and unsettled primary: A seized opportunity for a candidate to cut through the campaign trail cacophony and define the terms of a debate that will rage throughout the contest.

    [Jan 23, 2020] Note to Pelosi gang: if can't shoot strait do not shoot at all

    Pelosi gang is too afraid to point to actual crimes (like Douma false flag, Yemen war, etc), so they invented this Kabuki theater, as if they can fool already suspicious population.
    Jan 23, 2020 | www.strategic-culture.org

    You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time. So said Abraham Lincoln – maybe. But whoever it was forgot to mention an important corollary: fun as it may be to pull the wool over people's eyes, you'll writhe in agony for an equal period once the truth emerges and the fraud is exposed.

    ...the agony of those responsible for the Russiagate fiasco can only intensify while, for the rest of us, the fun has just begun. So lean back and enjoy the show. It going to be a doozy.

    [Jan 22, 2020] 'Remember Where You Are' Chief Justice Roberts Admonishes Both Sides After Impeachment Arguments Get Personal

    Sometime Kabuki theater can be very entertaining ;-)
    Jan 22, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    John Law Lives , 2 hours ago link

    Listening to Schiff drone on and on is cruel and unusual punishment (imo). Maybe that is a Democrat tactic.

    J Jason Djfmam , 2 hours ago link

    It's like he's Rachel Madcow in a blue suit.

    [Jan 22, 2020] Trump is Right Afghanistan is a 'Loser War'

    Notable quotes:
    "... Washington Post ..."
    "... A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America ..."
    "... But it was and is true. Indeed, when I visited Afghanistan back when U.S. troop levels were near their highest, "off camera," so to speak, military folks were quite skeptical of the war. So were Afghans, who had little good to say about their Washington-created and -supported government unless they were collecting a paycheck from it. An incoming president could be forgiven for suspecting that his predecessor had poured more troops into the conflict only to put off its failure until after he'd left office. ..."
    "... Accounts like that from Rucker and Leonnig are beloved by the Blob. America's role is to dominate the globe, irrespective of cost. Those officials pursuing this objective, no matter how poorly, are lauded. Any politician challenging Washington's global mission is derided. ..."
    "... 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. ..."
    Jan 22, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

    fter three years of the Trump presidency, the Washington Post is breathlessly reporting that Donald Trump is a boor who insults everyone, including generals used to respect and even veneration. He's had the impertinence to ask critical questions of his military briefers. For shame!

    President Trump's limitations have been long evident. The Post 's discussion, adapted by Carol D. Leonnig and Philip Rucker from their upcoming book, A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America , adds color, not substance, to this concern. It seems that in the summer of 2017, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and others were concerned about the president's international ignorance and organized a briefing at the Pentagon to enlighten him.

    Was that a worthwhile mission? Sure. Everyone in the policy world marvels at the president's lack of curiosity, absent knowledge, bizarre assumptions, and perverse conclusions. He doesn't get trade, bizarrely celebrates dictatorship, fixates on Iran, doesn't understand agreements, acts on impulse, and exudes absolute certainty. Yet he also captures the essence of issues and shares a set of inchoate beliefs held by millions of Americans, especially those who feel ignored, insulted, disparaged, and dismissed. Most important, he was elected with a mandate to move policy away from the bipartisan globalist conventional wisdom.

    The latter was evidently the main concern of these briefers. The presentation as described by the article exuded condescension. That attitude very likely was evident to Trump. The briefing was intended to inform, but even more so to establish his aides' control over him. While they bridled at Trump's manners, they were even more opposed to his substantive opinions. And that made the briefing sound like a carefully choreographed attack on his worldview.

    For instance, Mattis used charts with lots of dollar signs "to impress upon [the president] the value of U.S. investments abroad. [Mattis] sought to explain why U.S. troops were deployed in so many regions and why America's safety hinged on a complex web of trade deals, alliances, and bases across the globe." Notably, Mattis "then gave a 20-minute briefing on the power of the NATO alliance to stabilize Europe and keep the United States safe."

    No doubt Secretary Mattis sincerely believed all that. However, it was an argument more appropriately made in 1950 or 1960. The world has since changed dramatically.

    Of course, this is also the position of the Blob, Ben Rhodes' wonderful label for the Washington foreign policymaking community. What has ever been must ever be, is the Blob's informal mantra. America's lot in life, no matter how many average folks must die, is to litter the globe with bases, ships, planes, and troops to fight endless wars, some big, some small, to make the world safe for democracy, sometimes, and autocracy, otherwise. If America ever stops fulfilling what seems to be the modern equivalent of Rudyard Kipling's infamous "white man's burden," order will collapse, authoritarianism will advance, trade will disappear, conflict will multiply, countries will be conquered, friends will become enemies, allies will defect, terrorists will strike, liberal values will be discarded, all that is good and wonderful will disappear, and a new dark age will envelope the earth.

    Trump is remarkably ignorant of the facts, but he does possess a commonsensical skepticism of the utter nonsense that gets promoted as unchallengeable conventional wisdom. As a result, he understood that this weltanschauung, a word he would never use, was an absolute fantasy. And he showed it by the questions he asked.

    For instance, he challenged the defense guarantee for South Korea. "We should charge them rent," he blurted out. "We should make them pay for our soldiers." Although treating American military personnel like mercenaries is the wrong approach, he is right that there is no need to protect the Republic of Korea. The Korean War ended 67 years ago. The South has twice the population and, by the latest estimate, 54 times the economy of the North. Why is Seoul still dependent on America?

    If the Blob has its way, the U.S. will pay to defend the ROK forever. Analysts speak of the need for Americans to stick around even after reunification. It seems there is no circumstance under which they imagine Washington not garrisoning the peninsula. Why is America, born of revolution, now acting like an imperial power that must impose its military might everywhere?

    Even more forcefully, it appeared, did Trump express his hostile views of Europe and NATO. Sure, he appeared to mistakenly believe that there was an alliance budget that European governments had failed to fund. But World War II ended 70 years ago. The Europeans recovered, the Soviet Union collapsed, and Eastern Europeans joined NATO. Why is Washington expected to subsidize a continent with a larger population than, and economy equivalent to, America's, and far larger than Russia's? Mattis apparently offered the standard bromides, such as "This is what keeps us safe."

    How? Does he imagine that without Washington's European presence, Russia would roll its tanks and march to the Atlantic Ocean? And from there launch a global pincer movement to invade North America? How does adding such behemoths as Montenegro keep the U.S. "safe"? What does initiating a military confrontation with Moscow over Ukraine, historically part of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union, have to do with keeping Americans "safe"? The argument is self-evidently not just false but ridiculous.

    Justifying endless wars is even tougher. Rucker and Leonnig do not report what the president said about Syria, which apparently was part of Mattis's brief. However, Trump's skepticism is evident from his later policy gyrations. Why would any sane Washington policymaker insist that America intervene militarily in a multi-sided civil war in a country of no significant security interest to the U.S. on the side of jihadists and affiliates of al-Qaeda? And stick around illegally as the conflict wound down? To call this policy stupid is too polite.

    Even more explosive was the question of Afghanistan, to which the president did speak, apparently quite dismissively. Unsurprisingly, he asked why the U.S. had not won after 16 years -- which is longer than the Civil War, World Wars I and II, and the Korean War combined. He also termed Afghanistan a "loser war." By Rucker's and Leonnig's telling, this did not go over well: "That phrase hung in the air and disgusted not only the military men and women in uniform sitting along the back wall behind their principals. They all were sworn to obey their commander in chief's commands, and here he was calling the way they had been fighting a loser war."

    But it was and is true. Indeed, when I visited Afghanistan back when U.S. troop levels were near their highest, "off camera," so to speak, military folks were quite skeptical of the war. So were Afghans, who had little good to say about their Washington-created and -supported government unless they were collecting a paycheck from it. An incoming president could be forgiven for suspecting that his predecessor had poured more troops into the conflict only to put off its failure until after he'd left office.

    The fault does not belong to combat personnel, but to political leaders and complicit generals, who have misled if not lied in presenting a fairy tale perspective on the conflict's progress and prognosis. And for what? Central Asia is not and never will be a vital issue of American security. Afghanistan has nothing to do with terrorism other than its having hosting al-Qaeda two decades ago. Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan. In recent years, it's Yemen that's hosted the most dangerous national affiliate of al-Qaeda. So why are U.S. troops still in Afghanistan?

    Accounts like that from Rucker and Leonnig are beloved by the Blob. America's role is to dominate the globe, irrespective of cost. Those officials pursuing this objective, no matter how poorly, are lauded. Any politician challenging Washington's global mission is derided.

    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.

    Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. He is a former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan and author of several books, including Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire .

    [Jan 22, 2020] The Comey-Lynch Plausible Deniability Game – OffGuardian

    Jan 22, 2020 | off-guardian.org

    As the structure and form of institutions continue to breakdown offering new perspectives and unexpected revelations, it is fitting that former FBI Director James Comey continues to be scrutinized regarding his behavior on multiple aspects of the HRC email scandal, Russiagate and other adjacent activities.

    Still under a dark cloud is the lack of a satisfactory explanation for Comey's unprecedented decision to usurp the announcement (away from AG Loretta Lynch) that HRC would not be prosecuted for her mishandling of classified material as Secretary of State. Related to that decision, the DOJ is currently reported to be investigating whether Comey, who has a history of leaking 'sensitive' data, also leaked a classified Russian intel document to reporters in 2017.

    To better understand the depth of Comey's malfeasance, it is worth nothing that the IG Report "Investigation of Former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey's Disclosure of Sensitive Investigative Information and Handling of Certain Memoranda" of August 2019 determined that Comey willfully violated FBI rules and policies and was in violation of his Employment Agreement as he leaked 'sensitive' information including his personal communications with President Trump. The Report concluded that:

    Former Director Comey failed to live up to this responsibility. By not safeguarding sensitive information obtained during the course of his FBI employment, and by using it to create public pressure for official action, Comey set a dangerous example "

    And:

    We have previously faulted Comey for acting unilaterally and inconsistent with Department policy. Comey's unauthorized disclosure of sensitive law enforcement information about the Flynn investigation merits similar criticism."

    The Report's conclusions were forwarded to the DOJ which declined to prosecute Comey.

    Fast forward to the current DOJ investigation which again questions Comey's penchant for the disclosure of "sensitive" information while opening a Pandora Box of unexpected proportions.

    According to the Washington Post, in 2016, the Dutch secret services obtained a Russian intel document which contained a copy of an email in which then-DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz assured Leonard Bernardo of the Soros Open Society Foundation that Attorney General Loretta Lynch would not prosecute HRC for use of her personal server for classified government documents.

    In the email, DWS also informed Benardo that Amanda Renteria, Clinton's National Political Director, had spoken with Lynch who offered further assurance that the FBI investigation "would not go too far."

    While the document was forwarded to the FBI, it was dismissed as an unreliable Russian propaganda effort to influence the outcome of the HRC investigation.

    As the FBI claimed the Russian document had no "investigative value," the Washington Post found that

    Comey's defenders still insist that there is reason to believe the document is legitimate and that it rightly played a major role in the director's thinking."

    Even in denial of its veracity, the document was taken seriously enough for Comey to use its existence as an excuse for making his extraordinary announcement, according to the Washington Post, "on his own, without Justice Department involvement" or informing the Attorney General that he was closing the case and that HRC would not be criminally prosecuted.

    Comey's announcement came days after Lynch met with Bill Clinton on the tarmac in Phoenix and days before HRC was to be interviewed by the FBI and days before Comey made his shocking announcement.

    June 29th Lynch – Bill Clinton meeting on tarmac in Phoenix; July 2nd FBI interview with HRC; July 5th Comey announced 'no prosecution'

    Existence of the email provided the perfect foil for Lynch to avoid having to make and announce the decision as if it were on her own volition.

    Allegedly, Comey decided to move forward with the announcement which was intended to prove that the no-prosecution decision had been made without any bias or interference.

    If, so the thinking goes, Lynch had made and announced the decision after her meeting with Bill, she would have been accused of corruption or having been compromised and that a deal had been cut in HRCs favor. IG Horowitz found that Comey displayed a "troubling lack of direct substantive communication with AG Lorretta Lynch."

    In other words, it was Lynch's responsibility, as Attorney General, to retain sole authority over a decision of such national significance and be willing take the heat, whatever the outcome. One wonders if Lynch ever protested to Comey that, without her approval, he usurped her job and made a highly controversial decision that the entire country was watching.

    Where were the women libbers when a man on a lower rung of the totem pole, seized a significant function away from its rightful superior authority which, in this case, was a black female.

    In other words, Comey saved Lynch's butt from charges of corruption by skillfully appropriating the announcement which otherwise would have been problematic for her to defend after having been caught publicly meeting with the defendant's husband.

    Does anything about this strike you as credible?

    Not surprisingly as the email was dismissed, the Bureau never pursued routine investigative tools that would have been second-nature in any such top-level investigation.

    The FBI, as it dismissed the email as a fake, did not conduct a forensic exam to verify the document's origin just as the FBI never subpoenaed the DNC server to conduct a forensic exam to determine the source of the Wikileaks emails.

    While all the parties involved denied that any of them ever knew each other, the Bureau apparently never confirmed that or pursued obtaining a copy of the email from any of the parties and, most importantly, the Bureau never interviewed any of the parties

    In May, 2017, President Trump fired Comey as "no longer able to effectively lead the Bureau."

    Here's one version of how this scam could have played out. It's called plausible deniability and is used routinely to shield a high level public office from public accountability. It is an old political trick and most of the public remains blind to how easy it is to manipulate public opinion.

    Here's how it works: public official #1 is protected from 'knowing' the truth about a certain political reality and since #1 is never informed, they can honestly say "I didn't know" "No one told me" "We never talked about it" "it came as a surprise to me."

    The invocation of plausible deniability is intentionally set up to allow an event to occur and yet prevent #1 from 'knowing' the facts thereby being publicly and legally immune from accountability since no hard evidence exists proving that #1 had any foreknowledge of the matter at hand.

    Since The Big Bottom Line was protecting HRC from prosecution and Comey alleged that he had not discussed the matter with Lynch, he did the AG a huge favor and she owes Comey a Big One as does HRC. After Comey bit the bullet and saved Lynch from criticism that might have ruined her career, Lynch was free to play the plausible deniability game:

    Golly Gee, since I might be accused of favoritism toward HRC after the meeting with Bill which coincidentally led to a favorable decision for his wife, it was best for Comey to announce the decision thereby avoiding any claim of bias or favoritism. I had no idea the charges against HRC would be dismissed.

    See how that works?

    To sum up: with the FBI blowing off the DWS email as a fraud and without Comey stepping up and bailing out the AG and HRC, it would have looked bad, the deal would have been questioned, everyone wondering but this way, with plausible deniability in play, everyone is cool..right?

    Renee Parsons is a student of the Quantum Field. She has been a member of the ACLU's Florida State Board of Directors and President of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter. She has been an elected public official in Colorado, an environmental lobbyist with Friends of the Earth and staff member in the US House of Representatives in Washington, DC. She can be found on Twitter @reneedove31.

    [Jan 22, 2020] Fact-Checking Joe Biden's Debunked Conspiracy Theory Memo Telling Liberal Media What To Say About Ukraine

    Jan 22, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    Via JohnSolomonReports.com,

    Former vice president Joe Biden's extraordinary campaign memo this week imploring U.S. news media to reject the allegations surrounding his son Hunter's work for a Ukrainian natural gas company makes several bold declarations.

    The memo by Biden campaign aides Kate Bedingfield and Tony Blinken specifically warned reporters covering the impeachment trial they would be acting as "enablers of misinformation" if they repeated allegations that the former vice president forced the firing of Ukraine's top prosecutor, who was investigating Burisma Holdings, where Hunter Biden worked as a highly compensated board member.

    Biden's memo argues there is no evidence that the former vice president's or Hunter Biden's conduct raised any concern, and that Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin's investigation was "dormant" when the vice president forced the prosecutor to be fired in Ukraine.

    The memo calls the allegation a "conspiracy theory" (and, in full disclosure, blames my reporting for the allegations surfacing last year.)

    But the memo omits critical impeachment testimony and other evidence that paint a far different portrait than Biden's there's-nothing-to-talk-about-here rebuttal.

    Here are the facts, with links to public evidence, so you can decide for yourself.

    Fact: Joe Biden admitted to forcing Shokin's firing in March 2016 .

    It is irrefutable, and not a conspiracy theory, that Joe Biden bragged in this 2018 speech to a foreign policy group that he threatened in March 2016 to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid to Kiev if then-Ukraine's president Petro Poroshenko didn't immediately fire Shokin.

    "I said, 'You're not getting the billion.' I'm going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: 'I'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money,'" Biden told the 2018 audience in recounting what he told Poroshenko

    "Well, son of a bitch, he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time," Biden told the Council on Foreign Relations event.

    Fact: Shokin's prosecutors were actively investigating Burisma when he was fired.

    While some news organizations cited by the Biden memo have reported the investigation was "dormant" in March 2016, official files released by the Ukrainian prosecutor general's office, in fact, show there was substantial investigative activity in the weeks just before Joe Biden forced Shokin's firing.

    The corruption investigations into Burisma and its founder began in 2014. Around the same time, Hunter Biden and his U.S. business partner Devon Archer were added to Burisma's board , and their Rosemont Seneca Bohais firm began receiving regular $166,666 monthly payments, which totaled nearly $2 million a year. Both banks records seized by the FBI in America and Burisma's own ledgers in Ukraine confirm these payments.

    To put the payments in perspective, the annual amounts paid by Burisma to Hunter Biden's and Devon Archer's Rosemont Seneca Bohais firm were 30 times the average median annual household income for everyday Americans.

    For a period of time in 2015, those investigations were stalled as Ukraine was creating a new FBI-like law enforcement agency known as the National Anti-Corruption Bureau ((NABU) to investigate endemic corruption in the former Soviet republic.

    There was friction between NABU and the prosecutor general's office for a while. And then in September 2015, then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt demanded more action in the Burisma investigation. You can read his speech here . Activity ramped up extensively soon after.

    In December 2015, the prosecutor's files show, Shokin's office transferred the evidence it had gathered against Burisma to NABU for investigation.

    In early February 2016, Shokin's office secured a court order allowing prosecutors to re-seize some of the Burisma founder's property, including his home and luxury car, as part of the ongoing probe.

    Two weeks later, in mid-February 2016, Latvian law enforcement sent this alert to Ukrainian prosecutors flagging several payments from Burisma to American accounts as "suspicious." The payments included some monies to Hunter Biden's and Devon Archer's firm. Latvian authorities recently confirmed it sent the alert.

    Shokin told both me and ABC News that just before he was fired under pressure from Joe Biden he also was making plans to interview Hunter Biden.

    Fact: Burisma's lawyers in 2016 were pressing U.S. and Ukrainian authorities to end the corruption investigations.

    Burisma's main U.S. lawyer John Buretta acknowledged in this February 2017 interview with a Ukraine newspaper that the company remained under investigation in 2016, until he negotiated for one case to be dismissed and the other to be settled by payment of a large tax penalty.

    Documents released under an open records lawsuit show Burisma legal team was pressuring the State Department in February 2016 to end the corruption allegations against the gas firm and specifically invoked Hunter Biden's name as part of the campaign. You can read those documents here .

    In addition, immediately after Joe Biden succeeded in getting Shokin ousted, Burisma's lawyers sought to meet with his successor as chief prosecutor to settle the case. Here is the Ukrainian prosecutors' summary memo of one of their meetings with the firm's lawyers.

    Fact: There is substantial evidence Joe Biden and his office knew about the Burisma probe and his son's role as a board member .

    The New York Times reported in this December 2015 article that the Burisma investigation was ongoing and Hunter Biden's role in the company was undercutting Joe Biden's push to fight Ukrainian corruption. The article quoted the vice president's office.

    In addition, Hunter Biden acknowledged in this interview he had discussed his Burisma job with his father on one occasion and that his father responded by saying he hoped the younger Biden knew what he was doing.

    And when America's new ambassador to Ukraine was being confirmed in 2016 before the Senate she was specifically advised to refer questions about Hunter Biden, Burisma and the probe to Joe Biden's VP office, according to these State Department documents .

    Fact: Federal Ethics rules requires government officials to avoid taking policy actions affecting close relatives.

    Office of Government Ethics rules require all government officials to recuse themselves from any policy actions that could impact a close relative or cause a reasonable person to see the appearance of a conflict of interest or question their impartiality.

    "The impartiality rule requires an employee to consider appearance concerns before participating in a particular matter if someone close to the employee is involved as a party to the matter," these rules state. "This requirement to refrain from participating (or recuse) is designed to avoid the appearance of favoritism in government decision-making."

    Fact: Multiple State Department officials testified the Bidens' dealings in Ukraine created the appearance of a conflict of interest .

    In House impeachment testimony , Obama-era State Department officials declared the juxtaposition of Joe Biden overseeing Ukraine policy, including the anti-corruption efforts, at the same his son Hunter worked for a Ukraine gas firm under corruption investigation created the appearance of a conflict of interest.

    In fact, deputy assistant secretary George Kent said he was so concerned by Burisma's corrupt reputation that he blocked a project the State Department had with Burisma and tried to warn Joe Biden's office about the concerns about an apparent conflict of interest.

    Likewise, the House Democrats' star impeachment witness, former U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovich, agreed the Bidens' role in Ukraine created an ethic issue. "I think that it could raise the appearance of a conflict of interest," she testified. You can read her testimony here .

    Fact: Hunter Biden acknowleged he may have gotten his Burisma job solely because of his last name .

    In this interview last summer , Hunter Biden said it might have been a "mistake" to serve on the Burisma board and that it was possible he was hired simply because of his proximity to the vice president.

    "If your last name wasn't Biden, do you think you would've been asked to be on the board of Burisma?," a reporter asked.

    "I don't know. I don't know. Probably not, in retrospect," Hunter Biden answered. "But that's -- you know -- I don't think that there's a lot of things that would have happened in my life if my last name wasn't Biden."

    Fact: Ukraine law enforcement reopened the Burisma investigation in early 2019, well before President Trump mentioned the matter to Ukraine's new president Vlodymyr Zelensky .

    This may be the single biggest under-reported fact in the impeachment scandal: four months before Trump and Zelensky had their infamous phone call, Ukraine law enforcement officials officially reopened their investigation into Burisma and its founder.

    The effort began independent of Trump or his lawyer Rudy Giuliani's legal work. In fact, it was NABU -- the very agency Joe Biden and the Obama administration helped start -- that recommended in February 2019 to reopen the probe.

    NABU director Artem Sytnyk made this announcement that he was recommending a new notice of suspicion be opened to launch the case against Burisma and its founder because of new evidence uncovered by detectives.

    Ukrainian officials said that new evidence included records suggesting a possible money laundering scheme dating to 2010 and continuing until 2015.

    A month later in March 2019, Deputy Prosecutor General Konstantin Kulyk officially filed this notice of suspicion re-opening the case.

    And Reuters recently quoted Ukrainian officials as saying the ongoing probe was expanded to allegations of theft of public funds.

    The implications of this timetable are significant to the Trump impeachment trial because the president couldn't have pressured Ukraine to re-open the investigation in July 2019 when Kiev had already done so on its own, months earlier.

    For a complete timeline of all the key events in the Ukraine scandal, you can click here .


    ibeanbanned , 4 minutes ago link

    Biden may have dementia but that doesn't mean he can't do some pushups for his dullard supporters.

    American Dissident , 8 minutes ago link

    How low will Organized Criminal Joe go?

    # New National Poll: Sanders 27% Biden 24% Warren 14% Buttigieg 11% Bloomberg 5% Klobucher 4% Yang 4% Steyer 2%.

    Easyp , 10 minutes ago link

    The Clinton's, Obama and the Biden family sum up everything that is rotten about the Democrat Party.

    The key players should be in jail not Washington.

    new game , 12 minutes ago link

    welcome to Mexamurica, land of the highest bidder...

    dead hobo , 13 minutes ago link

    You forgot the parts about how fake law enforcement likes to ignore everything.

    ZorbasStep , 13 minutes ago link

    Establishment Democrats are gaslighting people. This is not a qualitative improvement over what the establishment Republicans do. In fact, it makes the establishment republicans correct when the gaslighting is pointed out. The Trump Derangement Syndrome and corrupt basis of the Democrats only helps get Trump re elected. The Democrats have no better plan, and thus will be responsible if Trump gets re elected.

    mr1963 , 15 minutes ago link

    They're all scumbags, at all levels, and if you ain't used to it by now, you've been living under a rock. That said, it's nice to have some reporting on it and I hope all levels of government abuse will get exposed. I'm assuming it's about the same time the little bug eyed broad takes a job at an oil company...

    Lawn.Dart , 16 minutes ago link

    ~"I said, ‘You’re not getting the billion.’ I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,’” Biden told the 2018 audience in recounting what he told Poroshenko

    “Well, son of a bitch, he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time,” Biden told the Council on Foreign Relations event."

    Isn't this the same fuckin thing as???... **** it, nevermind

    E5 , 30 minutes ago link

    "...Biden told the Council on Foreign Relations event."

    A group that coordinated "policy" between the press , government, and corporations. What more proof does anyone need? It is private!!

    SEIZE THEIR SERVERS AT THE CFR!

    dead hobo , 31 minutes ago link

    Yet nobody has been arrested, indicted, or accused of anything except in odd corners of the internet. Although, there have been a couple of fake show investigations.

    So, the only conclusion I can draw is it's legal if the Democrats or Establishment do it. And anyone who says otherwise needs to be jailed, ruined, or murdered, such as in the case of Seth Rich.

    MalteseFalcon , 36 minutes ago link

    Joe Biden is on tape extorting the government of Ukraine for personal profit.

    This is a Federal felony.

    Everyone has seen it, and everyone understands what it means.

    This fact is not going away, even with a gallon of MSM eye bleach.

    Joe Biden has not been arrested.

    No one in the DOJ, including the nation's Chief Law Enforcer has called for Joe Biden's arrest.

    Joe Biden's candidacy has not been withdrawn.

    Such is 2020 America.

    E5 , 26 minutes ago link

    seize the servers at the CFR.

    All members are press, state department, and American oligarchs. Trust ME, I know what goes on there. Investigate them ALL and keep all of the investigation interviews in an open public domain.

    Force people to distance themselves and quit membership and you can pick them off as they conspire to reform their separate working groups.

    John C Durham , 34 minutes ago link

    An excellent report, organized and complete. Very useful for pointed arguments against the stressed impeachment claims.

    Nunyadambizness , 38 minutes ago link

    Facts? Democraps don't care about facts, don't you know that already? Democraps only care about feeeeeelings, and how it makes someone feeeeel... Facts are just those things they just discard, and then hope that we the Sheeple have short memories. Biden? Guilty as sin. Facts? Ignore. Same as Cankles, Comey, Strozk, Page, etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum. If you're a Democrap, you get off scot free, then lie about everything.

    [Jan 21, 2020] Maybe we should put sanctions on Pompeo

    Jan 21, 2020 | www.unz.com

    Old and grumpy , says: Show Comment January 21, 2020 at 3:48 pm GMT

    Maybe we should put sanctions on Pompeo. He could use the diet. Maybe raiding his pantry would feed Iraqi for a couple months. He is truly perfect spokesman American empire. Sadistic, bloated, and corrupt.
    Just passing through , says: Show Comment January 21, 2020 at 4:20 pm GMT
    @Old and grumpy Trump also needs to have food sanctions placed on him. His body is being oppressed and is crying out for (diet) regime change.

    [Jan 21, 2020] The Revelations of WikiLeaks: No. 6 -- US Diplomatic Cables Spark 'Arab Spring,' Expose Spying at UN Elsewhere

    Notable quotes:
    "... Today we resume our series ..."
    "... with little more than a month before the extradition hearing for imprisoned ..."
    "... publisher Julian Assange begins. This is the sixth in a series that is looking back on the major works of the publication that has altered the world since its founding in 2006. The series is an effort to counter mainstream media coverage, which is ignoring ..."
    "... work, and is instead focusing on Julian Assange's personality. It is ..."
    "... uncovering of governments' crimes and corruption that set the U.S. after Assange, ultimately leading to his arrest on April 11 last year and indictment under the U.S. Espionage Act. ..."
    "... Special to Consortium News ..."
    "... Der Spiegel ..."
    "... to the Winter Fund Drive. ..."
    "... World Socialist Website ..."
    "... Foreign Policy ..."
    "... The Guardian ..."
    "... The New York Times ..."
    "... The Green Left ..."
    "... The Green Left Weekly ..."
    "... The Guardian ..."
    "... CORRECTION: CableDrum is an independent Twitter feed and is not associated with ..."
    "... as was incorrectly reported here. ..."
    Jan 21, 2020 | consortiumnews.com

    January 14, 2020 • 7 Comments

    WikiLeaks ' publication of "Cablegate" in late 2010 dwarfed previous releases in both size and impact and helped cause what one news outlet called a political meltdown for United States foreign policy.

    Today we resume our series The Revelations of WikiLeaks with little more than a month before the extradition hearing for imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange begins. This is the sixth in a series that is looking back on the major works of the publication that has altered the world since its founding in 2006. The series is an effort to counter mainstream media coverage, which is ignoring WikiLeaks' work, and is instead focusing on Julian Assange's personality. It is WikiLeaks' uncovering of governments' crimes and corruption that set the U.S. after Assange, ultimately leading to his arrest on April 11 last year and indictment under the U.S. Espionage Act.

    'A Political Meltdown for US Foreign Policy'

    By Elizabeth Vos
    Special to Consortium News

    O f all WikiLeaks' releases, probably the most globally significant have been the more than a quarter of a million U.S. State Department diplomatic cables leaked in 2010, the publication of which helped spark a revolt in Tunisia that spread into the so-called Arab Spring, revealed Saudi intentions towards Iran and exposed spying on the UN secretary general and other diplomats.

    The releases were surrounded by a significant controversy (to be covered in a separate installment of this series) alleging that WikiLeaks purposely endangered U.S. informants by deliberately revealing their names. That allegation formed a major part of the U.S. indictment on May 23 of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange under the Espionage Act, though revealing informants' names is not a crime, nor is there evidence that any of them were ever harmed.

    WikiLeaks ' publication of "Cablegate," beginning on Nov. 28, 2010, dwarfed previous WikiLeaks releases, in both size and impact. The publication amounted to 251,287 leaked American diplomatic cables that, at the time of publication, Der Spiegel described as"no less than a political meltdown for United States foreign policy."

    Cablegate revealed a previously unknown history of diplomatic relations between the United States and the rest of the world, and in doing so, exposed U.S. views of both allies and adversaries. As a result of such revelations, Cablegate's release was widely condemned by the U.S. political class and especially by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

    The Twitter handle Cable Drum, called it,

    " The largest set of confidential documents ever to be released into the public domain. The documents will give people around the world an unprecedented insight into U.S. Government foreign activities. The cables, which date from 1966 up until the end of February 2010, contain confidential communications between 274 embassies in countries throughout the world and the State Department in Washington DC. 15,652 of the cables are classified Secret."

    Among the historic documents that were grouped with Cablegate in WikiLeaks ' Public Library of U.S. Diplomacy are 1.7 million that involve Henry Kissinger, national security adviser and secretary of state under President Richard Nixon; and 1.4 million related to the Jimmy Carter administration.

    Der Spiegel reported that the majority were "composed by ambassadors, consuls or their staff. Most contain assessments of the political situation in the individual countries, interview protocols and background information about personnel decisions and events. In many cases, they also provide political and personal profiles of individual politicians and leaders."

    Cablegate rounded out WikiLeaks' output in 2010, which had seen the explosive publication of previous leaks also from Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning including " Collateral Murder ," the " Afghan War Diaries " and " Iraq War Logs ," the subject of earlier installments in this series. As in the case of the two prior releases, WikiLeaks published Cablegate in partnerships with establishment media outlets.

    The "Cablegate" archive was later integrated with the WikiLeaks Public Library of U.S. Diplomacy , which contains over 10 million documents.

    Global U.S. Empire Revealed

    The impact of "Cablegate" is impossible to fully encapsulate, and should be the subject of historical study for decades to come. In September 2015 Verso published " The WikiLeaks Files: The World According to U.S. Empire ," with a foreword by Assange. It is a compendium of chapters written by various regional experts and historians giving a broader and more in-depth geopolitical analysis of U.S. foreign policy as revealed by the cables.

    "The internal communications of the US Department of State are the logistical by-product of its activities: their publication is the vivisection of a living empire, showing what substance flowed from which state organ and when. Only by approaching this corpus holistically – over and above the documentation of each individual abuse, each localized atrocity – does the true human cost of empire heave into view," Assange wrote in the foreword.

    ' WikiLeaks Revolt' in Tunisia

    The release of "Cablegate" provided the spark that many argue heralded the Arab Spring, earning the late-November publication the moniker of the " WikiLeaks Winter ."

    Eventually, many would also credit WikiLeaks' publication of the diplomatic cables with initiating a chain-reaction that spread from the Middle East ( specifically from Egypt) to the global Occupy Wall Street movement by late 2011.

    The first of the Arab uprisings was Tunisia's 28-day so-called Jasmine Revolution, stretching from Dec. 17, 2010, to Jan. 14, 2011, described as the "first WikiLeaks revolution."

    Cables published by WikiLeaks revealed the extent of the Tunisian ruling family's corruption, and were widely accessible in Tunisia thanks to the advent of social media platforms like Twitter. Then-President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali had been in power for over two decades at the time of the cables' publication.

    Please Donate to the Winter Fund Drive.

    One State Department cable, labeled Secret , said:

    "President Ben Ali's extended family is often cited as the nexus of Tunisian corruption. Often referred to as a quasi-mafia, an oblique mention of 'the Family' is enough to indicate which family you mean. Seemingly half of the Tunisian business community can claim a Ben Ali connection through marriage, and many of these relations are reported to have made the most of their lineage."

    A June 2008 cable said: "Whether it's cash, services, land, property, or yes, even your yacht, President [Zine el Abidine] Ben Ali's family is rumored to covet it and reportedly gets what it wants."

    Symbolic middle finger gesture representing the Tunisian Revolution and its influences in the Arab world. From left to right, fingers are painted as flags of Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, Sudan and Algeria. (Khalid from Doha, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons)

    The cables revealed that Ben Ali's extended family controlled nearly the entire Tunisian economy, from banking to media to property development, while 30 percent of Tunisians were unemployed. They showed that state-owned property was expropriated to be passed on to private ownership by family members.

    "Lax oversight makes the banking sector an excellent target of opportunity, with multiple stories of 'First Family' schemes," one cable read. ""With real estate development booming and land prices on the rise, owning property or land in the right location can either be a windfall or a one-way ticket to expropriation," said another.

    The revolt was facilitated once the U.S. abandoned Ali. Counterpunch reported that: "The U.S. campaign of unwavering public support for President Ali led to a widespread belief among the Tunisian people that it would be very difficult to dislodge the autocratic regime from power. This view was shattered when leaked cables exposed the U.S. government's private assessment: that the U.S. would not support the regime in the event of a popular uprising."

    The internet and large social media platforms played a crucial role in the spread of public awareness of the cables and their content amongst the Tunisian public. "Thousands of home-made videos of police repression and popular resistance have been posted on the web. The Tunisian people have used Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites to organize and direct the mobilizations against the regime," the World Socialist Website wrote.

    Foreign Policy magazine reported:

    "WikiLeaks acted as a catalyst: both a trigger and a tool for political outcry. Which is probably the best compliment one could give the whistle-blower site." The magazine added: "The people of Tunisia shouldn't have had to wait for Wikileaks to learn that the U.S. saw their country just as they did. It's time that the gulf between what American diplomats know and what they say got smaller."

    The Guardian published an account in January 2011 by a young Tunisian, Sami Ben Hassine, who wrote: "The internet is blocked, and censored pages are referred to as pages "not found" – as if they had never existed. And then, WikiLeaks reveals what everyone was whispering. And then, a young man [Mohamed Bouazizi] immolates himself. And then, 20 Tunisians are killed in one day. And for the first time, we see the opportunity to rebel, to take revenge on the 'royal' family who has taken everything, to overturn the established order that has accompanied our youth."

    Protester in Tunis, Jan. 14, 2011, holding sign. Translation from French: "Ben Ali out." (Skotch 79, CC0, Wikimedia Commons)

    On the first day of Chelsea Manning's pretrial in December 2011, Daniel Ellsberg told Democracy Now:

    "The combination of the WikiLeaks and Bradley Manning exposures in Tunis and the exemplification of that by Mohamed Bouazizi led to the protests, the nonviolent protests, that drove Ben Ali out of power, our ally there who we supported up 'til that moment, and in turn sparked the uprising in Egypt, in Tahrir Square occupation, which immediately stimulated the Occupy Wall Street and the other occupations in the Middle East and elsewhere. I hope [Manning and Assange] will have the effect in liberating us from the lawlessness that we have seen and the corruption -- the corruption -- that we have seen in this country in the last 10 years and more, which has been no less than that of Tunis and Egypt."

    Clinton Told US Diplomats to Spy at UN

    The cables' revelation that the U.S. State Department under then-Secretary-of-State Clinton had demanded officials act as spies on officials at the United Nations -- including the Secretary General -- was particularly embarrassing for the United States.

    El Pais summarized the bombshell: "The State Department sent officials of 38 embassies and diplomatic missions a detailed account of the personal and other information they must obtain about the United Nations, including its secretary general, and especially about officials and representatives linked to Sudan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Iran and North Korea.

    El Pais continued: "Several dispatches, signed 'Clinton' and probably made by the office of Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, contain precise instructions about the myriad of inquiries to be developed in conflict zones, in the world of deserters and asylum seekers, in the engine room of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or about the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia and China to know their plans regarding the nuclear threat in Tehran."

    Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton & UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon in 2012. (Foreign and Commonwealth Office/Flickr)

    CNN described the information diplomats were ordered to gather: "In the July 2009 document, Clinton directs her envoys at the United Nations and embassies around the world to collect information ranging from basic biographical data on foreign diplomats to their frequent flyer and credit card numbers and even 'biometric information on ranking North Korean diplomats.' Typical biometric information can include fingerprints, signatures and iris recognition data."

    Der Spiegel reported that Clinton justified the espionage orders by emphasizing that "a large share of the information that the US intelligence agencies works with comes from the reports put together by State Department staff around the world."

    Der Spiegel added: "The US State Department also wanted to obtain information on the plans and intentions of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and his secretariat relating to issues like Iran, according to the detailed wish list in the directive. The instructions were sent to 30 US embassies around the world, including the one in Berlin."

    Philip J. Crowley as assistant secretary of state for public affairs in 2010. (State Department)

    The State Department responded to the revelations, with then- State-Department-spokesman P.J. Crowley reportedly disputing that American diplomats had assumed a new role overseas.

    "Our diplomats are just that, diplomats," he said. "They represent our country around the world and engage openly and transparently with representatives of foreign governments and civil society. Through this process, they collect information that shapes our policies and actions. This is what diplomats, from our country and other countries, have done for hundreds of years."

    In December 2010, just after the cables' publication, Assange told Time : "She should resign if it can be shown that she was responsible for ordering U.S. diplomatic figures to engage in espionage in the United Nations, in violation of the international covenants to which the U.S. has signed up."

    Saudis & Iran

    A diplomatic cable dated April 20, 2008, made clear Saudi Arabia's pressure on the United States to take action against its enemy Iran, including not ruling out military action against Teheran:

    "[Then Saudi ambassador to the US Abbdel] Al-Jubeir recalled the King's frequent exhortations to the US to attack Iran and so put an end to its nuclear weapons program. 'He told you to cut off the head of the snake,' he recalled to the Charge', adding that working with the US to roll back Iranian influence in Iraq is a strategic priority for the King and his government. 11. (S) The Foreign Minister, on the other hand, called instead for much more severe US and international sanctions on Iran, including a travel ban and further restrictions on bank lending. Prince Muqrin echoed these views, emphasizing that some sanctions could be implemented without UN approval. The Foreign Minister also stated that the use of military pressure against Iran should not be ruled out."

    Dyncorp & the 'Dancing Boys' of Afghanistan

    The cables indicate that Afghan authorities asked the United States government to quash U.S. reporting on a scandal stemming from the actions of Dyncorp employees in Afghanistan in 2009.

    Employees of Dyncorp, a paramilitary group with an infamous track-record of alleged involvement in sex trafficking and other human rights abuses in multiple countries, were revealed by Cablegate to have been involved with illegal drug use and hiring the services of a "bacha bazi," or underage dancing boy.

    A 2009 cable published by WikiLeaks described an event where Dyncorp had purchased the service of a "bacha bazi." The writer of the cable does not specify what happened during the event, describing it only as "purchasing a service from a child," and he tries to convince a journalist not to cover the story in order to not "risk lives."

    Although Dyncorp was no stranger to controversy by the time of the cables' publication, the revelation of the mercenary force's continued involvement in bacha bazi provoked further questions as to why the company continued to receive tax-payer funded contracts from the United States.

    Sexual abuse allegations were not the only issue haunting Dyncorp. The State Department admitted in 2017 that it "could not account for" more than $1 billion paid to the company, as reported by Foreign Policy .

    The New York Times later reported that U.S. soldiers had been told to turn a blind eye to the abuse of minors by those in positions of power: "Soldiers and Marines have been increasingly troubled that instead of weeding out pedophiles, the American military was arming them in some cases and placing them as the commanders of villages -- and doing little when they began abusing children."

    Australia Lied About Troop Withdrawal

    Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of Australia, left, with U.S. President Barack Obama, in the Oval Office, Nov. 30, 2009, to discuss a range of issues including Afghanistan and climate change. (White House/Pete Souza)

    The Green Left related that the cables exposed Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's double talk about withdrawing troops. "Despite government spin about withdrawing all 'combat forces,' the cables said some of these forces could be deployed in combat roles. One cable said, "[d]espite the withdrawal of combat forces, Rudd agreed to allow Australian forces embedded or seconded to units of other countries including the U.S. to deploy to Iraq in combat and combat support roles with those units."

    US Meddling in Latin America

    Cables revealed that U.S. ambassadors to Ecuador had opposed the presidential candidacy of Raphael Correa despite their pretense of neutrality, as observed by The Green Left Weekly .

    Additional cables revealed the Vatican attempted to increase its influence in Latin America with the aid of the U.S. Further cables illustrated the history of Pope Francis while he was a cardinal in Argentina, with the U.S. appearing to have a positive outlook on the future pontiff.

    Illegal Dealings Between US & Sweden

    WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange wrote in his affidavit :

    "Through the diplomatic cables I also learned of secret, informal arrangements between Sweden and the United States. The cables revealed that Swedish intelligence services have a pattern of lawless conduct where US interests are concerned. The US diplomatic cables revealed that the Swedish Justice Department had deliberately hidden particular intelligence information exchanges with the United States from the Parliament of Sweden because the exchanges were likely unlawful."

    Military Reaction

    On Nov. 30, 2010, the State Department declared it would remove the diplomatic cables from its secure network in order to prevent additional leaks. Antiwar.com added: "The cables had previously been accessible through SIPRNet, an ostensibly secure network which is accessible by millions of officials and soldiers. It is presumably through this network that the cables were obtained and leaked to WikiLeaks ."

    The Guardian described SIPRNet as a "worldwide US military internet system, kept separate from the ordinary civilian internet and run by the Defence Department in Washington."

    Political Fury

    On Nov. 29, 2010, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said of the "Cablegate" release:

    "This disclosure is not just an attack on America's foreign policy; it is an attack on the international community, the alliances and partnerships, the conventions and negotiations that safeguard global security and advance economic prosperity."

    The next day, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee called for Chelsea Manning's execution, according to Politico .

    Some political figures did express support for Assange, including U.K. Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn, who wrote via Twitter days after Cablegate was published: "USA and others don't like any scrutiny via wikileaks and they are leaning on everybody to pillory Assange. What happened to free speech?"

    Other notable revelations from the diplomatic cables included multiple instances of U.S. meddling in Latin America, the demand by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that diplomatic staff act as spies , the documentation of misconduct by U.S. paramilitary forces, the fallout of the 2008 financial crisis in Iceland, the deployment of U.S. nuclear weapons in Germany and other European countries, that the Vatican attempted to increase its influence in Latin America with the aid of the U.S. , that U.S. diplomats had essentially spied on German Chancellor Angele Merkel, and much more.

    Der Spiegel reported on Hillary Clinton's demand that U.S. diplomats act as spies:

    "As justification for the espionage orders, Clinton emphasized that a large share of the information that the U.S. intelligence agencies works with comes from the reports put together by State Department staff around the world. The information to be collected included personal credit card information, frequent flyer customer numbers, as well as e-mail and telephone accounts. In many cases the State Department also requested 'biometric information,' 'passwords' and 'personal encryption keys.' "

    Der Spiegel added: "The U.S. State Department also wanted to obtain information on the plans and intentions of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and his secretariat relating to issues like Iran, according to the detailed wish list in the directive. The instructions were sent to 30 U.S. embassies around the world, including the one in Berlin."

    Elizabeth Vos is a freelance reporter and co-host of CN Live.

    CORRECTION: CableDrum is an independent Twitter feed and is not associated with WikiLeaks as was incorrectly reported here.

    jmg , January 15, 2020 at 09:53

    A truly great series, thank you.

    The Revelations of WikiLeaks -- Consortium News Series

    1. The Video that Put Assange in US Crosshairs -- April 23, 2019
    2. The Leak That 'Exposed the True Afghan War' -- May 9, 2019
    3. The Most Extensive Classified Leak in History -- May 16, 2019
    4. The Haunting Case of a Belgian Child Killer and How WikiLeaks Helped Crack It -- July 11, 2019
    5. Busting the Myth WikiLeaks Never Published Damaging Material on Russia -- September 23, 2019
    6. US Diplomatic Cables Spark 'Arab Spring,' Expose Spying at UN & Elsewhere -- January 14, 2020

    For an updated list with links to the articles, a Google search is:

    "The Revelations of WikiLeaks" site:consortiumnews.com For an updated list with links to the articles, a Google search is:

    "The Revelations of WikiLeaks" site:consortiumnews.com

    – – –

    Consortium News wrote:
    > Today we resume our series The Revelations of WikiLeaks with little more than a month before the extradition hearing for imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange begins.

    Yes and, shockingly, Julian has been allowed only 2 hours with his lawyers in the last month, crucial to prepare the extradition hearings. See:

    Summary from Assange hearing at Westminster Magistrates Court this morning -- Tareq Haddad -- Thread Reader -- Jan 13th 2020

    [Jan 21, 2020] How a Hidden Parliamentary Session Revealed Trump's True Motives in Iraq by Whitney Webb

    Notable quotes:
    "... The Americans are the ones who destroyed the country and wreaked havoc on it. They have refused to finish building the electrical system and infrastructure projects. They have bargained for the reconstruction of Iraq in exchange for Iraq giving up 50% of oil imports. So, I refused and decided to go to China and concluded an important and strategic agreement with it. Today, Trump is trying to cancel this important agreement. ..."
    "... After my return from China, Trump called me and asked me to cancel the agreement, so I also refused, and he threatened [that there would be] massive demonstrations to topple me. Indeed, the demonstrations started and then Trump called, threatening to escalate in the event of non-cooperation and responding to his wishes, whereby a third party [presumed to be mercenaries or U.S. soldiers] would target both the demonstrators and security forces and kill them from atop the highest buildings and the US embassy in an attempt to pressure me and submit to his wishes and cancel the China agreement." ..."
    "... It could also explain why President Trump is so concerned about China's growing foothold in Iraq, since it risks causing not only the end of the U.S. military hegemony in the country but could also lead to major trouble for the petrodollar system and the U.S.' position as a global financial power. Trump's policy aimed at stopping China and Iraq's growing ties is clearly having the opposite effect, showing that this administration's "gangster diplomacy" only serves to make the alternatives offered by countries like China and Russia all the more attractive. ..."
    Jan 21, 2020 | www.unz.com

    ... ... ...

    After the feed was cut, MPs who were present wrote down Abdul-Mahdi's remarks, which were then given to the Arabic news outlet Ida'at . Per that transcript , Abdul-Mahdi stated that:

    The Americans are the ones who destroyed the country and wreaked havoc on it. They have refused to finish building the electrical system and infrastructure projects. They have bargained for the reconstruction of Iraq in exchange for Iraq giving up 50% of oil imports. So, I refused and decided to go to China and concluded an important and strategic agreement with it. Today, Trump is trying to cancel this important agreement. "

    Abdul-Mahdi continued his remarks, noting that pressure from the Trump administration over his negotiations and subsequent dealings with China grew substantially over time, even resulting in death threats to himself and his defense minister:

    After my return from China, Trump called me and asked me to cancel the agreement, so I also refused, and he threatened [that there would be] massive demonstrations to topple me. Indeed, the demonstrations started and then Trump called, threatening to escalate in the event of non-cooperation and responding to his wishes, whereby a third party [presumed to be mercenaries or U.S. soldiers] would target both the demonstrators and security forces and kill them from atop the highest buildings and the US embassy in an attempt to pressure me and submit to his wishes and cancel the China agreement."

    "I did not respond and submitted my resignation and the Americans still insist to this day on canceling the China agreement. When the defense minister said that those killing the demonstrators was a third party, Trump called me immediately and physically threatened myself and the defense minister in the event that there was more talk about this third party."

    Very few English language outlets reported on Abdul-Mahdi's comments. Tom Luongo, a Florida-based Independent Analyst and publisher of The Gold Goats 'n Guns Newsletter, told MintPress that the likely reasons for the "surprising" media silence over Abdul-Mahdi's claims were because "It never really made it out into official channels " due to the cutting of the video feed during Iraq's Parliamentary session and due to the fact that "it's very inconvenient and the media -- since Trump is doing what they want him to do, be belligerent with Iran, protected Israel's interests there."

    "They aren't going to contradict him on that if he's playing ball," Luongo added, before continuing that the media would nonetheless "hold onto it for future reference .If this comes out for real, they'll use it against him later if he tries to leave Iraq." "Everything in Washington is used as leverage," he added.

    Given the lack of media coverage and the cutting of the video feed of Abdul-Mahdi's full remarks, it is worth pointing out that the narrative he laid out in his censored speech not only fits with the timeline of recent events he discusses but also the tactics known to have been employed behind closed doors by the Trump administration, particularly after Mike Pompeo left the CIA to become Secretary of State.

    For instance, Abdul-Mahdi's delegation to China ended on September 24, with the protests against his government that Trump reportedly threatened to start on October 1. Reports of a "third side" firing on Iraqi protesters were picked up by major media outlets at the time, such as in this BBC report which stated:

    Reports say the security forces opened fire, but another account says unknown gunmen were responsible .a source in Karbala told the BBC that one of the dead was a guard at a nearby Shia shrine who happened to be passing by. The source also said the origin of the gunfire was unknown and it had targeted both the protesters and security forces . (emphasis added)"

    U.S.-backed protests in other countries, such as in Ukraine in 2014, also saw evidence of a " third side " shooting both protesters and security forces alike.

    After six weeks of intense protests , Abdul-Mahdi submitted his resignation on November 29, just a few days after Iraq's Foreign Minister praised the new deals, including the "oil for reconstruction" deal, that had been signed with China. Abdul-Mahdi has since stayed on as Prime Minister in a caretaker role until Parliament decides on his replacement.

    Abdul-Mahdi's claims of the covert pressure by the Trump administration are buttressed by the use of similar tactics against Ecuador, where, in July 2018, a U.S. delegation at the United Nations threatened the nation with punitive trade measures and the withdrawal of military aid if Ecuador moved forward with the introduction of a UN resolution to "protect, promote and support breastfeeding."

    The New York Times reported at the time that the U.S. delegation was seeking to promote the interests of infant formula manufacturers. If the U.S. delegation is willing to use such pressure on nations for promoting breastfeeding over infant formula, it goes without saying that such behind-closed-doors pressure would be significantly more intense if a much more lucrative resource, e.g. oil, were involved.

    Regarding Abdul-Mahdi's claims, Luongo told MintPress that it is also worth considering that it could have been anyone in the Trump administration making threats to Abdul-Mahdi, not necessarily Trump himself. "What I won't say directly is that I don't know it was Trump at the other end of the phone calls. Mahdi, it is to his best advantage politically to blame everything on Trump. It could have been Mike Pompeo or Gina Haspel talking to Abdul-Mahdi It could have been anyone, it most likely would be someone with plausible deniability .This [Mahdi's claims] sounds credible I firmly believe Trump is capable of making these threats but I don't think Trump would make those threats directly like that, but it would absolutely be consistent with U.S. policy."

    Luongo also argued that the current tensions between U.S. and Iraqi leadership preceded the oil deal between Iraq and China by several weeks, "All of this starts with Prime Minister Mahdi starting the process of opening up the Iraq-Syria border crossing and that was announced in August. Then, the Israeli air attacks happened in September to try and stop that from happening, attacks on PMU forces on the border crossing along with the ammo dump attacks near Baghdad This drew the Iraqis' ire Mahdi then tried to close the air space over Iraq, but how much of that he can enforce is a big question."

    As to why it would be to Mahdi's advantage to blame Trump, Luongo stated that Mahdi "can make edicts all day long, but, in reality, how much can he actually restrain the U.S. or the Israelis from doing anything? Except for shame, diplomatic shame To me, it [Mahdi's claims] seems perfectly credible because, during all of this, Trump is probably or someone else is shaking him [Mahdi] down for the reconstruction of the oil fields [in Iraq] Trump has explicitly stated "we want the oil."'

    As Luongo noted, Trump's interest in the U.S. obtaining a significant share of Iraqi oil revenue is hardly a secret. Just last March, Trump asked Abdul-Mahdi "How about the oil?" at the end of a meeting at the White House, prompting Abdul-Mahdi to ask "What do you mean?" To which Trump responded "Well, we did a lot, we did a lot over there, we spent trillions over there, and a lot of people have been talking about the oil," which was widely interpreted as Trump asking for part of Iraq's oil revenue in exchange for the steep costs of the U.S.' continuing its now unwelcome military presence in Iraq.

    With Abdul-Mahdi having rejected Trump's "oil for reconstruction" proposal in favor of China's, it seems likely that the Trump administration would default to so-called "gangster diplomacy" tactics to pressure Iraq's government into accepting Trump's deal, especially given the fact that China's deal was a much better offer. While Trump demanded half of Iraq's oil revenue in exchange for completing reconstruction projects (according to Abdul-Mahdi), the deal that was signed between Iraq and China would see around 20 percen t of Iraq's oil revenue go to China in exchange for reconstruction. Aside from the potential loss in Iraq's oil revenue, there are many reasons for the Trump administration to feel threatened by China's recent dealings in Iraq.

    The Iraq-China oil deal – a prelude to something more?

    When Abdul-Mahdi's delegation traveled to Beijing last September, the "oil for reconstruction" deal was only one of eight total agreements that were established. These agreements cover a range of areas, including financial, commercial, security, reconstruction, communication, culture, education and foreign affairs in addition to oil. Yet, the oil deal is by far the most significant.

    Per the agreement, Chinese firms will work on various reconstruction projects in exchange for roughly 20 percent of Iraq's oil exports, approximately 100,00 barrels per day, for a period of 20 years. According to Al-Monitor , Abdul-Mahdi had the following to say about the deal: "We agreed [with Beijing] to set up a joint investment fund, which the oil money will finance," adding that the agreement prohibits China from monopolizing projects inside Iraq, forcing Bejing to work in cooperation with international firms.

    The agreement is similar to one negotiated between Iraq and China in 2015 when Abdul-Mahdi was serving as Iraq's oil minister. That year, Iraq joined China's Belt and Road Initiative in a deal that also involved exchanging oil for investment, development and construction projects and saw China awarded several projects as a result. In a notable similarity to recent events, that deal was put on hold due to "political and security tensions" caused by unrest and the surge of ISIS in Iraq, that is until Abdul-Mahdi saw Iraq rejoin the initiative again late last year through the agreements his government signed with China last September.

    Chinese President Xi Jinping, center left, meet with Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi, center right, in Beijing, Sept. 23, 2019. Lintao Zhang | AP

    Notably, after recent tensions between the U.S. and Iraq over the assassination of Soleimani and the U.S.' subsequent refusal to remove its troops from Iraq despite parliament's demands, Iraq quietly announced that it would dramatically increase its oil exports to China to triple the amount established in the deal signed in September. Given Abdul-Mahdi's recent claims about the true forces behind Iraq's recent protests and Trump's threats against him being directly related to his dealings with China, the move appears to be a not-so-veiled signal from Abdul-Mahdi to Washington that he plans to deepen Iraq's partnership with China, at least for as long as he remains in his caretaker role.

    Iraq's decision to dramatically increase its oil exports to China came just one day after the U.S. government threatened to cut off Iraq's access to its central bank account, currently held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, an account that currently holds $35 billion in Iraqi oil revenue. The account was set up after the U.S. invaded and began occupying Iraq in 2003 and Iraq currently removes between $1-2 billion per month to cover essential government expenses. Losing access to its oil revenue stored in that account would lead to the " collapse " of Iraq's government, according to Iraqi government officials who spoke to AFP .

    Though Trump publicly promised to rebuke Iraq for the expulsion of U.S. troops via sanctions, the threat to cut off Iraq's access to its account at the NY Federal Reserve Bank was delivered privately and directly to the Prime Minister, adding further credibility to Abdul-Mahdi's claims that Trump's most aggressive attempts at pressuring Iraq's government are made in private and directed towards the country's Prime Minister.

    Though Trump's push this time was about preventing the expulsion of U.S. troops from Iraq, his reasons for doing so may also be related to concerns about China's growing foothold in the region. Indeed, while Trump has now lost his desired share of Iraqi oil revenue (50 percent) to China's counteroffer of 20 percent, the removal of U.S. troops from Iraq may see American troops replaced with their Chinese counterparts as well, according to Tom Luongo.

    "All of this is about the U.S. maintaining the fiction that it needs to stay in Iraq So, China moving in there is the moment where they get their toe hold for the Belt and Road [Initiative]," Luongo argued. "That helps to strengthen the economic relationship between Iraq, Iran and China and obviating the need for the Americans to stay there. At some point, China will have assets on the ground that they are going to want to defend militarily in the event of any major crisis. This brings us to the next thing we know, that Mahdi and the Chinese ambassador discussed that very thing in the wake of the Soleimani killing."

    Indeed, according to news reports, Zhang Yao -- China's ambassador to Iraq -- " conveyed Beijing's readiness to provide military assistance" should Iraq's government request it soon after Soleimani's assassination. Yao made the offer a day after Iraq's parliament voted to expel American troops from the country. Though it is currently unknown how Abdul-Mahdi responded to the offer, the timing likely caused no shortage of concern among the Trump administration about its rapidly waning influence in Iraq. "You can see what's coming here," Luongo told MintPress of the recent Chinese offer to Iraq, "China, Russia and Iran are trying to cleave Iraq away from the United States and the U.S. is feeling very threatened by this."

    Russia is also playing a role in the current scenario as Iraq initiated talks with Moscow regarding the possible purchase of one of its air defense systems last September, the same month that Iraq signed eight deals, including the oil deal with China. Then, in the wake of Soleimani's death, Russia again offered the air defense systems to Iraq to allow them to better defend their air space. In the past, the U.S. has threatened allied countries with sanctions and other measures if they purchase Russian air defense systems as opposed to those manufactured by U.S. companies.

    The U.S.' efforts to curb China's growing influence and presence in Iraq amid these new strategic partnerships and agreements are limited, however, as the U.S. is increasingly relying on China as part of its Iran policy, specifically in its goal of reducing Iranian oil export to zero. China remains Iran's main crude oil and condensate importer, even after it reduced its imports of Iranian oil significantly following U.S. pressure last year. Yet, the U.S. is now attempting to pressure China to stop buying Iranian oil completely or face sanctions while also attempting to privately sabotage the China-Iraq oil deal. It is highly unlikely China will concede to the U.S. on both, if any, of those fronts, meaning the U.S. may be forced to choose which policy front (Iran "containment" vs. Iraq's oil dealings with China) it values more in the coming weeks and months.

    Furthermore, the recent signing of the "phase one" trade deal with China revealed another potential facet of the U.S.' increasingly complicated relationship with Iraq's oil sector given that the trade deal involves selling U.S. oil and gas to China at very low cost , suggesting that the Trump administration may also see the Iraq-China oil deal result in Iraq emerging as a potential competitor for the U.S. in selling cheap oil to China, the world's top oil importer.

    The Petrodollar and the Phantom of the Petroyuan

    In his televised statements last week following Iran's military response to the U.S. assassination of General Soleimani, Trump insisted that the U.S.' Middle East policy is no longer being directed by America's vast oil requirements. He stated specifically that:

    Over the last three years, under my leadership, our economy is stronger than ever before and America has achieved energy independence. These historic accomplishments changed our strategic priorities. These are accomplishments that nobody thought were possible. And options in the Middle East became available. We are now the number-one producer of oil and natural gas anywhere in the world. We are independent, and we do not need Middle East oil . (emphasis added)"

    Yet, given the centrality of the recent Iraq-China oil deal in guiding some of the Trump administration's recent Middle East policy moves, this appears not to be the case. The distinction may lie in the fact that, while the U.S. may now be less dependent on oil imports from the Middle East, it still very much needs to continue to dominate how oil is traded and sold on international markets in order to maintain its status as both a global military and financial superpower.

    Indeed, even if the U.S. is importing less Middle Eastern oil, the petrodollar system -- first forged in the 1970s -- requires that the U.S. maintains enough control over the global oil trade so that the world's largest oil exporters, Iraq among them, continue to sell their oil in dollars. Were Iraq to sell oil in another currency, or trade oil for services, as it plans to do with China per the recently inked deal, a significant portion of Iraqi oil would cease to generate a demand for dollars, violating the key tenet of the petrodollar system.

    Chinese representatives speak to defense personnel during a weapons expo organized by the Iraqi defense ministry in Baghdad, March, 2017. Karim Kadim | AP

    As Kei Pritsker and Cale Holmes noted in an article last year for MintPress :

    The takeaway from the petrodollar phenomenon is that as long as countries need oil, they will need the dollar. As long as countries demand dollars, the U.S. can continue to go into massive amounts of debt to fund its network of global military bases, Wall Street bailouts, nuclear missiles, and tax cuts for the rich."

    Thus, the use of the petrodollar has created a system whereby U.S. control of oil sales of the largest oil exporters is necessary, not just to buttress the dollar, but also to support its global military presence. Therefore, it is unsurprising that the issue of the U.S. troop presence in Iraq and the issue of Iraq's push for oil independence against U.S. wishes have become intertwined. Notably, one of the architects of the petrodollar system and the man who infamously described U.S. soldiers as "dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy", former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, has been advising Trump and informing his China policy since 2016.

    This take was also expressed by economist Michael Hudson, who recently noted that U.S. access to oil, dollarization and U.S. military strategy are intricately interwoven and that Trump's recent Iraq policy is intended "to escalate America's presence in Iraq to keep control of the region's oil reserves," and, as Hudson says, "to back Saudi Arabia's Wahabi troops (ISIS, Al Qaeda in Iraq, Al Nusra and other divisions of what are actually America's foreign legion) to support U.S. control of Near Eastern oil as a buttress of the U.S. dollar."

    Hudson further asserts that it was Qassem Soleimani's efforts to promote Iraq's oil independence at the expense of U.S. imperial ambitions that served one of the key motives behind his assassination.

    America opposed General Suleimani above all because he was fighting against ISIS and other U.S.-backed terrorists in their attempt to break up Syria and replace Assad's regime with a set of U.S.-compliant local leaders – the old British "divide and conquer" ploy. On occasion, Suleimani had cooperated with U.S. troops in fighting ISIS groups that got "out of line" meaning the U.S. party line. But every indication is that he was in Iraq to work with that government seeking to regain control of the oil fields that President Trump has bragged so loudly about grabbing. (emphasis added)"

    Hudson adds that " U.S. neocons feared Suleimani's plan to help Iraq assert control of its oil and withstand the terrorist attacks supported by U.S. and Saudi's on Iraq. That is what made his assassination an immediate drive."

    While other factors -- such as pressure from U.S. allies such as Israel -- also played a factor in the decision to kill Soleimani, the decision to assassinate him on Iraqi soil just hours before he was set to meet with Abdul-Mahdi in a diplomatic role suggests that the underlying tensions caused by Iraq's push for oil independence and its oil deal with China did play a factor in the timing of his assassination. It also served as a threat to Abdul-Mahdi, who has claimed that the U.S. threatened to kill both him and his defense minister just weeks prior over tensions directly related to the push for independence of Iraq's oil sector from the U.S.

    It appears that the ever-present role of the petrodollar in guiding U.S. policy in the Middle East remains unchanged. The petrodollar has long been a driving factor behind the U.S.' policy towards Iraq specifically, as one of the key triggers for the 2003 invasion of Iraq was Saddam Hussein's decision to sell Iraqi oil in Euros opposed to dollars beginning in the year 2000. Just weeks before the invasion began, Hussein boasted that Iraq's Euro-based oil revenue account was earning a higher interest rate than it would have been if it had continued to sell its oil in dollars, an apparent signal to other oil exporters that the petrodollar system was only really benefiting the United States at their own expense.

    Beyond current efforts to stave off Iraq's oil independence and keep its oil trade aligned with the U.S., the fact that the U.S. is now seeking to limit China's ever-growing role in Iraq's oil sector is also directly related to China's publicly known efforts to create its own direct competitor to the petrodollar, the petroyuan.

    Since 2017, China has made its plans for the petroyuan -- a direct competitor to the petrodollar -- no secret, particularly after China eclipsed the U.S. as the world's largest importer of oil.

    As CNBC noted at the time:

    The new strategy is to enlist the energy markets' help: Beijing may introduce a new way to price oil in coming months -- but unlike the contracts based on the U.S. dollar that currently dominate global markets, this benchmark would use China's own currency. If there's widespread adoption, as the Chinese hope, then that will mark a step toward challenging the greenback's status as the world's most powerful currency .The plan is to price oil in yuan using a gold-backed futures contract in Shanghai, but the road will be long and arduous."

    If the U.S. continues on its current path and pushes Iraq further into the arms of China and other U.S. rival states, it goes without saying that Iraq -- now a part of China's Belt and Road Initiative -- may soon favor a petroyuan system over a petrodollar system, particularly as the current U.S. administration threatens to hold Iraq's central bank account hostage for pursuing policies Washington finds unfavorable.

    It could also explain why President Trump is so concerned about China's growing foothold in Iraq, since it risks causing not only the end of the U.S. military hegemony in the country but could also lead to major trouble for the petrodollar system and the U.S.' position as a global financial power. Trump's policy aimed at stopping China and Iraq's growing ties is clearly having the opposite effect, showing that this administration's "gangster diplomacy" only serves to make the alternatives offered by countries like China and Russia all the more attractive.

    anonymous [331] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment January 18, 2020 at 5:54 am GMT

    One can see how all these recent wars and military actions have a financial motive at their core. Yet the mass of gullible Americans actually believe the reasons given, to "spread democracy" and other wonderful things. Only a small number can see things for what they really are. It's very frustrating to deal with the stupidity of the average person on a daily basis.

    This is not Trump's policy, it is American policy and the variation is in how he implements it. Any other person would have fallen in line with it as well. US policy has it's own inner momentum that can't change course. The US depends upon continuation of the dollar as the world's reserve currency. Were that to be lost the US likely would descend into chaos without end. When the USSR came apart it was eventually able to downsize into the Russian state. We don't have that here; there is no core ethnicity with it's own territory left anymore, it's just a jumble. For the US it's a matter of survival.

    John Chuckman , says: Website Show Comment January 18, 2020 at 3:04 pm GMT
    Yes, but we also have this

    It is reported this morning (CNN) that Trump bragged about the killing to a crowd at a big fundraising dinner.

    Just sick, official state murder for campaign donations.

    That's what America is reduced to.

    [Jan 21, 2020] Trump Tries Real Hard to Start a War for Israel. He Should be Impeached Because He is a War Criminal by Kurt Nimmo

    Notable quotes:
    "... In my last post, I said it was time to close down this blog, mostly due to its ineffectiveness, short reach, and choir preaching. I wrote that I might as well pound sand for all the good it did. ..."
    "... The US began targeting Iran following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. This included "freezing" -- polite-speak for theft -- around $12 billion in Iranian assets, including gold, property, and bank holdings. After Obama agreed to return this filched property and money as part of the nuke deal (minus any real nukes), neocons said he gave away US taxpayer money to international terrorists. This warped lie became part of the narrative, yet another state-orchestrated fake news "alternative fact." ..."
    Jan 06, 2020 | www.globalresearch.ca

    In my last post, I said it was time to close down this blog, mostly due to its ineffectiveness, short reach, and choir preaching. I wrote that I might as well pound sand for all the good it did.

    A few days later, Trump killed a high level Iranian military leader and I have decided a post is in order, never mind that a round of tiddlywinks will have about the same influence as a post here. The wars just keep on coming, no matter what we do.

    Let's turn to social media where dimwits, neocon partisans, and clueless Democrats are running wild after corporate Mafia boss and numero uno Israeli cheerleader Donald Trump ordered a hit on Gen. Qasem Soleimani and others near Baghdad's international airport on Thursday.

    Let's begin with this teleprompter reader and "presenter" from Al Jazeera:

    "This is what happens when you put a narcissistic, megalomaniacal, former reality TV star with a thin skin and a very large temper in charge of the world's most powerful military You know who else attacks cultural sites? ISIS. The Taliban." – me on Trump/Iran on MSNBC today: pic.twitter.com/YCRARB2anv

    -- Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) January 5, 2020

    It is interesting how the memory of such people only goes back to the election of Donald Trump.

    The US began targeting Iran following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. This included "freezing" -- polite-speak for theft -- around $12 billion in Iranian assets, including gold, property, and bank holdings. After Obama agreed to return this filched property and money as part of the nuke deal (minus any real nukes), neocons said he gave away US taxpayer money to international terrorists. This warped lie became part of the narrative, yet another state-orchestrated fake news "alternative fact."

    Here's another idiot. He was the boss of the DNC for a while and unsuccessfully ran for president.

    Nice job trump and Pompeo you dimwits. You've completed the neocon move to have Iraq become a satellite of Iran. You have to be the dumbest people ever to run the US government. You can add that to being the most corrupt. Get these guys out of here. https://t.co/gQHhHSeiJQ

    -- Howard Dean (@GovHowardDean) January 5, 2020

    Once again, history is lost in a tangle of lies and omission. Centuries before John Dean thought it might be a good idea to run for president, Persians and Shias in what is now Iraq and Iran were crossing the border -- later drawn up by invading Brits and French -- in pilgrimages to the shrines of Imam Husayn and Abbas in Karbala. We can't expect an arrogant sociopath like Mr. Dean to know about Ashura, Shia pilgrimages, the Remembrance of Muharram, and events dating back to 680 AD.

    Shias from Iran pilgrimage to other Iraqi cities as well, including An-Najaf, Samarra, Mashhad, and Baghdad (although the latter is more important to Sunnis).

    Corporate fake news teleprompter reader Stephanopoulos said the Geneva Conventions (including United Nations Security Council Resolution 2347) outlaw the targeting of cultural sites, which Trump said he will bomb.

    Trump said there are 52 different sites; the number is not arbitrary, it is based on the 52 hostages, many of them CIA officers, taken hostage during Iran's revolution against the US-installed Shah and his brutal secret police sadists.

    Pompeo said Trump won't destroy Iran's cultural and heritage sites. Pompeo, as a dedicated Zionist operative, knows damn well the US will destroy EVERYTHING of value in Iran, same as it did in Iraq and later Libya and Syria. This includes not only cultural sites, but civilian infrastructure -- hospitals, schools, roads, bridges, and mosques.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: The Geneva Conventions outlaws attacks on cultural objects & places of worship. Why is Trump threatening Iran w/ war crimes?

    POMPEO: We'll behave lawfully

    S: So to be clear, Trump's threat wasn't accurate?

    P: Every target that we strike will be a lawful target pic.twitter.com/zOGTpfYmba

    Invoking the United Nations' Historic "Uniting for Peace" Resolution 377 Before Trump Embroils Us in War with Iran

    -- Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 5, 2020

    Although I believe Jill Stein is living in a Marxian fantasy world, I agree with her tweet in regard to the Zionist hit on Soleimani:

    Now THIS is grounds for #impeachment – treachery unleashing the unthinkable for Americans & people the world over: Trump asked Iraqi prime minister to mediate with #Iran then assassinated Soleimani – on a mediation mission. https://t.co/f0F9FEMALD

    -- Dr. Jill Stein 🌻 (@DrJillStein) January 5, 2020

    Trump should be impeached -- tried and imprisoned -- not in response to some dreamed-up and ludicrous Russian plot or even concern about the opportunist Hunter Biden using his father's position to make millions in uber-corrupt Ukraine, but because he is a war criminal responsible for killing women and children.

    As for the planned forever military occupation of Iraq, USA Today reports:

    Iraq's Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi told lawmakers that a timetable for the withdrawal of all foreign troops, including U.S. ones, was required "for the sake of our national sovereignty." About 5,000 American troops are in various parts of Iraq.

    The latest:
    -- Iraqi lawmakers voted to oust U.S. troops
    -- U.S.-led coalition fighting ISIS has paused operations
    -- Hundreds of thousands mourned General Suleimani in Iran
    -- President Trump said the U.S. has 52 possible targets in Iran in case of retaliation https://t.co/pmUuAQdKlc

    -- The New York Times (@nytimes) January 5, 2020

    No way in hell will Sec. State Pompeo and his Zionist neocon handlers allow this to happen without a fight. However, it shouldn't be too difficult for the Iraqis to expel 5,000 brainwashed American soldiers from the country, bombed to smithereens almost twenty years ago by Bush the Neocon Idiot Savant.

    Never mind Schumer's pretend concern about another war. This friend of Israel from New York didn't go on national television and excoriate Obama and his cutthroat Sec. of State Hillary Clinton for killing 30,000 Libyans.

    I'm concerned President Trump's impulsive foreign policy is dragging America into another endless war in the Middle East that will make us less safe.

    Congress must assert itself.

    President Trump does not have authority for war with Iran. pic.twitter.com/tra71uY9Ao

    -- Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) January 5, 2020

    Meanwhile, it looks like social media is burning the midnight oil in order to prevent their platforms being used to argue against Trump's latest Zionist-directed insanity.

    It is absolutely crazy that Twitter is auto-locking the accounts of anyone who posts this "No war on Iran" image, and forcing them to delete the anti-war tweet in order to unlock their account.

    Will @TwitterSupport say what's going on? Very screwed up https://t.co/zGTvVfNNqt

    -- Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) January 5, 2020

    More lies from The Washington Post, the CIA's crown jewel of propaganda:

    Trump faces Iran crisis with fewer experienced advisers and strained relations with traditional allies https://t.co/Xi3vKw9Bw9

    -- Steven Ginsberg (@stevenjay) January 5, 2020

    This is complete and utter bullshit, but I'm sure the American people will gobble it down without question. Trump's advisers are neocons and they are seriously experienced in the art of promoting and engineering assassination, cyber-attacks, invasions, and mass murder.

    Newsmax scribbler John Cardillo thinks he has it all figure out.

    "In mid-October Soleimani instructed his top ally in Iraq, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, and other powerful militia leaders to step up attacks on U.S. targets in the country using sophisticated new weapons provided by Iran "

    That's why we hit him https://t.co/56XKm9Kqwe

    -- John Cardillo (@johncardillo) January 5, 2020

    Imagine this, however improbable and ludicrous: Iran invades America and assassinates General Hyten or General McConville, both top members of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. Now imagine the response by the "exceptional nation."

    We can't leave out the Christian Zionist from Indiana, Mike Pence. Mike wants you to believe Iran was responsible for 9/11, thus stirring up the appropriate animosity and consensus for mass murder.

    Neither Iran nor Soleimani were linked to the terror attack in the "9/11 Commission Report." Pence didn't even get the number of hijackers right. https://t.co/QtQZm2Yyh9

    -- HuffPost Politics (@HuffPostPol) January 5, 2020

    Finally, here is the crown jewel of propaganda -- in part responsible for the death of well over a million Iraqis -- The New York Times showing off its rampant hypocrisy.

    In Opinion

    The editorial board writes, "It is crucial that influential Republican senators like Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio and Mitch McConnell remind President Trump of his promise to keep America out of foreign quagmires" https://t.co/2swusvBWbg

    -- The New York Times (@nytimes) January 5, 2020

    Never mind Judith Miller, the Queen of NYT pro-war propaganda back in the day, spreading neocon fabricated lies about Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction. America -- or rather the United States (the government) -- is addicted to quagmires and never-ending war. This is simply more anti-Trump bullshit by the NYT editorial board. The newspaper loves war waged in the name of Israel, but only if jumpstarted by Democrats.

    Trump the fool, the fact-free reality TV president will eventually unleash the dogs of war against Iran, much to the satisfaction of Israel, its racist Zionists, Israel-first neocons in America, and the chattering pro-war class of "journalists," and "foreign policy experts" (most former Pentagon employees).

    Expect more nonsense like that dispensed by the robot Mike Pence, the former tank commander now serving as Sec. of State, and any number of neocon fellow travelers, many with coveted blue checkmarks on Twitter while the truth-tellers are expelled from the conversation and exiled to the political wilderness.

    *

    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.

    Kurt Nimmo writes on his blog, Another Day in the Empire, where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

    [Jan 21, 2020] Svetlana Lokhova Money Trail Of FBI Spy Will Expose Russia Hoax Origins

    Jan 21, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    Via SaraACarter.com,

    Svetlana Lokhova is suing numerous media outlets, as well as FBI informant Stefan Halper, for defamation and tells The Sara Carter Show that she was used as a target of opportunity by the FBI in an attempt to discredit former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and target President Donald Trump.

    https://omny.fm/shows/the-sara-carter-show/svetlana-lokhova-money-trail-of-fbi-spy-will-expos/embed

    Lokhova, a Russian born British scholar, calls Halper "the dirty trickster."

    She says his past connections to these agencies and the FBI is a 'big tell' as to why he was used to used to gather information on the Trump campaign.

    "So you have 17 intelligence agencies in the United States with an $80 billion budget you have thousands if not tens of thousands of trained people working for your intelligence services and, yet, they seek out this complete outsider (Halper) right he's not a trained investigator," she says, describing Halper as an overweight 74 year old.

    "He's somebody whose known... has a history of being involved in every single scandal for over forty years," said Lokhova. She says Halper's money trail is the answer.

    Lokhova isn't the only one.

    Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley's sent a letter last year demanding answers on Halper's contracts and the Office of Net Assessment. Grassley sent the request in a letter to Department of Defense Acting Secretary Mark Esper, after a Pentagon Inspector General investigation discovered that the office failed to conduct appropriate oversight of the contracts. Grassley urged Esper for the information.

    According to Grassley's office it is currently reviewing information sent from the Pentagon.

    "The committee is currently reviewing information received recently from the Pentagon, in response to Grassley's request," Taylor Foy, a spokesman for the committee, said in an earlier interview with this news site. Foy confirmed Grassley is continuing to investigate the matter.

    According to the DoD Inspector General's report the Office of Net Assessment (ONA) Contracting Officer's Representatives (CORs) " did not maintain documentation of the work performed by Professor Halper or any communication that ONA personnel had with Professor Halper; therefore, ONA CORs could not provide sufficient documentation that Professor Halper conducted all of his work in accordance with applicable laws and regulations. We determined that while the ONA CORs established a file to maintain documents, they did not maintain sufficient documentation to comply with all the FAR requirements related to having a complete COR."

    Lokhova tells me at length about the erroneous and inaccurate articles published about her and Flynn. She says it turned her life upside down. She also discusses the toll the lawsuits are taking on her family financially and why she intends to keep on fighting.

    Lokhova goes into lengthy details about the malicious targeting operation against her. She says the DOJ must examine Halper's financial trail that began at the Office of Net Assessment at the Pentagon. This, she says, will expose the Russia Hoax Origins.

    Halper was used to spread malicious lies about her in an operation that utilized her brief encounter with Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn at a dinner 2014 at the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar as a way of spreading malicious lies about her, she said.

    She has filed numerous lawsuits in the federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, and is seeking more than $25 million in damages from Halper, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post and MSNBC.

    [Jan 21, 2020] Opinion - Joe Biden, Friend Or Foe Of Corruption

    Notable quotes:
    "... This article was originally published by " ..."
    Jan 21, 2020 | www.informationclearinghouse.info

    UkraineGate - Inconvenient Facts


    Watch

    Joe Biden, Friend Or Foe Of Corruption?

    Although Joe Biden very often denounces the "cancer of corruption", this first episode shows that he has lied several times, and that his attitude remains very questionable on this subject.

    You will discover three characters at the heart of UkraineGate. First, Mykola Zlochevsky, the Ukrainian oligarch through whom the scandal happened. Then, General prosecutor Viktor Shokin, whose resignation was obtained under pressure from Joe Biden, less than ten months after his appointment. And finally, the latter's successor, Yuriy Lutsenko, whom Biden was quick to describe as a "solid man"

    Summary – Part 1 – A Not So Solid Prosecutor

    https://videos.les-crises.fr/embed/player.php?video=ukgate_short_s1e1_en_43p4orvx0fqmvdye

    Full Version

    https://videos.les-crises.fr/embed/player.php?video=ukgate_long_s1e1_en_jovv1vhy4zcnqlvof

    Part II

    Not so "dormant" investigations

    This second episode focuses on the investigations of General prosecutor Shokin, described as "dormant" by the Biden clan. It demonstrates the fallacy of the narrative launched by Biden's communication advisors. But you will also discover that Biden's defense - widely reported by the mainstream media without any verification - has been challenged by Viktor Shokin in various interviews, of which we reveal several excerpts that have never been broadcast...

    https://videos.les-crises.fr/embed/player.php?video=ukgate_long_s1e2_en_i0q1ez5vjqmetagp

    - We will post other sections of this documentary as the become available-

    This article was originally published by " UkraineGate " -

    [Jan 21, 2020] Trump probably has very little actual control over foreign policy.

    Jan 21, 2020 | off-guardian.org

    paul

    The idea that Trump's recent actions in the Middle East were part of some incredibly cunning plan to avoid war with Iran, strikes me as somewhat implausible, to put it (very) charitably.

    Even Hitler didn't want war. He wanted to achieve his objectives without fighting. When that didn't work, war was Plan B. Trump probably has very little actual control over foreign policy. He is surrounded by people who have been plotting and scheming against him from long before he was elected. He heads a chaotic and dysfunctional administration of billionaires, chancers, grifters, conmen, superannuated generals, religious nut jobs, swamp creatures, halfwits and outright criminals, lurching from one crisis and one fiasco to the next. Some of these people like Bolton were foisted upon him by Adelson and various other backers and wire pullers, but that is not to absolve Trump of personal responsibility.

    Competing agencies which are a law unto themselves have been free to pursue their own turf wars at the expense of anything remotely resembling a rational and coherent strategy. So have quite low level bureaucrats, formulating and implementing their own policies with little regard for the White House. In Syria, the Pentagon, the CIA, and the State Department went their own way, each supporting competing and mutually antagonistic factions and terrorist groups. Agreements that were reached with Russia over Syria, for example, were deliberately sabotaged by Ashton Carter in 24 hours. Likewise, Bolton did everything he could to wreck Trump's delicate negotiations with N. Korea.

    paul ,

    Seen in this light, US policy (or the absence of any coherent policy) is more understandable. What passes for US leadership is the worst in its history, even given a very low bar. Arrogant, venal, corrupt, delusional, irredeemably ignorant, and ideologically driven. The only positive thing that can be said is that the alternative (Clinton) would probably have been even worse, if that is possible.

    That may also be the key to understanding the current situation. For all his pandering to Israel, Trump is more of a self serving unprincipled opportunist than a true Neocon/ Zionist believer in the mould of Pence, Bolton and Pompeo. For that reason he is not trusted by the Zionist Power Elite. He is too much of a loose cannon. They will take all his Gives, like Jerusalem and the JCPOA, but without any gratitude.

    It has taken them a century of plotting, scheming and manoeuvring to achieve their political, financial, and media stranglehold over the US. but America is a wasting asset and they are under time pressure. It is visibly declining and losing its influence. And the parasite will find it difficult to find a similar host. Who else is going to give Israel billions a year in tribute, unlimited free weaponry and diplomatic cover? Russia? Are Chinese troops "happy to die for Israel" asUS ones are (according to their general)?

    paul ,

    And they are way behind schedule. Assad was supposed to be dead by now, and Syria another defenceless failed state, broken up into feuding little cantons, with Israel expanding into the south of the country. The main event, the war with Iran, should have started lond ago.

    That is the reason for the impeachment circus. This is not intended to be resolved one way or the other. It is intended to drag on indefinitely, for months and years, to distract and weaken Trump and make it possible to extract what they want. One of the reasons Trump agreed to the murder of Soleimani and his Iraqi opposite number was to appease some Republican senators like Graham whose support is essential to survive impeachment. They were the ones who wanted it, along with Bolton and Netanyahu.

    [Jan 21, 2020] Trump is "dangerous" because he's a "misinformed idiot," and as such is extremely malleable.

    Jan 21, 2020 | off-guardian.org

    Charlotte Russe

    Bush, Obama, and Clinton are despicable. In fact, they're particularly disgusting, inasmuch, as they were much more "cognizant" than Trump of how their actions would lead to very specific insidious consequences. In addition, they were more able to cleverly conceal their malevolent deeds from the public. And that's why Trump is now sitting in the Oval Office–he won because of public disgust for lying politicians.

    However, Trump is "dangerous" because he's a "misinformed idiot," and as such is extremely malleable. Of course, ignorance is no excuse when the future of humanity is on the line

    In any event, Trump is often not aware of the outcome of his actions. And when you're surrounded and misinformed by warmongering neoconservative nutcases, especially ones who donated to your campaign chances are you'll do stupid things. And that's what they're counting on

    [Jan 21, 2020] DemoRats blowed thier change to impech Trump due to thier own dishonesty, jingoism and cowardice

    Jan 21, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

    Alex (the one that likes Ike) fuow 15 hours ago • edited

    If that means Uncle Joe, then Trump may bloody well already uncork the champagne. Remember that recent Iranian debacle of his, which is already starting being forgotten? That was the *only* real chance for Democrats to look solid in the Senate when trying to impeach him. The only way to make Republican senators look dishonest and partisan when defending him. An unexpected and unprovoked electoral gift to them from Trump (a would-have-been-serious gift - read Daniel Larison's articles as to how many American voters, no matter their partisan leanings, are anti-war now). How did the DNC manage that gift? Exactly. By directly bringing it to the trash bin without a moment of hesitation and keeping on desperately clinging to the politically stillborn clownery around Ukraine which will allow the Republican senators to laugh their Democratic colleagues out of the stage and seal Trump's victory the very moment the said clownery is brought to the upper chamber of the parliament. Now Democrats look like a poor feller in front of an insurmountable wall, who, having witnessed a door which magically/quantumly appeared in that wall, screamed "To battle!/Arriva!/Kovfefe!", slammed the said door shut, industriously broke the handle so that it could never be opened again in the quantum dimension he exists and resumed his attempts to - how to put it mildly? - shatter the reinforced concrete with his forehead.

    So please spare me the righteous posturing. Be honest at least to yourself and admit that America's mainstream parties are owned by the same people, hence the only thing you choose is the ideological agenda on cultural issues you prefer. The battle between them is as much of a battle between good and evil and of the rule of law against the lawlessness as the one between Pol Pot and D'Aubuisson Arrieta.

    [Jan 21, 2020] I don't see how Trump has actually governed much differently from any other contemporary Republican. The difference between Trump and, say Ted Cruz, or Marco Rubio, is mostly style, not policy.

    Jan 21, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

    one vote fuow 21 hours ago

    I'm a former Trump voter who could vote for Warren or Sanders but not Biden. Trump has been the biggest disappointment of my political life, and I'll never forgive him for the failures on immigration, but Biden and bis family looks to be at least as personally sleazy and corrupt as the Trumps, if not as outright sickening.
    Clyde Schechter fuow 21 hours ago
    Well, I'm a non-Democrat leftist (except for conservative leanings on social issues and a vehemently anti-war posture that is a minority view on both the left and right). I have voted for third-party candidates for President most of my life (and I'm a septuagenarian). For reasons of foreign policy and economics, I would probably vote for either Sanders or Warren, at least if they don't get too bonkers on identity politics. But there is no way I would vote for any of the other Democratic contenders, and there is no way I would vote for Trump.

    For what it's worth, I think the whole frenzy to defeat Trump no matter what is overblown. Except for the Twitter feed, I don't see how Trump has actually governed much differently from any other contemporary Republican. The difference between Trump and, say Ted Cruz, or Marco Rubio, is mostly style, not policy.

    Osse Clyde Schechter 7 hours ago
    That last sentence is true. But it is style that really matters to many Democrats. Obama was their ideal President almost entirely because of his style.

    And Trump's style is what attracts his hard core supporters.

    Alex (the one that likes Ike) fuow 15 hours ago • edited
    If that means Uncle Joe, then Trump may bloody well already uncork the champagne. Remember that recent Iranian debacle of his, which is already starting being forgotten? That was the *only* real chance for Democrats to look solid in the Senate when trying to impeach him. The only way to make Republican senators look dishonest and partisan when defending him. An unexpected and unprovoked electoral gift to them from Trump (a would-have-been-serious gift - read Daniel Larison's articles as to how many American voters, no matter their partisan leanings, are anti-war now). How did the DNC manage that gift? Exactly. By directly bringing it to the trash bin without a moment of hesitation and keeping on desperately clinging to the politically stillborn clownery around Ukraine which will allow the Republican senators to laugh their Democratic colleagues out of the stage and seal Trump's victory the very moment the said clownery is brought to the upper chamber of the parliament. Now Democrats look like a poor feller in front of an insurmountable wall, who, having witnessed a door which magically/quantumly appeared in that wall, screamed "To battle!/Arriva!/Kovfefe!", slammed the said door shut, industriously broke the handle so that it could never be opened again in the quantum dimension he exists and resumed his attempts to - how to put it mildly? - shatter the reinforced concrete with his forehead.

    [Jan 21, 2020] Iran, Trump, and the neoliberal-neoconservative compact

    Jan 21, 2020 | off-guardian.org

    The author asks an interesting question: what is the urgency to remove Turmp before the election. Why notwait Novemebr and see if he is removed by voters?

    One of the best articles I've seen on both sides of the current scene is Jim Kavanaugh's "Impeachment: What Lies Beneath?" Let us note that this essay was first published at the author's website, The Polemicist, on Dec. 17, 2019.

    In the first half of the essay, "The Raw," the author is discussing the remarkable weakness of the impeachment case and articles; the second half of the essay, "The Cooked," begins with the following two paragraphs:

    Which makes me wonder. The obviousness of this losing hand, and the fact that the most politically-seasoned, can't-be-that-stupid Democrats seem determined to play it out, have my paranoid political Spidey senses all atingle. What are the cards they're not showing? What lies beneath the thin ice of these Articles of Impeachment?

    If the apparent agenda makes no sense, look for the hidden. Something that better explains why Pelosi, et. al. find it so urgent to replace Trump before the election and why they think they can succeed in doing that.

    There is one thing that I can think of that drives such frantic urgency: War. That would also explain why Trump's "national security" problem -- embedded in the focus on Ukraine arms shipments, Russian aggression, etc. -- is the real issue, the whistle to Republican war dogs.

    But if so, the Ukro-Russian motif is itself a screen for another "national security"/war issue that cannot be stated explicitly. There's no urgency about aggression towards Russia. There is for Iran.

    These paragraphs mirror the structure of the essay altogether: beginning with impeachment and ending with Iran. In the next paragraph we see Kavanaugh's prognosis, his proposal for how things might unfold:

    So here's my entirely speculative tea-leaf reading: If there's a hidden agenda behind the urgency to remove Trump, one that might actually garner the votes of Republican Senators, it is to replace him with a president who will be a more reliable and effective leader for a military attack on Iran that Israel wants to initiate before next November. Spring is the cruelest season for launching wars."

    This was striking to read on December 17 and even more striking to reflect upon as of Friday, January 3. Kavanaugh's arguments make a lot of sense, and perhaps it will turn out that "April is the cruelest month" (as he says at the end of the essay) -- but don't we have to consider that perhaps Trump has once again outplayed both Democrats and Republicans, and, even more, the Deep State?

    As Trump said in announcing the drone strike that killed Gen. Soleimani, "We took action last night to stop a war; we did not take action to start a war."

    Attacks in/on other countries by the U.S. will not receive praise from me, not any more than did the U.S.-abetted coup in Bolivia. I will say, though, that I sure wish the party of the King of Drones, Barack Obama (who openly bragged about being "very good at killing people") would shut the hell up.

    That's not going to happen, of course -- the only thing here that will restrain them is the role of Israel in this.

    Again, there's no mystery to any of this -- but what is a mystery to me is why anybody listens to the Democrats on this or any other issue.

    Undoubtedly there are elements to this situation I don't see or understand -- but what we all have as a helpful guide is the fact that whatever the Democratic Party leadership says here, and whatever the conventional Left narrative presents on this situation, absolutely cannot be trusted.

    [Jan 21, 2020] Trump is a bully who openly violates international law as well as basic constitutional norms and rules by Paul Street

    I think Paul is wrong. Neo-fascist movements are based on far right party. Trump does not have its own party. He has a faction with the Republican Party, and this faction is not even a majority.
    Notable quotes:
    "... an incoherent program of national revenge led by a strongman; a contempt for parliamentary government and procedures; an insistence that the existing, democratically elected government, whether Léon Blum's or Barack Obama's, is in league with evil outsiders and has been secretly trying to undermine the nation; a hysterical militarism designed to no particular end than the sheer spectacle of strength; an equally hysterical sense of beleaguerment and victimization; and a supposed suspicion of big capitalism entirely reconciled to the worship of wealth and "success." ..."
    "... The idea that it can be bounded in by honest conservatives in a Cabinet or restrained by normal constitutional limits is, to put it mildly, unsupported by history ..."
    "... Paul Street's latest book is They Rule: The 1% v. Democracy (Paradigm, 2014) ..."
    Jan 21, 2020 | www.counterpunch.org

    When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

    – Maya Angelou

    "It's amazing," fellow CounterPuncher Eric Draitser recently wrote me, "that people ever thought a Trump administration would be something other than this."

    "This" is the demented neofascistic Trump-Pence regime, which openly violates basic constitutional norms and rules while conducting itself in barefacedly racist, sexist, and eco-cidal ways.

    The long record of this presidency's transgressions now includes the open dog-wagging assassination – on brazenly false pretexts – of a foreign military commander atop a state (Iran) with which the United States is not at war and without the permission of a government (Iraq) on whose soil the monumental war crime took place.

    ... ... ...

    Another person likely unsurprised by Trump's horrifying presidency is New Yorker columnist Adam Gopnik. "Trump," Gopnik wrote in July of 2016, summarizing elementary facts of Trump' life: "is unstable, a liar, narcissistic, contemptuous of the basic norms of political life, and deeply embedded among the most paranoid and irrational of conspiracy theorists. There may indeed be a pathos to his followers' dreams of some populist rescue for their plights. But he did not come to political attention as a 'populist'; he came to politics as a racist, a proponent of birtherism." As Gopnik had explained two months before, the correct description of Trump needed to include the world "fascist" in one way or another:

    "There is a simple formula for descriptions of Donald Trump: add together a qualification, a hyphen, and the word "fascist." The sum may be crypto-fascist, neo-fascist, latent fascist, proto-fascist, or American-variety fascist -- one of that kind, all the same. Future political scientists will analyze (let us hope in amused retrospect, rather than in exile in New Zealand or Alberta) the precise elements of Poujadisme, Peronism and Huck Finn's Pap that compound in Trump's 'ideology.' But his personality and his program belong exclusively to the same dark strain of modern politics: an incoherent program of national revenge led by a strongman; a contempt for parliamentary government and procedures; an insistence that the existing, democratically elected government, whether Léon Blum's or Barack Obama's, is in league with evil outsiders and has been secretly trying to undermine the nation; a hysterical militarism designed to no particular end than the sheer spectacle of strength; an equally hysterical sense of beleaguerment and victimization; and a supposed suspicion of big capitalism entirely reconciled to the worship of wealth and "success." It is always alike, and always leads inexorably to the same place: failure, met not by self-correction but by an inflation of the original program of grievances, and so then on to catastrophe. The idea that it can be bounded in by honest conservatives in a Cabinet or restrained by normal constitutional limits is, to put it mildly, unsupported by history (emphasis liberally added) ." [Adam Gopnik, "Going There With Donald Trump," The New Yorker , May 11, 2016].

    Paul Street's latest book is They Rule: The 1% v. Democracy (Paradigm, 2014)

    [Jan 21, 2020] Bernie Sanders Walks Straight Into the Russiagate Trap

    Jan 21, 2020 | www.strategic-culture.org

    Daniel Lazare January 20, 2020 © Photo: Wikimedia The New York Times caused a mini-commotion last week with a front-page story suggesting that Russian intelligence had hacked a Ukrainian energy firm known as Burisma Holdings in order to get dirt on Joe Biden and help Donald Trump win re-election.

    But the article was flimsy even by Russiagate standards, and so certain questions inevitably arise. What was it really about? Who's behind it? Who's the real target?

    Here's a quick answer. It was about boosting Joe Biden, and its real target was his chief rival, Bernie Sanders. And poor, inept Bernie walked straight into the trap.

    The article was flimsy because rather than saying straight out that Russian intelligence hacked Burisma, the company notorious for hiring Biden's son, Hunter, for $50,000 a month job, reporters Nicole Perlroth and Matthew Rosenberg had to rely on unnamed "security experts" to say it for them. While suggesting that the hackers were looking for dirt, they didn't quite say that as well. Instead, they admitted that "it is not yet clear what the hackers found, or precisely what they were searching for."

    So we have no idea what they were up to, if anything at all. But the Times then quoted "experts" to the effect that "the timing and scale of the attacks suggest that the Russians could be searching for potentially embarrassing material on the Bidens – the same kind of information that Mr. Trump wanted from Ukraine when he pressed for an investigation of the Bidens and Burisma, setting off a chain of events that led to his impeachment." Since Trump and the Russians are seeking the same information, they must be in cahoots, which is what Democrats have been saying from the moment Trump took office. Given the lack of evidence, this was meaningless as well.

    But then came the kicker: two full paragraphs in which a Biden campaign spokesman was permitted to expound on the notion that the Russians hacked Burisma because Biden is the candidate that they and Trump fear the most.

    "Donald Trump tried to coerce Ukraine into lying about Joe Biden and a major bipartisan, international anti-corruption victory because he recognized that he can't beat the vice president," the spokesman, Andrew Bates, said. "Now we know that Vladimir Putin also sees Joe Biden as a threat. Any American president who had not repeatedly encouraged foreign interventions of this kind would immediately condemn this attack on the sovereignty of our elections."

    If Biden is the number-one threat, then Sanders is not, presumably because the Times sees him as soft on Moscow. If so, it means that he could be in for the same neo-McCarthyism that antiwar candidate Tulsi Gabbard encountered last October when Hillary Clinton blasted her as "the favorite of the Russians." Gabbard had the good sense to blast her right back.

    "Thank you @Hillary Clinton. 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 ."

    If only Sanders did the same. But instead he put out a statement filled with the usual anti-Russian clichés:

    "The 2020 election is likely to be the most consequential election in modern American history, and I am alarmed by new reports that Russia recently hacked into the Ukrainian gas company at the center of the impeachment trial, as well as Russia's plans to once again meddle in our elections and in our democracy. After our intelligence agencies unanimously agreed that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, including with thousands of paid ads on Facebook, the New York Times now reports that Russia likely represents the biggest threat of election meddle in 2020, including through disinformation campaigns, promoting hatred, hacking into voting systems, and by exploiting the political divisions sewn [sic] by Donald Trump ."

    And so on for another 250 words. Not only did the statement put him in bed with the intelligence agencies, but it makes him party to the big lie that the Kremlin was responsible for putting Trump over the top in 2016.

    Let's get one thing straight. Yes, Russian intelligence may have hacked the Democratic National Committee. But cybersecurity was so lax that others may have been rummaging about as well. (CrowdStrike, the company called in to investigate the hack, says it found not one but two cyber-intruders.) Notwithstanding the Mueller report, all the available evidence indicates that Russia did not then pass along thousands of DNC emails that Wikileaks published in July 2016. (Julian Assange's statement six months later that "our source is not the Russian government and it is not a state party" remains uncontroverted.) Similarly, there's no evidence that the Kremlin had anything to do with the $45,000 worth of Facebook ads purchased by a St. Petersburg company known as the Internet Research Agency – Robert Mueller's 2018 indictment of the IRA was completely silent on the subject of a Kremlin connection – and no evidence that the ads, which were politically all over the map, had a remotely significant impact on the 2016 election.

    All the rest is a classic CIA disinformation campaign aimed at drumming up anti-Russian hysteria and delegitimizing anyone who fails to go along. And now Bernie Sanders is trying to cover his derrière by hopping on board.

    It won't work. Sanders will find himself having to take one loyalty oath after another as the anti-Russia campaign flares anew. But it will never be enough, and he'll only wind up looking tired and weak. Voters will opt for the supposedly more formidable Biden, who will end up as a bug splat on the windshield of Donald Trump's speeding election campaign. With impeachment no longer an issue, he'll be free to behave as dictatorially as he wishes as he settles into his second term.

    After inveighing against billionaire's wars, he'll find himself ensnared by the same billionaire war machine. The trouble with Sanders is that he thinks he can win by playing by the rules. But he can't because the rules are stacked against him. He'd know that if his outlook was more radical. His problem is not that he's too much of a socialist. Rather, it's that he's not enough.

    [Jan 20, 2020] Important clarification about MadCow disease

    Jan 15, 2020 | consortiumnews.com

    DC_rez , January 16, 2020 at 16:08

    Are you insinuating Rachel Maddow is a journalist?

    [Jan 20, 2020] Fake Investigations... Designed To Fool by Bryce Buchanan

    Highly recommended!
    Money quote: "The Deep State and the media appear to believe that we are fooled by these fraudulent investigations. We are not fooled. We are tired of the lies and the arrogance."
    Notable quotes:
    "... For the Deep State, hiding and destroying evidence of guilt is standard operating procedure. They simply report a "glitch" that destroyed the key evidence and that's the end of it. Or, they simply redact the portions of the record that would expose the truth. To my memory, no one ever suffers any consequences for this. Even now, Director Wray and others are tenaciously withholding evidence. ..."
    "... When Anthony Weiner's laptop was found to contain over 340,000 Hillary emails in a file named "insurance", the FBI did not rejoice about finally getting the 'lost' email. No, they hid the discovery for weeks until a New York agent threatened to go public. Then, quite miraculously, Peter Strzok found a way to very quickly examine 340,000 messages and found that there was nothing at all that was incriminating. No rational person would believe that. ..."
    "... The dirty cops are so confident in their ability to deceive the public that they just announced that the FISA court reforms will be managed by David Kris. Kris has been a defender of FBI misconduct and he attacked Devin Nunes for telling the truth about the FISA court. They don't even care about the appearance of fairness. They do what they want. ..."
    "... Because there was nothing, and because it was known from the start that, " there is no big there, there ", the Mueller Team used several irrelevant legal actions to prolong the belief that they were closing in on Trump. Mueller arranged for their media partner, CNN, to film the early morning swat team raid on 67 year old Roger Stone's home. It was very dramatic and very un-necessary. Also, some small-time Russian troll farms were indicted so that the word "Russia" could fill the news, prolonging the desired myth. One of the indicted firms did not even exist. The others did not appear to favor any one candidate and much of their activity was after the election ..."
    "... Mueller led a 40 million dollar investigation looking for a crime. That effort failed at finding any collusion, but it did play a role in the Democrats winning a majority in the House of Representatives. That then enabled another investigation of an imaginary crime for political purposes. A scripted hearsay 'whistleblower' submitted lies that allowed Adam Schiff to continue his own campaign of lies. You know the rest of the story. Trump is being falsely charged for doing what Biden bragged about doing. ..."
    Jan 20, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    Authored by Bryce Buchanan via The Burning Platform blog,

    Many government officials with long entrenched power are unwilling to give up any of that power. In their minds, they have a right to control our lives as they see fit, with complete indifference to our wishes. To avoid rebellion, they need to hide this fact as much as possible. They want the citizens to believe the lie that we are a nation of laws with equal justice under the law. To advance this lie, they have staged many theatrical productions that they call "investigations". They try to give us the impression that they want to expose the facts and punish wrongdoing.

    Most of the big 'investigations' in the news in recent years have not been at all what they pretended to be. The sham investigations of Hillary's email, or the Clinton Foundation, or Weiner's laptop, or Uranium One, or Mueller's witch hunt, or Huber's big nothing, or the IG's whitewash, or the Schiff-Pelosi charades, have all been premeditated deceptions.

    There are three types of investigations that call for different deceptions by the Deep State.
    1. The first type is the rare honest investigation . Examples would be the attempt to find the truth about Fast and Furious (Obama's gunrunning operation), or the IRS scandal (Obama's weaponizing of government). In response to real investigations, the criminals do two things lie and hide evidence. Key evidence, even if it is under subpoena, just disappears. In the IRS case, Lois Lerner's relevant email and the email of 6 others involved in the scheme was just "lost". The IRS "worked tirelessly" to find the email, but hard drives had been destroyed and back-up drives were missing, so the subpoenaed evidence could not be provided.

      For the Deep State, hiding and destroying evidence of guilt is standard operating procedure. They simply report a "glitch" that destroyed the key evidence and that's the end of it. Or, they simply redact the portions of the record that would expose the truth. To my memory, no one ever suffers any consequences for this. Even now, Director Wray and others are tenaciously withholding evidence.

    2. The second type of 'investigation' is when the Deep State pretends to investigate the Deep State . In these 'investigations' the outcome is known in advance, but the script calls for pretending, sometimes for years, that it an honest investigation is underway.

      There was nothing about the Hillary investigations that had anything to do with finding facts. The purpose from the beginning was exoneration. Key witnesses were given immunity and many were allowed to attend each other's interviews. There were no early morning swat team raids to gather evidence. Evidence was destroyed with no consequences.

      When Anthony Weiner's laptop was found to contain over 340,000 Hillary emails in a file named "insurance", the FBI did not rejoice about finally getting the 'lost' email. No, they hid the discovery for weeks until a New York agent threatened to go public. Then, quite miraculously, Peter Strzok found a way to very quickly examine 340,000 messages and found that there was nothing at all that was incriminating. No rational person would believe that.

      The dirty cops are so comfortable about getting away with lies like this that Huber can announce that he found no corruption, when it is readily apparent that he did not interview key witnesses . He even turned away whistleblowers who wanted to submit evidence. A real investigator, Charles Ortel, could have given Huber a long list of Clinton Foundation crimes . Like the Weiner laptop fake investigation, you don't find crimes if you don't really look for them.

      The dirty cops are so confident in their ability to deceive the public that they just announced that the FISA court reforms will be managed by David Kris. Kris has been a defender of FBI misconduct and he attacked Devin Nunes for telling the truth about the FISA court. They don't even care about the appearance of fairness. They do what they want.

      IG investigations have proven to be flimsy exonerations of Deep State criminality. Any honest observer can see that there was a carefully organized plan by top officials to control the outcome of the Presidential election. This corrupt plan involved lying to the FISA court, illegal surveillance and unmasking of citizens and conspiring with media partners to make sure lies were widely circulated to voters. The government conspirators and the majority of the media were functioning as nothing more than a branch of Hillary's campaign. That's a lot of power aimed at destroying Trump.

      To an IG investigator, this monumental scandal was presented to us as nothing to be very concerned about. Yes, a few minor rules were inadvertently broken and there did appear to be some bias, but there was no reason at all to think that bias effected any actions. If the agencies involved make a training video and set aside a day for a training meeting, then that should satisfy us completely.

    3. The third type of investigation involves investigating an imaginary crime for political reasons . The Mueller investigation and the impeachment investigation are two examples of this. Probably as a justification for illegal surveillance they were already doing, the conspirators pretended that there was powerful evidence that Trump was colluding with Putin to win the election. Lies about this issue propelled the country into 3 years of stories about nothing stories and investigations about something that never happened. Never in the history of nothing has nothing been so thoroughly covered.

      Because there was nothing, and because it was known from the start that, " there is no big there, there ", the Mueller Team used several irrelevant legal actions to prolong the belief that they were closing in on Trump. Mueller arranged for their media partner, CNN, to film the early morning swat team raid on 67 year old Roger Stone's home. It was very dramatic and very un-necessary. Also, some small-time Russian troll farms were indicted so that the word "Russia" could fill the news, prolonging the desired myth. One of the indicted firms did not even exist. The others did not appear to favor any one candidate and much of their activity was after the election .

      Mueller led a 40 million dollar investigation looking for a crime. That effort failed at finding any collusion, but it did play a role in the Democrats winning a majority in the House of Representatives. That then enabled another investigation of an imaginary crime for political purposes. A scripted hearsay 'whistleblower' submitted lies that allowed Adam Schiff to continue his own campaign of lies. You know the rest of the story. Trump is being falsely charged for doing what Biden bragged about doing.

    The Deep State and the media appear to believe that we are fooled by these fraudulent investigations. We are not fooled. We are tired of the lies and the arrogance.

    We are increasingly angry that there is a double standard of justice in this country. There is a protected class of people who are not prosecuted for their crimes. This needs to end.


    insanelysane , 9 minutes ago link

    The sheeple are easily led including the opposition sheeple. Two quick examples:

    1. In the email scandal, Hillary was guilty, beyond a shadow of a doubt, of violating the FOIA by conducting all State Department business via a personal email She was guilty. Yet her team, listen up sheeple, her team made it about whether or not classified information was transmitted. This is a gray area which could be defended. She knew she was guilty of the FOIA violation because it was the whole reason the server was set up in the first place. Yet she got away with it because everyone focused on the classifications of emails which was a gray area.

    2. In the Weiner / Abedin laptop matter, it is and was illegal for any of these emails to be on a personal computer. Again, guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt. Yet again everyone focused on what was in the emails and not the fact that just possessing the emails was illegal. So the FBI was able to say nothing new here and let it drop. If another group such as the US Marshals was in charge of this investigation, Weiner / Abedin would have been fully charged with possessing these emails. They would have been pressured to reveal why it was named Insurance and have been asked to cut a deal.

    DonGenaro , 10 minutes ago link

    Assange rots in jail, and Maxwell walks free, while Trump is busy pleasuring every Zionist in sight

    East Indian , 23 minutes ago link

    A comment in 'The Gateway Pundit':

    "Andy McCabe admits lying to the FBI and nothing happens. The FBI lies to Gen. Flynn and he faces jail time. Justice in Deep State America."

    - reader ricocat1

    hardmedicine , 38 minutes ago link

    his name was Seth Rich!

    hoffstetter , 40 minutes ago link

    The purpose of show trials is to fool those that don't pay attention. There are millions of US citizens that get their news from their neighbor or a narrow set of information that is disseminated by media that parrot their providers verbatim without challenge. Such people are quite regularly fooled and some vote.

    buckboy , 57 minutes ago link

    We, the People are free to bitch and moan.

    marlin2009 , 1 hour ago link

    The double standard justice system in America is appalling and even worse than communists. Americans really don’t have any credit to criticize communist countries. The ruling class is no better than them.

    The media and ruling classes have tried decades to brainwashed the mass to believe that the less or even not corrupted.

    Deep Snorkeler , 1 hour ago link

    Trump's Non-Crimes

    Trump University Fraud: Trump paid fine

    Trump Taj Mahal Casino Money Laundering: Trump paid fine

    Trump Foundation Fraud: Trump paid fine

    Trump Campaign Law Violations: pending

    Trump Obstruction:

    Trump Abuse of Power:

    Trump...

    Old Hippie Patriot , 1 hour ago link

    They could have never pulled off the JFK assassination had the internet existed back in 1963. Time for the Epstein *********** to be posted on the internet. Even the asleep would realize the unimaginable evil that has been controlling this world for millenia.

    HANGTHEOWL , 1 hour ago link

    I am not sure about that,,we have the net now,,and although there are many of us that pay attention and figure out their crimes and hoax's,,,,they still get away with them,,,,,,NASA still gets 59 million a day to fake the space program,,,

    monty42 , 1 hour ago link

    Why not? They pulled off 9/11. And what do we have? The same as with the JFK murder. People still arguing over how it was done, and ignoring the obvious, historically established now, of who benefited and why. Grassy knoll, 2nd shooter, or directed energy weapons or explosives, internet or not, still chasing the tail.

    HANGTHEOWL , 57 minutes ago link

    True, they murdered 3,000 of us on 9-11,,right on TV, using plainly obvious controlled demolitions, and to date they have still gotten away with it...

    [Jan 20, 2020] Trump bragged about Soleimani killing to a crowd at a big fundraising dinner.

    Jan 20, 2020 | www.unz.com

    John Chuckman , says: Website Show Comment January 18, 2020 at 3:04 pm GMT

    Yes, but we also have this

    It is reported this morning (CNN) that Trump bragged about the killing to a crowd at a big fundraising dinner.

    Just sick, official state murder for campaign donations.

    That's what America is reduced to.

    [Jan 19, 2020] It is unclear what percentage of Congress are alcoholics, but judging from their statements looks like more then half

    The situation in neoliberal MSM probably is close to a real epidemics ;-)
    Jan 19, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    Last of the Middle Class , 2 hours ago link

    Finally, a group Pelosi can lead and be proud of .

    [Jan 19, 2020] The anti-China conservative faction which Trump represents is screwing up the Pax Americana and petrodollar recycling into Treasury Bonds, by destroying the monetary scam they set up to control the world

    Notable quotes:
    "... The "movement conservatives" leader was Barry Goldwater who Trump's dad was a big supporter of, and Trump was raised in and among AND represents that faction of elite power. ..."
    "... The LIEO or Rules Based Order is based on being closely allied with European elites against Russia to contain the Middle East and Central Asia (Iran and Afghanistan) based on Zbigniew Brzezinski's Grand Chessboard theory. ..."
    "... The 1950's triangle of power was superseded by the oligarch's counter revolution that led to supranational trade institutions. Democracies were relegated to a secondary status and run by technocrats for the benefit of oligarchs until Donald Trump. He is a nationalist plutocrat; admittedly a lower level one, a NY casino owner who went bankrupt. Mike Bloomberg represents the other side, a globalist billionaire. Elizabeth Warren is a top level technocrat but no politician. ..."
    "... The endless wars are fought to make a profit for the plutocracy and destabilize nations to make foreign corporate exploitation possible. That was why Hunter Biden was in Ukraine. The conflicts are not meant to be won. ..."
    "... He makes stupid mistakes. Through the barrage of propaganda, reports of shell shocked troops, destroyed buildings and 11 concussion causalities from Iran's missile attack made it into the news. The military must be pissed. The aura of invincibility is gone. ..."
    "... Donald Trump should be removed by the 25th amendment before he mistakenly triggers the Apocalypse. Except the 1% politician VP, Mike Pence, believes that the End of Time is God's Will and necessary for his Ascension. ..."
    "... The power triangle theory is less in line with the facts than a simple duality: Wall Street & the MIC, you have to advance interests of both or you're out. ..."
    "... Second, the 'meeting in the Tank' sounds like complete b.s. designed to sell books ..."
    "... And the 'rules-based international order' rings very false as something that would be said with a straight face by real MIC insiders, which those generals are. ..."
    "... Not only sick of wars, his mobster approach to foreign policy and allies is an embarrassment to RINO and Independents. ..."
    "... Humanity is in a civilization war about public/private finance being fought by proxies and character actors like Trump. Maybe after this war is over, and if we survive, we can all communicate about the social contract directly instead of through proxy fronts. Do you want to live in a sharing/caring world or a selfish/competitive one?....socialism or barbarism? ..."
    Jan 19, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    Kali , Jan 17 2020 19:26 utc | 7

    That Power Elite theory which was written in the 50s by C.W. Mills is incomplete for today because in the 60s there was a split among the power elite between the new "movement conservatives" and the old eastern bank establishment. The conservatives were more focused on the pacific region and containing China, and the liberal establishment were more focused on Europe and containing Russia.

    The "movement conservatives" leader was Barry Goldwater who Trump's dad was a big supporter of, and Trump was raised in and among AND represents that faction of elite power. In fact he is the 1st president from that faction of the elites to hold the oval office, many people thought Reagan was, but he was brought under the control of George Bush and the liberal elites after taking office after he was injured by a Bush related person. The different agendas of the the two factions are out in the open today with one being focused on anti-Russia and the other being focused on anti-China. It has been like that since the 1960s.

    The anti-China conservative faction which Trump represents (and which unleashed the VietNam War) is screwing up the "rules based order" aka "Liberal International Economic Order" aka Pax Americana which was set up after WWII at Bretton Woods and then altered in the 1970s with the creation of the petrodollar and petrodollar recycling into Treasury Bonds, by destroying the monetary scam they set up to control the world

    It needed the cooperation of the elites of Europe and elsewhere, which Trump and his faction doesn't care about -- they only care about short term profits on Wall St.

    The LIEO or Rules Based Order is based on being closely allied with European elites against Russia to contain the Middle East and Central Asia (Iran and Afghanistan) based on Zbigniew Brzezinski's Grand Chessboard theory. China trade is important for them, Russia is their main enemy. ( War of the Worlds: The New Class ). Trump and his movement conservative faction is ruining their world order for their own short term gain on Wall St.


    VietnamVet , Jan 17 2020 22:34 utc | 44
    The 1950's triangle of power was superseded by the oligarch's counter revolution that led to supranational trade institutions. Democracies were relegated to a secondary status and run by technocrats for the benefit of oligarchs until Donald Trump. He is a nationalist plutocrat; admittedly a lower level one, a NY casino owner who went bankrupt. Mike Bloomberg represents the other side, a globalist billionaire. Elizabeth Warren is a top level technocrat but no politician.

    The endless wars are fought to make a profit for the plutocracy and destabilize nations to make foreign corporate exploitation possible. That was why Hunter Biden was in Ukraine. The conflicts are not meant to be won.

    Donald Trump is way for over his head and getting old. His competent staff are in jail or fired. Apparently no one told him about the thousands of ballistic missiles that can destroy the Gulf States' oil facilities at will and make the buildup for the invasion of Iran impossible. He makes stupid mistakes. Through the barrage of propaganda, reports of shell shocked troops, destroyed buildings and 11 concussion causalities from Iran's missile attack made it into the news. The military must be pissed. The aura of invincibility is gone.

    Donald Trump should be removed by the 25th amendment before he mistakenly triggers the Apocalypse. Except the 1% politician VP, Mike Pence, believes that the End of Time is God's Will and necessary for his Ascension.

    fairleft , Jan 18 2020 1:21 utc | 81
    The power triangle theory is less in line with the facts than a simple duality: Wall Street & the MIC, you have to advance interests of both or you're out.

    Second, the 'meeting in the Tank' sounds like complete b.s. designed to sell books, with an obvious sales strategy, as b said, of pleasuring both the pro/anti Trump sides of the book-buying bourgeoisie.

    And the 'rules-based international order' rings very false as something that would be said with a straight face by real MIC insiders, which those generals are.

    Finally, whether Trump ridiculed the generals or not, that's a sideshow to entertain the rubes. Trump's always been on side with the big picture Neocon approach essential to the MIC. Their global dominance or chaos approach is essential to keeping military budgets gigantic until 'forever'. True that Trump whined about endless wars as a 2016 campaign strategy, but he was either b.s.-ing or at the time didn't get that they are part of the overall Neocon approach he backs.

    Passer by , Jan 17 2020 22:04 utc | 35

    Not a very good analysis by b because this does not explain why 90 % of US corporate media is hostile to Trump. This does not happen without significant elite support.

    That Trump is backed by the military faction is something i have been saying often. But there are forces within the government faction that dislike him, for example the CIA.

    As for the corporate faction, it is not true that free money made them supportive of Trump. Rather the faction is divided - between the globalist corporate faction, relying on globalisation, including most tech companies, and US nationalist faction, such as local US businesses, big oil, shale gas, etc.

    Another point - jews have large influence within the US, and 80 % voted against Trump regardless of his Israeli support. They again voted 80 % Dem in 2018. Having 80 % of US jews against you means encountering significant resistance.

    Demographically speaking, most women, jews, muslims, latinos, asians, afroamericans, lgbt people, young people, etc. are strongly against him so i think that he will lose. Unless for some reason they do not vote.

    Even if he somehow wins again, this will lead to civil war like situation and extreme polarisation in the US.

    A P , Jan 17 2020 19:33 utc | 9

    The US military, the various factions within the Deep State, political and corporate cabals has the attitude of a spoiled 3-year-old: If I can't have it, I'll break it so it is of little use to others.

    Unfortunately, breaking other countries is just fine for the MIC... arms sales all around and chaos to impede non-military commerce with other major power centers like Russia or China.

    Trump is the product of a dysfunctional family, a "greed is good" trust-fund social circle and a sociopathic US bully/gun culture.

    The fact "bone spurs" Trump weaseled out of the draft will also not play well with the generals, let alone the grunts who suffer most from endless POTUS idiocy (not limited to Trump, see Prince Bush/Bandar the 2nd)

    All the more proof that most Western "democracies" would be better served with a lottery to choose their Congressional and POTUS chair-warmers. Joe Sixpack could do a better job. A 200-lb sack of flour would do better than any POTUS since Kennedy.

    Walter , Jan 17 2020 23:25 utc | 56

    @ wagelaborer | Jan 17 2020 19:04 utc | 3

    your: "Trump can't start a war without ruling class backing any more than he can end the wars if the rulers veto it."

    May be, I think is, true in one sense. But Trump is far from the sole agent capable of starting a war. War, as opposed to simple murder, involve 2 or more parties. Whatever the intentions, the recent murders by drone in Baghdad hav,e it seems, brought Iran to consider war exists now...and they have a nifty MAGA policy. On Press TV today they hosted an expert who called for the execution of several exceptional American leaders...sounds like war to me.

    (Make America Go Away)

    The system is so screwy and peopled by such uneducated and delusional people that it's quite simple that they would do some stupid that that caused a war. Looks like war to me. I await the horrors.

    Decaying empires usually start wars that bring about their rapid ruin. Does it matter how they do this?

    ............

    The thesis of the triangle of elite factions is fascinating.

    Walter recalls that JFK got the reports from Vietnam that said we were winning, while at the same time Johnson got the true story. And also what happened then with the "correction" of 1963 (their words) and the immediate change of war policy. Can't help an old guy from remembering old folly. And noting that history repeats as farce.

    The Iran affair is liable to coordinate with NATO. Lavrov spoke to the NATO preparations today @ TASS...

    Some say Trumpie screwed up the schedule, which goes hot in April as a showdown with the Roooskies. I take that with a grain of salt. But I think the sources I've seen might be right. They say that if Barbarossa had not been delayed, the nazis woulda won in Russia. Screwups can be very important.

    I can't see any way the US won't use atomic bangers. But maybe...

    Likklemore , Jan 17 2020 21:50 utc | 29

    @ wagelaborer 3

    Good points. I endorse. However the USD have been weaponized, is being sidelined and will be shunned U.S. dollar: Russia, China, EU are motivated to shift from

    @ juiliana 22

    I posted an article by Shedlock essentially saying all it will take is 3 states to flip and Trump loses: Trump will be easily defeated in 2020 perhaps by a landslide.

    Not only sick of wars, his mobster approach to foreign policy and allies is an embarrassment to RINO and Independents.

    psychohistorian , Jan 17 2020 19:52 utc | 11

    I agree with wagelaborer in comment #3 and worth a repeat of most of it

    "Trump can't start a war without ruling class backing any more than he can end the wars if the rulers veto it.

    US foreign policy is not run by White House puppets.

    The US trash-talked Saddam Hussein and starved Iraqis for 14 years, but didn't actually invade until he started trading oil in Euros.

    The US trash-talked Ghaddafi for decades, and even launched missiles which killed his child in the 80s, but didn't destroy Libya until Ghaddafi decided to sell oil in dinars.

    The US has trash-talked and sanctioned Iran for decades, but it was the threat of Iran and Saudi Arabia making peace that pushed them to assassinate General Soleimani, as he arrived at the airport on that diplomatic mission.

    If Iran and Saudi Arabia make peace, and the Saudis drop the petro-dollar, the US Empire crumbles. It doesn't matter at all who is in the White House at the time, the Empire will never allow that."

    Humanity is in a civilization war about public/private finance being fought by proxies and character actors like Trump. Maybe after this war is over, and if we survive, we can all communicate about the social contract directly instead of through proxy fronts. Do you want to live in a sharing/caring world or a selfish/competitive one?....socialism or barbarism?

    [Jan 19, 2020] debunked by Trump himself

    Jan 19, 2020 | www.commondreams.org

    when he tweeted that 'it doesn't really matter' if there was such a threat or not.

    In a letter to the New York Times the now 100 years old chief prosecutor of the Nuremberg trials, Benjamin B. Ferencz, warned of the larger effects of such deeds when he writes :
    The administration recently announced that, on orders of the president, the United States had "taken out" (which really means "murdered") an important military leader of a country with which we were not at war. As a Harvard Law School graduate who has written extensively on the subject, I view such immoral action as a clear violation of national and international law.

    The public is entitled to know the truth. The United Nations Charter, the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice in The Hague are all being bypassed. In this cyberspace world, young people everywhere are in mortal danger unless we change the hearts and minds of those who seem to prefer war to law.

    The killing of a Soleimani will also only have a short term effect when it comes to general deterrence. It was a onetime shot to which others will react. Groups and people who work against 'U.S. interests' will now do so less publicly. Countries will seek asymmetric advantages to prevent such U.S. action against themselves. By committing the crime the U.S. and Trump made the global situation for themselves more complicated.

    It is interesting that the commentary closes with a letter by Benjamin Ferencz, perhaps the last surviving Nuremberg prosecutor. As he indicates, the assassination is a war crime, and, in my view, even the threat of such an assassination is a serious breach of international law. Regimes following such a policy have gone rogue, and cabinet ministers making such a pronouncement that the assassination was carried out as a deterrent are, in effect, confessing to war crimes. In future the reach of the offending regime may be much less than it is now, and, if that occurs, the rogue minister better be careful if he travels outside of his home country.

    Posted by: exiled off mainstree | Jan 18 2020 20:00 utc | 5

    "By committing the crime the U.S. and Trump made the global situation for themselves more complicate."

    USA is not exactly the sole economic superpower, but as long as the allies, EU, NATO, major allies in Asia and Latin America, behave like poodles, USA pretty much controls what is "normal". After Obama campaigns of murder by drone, now Trump raises it to a higher level, and Europe, the most critical link in the web of alliances, applauds (UK) or accepts and cooperates. That can be a useful clarification for US establishment.

    So the bottom line is that while it is hard to show constructive goals achieved by raising murder policies to a more brazen level, nothing changes for the worse. Allies tolerate irrationality, cruelty etc. and to some extend, join the fun.

    Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jan 18 2020 20:06 utc | 8

    Pompeo: "In all cases, we have to do this."

    In all cases they have to murder? That is psycho killer talk. Notice how comfortable the American public is with that.

    America disconnected from reality years ago. I rather doubt they could even find their way back if they were to somehow return to their senses.

    Posted by: William Gruff | Jan 18 2020 20:07 utc | 9

    Deterrence and decapitation strikes ...

    Idle speculation on my part, but I am not alone in wondering if the Soleimani assassination accelerated Putin's restructuring agenda. (I'm not suggesting it was generated or even influenced in substance by the strike, just that the timing may have been.) Given the power of the President in Russia, as the CIA itself very well understands, there is perhaps no more tempting target for an overt military assassination strike than President Putin.

    Of course, deterrence of rational actors is precisely what would prevent this, but I imagine Russian strategic thinkers have wondered whether or for how long the US remains a rational actor. Moreover, this would be the sort of thing that a fanatical faction could pull off. In some Strangelovean bunker somewhere, there may be those who would actually welcome a last gasp of large-scale warfare before the Eurasian Heartland is lost and the Petrodollar-fueled global finance empire, nominally sheltered in the US, dies away.

    Creative destruction ... a last chance to shuffle the cards, and perhaps reset a losing game to zero.

    Posted by: Paul Damascene | Jan 18 2020 20:20 utc | 13

    Maybe I stupidly posted this in the wrong thread?

    Trump is simply a third-rate Godfather type gangster, with a touch of the charm and a lot of the baggage. I think his murder of General Qassem Soleimani was not something he would have done if he had any choice. It was a very stupid move, and Trump is just not that stupid. I really think this was demanded by the 'churnitalists'. These churnitalists are probably the psychos of the predatory arm of the CIA, and their billionaire allies.

    See, it all works like this:

    These churnitalists (who supposedly provide us with 'protection', or 'security') are the real rulers (because everybody who defies them ends up dead). Now just ask your self: How does rulership actually really work? It's really kind of simple. The only actual way to establish rulership over other people is to prove, again and again, that you can force them to do stupid things, for absolutely no reason. This is called 'people-churning', and all you have to do is just keep churning out low-class 'history' by constantly forcing the weaker ones to do stupid things. Again and again. This happens constantly in a churnitalist gangster society. Even in schools and legislatures, and so on. Haven't you noticed it yet?

    Posted by: blues | Jan 18 2020 21:39 utc | 30

    [Jan 19, 2020] The DIA backed Trump, the CIA backed Clinton

    Jan 19, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    dltravers , Jan 18 2020 2:35 utc | 89

    A fairly good piece of understanding but you leave out a few elements in the equation. Trump was on the bench for the Mossad in the Epstein triangle. That is why 95% of the controlled media is against him; he is not in the CIA's pocket.

    You also fail to mention the FED's very accommodating policies that have kept the economy and the stock market going. In other words, the Banksters also back Trump.

    The DIA backed Trump, the CIA back Clinton. Go back to Trumps talking points when he announced his run for the presidency. They were carefully scripted hand grenades that no other politician would dare to throw. His campaign strategy was carefully polled and his backers knew those talking point bombshells would work.

    The other side thought he would hang himself so he obtained a massive amount of free cable coverage. They had drunk their own Koolaid thinking that Trump's angle of attack would fail. The liberal Jews hate Trump. The conservative Jews love him. The conservative Jews fear the demographic changes in the US which could end their cash cow for Israel. Throw in the Evangelical Zionists and you have a receipt for victory then and in 2020.

    People are so bent on their Trump hate they cannot see the genius of whomever organized this campaign.

    [Jan 19, 2020] A new book titled 'A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America ' offers some background and perspective on trump's 3 years in the WH and some titillating quotes. An explanation for why Tillerson called him "a f**king moron" is included

    Jan 19, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    Bubbles , Jan 17 2020 23:23 utc | 55

    A new book titled 'A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America ' offers some background and perspective on trump's 3 years in the WH and some titillating quotes. An explanation for why Tillerson called him "a f**king moron" is included.

    At one point the authors depict an angry trump lashing out at his advisors for the trillions spent in Iraq and he demands to know "where's the fu**king oil"? As in, the share of oil the US should have received for?..attacking Iraq and causing it to descend into complete chaos I suppose.

    As one leading Private Security Company Chief was quoted some years later, it's like the Wild West. And that was before the rise of ISIS.

    But he didn't stop there, no sir, he went on to rant he would never go to war with people like them. According to the book his choice of words were much more colourful. Said claim does seem a bit confusing given trump's war record as a Cadet at some school for rich kids.

    But hey, the far right Zionists seem to find him useful.


    Walter , Jan 17 2020 23:25 utc | 56

    @ wagelaborer | Jan 17 2020 19:04 utc | 3

    your: "Trump can't start a war without ruling class backing any more than he can end the wars if the rulers veto it."

    May be, I think is, true in one sense. But Trump is far from the sole agent capable of starting a war. War, as opposed to simple murder, involve 2 or more parties. Whatever the intentions, the recent murders by drone in Baghdad hav,e it seems, brought Iran to consider war exists now...and they have a nifty MAGA policy. On Press TV today they hosted an expert who called for the execution of several exceptional American leaders...sounds like war to me.

    (Make America Go Away)

    The system is so screwy and peopled by such uneducated and delusional people that it's quite simple that they would do some stupid that that caused a war. Looks like war to me. I await the horrors.

    Decaying empires usually start wars that bring about their rapid ruin. Does it matter how they do this?

    ............

    The thesis of the triangle of elite factions is fascinating.

    Walter recalls that JFK got the reports from Vietnam that said we were winning, while at the same time Johnson got the true story. And also what happened then with the "correction" of 1963 (their words) and the immediate change of war policy. Can't help an old guy from remembering old folly. And noting that history repeats as farce.

    The Iran affair is liable to coordinate with NATO..Lavrov spoke to the NATO preparations today @ TASS...

    Some say Trumpie screwed up the schedule, which goes hot in April as a showdown with the Roooskies. I take that with a grain of salt. But I think the sources I've seen might be right. They say that if Barbarossa had not been delayed, the nazis woulda won in Russia. Screwups can be very important.

    I can't see any way the US won't use atomic bangers. But maybe...

    michaelj72 , Jan 17 2020 23:27 utc | 57

    "There's an odor of mendacity throughout the Afghanistan issue . . . mendacity and hubris," John F. Sopko said in testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.


    "...What's that smell in this room? Didn't you notice it, Brick? Didn't you notice a powerful and obnoxious odor of mendacity in this room?... There ain't nothin' more powerful than the odor of mendacity... You can smell it. It smells like death...."
    - Big Daddy, in the film Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), play by Tennessee Williams

    [Jan 19, 2020] In 2019, Parnas served as a translator for a legal case involving Dmytro Firtash, one of Ukraine's wealthiest oligarchs with self-admitted mob connections

    Jan 19, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    MushroomCloud2020 , 2 hours ago link

    Lev Parnas

    In 2019, Parnas served as a translator for a legal case involving Dmytro Firtash , one of Ukraine's wealthiest oligarchs with self-admitted mob connections, [12] who is fighting extradition to the U.S. to face bribery charges. Firtash has lived in Vienna for five years. "Mr. Parnas was retained by DiGenova & Toensing , LLP as an interpreter in order to communicate with their client Mr. Firtash, who does not speak English," the Washington-based law firm said in a statement. [13] However, recordings of Parnas speaking Ukrainian and Russian evidence that he has not retained total fluency in these two languages since coming to the United States. A Swiss lawyer for Firtash loaned $1 million to Parnas's wife in September 2019, according to prosecutors. [14]

    In addition to working on joint business and political efforts, Parnas and Fruman have been involved in Jewish charities and causes in the U.S., Ukraine and Israel. [15] Fruman and Parnas are on the board of a Ukrainian-Jewish charity, "Friends of Anatevka", founded by Ukrainian rabbi Moshe Reuven Azman , to provide a refuge for Jews affected by the Russian military intervention in Ukraine . [16] Parnas and Fruman visited Israel in the summer of 2018 as a part of a delegation, led by former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and joined by Anthony Scaramucci , of "right-wing Jewish and evangelical supporters of Trump." While there, the group met with various leaders and personalities including the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, David M. Friedman , Benjamin Netanyahu 's son Yair Netanyahu , as well as billionaire Simon Falic, one of Netanyahu's most generous donors. [17] Huckabee joined the two once again in March 2019 when they were awarded with the "Chovevei Zion" (Lovers of Zion) awards at a gala for the National Council of Young Israel , an event focused on supporting President Trump and Israeli West Bank settlements . Rudy Giuliani and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy were in attendance as well. While in Israel Parnas and Fruman also met with oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi , a wealthy Ukrainian under investigation by the Department of Justice for money laundering. [15]

    [Jan 19, 2020] McConnell Should Toss Out This Malicious Impeachment by Patrick J. Buchanan

    Jan 17, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

    Patrick Buchanan

    About the impeachment of President Donald Trump she engineered with her Democratic majority, Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday: "It's not personal. It's not political. It's not partisan. It's patriotic."

    Seriously, Madam Speaker? Not political? Not partisan?

    Why then were all eight House members chosen as managers to prosecute the case against Trump, who ceremoniously escorted the articles across the Capitol, all Democrats? Why did the articles of impeachment receive not a single Republican vote on the House floor?

    The truth: The impeachment of Donald Trump is the fruit of a malicious prosecution whose roots go back to the 2016 election, in the aftermath of which stunned liberals and Democrats began to plot the removal of the new president.

    This coup has been in the works for three years.

    First came the crazed charges of Trump's criminal collusion with Vladimir Putin to hack the emails of the DNC and the Clinton campaign and funnel them to WikiLeaks.

    For two years, we heard the cries of "Treason!" from Pelosi's caucus. And despite the Mueller investigation's exoneration of Trump of all charges of conspiracy with Russia, we still hear the echoes:

    Trump is Putin's poodle. Trump is an asset of the Kremlin.

    All we want, and what the American people deserve, is a "fair trial," Democrats and their media collaborators now insist. But can a fair trial proceed from a manifestly deficient and malicious prosecution?

    Consider. In this impeachment, we are told, the House serves as the grand jury, and Adam Schiff's Intelligence Committee and Jerry Nadler's Judiciary Committee serve as the investigators and prosecutors.

    But the articles of impeachment on which the Judiciary Committee and the House voted do not contain a single crime required by the Constitution for impeachment and removal. There is no charge of treason, no charge of bribery or "other high crimes and misdemeanors."

    So weak is the case for impeachment that the elite in this city is demanding that the Senate do the work the House failed to do .

    The Senate must subpoena the documents and witnesses the House failed to produce, to make the case for impeachment more persuasive than it is now.

    Not our job, rightly answers Mitch McConnell.

    The Senate is supposed to be an "impartial jury."

    But while there is a debate over whether Republicans will vote to call witnesses, there is no debate on how the Senate Democrats intend to vote -- 100% for removal of a president they fear they may not be able to defeat.

    Consider Trump's alleged offense: pressing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate Burisma Holdings and Hunter Biden.

    Assume Zelenskiy, without prodding, sent to the U.S., as a friendly act to ingratiate himself with Trump, the Burisma file on Hunter Biden.

    Would that have been a crime?

    Why is it then a crime if Trump asked for the file?

    The military aid Trump held up for 10 weeks -- lethal aid Barack Obama denied to Kyiv -- was sent. And Zelenskiy never held the press conference requested, never investigated Burisma, never sent the Biden file.

    There is a reason why no crime was charged in the impeachment of Donald Trump. There was no crime committed.

    Not political, said Pelosi. Why then did she hold up sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate for a month, after she said it was so urgent that Trump be impeached that Schiff and Nadler could not wait for their subpoenas to be ruled upon by the Supreme Court?

    Pelosi is demanding that the Senate get the documents, subpoena and hear the witnesses, and do the investigative work Schiff and Nadler failed to do.

    Does that not constitute an admission that a convincing case was not made? Are not the articles voted by the House inherently deficient if the Senate has to have more evidence than the House prosecutors could produce to convict the president of "abuse of power"?

    Can we really have a fair trial in the Senate, when half of the jury, the Democratic caucus, is as reliably expected to vote to remove the president as Republicans are to acquit him? What kind of fair trial is it when we can predict the final vote before the court hears the evidence?

    It is ridiculous to deny that this impeachment is partisan, political and personal. It reeks of politics, partisanship and Trump-hatred.

    As for patriotic, that depends on where you stand -- or sit.

    But the forum to be entrusted with the decision of "should Trump go?" is not a deeply polarized Senate, but with those the Founding Fathers entrusted with such decisions -- the American people.

    In most U.S. courts, a prosecution case this inadequate, with prosecutors asking the court itself to get more documents and call more witnesses, and so visibly contaminated with malice toward the accused, would be dismissed outright.

    Mitch McConnell should let the House managers make their case, and then call for a vote to dismiss, and treat this indictment with the contempt it so richly deserves.

    Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever.

    Mary Myers 2 days ago

    I want to know all the dirt. I want the Dems to be able to call their witnesses, and I want Trump's team to call their witnesses. And I want cross examinations. Let's have a real trial so the American people can learn what has been going on. To sweep it all under the carpet by having Mitch McConnell move for dismissal is to suppress the truth. What is wrong with Pat Buchanan? I always thought Buchanan was a truth seeker and a truth teller. So very disappointed in him.
    Gary Sellars Mary Myers a day ago
    Fools and charlatans should not be encouraged. This faux "impeachment" is simply an exercise in pre-election mischief-making by a Democrat party that simply hopes to damage Trump in the eyes of the voters.
    Hank Linderman Gary Sellars a day ago
    The "pre-election mischief" was Trump's efforts re Ukraine, Biden, etc.
    TISO_AX2 Hank Linderman a day ago • edited
    Biden is a good Dem, shaking down Ukraine on behalf of his Navy-rejected druggie son, using US public money. And we have it on videotape.

    Crooks need to be exposed. Good on the President for exposing Democrat-Ukraine corruption. He hasn't ended it yet but he has exposed it.

    phreethink TISO_AX2 a day ago
    So this is your argument: The Bidens were corrupt so Trump gets a pass on violating the law AS FOUND BY THE NONPARTISAN GAO! Yup, sounds reasonable to me. MAGA
    Gary Sellars phreethink a day ago
    Government agencies are only as "non-partisan" as the political appointees tasked to run them.

    No-one cared when Creepy joe Biden did it openly, but its a crime because some choose to believe that Trump did the same? LOL!!! No sorry, that won't wash.

    Juts because Biden is seeking to be president that doesn't mean he gets some kind of immunity from investigation for corrupt activities in foreign nations.

    If you think that a Dem-funded dodgy dossier on Trump is sufficient to initiate an FBI probe on trump when he is the Repubs nominee, how can you possibly think that Biden is untouchable given his public admission of squeezing the Ukro gov using foreign aid as leverage?????

    Hilarious. The cognitive dissonance is strong with this one.

    Gary Sellars Hank Linderman a day ago • edited
    What pre-election "Trump efforts in Ukraine"? I think you have an inability to follow time-lines.

    Manafort was involved in corrupt dealing with shady Oligarchs, but that was before he worked for Trump, and the Bad Orange Man wasn't in the slightest bit involved.

    I still find it hilarious that the libs think Trump committed a crime in his conversation with Zelensky, but its OK for Creepy Joe (as Veep) to blackmail Poroshenkos regime to get rid of the prosecutor sniffing around Burisa Holdings and thereby threatening his sons get-rich-quick scheme (and then BRAGGING about it on camera). Un-freakin-believable... :-D

    TISO_AX2 Mary Myers a day ago
    Why won't the Dems and leftwing media leave him alone then? Rep. Al Green (D-Tx) let that cat out of the bag when he told us that they have to impeach him otherwise he's going to get re-elected. The impeachment gambit is no more complicated than that.
    Mary Myers TISO_AX2 a day ago • edited
    The Left can't stand Trump because of his Supreme Court nominations, his pulling out of the Climate Accord, and his pro-life positions. That's why they want him stopped and removed from office. That being said, Trump is his own worst enemy because he is so full of himself that he is incapable of behaving in an adult and judicious way.
    phreethink Mary Myers a day ago
    Absolutely true. 100% But it doesn't change the fact that Trump tried to blackmail Ukraine into announcing an investigation of the Bidens by withholding Congressionally mandated aid.

    So, KNOWING the Dems were out to get him, he still does that, and is stupid enough to get caught red handed. Your great leader picks such "winners." Rudy, Lev, and the gang did him right.

    If Obama did it, a GOP House and Senate would have run him out of town in a week.

    Mary Myers phreethink a day ago
    Like, I said, Trump is his own worst enemy. And a lot of Republicans are hypocrites. If Obama behaved as Trump has they'd be all over him with criticism.
    TISO_AX2 Mary Myers a day ago
    If we could design our own president..he'd be perfect. For us that is. A president is there to do a job. It's laid out in the Constitution. The job desription says nothing about personality type.

    Would I like him to say some things differently, sure. Sometimes I cringe. But nothing that he says affects us negatively (unless it's in an emotional or psychological way). Your life, family, your career, your bank accounts, are not hurt by DJTs tweets or sayings or interactions with anyone else in Washington.

    So if that's the price to pay to have a leader who works to keep his promises it's a small price, and Americans ought to have the grace and fortitude to handle the daily news without melting down emotionally or psychologically. A good spirit and a joyful outlook are good for your soul.

    Joe Frank TISO_AX2 21 hours ago • edited
    A quote: "Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one."
    Charles MacKay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

    Food for thought.

    TISO_AX2 Joe Frank 20 hours ago • edited
    Things are tough all over. Especially among those who are not on America's side.
    Gary Sellars Mary Myers a day ago
    If that was the case, just not leave him to hang himself. Instead the corrupt libs indulge in big lies and sedition. The witch hunt is clear and obvious, and it will stiffen Trumps sails as he heads into the 2020 showdown.
    Mary Myers Gary Sellars a day ago • edited
    Probably. However, the ancients had a saying; "Whoever the gods would destroy, they first make drunk with power."
    Gary Sellars Mary Myers a day ago
    You're referring to Shrillary I must presume?
    Mary Myers Gary Sellars a day ago
    "The mills of God's justice grind exceedingly slow, but they also grind exceedingly fine."
    TISO_AX2 Mary Myers 20 hours ago • edited
    How do you know that God's justice isn't what's behind Donald Trump's success?
    Mary Myers TISO_AX2 4 hours ago
    We shall see what happens to Mr. Trump in the long run. God is inscrutable. No one can claim to know the workings of God.
    TISO_AX2 Mary Myers 4 hours ago
    What happens to Mr. Trump in the long run is not our business. He's the POTUS. Anything beyond both the scope of and the time of his presidency is an obsession with his person. Better to leave what's between him and his country out of any ideas of what's between him and God.
    Joe Frank Mary Myers a day ago
    Well spoken Mary. I find it ironic that the American Conservative would publish a "hit piece" about a supposed "hit job." I come to the American Conservative for thoughtful, insightful ideas, not this. When the president grants himself "absolute immunity," which I would expect Pat Buchanan and American Conservative writers and readers to be outrages at, and I read a piece like this, I wonder how Pat and company can editorialize and comment at a level well below the dignity of this publication?
    Joe Frank Joe Frank a day ago
    I think this statement is closer to the truth of the matter:

    "I think the votes have been decided. As much as anybody will be pretending to be judicious about this, I don't think that there's one senator who hasn't decided how they're going to vote... I think if you're pretty much no longer interested in running for office, or no longer interested in getting Republican votes, you might vote to impeach the president... When it comes to whether or not you're going to impeach a president of your own party, particularly over a policy difference or whether or not he has lack of decorum or whatever, I think that's something that a lot of voters will not excuse."

    Rand Paul, Regarding the Impeachment Trial, January 16, 2020

    phreethink Joe Frank a day ago
    Absolutely agree. And those in the GOP who close their eyes and ears to Trump's attempted blackmail/bribery will answer to the electorate. That's why we need to get this trial going and get it over. Sure would be nice to hear what all the president's men say about it, but that would only provide the first-hand evidence further proving Trump's guilt.

    So there's no way they'll have witnesses. They'll try to blame the Dems for not letting Trump delay the whole thing in Court and for refusing to have Hunter and Joe testify, even though that is a sideshow to the attempted blackmail/bribery. This is so obviously a bunch of bull. If the Senate really wanted to hear from Joe and Hunter, they could subpoena them right now, today into a committee hearing on their supposed Ukraine corruption. They haven't, so we know its just a bunch of smoke. The only question is how many voters in the middle are going to let them get away with it.

    Gary Sellars phreethink a day ago
    Witnesses to say what? The same sort of hearsay and opinion that dominated the House hearings?

    Errr... NO. The case will be judged on what the Dems have submitted in their articles of impeachment. They don't get to turn this into a sustained lynch attempt or a never-ending talk-show for liberals and their minions who hate Trump and just want to be heard.

    Gary Sellars Joe Frank a day ago • edited
    Quite frankly, without evidence of High Crimes, that is the way it should be.
    phreethink Joe Frank a day ago
    Agree. But Buchanan has become just another Trumper.
    Constantinople Mary Myers a day ago
    Buchanan was a longtime aide to Richard Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal Nixon. The people who accept this line of argument contend, in effect, that the purpose of the American Revolution and the US Constitution was to replace a hereditary monarchy with an elected one.
    Westcoastdeplorable Mary Myers a day ago
    I want all the dirt aired as well, but the SENATE is not the proper venue. These traitors need to be indicted, tried, probably convicted, and sent to Gitmo. I hope McConnell shuts this down good and proper.
    Mary Myers Westcoastdeplorable a day ago • edited
    So how are we to know who the traitors are if there are no witnesses and cross examinations in the Senate? Are you expecting the justice department to come down with a bunch of indictments?
    phreethink Westcoastdeplorable a day ago
    Under Bill Barr's DOJ the traitors who sought a bribe from Ukraine to benefit Trump's reelection will be prosecuted? HAHAHAHAHAHA. Good one.
    TISO_AX2 2 days ago • edited
    Indeed. The Senate should consider the case that the House sent them in writing, and only that case. Too bad for Pelosi and Schiff that it's so weak.
    phreethink TISO_AX2 a day ago
    It's so weak that if it weren't the President, there'd already be an indictment.
    timoth3y 2 days ago
    Mr. Buchanan has a deep understanding of these matters on both an academic level and from personal experience. It's unfortunate, but the only conclusion to draw is that the numerous falsehoods in this article are not mistakes, but deliberate attempts to deceive the reader.

    Whatever one's opinion on the behavior of Trump, the Democratic House or the Republican Senate, we should, at a bare minimum, respect the truth.

    1) Impeachment is not a criminal trail. It does not require an underlying crime to be committed, and the rules for impeachment hearings are not the same as those for criminal or civil trails. Furthermore, the GAO has stated that what Trump is accused of is indeed a crime.

    2) The Mueller report was not an "exoneration of Trump of all charges of conspiracy with Russia." The report literally said that it was not and Mueller testified to Congress that it was not an exoneration.

    3) The claim that "The Senate must subpoena the documents and witnesses the House failed to produce" is absurd. it was the White House that failed to produce to documents that the House subpoenas demanded. Whether you believe there should be witnesses (or a trail at all) in the Senate. Implying that House Democrats is somehow concealing these documents is a lazy lie.

    I must put aside Mr. Buchanan's comments regarding what the various senators are "really thinking" because I lack the physic mind-reading abilities that he seems to possess.

    However, whatever our opinion on the impeachment and the events that led up to it, can we please stop with the bald-faced lies?

    If the Senate decides to dismiss, so be it, but if they publicly swear to God and country that they "will do impartial justice according to the constitution and laws: so help you God?" then we should do our best to ensure they act that way.

    Gary Sellars timoth3y a day ago
    "The Mueller report was not an "exoneration of Trump of all charges of conspiracy with Russia." The report literally said that it was not and Mueller testified to Congress that it was not an exoneration."

    Total rubbish. A lack of evidence IS exoneration. Without evidence, all there is left is a bunch of allegations without proof. Mueller was given the job to hang trump but he couldn't prove the lie to be fact. He won't admit it so he indulges in innuendo to give a little complimentary red meat to his team mates.

    This "impeachment" is a disgrace, nothing more than a corrupt exercise in partisan party politics. No high crimes. No high misdemeanors. Nothing but a steaming pile of hearsay, allegations, bias and opinions. Certainly nothing that should ever justify the removal of a legal and constitutionally elected POTUS.

    Wezz Gary Sellars a day ago
    "Disgrace". Trump has hypnotized his followers to repeat his 5 favorite words mindlessly... in this case it must be the word Trumps mother kept using to admonish him, it's one of his favorite.
    Jeffrey Samuels Gary Sellars a day ago
    it wasn't lack of evidence. It was the DOJ rule that you can't indict a sitting president that prompted Mueller's response.
    TISO_AX2 Jeffrey Samuels a day ago
    Yes, it was a lack of evidence. The purpose of a special prosecutor is to prosecute. When they have the evidence then they bring an indictment. If this is not possible for the US President, there would be no purpose for an investigation of a President. And when a prosecutor fails to bring an indictment the accused is presumed innocent.
    Mary Myers TISO_AX2 a day ago • edited
    There was evidence of collusion. It's in the tapes of the phone calls Gen. Mike Flynn had with the Russian ambassador in December of 2016. It's just that the collusion was not with Russia but was instead a collusion with another country to get Russia to do something that would undermine Obama's policy at the U.N. But to reveal those tapes to the public is politically incorrect, and Robert Mueller wasn't going to go there.
    TISO_AX2 Mary Myers a day ago
    There was evidence of collusion. It's in the tapes of the phone calls
    Gen. Mike Flynn had with the Russian ambassador in December of 2016.

    Cite it, please. Let's see what this collusion looks like.

    Mary Myers TISO_AX2 a day ago • edited
    The Mueller Report (The Washington Post edition) page 538 barely touches on it, but you can get the drift.

    "Flynn also agreed that he lied to the FBI about another contact with Kislyak, a December 2016 phone call in which Flynn asked if Russia would delay or vote against a proposed United Nations resolution critical of Israel. Flynn said he made this call at the direction of a "very senior member" of the presidential transition team," identified later as Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner."

    Phil Giraldi, who was terminated at TAC, also did an article on this that you can find on www.unz.com . I believe the title of Phil Giraldi's column is "Russiagate is really Israelgate."

    TISO_AX2 Mary Myers a day ago
    Flynn was plea bargaining to save his family from the heavy hand of uncontrolled government prosecutors. He has since withdrawn the plea so any collusion remains in doubt. This also fits the narrative that the FBI agents did not think Flynn was lying when they interviewed him.
    Mary Myers TISO_AX2 a day ago
    Well, there is one way to find out for sure, and that would be for the tapes of the Kislyak conversation to be released so we can hear exactly what Flynn said. It sure can't be classified information as he wasn't yet working for the government during the transition period in December of 2016. For some reason they don't want those taped phone conversations to be released even in Judge Emmett Sullivan's courtroom.
    Gary Sellars Mary Myers a day ago • edited
    You seem to be one of these "True Believers" who simply cannot digest the reality of Muellers report. He searched high and low, and found NOTHING.

    No Trump crimes.
    No Trump collusion.

    Accept the facts and get a life. You'll be happier for it.

    Mary Myers Gary Sellars a day ago
    At least I read the report. Did you?
    Gary Sellars Mary Myers a day ago • edited
    You read it, focused on the bits that you wanted, made your mind up on what you wanted it to mean, and then ignored the rest.
    Mary Myers Gary Sellars a day ago
    No, I found that the report was rather boring, and, of course, there was no proof of any collusion with Russia. The report paints Trump as a stupid, self serving oaf. I am sure you couldn't bear to even read the report and preferred to get your summary of it from FOX News.
    Gary Sellars Mary Myers a day ago • edited
    "The report paints Trump as a stupid, self serving oaf. "

    So? Who cares what Mueller and his Democrat minions think? It wasn't the investigations remit to critique Trump as a person or even as a President.It was to find evidence of collusion and criminal behaviour by Trump and his campaign.

    It found NOTHING or the sort. Personal bad behaviour by Manafort in Ukraine doesn't stain trump. Flynn getting caught in a procedural trap by FBI agents looking entrap him doesn't count (and he is recanting his plea bid now, and good for him).

    Unsupported innuendo about bad behaviors mean NOTHING. Trump isn't bound to assist the Witch Hunt against him. He has no obligation to help those that are concocting fallacies in an attempt to bring down or sabotage his tenure. Refusal to co-operate with your own lynching by your enemies is not "obstruction". Trump hasn't broken any laws by his refusal to co-operate, and as president, he has a great amount of privilege in this respect (as all previous presidents have had and exercised when required).

    Great big nothing-burger. Accept the truth and get over yourself.

    [Jan 19, 2020] Russiagate was to hide Clinton's corruption. Ukrainegate is to hide Biden's corruption

    Jan 19, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    Dank fur Kopf , 2 hours ago link

    You can all go and ignore the whole Trump impeachment, because it's just smoke to try and hide the real fire.

    Joe Biden's actual blackmail of the Ukrainian government, when he threatened to withhold $1 billion if the Prosecutor investigating his son, Hunter Biden, wasn't immediately fired.

    Russiagate was to hide Clinton's corruption.
    Ukrainegate is to hide Biden's corruption.

    And because Biden is such an arrogant piece of ..., here's him admitting to it on camera:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3115&v=Q0_AqpdwqK4&feature=emb_logo

    Dank fur Kopf , 2 hours ago link

    You can all go and ignore the whole Trump impeachment, because it's just smoke to try and hide the real fire.

    Joe Biden's actual blackmail of the Ukrainian government, when he threatened to withhold $1 billion if the Prosecutor investigating his son, Hunter Biden, wasn't immediately fired.

    Russiagate was to hide Clinton's corruption.
    Ukrainegate is to hide Biden's corruption.

    And because Biden is such an arrogant piece of ..., here's him admitting to it on camera:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3115&v=Q0_AqpdwqK4&feature=emb_logo

    [Jan 18, 2020] The White House said on Friday that it was the Obama administration that authorized former national security adviser Michael Flynn's contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during President Trump's transition, according to CNN.

    Jan 18, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

    TISO_AX2 Mary Myers a day ago

    In fact it is classified information..highly classified according to news reports. And so we're likely to never see it. Flynn was forced out for some reason, presumably good ones. It's hard to say anything for certain because the White House was in disarray in Feb2017. DJT's inexperience in government was glaringly obvious in the first couple of months of his administration. He mishandled several issues badly, paticularly the Flynn episode and James Comey. I said then that he should have replaced Comey on Day 1. Had he done so none of the mess of "Russian collusion" would likely have ever come about. Although he usually gets things right, eventually, his (early) tendencies toward delayed action cost him.
    Mary Myers TISO_AX2 a day ago
    They always claim something is highly classified when they want to conceal something that will incriminate or embarrass them before the American people.

    Trump came into office without an army of bureaucrats to fill all the jobs in the government behemoth. He had to put in people that had been vehemently opposed to him in order to get confirmations. That's why the expression, "The new boss, same as the old boss." And it has certainly been true of Trump regarding foreign policy.

    TISO_AX2 Mary Myers 20 hours ago
    Well, since it was under Obama that they intercepted Flynn's calls, that's where the classification came from. The USG grows and maintains its power through myriad levels of secrecy. (I was in the game as a CIA communications specialist for 8 years). The game is thoroughly bipartisan.
    The White House said on Friday that it was the Obama administration that authorized former national security adviser Michael Flynn's contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during President Trump's transition, according to CNN.

    [Jan 18, 2020] Trump Lawyers Frame Impeachment Removal Trial as Violation of Constitution, Election Meddling - Sputnik International

    Jan 18, 2020 | sputniknews.com

    The US Senate has formally initiated the trial for the removal of US President Donald Trump from office, which kicked off with House officials reading the charges to the upper chamber and the swearing-in of Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to preside over the process. Trump's legal team on Saturday released a statement attempting to reject his impeachment by the House, characterising the charges against the US president as a "dangerous attack" on Americans and their right to vote.

    "We are on strong legal footing. The president has done nothing wrong and we believe that will be borne out in this process", a source said, ahead of the document's submission to the Senate scheduled later in the day.

    Trump's defence team formally responded to the six-page document containing the articles of impeachment and stated their opinion on the merits of the two charges - abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

    "The articles of impeachment submitted by House Democrats are a dangerous attack on rights of the American people to freely choose their president. This is a brazen and unlawful attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 election and interfere with the 2020 election, now just months away", the document states.

    A spokesman for Trump's legal team suggested that the articles of impeachment are constitutionally invalid. "They fail to allege any crime or violation of law whatsoever, let alone high crimes and misdemeanors", the document said.

    The lawyers reportedly stressed that Trump did nothing wrong and predicted that he would not be removed from office during the upcoming Senate trial, adding that the defence team planned to argue that the impeachment articles violate the US constitution.

    On Saturday, US lawmakers managing the Senate removal trial filed a brief laying out their arguments supporting charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress against the US president.

    The Democratic House of Representatives impeachment managers faced a deadline of 5 p.m. EST (22:00 GMT) on Saturday to file the document before the trial of the US president starts in the Senate next week. Lawmakers argued in the brief that Trump must be removed from the Oval Office to safeguard the integrity of the upcoming presidential election.

    On 18 December, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives voted along party lines to impeach Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress for freezing military aid to Ukraine in exchange for Kiev launching a probe of political rival Joe Biden.

    U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) bangs the gavel to adjourn the House of Representatives after representatives voted in favor of two counts of impeachment against U.S. President Donald Trump in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., December 18, 2019. © REUTERS / JONATHAN ERNST 'Impeached Forever': Pelosi Slams Trump as Senate Trial Set to Begin Next Week According to the US Constitution, the House has sole power to impeach, which is analogous to an indictment, while the 100-seat Senate, currently controlled by the Republicans, has the sole power of removing a president.

    Trump is the third US president to be impeached. Neither of the previous two, Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1999 were forced from office. Another US president, Richard Nixon, resigned in August 1974 before the House could vote on his impeachment, thus avoiding a removal trial in the Senate.

    Trump has called his impeachment a "witch hunt" designed to overturn the results of the 2016 election.

    An unnamed senior Trump administration official told reporters earlier this week that the president's legal team - made up, in part, of lawyers who formerly worked for deceased paedophile and sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein - expect a "rapid acquittal" and doubt the removal trial will last more than two weeks.

    [Jan 18, 2020] Impeachment circus begins in earnest, and will change nothing -- RT Op-ed

    Jan 18, 2020 | www.rt.com

    ... ... ...

    The Republican-controlled Senate will almost certainly vote to acquit Trump. No concrete evidence of wrongdoing was revealed during the House Intelligence Committee's inquiry, and none of the second-hand witnesses to Trump's infamous phone call with Zelensky revealed any smoking gun evidence. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has ignored Democrat pleas to admit more witnesses and more evidence, arguing that the House's case be tried as is.

    Meanwhile, Republicans ridiculed Pelosi for sitting on the impeachment articles for four weeks, despite Democrat claims that Trump posed a "clear and present danger" to national security, and Pelosi's insistence that removing him was an "urgent concern."

    Any doubt that impeachment was a partisan affair was removed by Pelosi on Wednesday night, when she handed out souvenir pens to reporters after signing the articles, posing in front of a lectern with a placard reading "#defendourdemocracy" on it. McConnell described the signing ceremony as "The House's partisan process distilled into one last perfect visual. Not solemn or serious. A transparently political exercise from beginning to end."

    Yesterday, the Speaker celebrated impeachment with souvenir pens, bearing her own golden signature, brought in on silver platters. The House's partisan process distilled into one last perfect visual. Not solemn or serious. A transparently political exercise from beginning to end. pic.twitter.com/AshajRLH2F

    -- Leader McConnell (@senatemajldr) January 16, 2020

    McConnell is not above partisan games either, and has openly pledged to work with the White House to see Trump acquitted.

    Which begs the question, what was it all for? If Trump is acquitted, the Democratic Party has no political capital left to launch another impeachment campaign, even if Trump blatantly commits the "high crimes and misdemeanors" necessary to trigger an actual, bipartisan impeachment effort.

    Trump then also gets to claim victory, with an acquittal justifying his cries of "witch hunt" and "presidential harassment," further solidifying his base and embarrassing the Democrats in front of undecided voters. Pelosi stated on Sunday that regardless of the trial's outcome, Trump is "impeached for life," but Trump is louder and brasher than Pelosi, and will milk an acquittal for all it's worth.

    Even as the trial against him formally opened on Thursday, the president celebrated the passage of his US-Mexico-Canada Agreement, his second trade win in two days. His approval rating also rose to 51 percent, the highest it's been since he was impeached just over a month ago. All of this strengthens his argument against the party he's taken to calling "Do Nothing Democrats."

    [Jan 18, 2020] If Trump is removed, will the Speaker of the House not be the Sovereign

    Jan 18, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com


    After the War of Independence from Great Britain, the US had a very different form of government than the present one. This government functioned under the Articles of Confederation. This government had been formed in 1775 and had served the rebellious colonies fairly well throughout the war and into the initial years of peace and separation from the mother country across the sea.

    Some people judged that government to be too loose an arrangement among the constituent states. A sufficient number of so minded people persuaded the states to convene a convention at Philadelphia to consider some amendments to the Articles of Confederation and to report these back as RECOMMENDATIONS to the state legislatures.

    That did not happen. Instead the delegates to this convention seized control of the agenda and wrote a document that created a form of government in which there was an Executive Branch empowered in many ways to act without the direction given by the Legislative Branch. This Executive was made to be particularly independent in the conduct of war and and foreign relations. Some restrictions were established in that the military was to be funded by the legislature (if it chose to do so). The military was to be designed by the legislature and officers thereof were to be appointed by the senate on recommendation of the president. In foreign affairs the appointment of ambassadors and the approval of international treaties were made the responsibility of the senate as well, but both in war and in foreign relations the content and conduct of these government affairs were reserved to the Executive Branch. As an example of this, the Congress of the US had no role in running WW2.. The House of Representatives did not "sign off" on Operation Overlord or any other plan. The Congress did make an attempt to control military operations during the Civil War. A Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War was formed from among the most radical Republicans in both houses, but Lincoln largely ignored the machinations of this body.

    Trump is to be tried for abuse of power and obstructing Congress. In the first instance he is accused of seeking political advantage by soliciting an investigation of the affairs of Joe Biden in a telephone call to the president of the Ukraine. His motivations in that call are unclear and are contested even among those who listened to the call in an official capacity. Biden was not then a candidate for office. He was a potential candidate. In the second article Trump is accused of Obstructing Congress. No president has ever been impeached on such a charge even though an inherent conflict between the Executive and Legislative Branches was built into the structure of the US Constitution in order to limit the power of both branches. For example; the president may wish to make some change in government practice that the Congress does not want. Many presidents have sought to obviate this difficulty by attaching signing statements to laws passed by Congress. These often say, in effect, "I am signing this but will not execute the will of Congress." No president has ever been impeached for doing that. Obama did that many times.

    Speaker Pelosi has succeeded indicting Trump on such grounds and now seeks to control the trial pf the president in the senate through intimidation of members and such devices as accusing the Majority Leader of the Senate of being a Russian agent of influence "Moscow Mitch.". Her justification for that is McConnell's unwillingness to obey her.

    Pelosi and company are now trying to remove a president on the grounds mentioned above. If they can do that, they will have succeeded in reverting the power structure within the federal government, reverting it to something much like the government of the Articles of Confederation. In that set up the federal government will become driven by the House of Representatives and will become the sole controlling part of the federal government with the ability to remove an opposition president through a simple majority vote and a rubber stamp trial in an intimidated senate. We will then have become a parliamentary democracy with the Speaker of the House controlling all.

    Alan Dershowitz will testify in this wise at Trump's trial. I support his position. pl

    [Jan 18, 2020] I was intrigued by its reference to one of the richest men in Ukraine, Dmytro Firtash and wondered as to his links to the 'Biden Burisma business

    Jan 18, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    uncle tungsten , Jan 18 2020 7:28 utc | 112

    evilempire #73

    I am having trouble getting replies to you posted but here is a tale on Mogilevitch (2014) that you might find interesting.

    I was intrigued by its reference to one of the richest men in Ukraine, Dmytro Firtash and wondered as to his links to the 'Biden Burisma business' if any. Of course he may have links to the progeny of Pelosi too. The entire impeachment episode went ballistic as soon as Trump stated picking over the turds in Ukraine so I suspect that is where the democrazies will come undone.

    [Jan 18, 2020] I don't know if Trump is in fact overplayed by the Israelis or, worst, being deceived and goaded by them.

    Jan 18, 2020 | www.unz.com

    Swedish Family , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 9:13 pm GMT

    @Interested Bystander 2020

    However, it is hard to miss Trump's style over the past three years, a consistently unconventional approach to problems that often seems illogical and rushed at the first glance, but upon a closer examination, his approaches usually have their own logic and underlying motivation that, on occasions, could be construed as the result of a broader strategic and tactical consideration.

    I once believed this, but Michael Wolff's books quickly dispelled that fantasy. Here's what strategy meant during the campaign:

    It was during Trump's early intelligence briefings, held soon after he captured the nomination, that alarm signals first went off among his new campaign staff: he seemed to lack the ability to take in third-party information. Or maybe he lacked the interest; whichever, he seemed almost phobic about having formal demands on his attention. He stonewalled every written page and balked at every explanation. "He's a guy who really hated school," said Bannon. "And he's not going to start liking it now."

    [ ]

    One of the ways to establish what Trump wanted and where he stood and what his underlying policy intentions were -- or at least the intentions that you could convince him were his -- came to involve an improbably close textual analysis of his largely off-the-cuff speeches, random remarks, and reflexive tweets during the campaign.

    Bannon doggedly went through the Trump oeuvre highlighting possible insights and policy proscriptions. Part of Bannon's authority in the new White House was as keeper of the Trump promises, meticulously logged onto the white board in his office. Some of these promises Trump enthusiastically remembered making, others he had little memory of, but was happy to accept that he had said it. Bannon acted as disciple and promoted Trump to guru -- or inscrutable God.

    Fire and Fury (Michael Wolff, 2018)

    And here's Trump readying himself for the notorious Helsinki summit with Putin back in 2018:

    On Friday, July 13, three days before the Helsinki summit, the president and his team arrived late in the day at Trump Turnberry golf resort in Scotland, after passing on their way from the airport cow pastures and cheering citizens -- but no protesters.

    Mike Pompeo and John Bolton were carrying copious briefing books. This was meant to be a weekend of preparation interspersed with golf. John Kelly, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Bill Shine, and several other aides had come along, too.

    Saturday was sunny and in the mid-seventies, with nothing on the agenda except golf. But by now a few protesters had made their way to Turnberry. "No Trump, No KKK, No Racist USA," shouted a small group of them during the president's afternoon golf game.

    Trump, energized by his NATO and UK meetings -- "we roughed them up" -- was in no mood to prepare for his Putin meeting. Even his typical, exceedingly casual level of preparation -- prep masked as gossip -- wasn't happening. Pompeo and Bolton reduced the boxed briefing binders to a one-pager. The president wouldn't focus on it.

    He was fine. And why shouldn't he be? He had walked into his meeting with Kim unable to pick out North Korea on a map, but it didn't matter. He was in charge, a strong man making peace.

    Don't box me in , he told his advisers. I need to be open , he kept repeating, as though this was a therapeutic process. Pompeo and Bolton urgently pressed him about the basic talking points for the summit, now just hours away -- but nothing doing.

    The next morning he played golf, and then it started to rain.

    Siege (Michael Wolff, 2019)

    [Jan 18, 2020] We Need A Full Investigation Bannon Accuses Pelosi, Schiff And MSM Of Colluding

    Jan 18, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon has called for a full investigation into coordination between Congressional Democrats and members of the media, after articles of impeachment against President Trump appear to have been deliberately 'slow walked' in order to coincide with two 'bombshell' developments in the Ukraine story.

    " Why did they time this? Why did they wait? " asked Fox Business host Trish Regan.

    "First off, Rachel Maddow should be a witness of fact now . She should be brought in," replied Bannon - referring to the seemingly coordinated media blitz surrounding Lev Parnas, an indicted former Rudy Goiliani associate whose undated, hand-written notes appear to support the claim that President Trump pressured Ukraine into investigating Joe Biden for corruption.

    " We ought to have all the emails and all the text messages between Schiff, between Nancy Pelosi, Phil Griffin at MSNBC News. We ought to bring the whole thing out. How did this get dropped? Why have they been working on this for so long? How did this just come about at the last second? She admitted she's been working on this for months, and the House just got this. The Republicans didn't even see this when the vote when down," said Bannon, adding "This is now a complete farce."

    " I think there was collusion between MSNBC, Rachel Maddow, Lev Parnas's attorneys, and the entire process." -Steve Bannon

    "So why did this not come forward earlier?" asks Regan.

    "You know why, because they wanted to drop their "big reveal," this was going be such a big bombshell. This is all total hearsay from a guy trying to talk his way into a lesser sentence because he's already indicted. It's so obvious what he's trying to do."

    Adding to the collusion / 'slow walk' theory is the completion of a report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) requested by Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen, which found that President Trump's pause of US aid to Ukraine violated the law. Of note, virtually every previous administration has received a similar nastygram from the GAO - just not the day after directly related impeachment articles were delivered to the Senate ahead of a trial.

    Watch: Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon has called for a full investigation into coordination between Congressional Democrats and members of the media, after articles of impeachment against President Trump appear to have been deliberately 'slow walked' in order to coincide with two 'bombshell' developments in the Ukraine story.

    " Why did they time this? Why did they wait? " asked Fox Business host Trish Regan.

    "First off, Rachel Maddow should be a witness of fact now . She should be brought in," replied Bannon - referring to the seemingly coordinated media blitz surrounding Lev Parnas, an indicted former Rudy Goiliani associate whose undated, hand-written notes appear to support the claim that President Trump pressured Ukraine into investigating Joe Biden for corruption.

    " We ought to have all the emails and all the text messages between Schiff, between Nancy Pelosi, Phil Griffin at MSNBC News. We ought to bring the whole thing out. How did this get dropped? Why have they been working on this for so long? How did this just come about at the last second? She admitted she's been working on this for months, and the House just got this. The Republicans didn't even see this when the vote when down," said Bannon, adding "This is now a complete farce."

    " I think there was collusion between MSNBC, Rachel Maddow, Lev Parnas's attorneys, and the entire process." -Steve Bannon

    "So why did this not come forward earlier?" asks Regan.

    "You know why, because they wanted to drop their "big reveal," this was going be such a big bombshell. This is all total hearsay from a guy trying to talk his way into a lesser sentence because he's already indicted. It's so obvious what he's trying to do."

    Adding to the collusion / 'slow walk' theory is the completion of a report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) requested by Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen, which found that President Trump's pause of US aid to Ukraine violated the law. Of note, virtually every previous administration has received a similar nastygram from the GAO - just not the day after directly related impeachment articles were delivered to the Senate ahead of a trial.

    Watch:

    Steve Bannon weighs in on Lev Parnas, calls Impeachment a 'farce' - YouTube

    David Reynolds 20 hours ago It's a coup attempt. The Democrats (and other globalists) are trying to overthrow Trump by any means necessary, because he's totally wrecking the leftist and globalist agenda. usero misa 19 hours ago Democrats pulling the same TRICK with this impeachment BS like Justice Kavanaugh's Senate confirmation hearing. Remember Christine Blasey Ford! Now is Lev Parnas. And like Christine Ford, Lev Parnas has been secretly coached by the Democrats Legal team, reason for their delay tactics.

    novictim , 9 minutes ago link

    If you going to make Lev Parnas the center of your impeachment witch-hunt, shouldn't you first have to remove the man's ankle bracelet?

    NeverDemRino , 9 minutes ago link

    Mark Levin EXPOSES Obama/Clinton for their COLLUSION on Sean Hannity here: Obama/Clinton Collusion

    Here is the full Sean Hannity Show from 1-16-20 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rmCUmlIyUU

    See how YouTube "Orwellizes" this Sean Hannity Show down to ONE second. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8y6JuUDXC4

    and here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx4OVtZPLqg

    and here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Seke8j4Irb0

    and here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqROj2xpHJs

    and here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oz9e-e8R8TM

    Seems like the FakeNews/MSM, and JewTube don't want anyone to know about the Obama/Clinton criminality.

    blindfaith , 17 minutes ago link

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkpsKSyeRL4

    a very good introduction to why this guy is another lair, in all kinds of trouble like Avanetti and Cohen were...looking for a deal to be presented to stay out of jail. The interview with Madcow, does not jive with the NYT interview he gave, not does it match up with what the Ukrainians are saying about this. The Ukrainian Head of Foreign Relations gave an interview to CNN, and flat out said no one there knows this guy and he never spoke to anyone including him, and he is NOT to be trusted. But that does not fit in with the Democrats plan, so they will step in it once again.

    Then there is this:

    (his) undated, hand-written notes appear to support the claim that President Trump pressured Ukraine into investigating Joe Biden for corruption.

    go read them , If you don't laugh then you are the problem. If the Democrats want more evidence, look here. If you think this guy was on a double, double secrete mission and met personally with Trump to receive it, then maybe your meds are wrong.

    Here is certified "EVIDENCE" for the Democrats just found in the nearby woods.

    __________________________________________________________

    Adam *****, Nancy Pilosie*, and Fat Nadler* are terrible crazy people* and are not to be trusted*.

    *evidence for the "committees"

    respectfully submitted this day by,

    Rocket J. Squirrel, Esq

    novictim , 13 minutes ago link

    https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2020/01/16/amanpour-ukrainian-foreign-minister-impeachment-iran-plane.cnn

    blindfaith , 7 minutes ago link

    Thank you for that....BRAVO. Those damn FACTS always Trump lies the left tries so hard to sow.

    [Jan 17, 2020] In the full sprit of bipartisanship

    Notable quotes:
    "... Why then were all eight House members chosen as managers to prosecute the case against Trump, who ceremoniously escorted the articles across the Capitol, all Democrats? Why did the articles of impeachment receive not a single Republican vote on the House floor? ..."
    Jan 17, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    Why then were all eight House members chosen as managers to prosecute the case against Trump, who ceremoniously escorted the articles across the Capitol, all Democrats? Why did the articles of impeachment receive not a single Republican vote on the House floor?

    [Jan 17, 2020] Ukraine is a deeply sick patient. The destiny of ordinary Ukrainians is deeply tragic. Diaspora is greedy and want a piece of cake immediately

    Highly recommended!
    Edited for clarity
    Notable quotes:
    "... The infrastructure they inherited from the USSR mostly is now fully amortized. For example railway park in in complete ruin. Central heating pipeline communications in cities like Kiev are in ruins too. In the USSR they tried to reuse the heat from electric stations and have elaborate hot water delivery networks from each, which provided heat to a large city blocks. Now pipes are completely rusted (which in 30 years is no surprise) and are in the state of constant repair. ..."
    "... But when the standard of living dropped to such extent as it dropped after 2014 sentiments toward even slightly different ethnic groups turn hostile too. This is the case in Ukraine. In this sense you are wrong. There is no more unity now then existed before 2014. I would say there is less unity now. ..."
    "... Sentiments turned against both Donbass dwellers and Ukrainians from Western Ukraine. In Kiev the derogatory term for both categories is "ponaekhali" ("come to overcrowd the place and displace us", or something along those lines; it's difficult to translate, but the term carries strong derogatory meaning) ..."
    "... The nationalistic hysteria of 2014-2017 now mostly changed into deep depression: how a tiny group of far right nationalist and football hooligan gangs managed to get to power against the will of the majority of the country and destroy its economy. That's why Zelensky was elected and most far right parliamentarians lost their seats. Most of Western Ukraine voted for him, which is telling you something. ..."
    "... The problem for Ukraine is that with the cut of economic ties with Russia the natural path for economics is probably down. De-industrialization, Baltic style, is raining supreme. Many enterprises survived the period from 1991 to 2014 only due to orders from Russia. Especially remnants of military industrial complex and manufacturing industry. Now what? Selling land (like Zelensky is trying to do) ? ..."
    Jan 17, 2020 | www.unz.com

    likbez says:January 17, 2020 at 8:35 am GMT • 1,500 Words @AP AP,

    I agree with JPM:

    I feel like robber barons in Kyiv have harmed you more through their looting of the country than impoverished Eastern Ukrainians, who were the biggest losers in the post-Soviet deindustrilization, have harmed you by existing and dying of diseases of poverty and despair.

    It reminds me of how coastal shit-libs in America talk about "fly-over" country and want all the poor whites in Appalachia to die. I'm living in a country whose soul is totally poisoned. A country that is dying. While all this is happening, whites have split themselves into little factions focused on political point scoring.

    I doubt people like Zelensky, Kolomoisky, Poroshenko and all the rest are going to turn Ukraine into an earthly paradise. They're more likely to be Neros playing harps, while Ukraine burns.

    Looks like your understanding of Ukraine is mostly based of a short trip to Lvov and reading neoliberal MSM and forums. That's not enough, unless you want to be the next Max Boot.

    Ukraine is a deeply sick patient, which surprisingly still stands despite all hardships (Ukrainians demonstrated amazing, superhuman resilience in the crisis that hit them, which greatly surprised all experts).

    The infrastructure they inherited from the USSR mostly is now fully amortized. For example railway park in in complete ruin. Central heating pipeline communications in cities like Kiev are in ruins too. In the USSR they tried to reuse the heat from electric stations and have elaborate hot water delivery networks from each, which provided heat to a large city blocks. Now pipes are completely rusted (which in 30 years is no surprise) and are in the state of constant repair.

    And, what is really tragic Ukraine now it is a debt state. Usually the latter is the capital sentence for the county. Few managed to escape even in more favorable conditions (South Korea is one.) So chances of economic recovery are slim: with such level of parasitic rent to the West the natural path is down and down. Don't cry for me Argentina.

    And there is no money to replace already destroyed due to bad maintenance infrastructure, but surprisingly large parts of Soviets era infrastructure still somehow hold. For example, electrical networks, subway cars. But other part are already crumbling.

    For example, in Kiev that means in some buildings you have winter without central heating, you have elevators in 16-storey buildings that work one or two weeks in month, you have no hot water, sometimes you have no water at all for a week or more, etc). Pensioners have problem with paying heating bills, so some of them are forced to live in non-heated apartments.

    And that's in Kiev/Kyiv (Western Ukrainians love to change established names, much like communists) . In provincial cities it is a real horror show when even electricity supply became a problem. The countryside dwellers at least has its own food, but the situation for them is also very very difficult.

    Other big problem -- few jobs and almost no well paid job, unless you are young, know English and have a university education (and are lucky). Before 2014 approximately 70% of Ukrainian labor migrants (in total a couple of million) came from the western part of the country, in which migration had become a widespread method of coping with poverty, the absence of jobs and low salaries.

    Now this practice spread to the whole county. That destroyed many families.

    The USA plays its usual games selling vassals crap at inflated prices (arms, uranium rods, coal, locomotives, cars, etc) , which Ukrainians can't refuse. Trump is simply a typical gangster in this respect, running a protection racket.

    The rate of emigration and shrinking population is another fundamental problem. Mass emigration ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Ukraine ) is continuing even after Zelensky election. Looting by the West also continues unabated. This is disaster capitalism in action.

    Add to those problems inflated military expenses to fight the civil war in Donbass which deprives other sectors of necessary funds (with the main affect of completely alienating Russia) and "Huston, we have a problem."

    May be this is a natural path for xUSSR countries after the dissolution of the USSR, I don't know.

    But the destiny of ordinary Ukrainians is deeply tragic: they wanted better life and got a really harsh one. Especially pensioners (typical pension is something like $60-$70) a month in Kiev, much less outside of Kiev. How they physically survive I do not fully understand.

    There are still pro-Russian areas but being free of Crimea and Donbass means Ukraine can no longer be characterized as "split."

    I agree that there is a substantial growth of anti-Russian sentiments. It is really noticeable. As well as growth of the usage of the Ukrainian language (previously Kiev, unlike Lvov was completely Russian-language city).

    And in Western Ukraine Russiphobia was actually always a part of "national identity". The negative definition of national identity, if you wish. See popular slogan "Hto ne skache toi moskal" ("those who do not jump are Moskal" -- where Moskal is the derogatory name for a Russian). Here is this slogan in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6rfqr9afMc ;-)

    But when the standard of living dropped to such extent as it dropped after 2014 sentiments toward even slightly different ethnic groups turn hostile too. This is the case in Ukraine. In this sense you are wrong. There is no more unity now then existed before 2014. I would say there is less unity now.

    Sentiments turned against both Donbass dwellers and Ukrainians from Western Ukraine. In Kiev the derogatory term for both categories is "ponaekhali" ("come to overcrowd the place and displace us", or something along those lines; it's difficult to translate, but the term carries strong derogatory meaning) .

    "Donetskie" (former Donbass dwellers, often displaced by the war) are generally strongly resented and luxury cars, villas, etc and other excesses of neoliberal elite are attributed mostly to them (Donbass neoliberal elite did moved to Kiev, not Moscow) , while "zapadentsi" are also, albeit less strongly, resented because they often use clan politics within institutions, and often do not put enough effort (or are outright incompetent), as they rely on its own clan ties for survival.

    This sentiment is stronger to the south of Kiev where the resentment is directed mainly against Western Ukrainians, not against "Donetskie" like in Kiev. And I am talking not only about Odessa. Western Ukrainians are now strongly associated with corrupt ways of getting lucrative positions (via family, clan or political connections), being incompetent and doing nothing useful.

    What surprise me is that this resentment against "zapadentsi" and "Poloshenko clan" is shared by many people from Western Ukraine. The target is often slightly more narrow, for example Hutsuls in Lviv ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutsuls )

    The nationalistic hysteria of 2014-2017 now mostly changed into deep depression: how a tiny group of far right nationalist and football hooligan gangs managed to get to power against the will of the majority of the country and destroy its economy. That's why Zelensky was elected and most far right parliamentarians lost their seats. Most of Western Ukraine voted for him, which is telling you something.

    The problem for Ukraine is that with the cut of economic ties with Russia the natural path for economics is probably down. De-industrialization, Baltic style, is raining supreme. Many enterprises survived the period from 1991 to 2014 only due to orders from Russia. Especially remnants of military industrial complex and manufacturing industry. Now what? Selling land (like Zelensky is trying to do) ?

    Ukraine will probably eventually lose a large part of its chemical industry because without subsidies for gas it just can't complete even taking into account low labor costs. And manufacturing because without Russian market it is difficult to find a place for their production in already established markets, competing only in price and suffering in quality (I remember something about Iraq returning Ukrainians all ordered armored carriers due to defect is the the armor https://sputniknews.com/military/201705221053859853-armored-vehicles-defects-extent /). Although at least for the Ukrainian arm industry there is place on the market in countries which are used to old Soviet armaments, because those are rehashed Soviet products.

    Add to this corrupt and greedy diaspora (all those Jaresko, Chalupas, Freelands, Vindmans, etc ) from the USA and Canada (and not only diaspora -- look at Biden, Kerry, etc) who want their piece of the pie after 2014 "Revolution of dignity" (what a sad joke) and you will see the problems more clearly. Not that much changed from the period 1991-2014 where Ukraine was also royally fleeced by own oligarchs allied with Western banksers, simply now this leads to quicker deterioration of the standard of living.

    None of Eastern European countries benefited from a color revolution staged by the USA. This is about opening the country not only to multinationals (while they loot the county they at least behave within a certain legal bounds, demonstrating at least decency of gangsters like in Godfather), but to petty foreign criminals from diaspora and outside of it who allies with the local oligarchs and smaller nouveau riche and are siphoning all the county wealth to western banks as soon as possible. Greed of the disapora is simply unbounded. https://neweasterneurope.eu/2016/08/26/the-ukrainian-diaspora-as-a-recipient-of-oligarchic-cash/

    Of course, Ukrainian diaspora is not uniform. Still, outside well-know types from the tiny Mid-Eastern country, the most dangerous people for Ukraine are probably Ukrainians from diaspora with dual citizenship

    [Jan 17, 2020] Alexander Vindman Why Diaspora Ukrainians are Driving Sedition by George Eliason

    Nov 04, 2019 | thesaker.is

    When the Vindman story broke last week, we were pathetically reminded that there is a conspiracy against Ukraine and the Diaspora in America. Conspiracy theorists labeled the Ukrainian government integral nationalists plotting against the current President of the United States even before the final ballots were tallied 2016.

    Although this article will contain many of the elements of the still-developing Vindman story that have been reported on, the focus shifts over to the bigger question- Why? I propose we take a walk into the back of Vindman's mind, which easier done than said. As will be shown, this in part is due to the fact that his thought pattern about Ukraine is reflexive.

    There is no need to question his military service before this juncture because it posed no conflict for him. Although the US Army is backing his right as a whistleblower now, his motivations in this situation could end up with Vindman receiving a court-martial . It's all about his motivation.

    Alexander Vindman's ties to Ukraine should have made him disclose a few large conflicts of interest before being assigned in the capacity he has.

    Vindman had business interests in Ukraine which would suffer if the relationship between both countries was jeopardized. Was it Vindman's American patriotism or Diaspora nationalism that led him to share the Oval Office transcript with Ukraine's president?

    According to the Gateway Pundit , "Colonel Vindman may have violated the federal leaking statute 18 USC 798 when he leaked the president's classified call to several other operatives."

    Anton Gerashchenko, Ukraine's Deputy Interior Minister threatened president-elect Donald Trump that he would put him on his Myrotvorets "Peacemaker" site as a target . This is Ukraine's clearinghouse for hit-for-hire bounties. Because it was heavily publicized, Gerashchenko edited the post after the fact.

    As the in-house expert, Vindman would have known this and yet he still conducted himself in the service of Ukraine. In Vindman's world view it must be acceptable behavior for a foreign government official to threaten his own country's Commander-in-Chief.

    What are his motivations? In his own words, Vindman lays out his priorities.

    I was concerned by the call," Vindman said, according to his testimony obtained by the Associated Press. "I did not think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen, and I was worried about the implications for the U.S. government's support of Ukraine."-Vindman

    "I want to be clear, I was not concerned that anything illegal was discussed ," former NSC Senior Director for European Affairs Tim Morrison testified today.

    Vindman's real concern is the implications of US foreign policy toward Ukraine and keeping it on track with what he thought it should be. I'm sure every Lt Colonel that has a concern intercedes in foreign policy everywhere across the US army.

    "In this situation, a strong and independent Ukraine is critical to U. S. national security interests because Ukraine is a frontline state and a bulwark against Russian aggression. In spite of being under assault from Russia for more than five years, Ukraine has taken major steps towards integrating with the West." When I joined the NSC in July 2018, I began implementing the administration's policy on Ukraine. In the Spring of 2019, I became aware of outside influencers promoting a false narrative of Ukraine inconsistent with the consensus views of the interagency . This narrative was harmful to U.S. government policy. While my interagency colleagues and I were becoming increasingly optimistic on Ukraine's prospects, this alternative narrative undermined U.S. government efforts to expand cooperation with Ukraine .-Vindman

    " Once Ukraine determined that the RF (Russian Federation) was not going to attack and Russia was not a credible threat, they launched their Anti-Terrorist Operations against the rebels (p 65)." Russia's Hybrid War in Ukraine: Breaking the Enemy's Ability to Resist Finnish Institute of International Studies by András Rácz

    What false narrative was Vindman talking about? It was the fact there was no Russian aggression, assaults or invasions going on. Where did this "false narrative" originate?

    In 2014, Ukrainian-American Mark Paslawsky joined Ukraine's Donbas battalion. He was the nephew of one of WWII's most sadistic torturers, Mikola Lebed. Lebed was 3 rd in the Bandera OUN command chain.

    Paslawsky was reported to be an officer in the 75 th Ranger Battalion during the 1990s which puts him on the same pedestal as Alexander Vindman in terms of patriotic duty in the US military.

    The volunteer battalions like Ukraine's Donbas are police and cleansing battalions. Paslawsky was true to his Ukrainian Diaspora upbringing and family heritage. As soon as it was opportune, he forgot about honor, service, and codes of conduct when he entered Ukraine.

    Paslawsky is famous for torturing people he considered "Russian ." No excuses, no apologies, he tortured and murdered civilians. Paslawsky was a good Ukrainian nationalist.

    By July 2014, one month before Paslawsky was killed, Oleg Dube, 2 nd in command of the battalion complained on Twitter that the battalion was full of cowards shooting everything that moved and throwing grenades into the houses, cellars, and every structure killing everyone and everything they came across.

    These were civilians they murdered. But Paslawsky, who tweeted his adventures under the handle "bruce springnote" made one thing abundantly clear- There were no Russian troops or invasion going on as of August 2, 2014.

    This means Vindman's tale saying there as five years of Russian aggression is getting sketchy.

    November 6 th , 2015 In an interview with Gromadske.TV , Markian Lubkivsky, the adviser to the head of the SBU (the Ukrainian version of the CIA) stated there are NO RUSSIAN TROOPS ON UKRANIAN SOIL! This unexpected announcement came as he fumbled with reporters' questions on the subject. According to his statement, he said the SBU counted about 5000 Russian nationals, but not Russian soldiers in Donetsk and Lugansk Peoples Republics. During a briefing with General Muzenko he announced that "To date, we have only the involvement of some members of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and Russian citizens that are part of illegal armed groups involved in the fighting. We are not fighting with the regular Russian Army. We have enough forces and means in order to inflict a final defeat even with illegal armed formation present. " – Ukrainian Armed Forces Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Muzenko said. Is Russia About to Invade Ukraine? UkraineAlert by Alexander J. Motyl published at the Atlantic Council December 13, 2018

    These are primary sources that LTC (Lieutenant Colonel) Vindman and the Wall Street Journal's Pulitzer Prize winner Scott Shane call conspiracy theorists. The Ukrainian government from Torchinov to Poroshenko to Zelenskiy has kept Russia as their primary trade partner this entire time. This is a bit unusual for a country that says another is committing aggression against it. Furthermore, where are the international court cases if this is happening?

    If the White House Ukraine expert isn't fact-checking, what is he basing his position on? Hate, just pure unadulterated hate.

    "The second reason I mention Paslawsky is that he was, after all, a Ukrainian American. In killing him -- and make no mistake about it: Putin killed him -- Putin has taken on, in addition to the entire world, the Ukrainian American Diaspora. He probably thinks it's a joke. But in killing a Ukrainian American, he's made the war in Ukraine personal for Ukrainian Americans. Their intellectual, material, and political resources are far greater than Putin can imagine. Be forewarned, Vlad: diasporas have long memories. And this one will give you and your apologists in Russia and the West no rest .- Alexander Motyl Loose Cannons and Ukrainian Casualties

    The Diaspora's hatred for Russia is hardwired into their culture in America. It was here the concept was fleshed out, not in Ukraine.

    Lonhyn Tsehelsky was Secretary of Internal Affairs and the Secretary of Foreign Affairs for the government of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic in 1917-18. When the almost formed republic collapsed, he immigrated to America. Tsehelsky formed the Ukrainian Congressional Committee of America (UCCA) and brought W. Ukrainian nationalism to America. He is the great uncle to Ukraine's ultra-nationalist Rada minister, Oleh Tyanhybok.

    According to Wikipedia In 1902 Tsehelsky published Rus'-Ukraïna but Moskovshchyna-Rossia (Rus-Ukraine but Moscow-Russia) which had a significant impact on Ukrainian ideas in both Galicia and in Russian-ruled Ukraine. In this book, he highlighted differences that he claimed existed between Ukrainians and Russians in order to show that any union between the two peoples was impossible. Tsehelsky claimed that Ukrainians historically wanted self-rule, while Russians historically sought servitude. Tsehelsky wrote that Ukrainians who opposed Ivan Mazepa were traitors and that Ukrainian history consisted of a constant struggle of Ukrainian attempts at autonomy in opposition to Russian attempts to impose centralization.

    Because the formation of the UCCA is based in this thought and OUNb Bandera lead the Ukrainian-American Diaspora, the politics of hate is what drives them, nothing else.

    According to LTC Jim Hickman who served on a combined US-Russian exercise with Vindman, "At that point, I verbally reprimanded him for his actions, & I'll leave it at that, so as not to be unprofessional myself. The bottom-line is LTC Vindman was a partisan Democrat at least as far back as 2012. So much so, junior officers & soldiers felt uncomfortable around him. This is not your professional, field-grade officer, who has the character & integrity to do the right thing. Do not let the uniform fool you he is a political activist in uniform. I pray our nation will drop this hate, vitriol & division, & unite as our founding fathers intended!" and allow Ukraine to realize its dream of a vibrant democracy and economic prosperity .-Vindman

    US military officers are not in the business of vibrant economies or democracy. Ukraine can't realize Vindman's dream of a vibrant democracy because Ukraine has a nationalism built on Italian fascist philosopher Julius Evola.

    " We are not speaking, of course, of Nationalist ideology , which a radical fringe (or, if you prefer, a leading elite) of Western Ukrainian society adopted in the 1930s and pursued through violent means. Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky condemned it at the time, contrasting it with Christian patriotism.

    Some see the result as a defeat for nationalism. Certainly, it looks like a repudiation of the traditional type of nationalism based on ethnicity, language, history, culture, and religion.

    That is the "old" nationalism of President Poroshenko – and most of our diaspora"-The Ukrainian Weekly May 11, 2019

    Poroshenko made W. Ukraine the model for Ukrainian society today, but what about the Diaspora? That radical fringe was the OUN political model that the Diaspora stayed immersed in and is trying to change the United States into.

    In their own words- " Unity to act when required has been the diaspora's mantra – this cannot be disputed. As time moves on, we see that things take a natural course. We see that two wings of the OUN – Banderivtsi, and Melnykivtsi – are working actively on the international level, working in partnership and currently are in strong negotiations about becoming a single entity again".-Ukraine Weekly Aug 26, 2016

    Ukraine's Zelenskiy was able to run for president based on how he negotiated through these two groups. Poroshenko was OUNb Banderivtsi's candidate. Zelenskiy was OUNm Melnykivtsi's candidate. The difference between the two is nominal. They both have a history built on torture and murder. For a background this shows what's going on in Ukrainian politics in 2019.

    The Ukrainian Diaspora openly claims not just the violent legacy of Stepan Bandera but also the mantle and mandate to attack anything they see threatening their power in Ukraine and influence on the US government. LTC Vindman is part of this culture.

    Why are Ukrainian-Americans at the forefront of every attempt to impeach Donald Trump as well as the deep-state coup going on? Today, Donald Trump is threatening to remove this rancid influence from American politics.

    Looking at the patriotic image the Ukrainian Diaspora tries to project, let's go back to their charter statement on American civics.

    In 1936 the OUN publication, The Nationalist, stated its position pretty clearly about the United States to the native groups that revolved around the UCCA after the war as well as the position they deserved in society.

    "Nationalism is the love of country and the willingness to sacrifice for her A person brought up as a Ukrainian Nationalist will make a one hundred percent better AMERICAN CITIZEN than one who is not .

    Was it Nazis or Fascism that guided Washington, Lincoln, or other statesmen to make the U.S. a world power? Or was it American Nationalism?"

    "For example, archival documents show that the U.S. Secret Service, the FBI, the State Department, a special intelligence unit created by U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and other agencies investigated in 1940-1942 an involvement of OUN and specifically, OUN-B, members, leaders, and sympathizers in a Nazi-led plot to assassinate President Roosevelt." The Politics of World War II in Contemporary Ukraine Ivan Katchanovski Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol. 27, No. 2, pp. 210-233

    As you can see, they haven't changed methods or politics since the 1930s. If they don't like a US president, they try to get rid of him or her in the most convenient way possible. Their issue with Roosevelt is he would never accept Nationalism. Today, they still call the Democrat president Roosevelt, a socialist.

    But, how far across Ukrainian-American society does this go?

    "I do care about social and economic issues affecting every American, but given the war in Ukraine, there is only one issue that we as Ukrainian Americans must focus on: Ukraine The Central and East European Coalition is a coalition of U.S.-based organizations that represent their countries of heritage, a voting group of over 20 million people A vote for Trump is a vote against Ukraine! The upcoming presidential election will be the most important election in which Ukrainian Americans will participate. We can make a difference with deeds not words. Anybody but Trump!- Ukrainian Weekly

    This linked series documents how the Diaspora does it and the impact they have. This article shows why Donald Trump won the 2016 election. If the Democrats are successful removing the Electoral College, the actual vote will be determined by 15 cities. Your vote, win or lose, no longer counts if you don't live in one of them. This is the reason all the Diasporas are strategically located for political impact.

    The history and involvement of Alexandra and Andrea Chalupa in both the 2014 Ukraine coup and the election hacking, as well as Russian interference stories, is well known. These two Ukrainian Diaspora sisters are the originators of the impeachment movement of Donald Trump which started just after he declared victory in 2016. Inside the above links, we have another 20 million Diaspora people who think the same way politically and socially.

    Although this goes beyond partisan lines in Congress, the Democratic Party is overflowing with Diaspora operatives today. Adam Parkhomenko is a great example of this. He describes himself as Democratic Strategist, Consultant, Political Adviser. Dad. Ukrainian-American. Whatever order, son Cameron's my life.

    Parkhomenko works with the DNC, Atlantic Council groups, and other groups trying to illegally overthrow the presidency.

    Members of Congress celebrate this same Ukrainian nationalist brutality in Ukraine and its sister nationalists ISIS in Syria as well as Ukraine. ISIS also adheres to Julius Evola politically. If you want to know what Ukrainian nationalism looks like with no one buffering them, ISIS is ideal to study. This is what they want to do in Donbass. This is what they want America to become.

    "I don't want to dwell on Islamicist ideology; I don't know that much about it. Still, we should note that recent Islamicist terrorists quote Evola with facility One of the features of political Tradition has been the search for a school of the transcendent that could serve as the organizing principle of a new society.

    Theoretically, any of the great religious traditions might serve. In practice, though, Traditionalists have usually chosen a radical version of Islam or some kind of neopaganism; Tradition can be scary, however. Sometimes this knowledge of the inevitable collapse of the modern world inspires nothing more than the formation of groups of adepts who hope to manage the transition when civilization collapses. Sometimes, however, Tradition has sparked the creation of anarchist political groups that hope to accelerate the collapse." After the Third Age Eschatological Elements of Postwar International Fascism, presented by Professor John Reilly at the Seventh Annual Conference of the Center for Millennial Studies, Boston University, November 2 to 4, 2002

    Julius Evola was one of the founders of what became known as the "Tradition" and has adherents infecting all major religions with a fascist/ nationalist construct. According to the fascist Evola (esoteric fascism), immortality is attained by the conscious act that ignores the ramifications of death while plunging headlong into it without a thought. This has nothing to do with the type of religion an adherent is or its afterlife traditions.-

    The Millennial Studies project at Boston University is engaged in the study of groups and ideology that pose existential threats and will eventually destroy the modern world.

    Hence, they named the dangerous time we live in post-modern. It is quite literally the study of an impending apocalypse. The project reports to the government on the real nature of these groups and ideologies to give the government a basis for dealing with them.

    This takes us back to Alexander Vindman as a just another sample of this rabidly nationalist community.

    A Tale of Two Diasporas

    Vindman grew up in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn NY. Its nickname, Little Odessa stems from the large Russians and Ukrainian enclave that grew big from the 1970s onward. Critiques argue that because of the dense population of Russian speaking people, it's hardly the place you'd find Ukrainian nationalists. The statement is false.

    In reality, what you had during the 1970s and 80s through the end of the Cold War was a dense anti-Communist population of which the leading edge was the Ukrainian nationalist Yaroslav Stetsko. After WWII, the Russian anti-communist émigré's that fought against the Soviet Union relocated from the Displaced Person camps to the US.

    This anti-Communist wave sought to be active in US countermeasures against the Soviet Union alongside the Ukrainian nationalists. Because the Ukrainians refused to work with Russian nationals, they were rejected.

    This is a slice of the Russian emigration experience. The Russians kept the important cultural ties but assimilated politically into US democracy politically. Many did maintain a staunch anti-Communist stance throughout the Cold War which transformed into a strong anti-Putin stance during the years after the wall came down.

    For the Ukrainians, almost 50 years of Cold War intrigue kept them bound inside the politics of extreme nationalism. For Soviet émigrés from Ukraine, Little Odessa's Russian speaking Ukrainian community which developed in the 1970s would be the most comfortable place to live.

    The most uncomfortable fact about Ukrainian émigrés to the US is even through this period, the anti-Communist tag meant they came from one side of the Bandera experience or the other. Ukrainian anti-Communism is synonymous with Ukrainian nationalism.

    In Ukraine during the 1970s, your grandparents either fought for the Soviet Army or they fought against them. This means you were a victim of Nazi aggression, fought for Nazis, or fought against Nazism. This in itself isn't a smudge or a smear on Vindman or anyone else.

    Growing up in Brighton Beach inside a mixed Ukrainian-Russian population would have buoyed his family's political beliefs. Little Odessa is part of Brooklyn and isn't an island separated from the Ukrainian nationalist groups critics are arguing applies to Alexander Vindman.

    New York is the headquarters of the Ukrainian Congressional Committee of America (UCCA). If you take part in public Ukrainian cultural life in New York, you rub shoulders with Bandera's OUNb.

    During and after the Cold War, NGOs formed claiming representation in Congress for entire Diasporas like the UCCA does for Ukrainian-Americans. Today is no different.

    The political makeup of the Russian Diaspora in Brooklyn is much the same as it was when Vindman's family moved there. The Russian-Ukrainian population is staunchly anti-communist which translated into anti-Putin Russians for many of them. They want to change the face of the Russian Federation.

    "And so it was on a spring day in 2014 that Gindler, in his deep Russian voice, started talking about Vladimir Putin and called the leader a "nano-Führer." His distrust and distaste for Russia's president is shared by many in the community. " "You shouldn't talk to any Russian-speaking person here in the West and expect any positive words about Putin," said Gindler, a registered independent voter who cast his ballot for Trump in November Gindler immigrated to New York from Ukraine in 1995, a few years after the fall of the Soviet Union.-Business Insider

    These sentiments aren't unique in the Russian-Ukrainian Diasporas. It gives a clear insight into the environment Vindman grew up in except for one thing. The Russian Diaspora found their expression through voting and adding to the American experience like many Diasporas. According to official numbers, about 35% of the Russian Diaspora feels this way.

    Even after Vindman's family emigrated to Little Odessa in the 1970s, the Ukrainian Diaspora were known as political animals, or to be kind, the activists-activist. They still are today. Not content with the American civic experience, they showed how much they are willing to tilt the table during election 2016.

    What does this mean in 2019 for the Russian Diaspora? It means going forward the only representation they have in Congress today is provided by Ukrainian nationalists. The Ukrainian Diaspora of which Alexander Vindman is a solid part of represents Russian émigré interests at the Congressional level.

    That's tilting the table.

    "We represent and coordinate the Russia diaspora. We pay special attention to those who have recently left Russia due to the considerable deterioration of the political and economic situation.

    The Free Russia Foundation is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, nongovernmental U.S.-based organization, led by Russians abroad that seeks to be a voice for those who can't speak under the repression of the current Russian leadership. We represent and coordinate the Russia diaspora. We pay special attention to those who have recently left Russia due to the considerable deterioration of the political and economic situation. We are focused on developing a strategic vision of Russia 'After Putin' and 'Without Putinism' and a concrete program for the transition period. We will continue to inform international policy-makers, mass media and opinion leaders on the real situation in Russia We maintain our extensive networks of key political, business and civil society leaders throughout Russia. This gives us access to news and events in real-time. In addition, we are a hub for recently transplanted Russians and experts on every aspect of Russian society." Free Russia Foundation

    They U.S. policymakers on events in Russia in real-time Support the formulation of an effective and sustainable Russia policy in the U.S.

    This is an Atlantic Council production and Michael D. Weiss is on the Board of Directors. What's notable is they have two locations. One in Washington DC to be close to policymakers and the other is Free Russia House in Kyiv vul. Kyrylivska, 26/2 Kyiv, Ukraine 04071

    Like I said, Ukrainians like Alexander Vindman are trying to represent the Russian Diaspora and promote Ukraine and the Ukrainian Diaspora's interests.

    The basis for understanding why Vindman is clumsily trying to push Donald Trump's impeachment can be found in the following post. This girl left a mid-west university to relive the NAZI experience her grandparents had. If they were UPA, her grandparents were involved with committing the Holocaust and mass murder. This was written just after Maidan ended and months before the civil war in Ukraine began.

    " I have often thought of my ancestors and how they must have felt during WWII (and earlier liberation movements) and the partisan struggle to liberate Ukraine from totalitarian powers. I've always been fascinated by WWII and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), but never in my life did I think I would feel what they felt, get a taste of war, death, and the fight for freedom, such uncertainty, and love for Ukraine in a context similar to theirs These sentiments which were felt by Ukrainians in WWII have been transferred to a new generation of Ukrainians who are reliving the liberation movement, re-struggling for a free, prosperous, and democratic Ukraine. Of course, EuroMaidan and Russia's recent invasion of Ukraine . I feel that I was guided to Ukraine because the love for and attachment to Ukraine was passed down from my grandparents, and as they couldn't return My grandparents' generation fight for freedom didn't succeed, there was no independent Ukraine after the war, and so being intelligentsia and having taken part in the liberation struggle, my relatives would have been persecuted under the Soviets.

    Thus in 1944 when the Soviets were again approaching western Ukraine, my grandparents had to flee west Eventually sotnias(defense/ military units) were formed during EuroMaidan and I couldn't help but think that the last time sotnias were formed was during the war by the UPA The UPA slogan "Glory to Ukraine" and response "Glory to the Heroes" as well as the UPA songs sounded from maidan's across the country, and the black and red UPA flags flew next to the yellow and blue ones. There are in fact a lot more parallels between WWII and EuroMaidan/ the Russian invasion And once we finally had a taste of victory, finally ousted the corrupt president, finally felt we had a chance to completely reboot the country, root out the Soviet mentality once and for all."- Areta Kovalsky

    To drive it home, long after LTV Vindman's youth was over, NAZI monsters are still to be emulated in New York and CT.

    Can Waffen SS officers and mass murderers like Stepan Bandera be Catholic patron saints in cities like New York, Philadelphia, Stamford CT, or Boston in the year 2015?

    " On October 16, 2011, members of the 54th branch of CYM "Khersones" in Stamford, CT attended a mass and requiem service in honor of the great Ukrainian hero and freedom fighter, Stepan Bandera. It was the first time since its' inception that the branches' members took part in an organized activity together with the greater Ukrainian community of Stamford.

    The SUM members and the faithful present that day enjoyed a beautiful and emotional homily about the life and achievements of Stepan Bandera delivered by Reverend Bohdan Danylo, Rector of St. Basil's Seminary in Stamford. He instructed the children on how they can model their own lives on Bandera's by following his example of self-sacrifice and unwavering dedication to his country. Following the homily, Father Bohdan distributed candles to each child which burned brightly during a stirring execution of the prayer "Vichnaya Pam'yat" in honor of the great hero of the Ukrainian nation."

    If you understand the tender emotion expressed watching protesters and police die, you can understand the mind of a Ukrainian nationalist. Vindman is no exception. His history, heroism, and sense of duty don't cover him or excuse him. He reported no crimes that were committed by the sitting President he is trying to impeach. He only said he felt bad for Ukraine. That's not good enough.

    [Jan 17, 2020] A Malicious Indictment Mitch Should Toss Out

    Jan 17, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    Authored by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

    About the impeachment of President Donald Trump she engineered with her Democratic majority, Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday: "It's not personal. It's not political. It's not partisan. It's patriotic."

    Seriously, Madam Speaker? Not political? Not partisan?

    Why then were all eight House members chosen as managers to prosecute the case against Trump, who ceremoniously escorted the articles across the Capitol, all Democrats? Why did the articles of impeachment receive not a single Republican vote on the House floor?

    The truth : The impeachment of Donald Trump is the fruit of a malicious prosecution whose roots go back to the 2016 election, in the aftermath of which stunned liberals and Democrats began to plot the removal of the new president.

    This coup has been in the works for three years.

    First came the crazed charges of Trump's criminal collusion with Vladimir Putin to hack the emails of the DNC and the Clinton campaign and funnel them to WikiLeaks.

    For two years, we heard the cries of "Treason!" from Pelosi's caucus. And despite the Mueller investigation's exoneration of Trump of all charges of conspiracy with Russia, we still hear the echoes:

    Trump is Putin's poodle. Trump is an asset of the Kremlin.

    All we want, and what the American people deserve, is a "fair trial," Democrats and their media collaborators now insist. But can a fair trial proceed from a manifestly deficient and malicious prosecution?

    Consider. In this impeachment, we are told, the House serves as the grand jury, and Adam Schiff's Intelligence Committee and Jerry Nadler's Judiciary Committee serve as the investigators and prosecutors.

    But the articles of impeachment on which the Judiciary Committee and the House voted do not contain a single crime required by the Constitution for impeachment and removal. There is no charge of treason, no charge of bribery or "other high crimes and misdemeanors."

    So weak is the case for impeachment that the elite in this city is demanding that the Senate do the work the House failed to do.

    The Senate must subpoena the documents and witnesses the House failed to produce, to make the case for impeachment more persuasive than it is now.

    Not our job, rightly answers Mitch McConnell.

    The Senate is supposed to be an "impartial jury."

    But while there is a debate over whether Republicans will vote to call witnesses, there is no debate on how the Senate Democrats intend to vote -- 100% for removal of a president they fear they may not be able to defeat.

    Consider Trump's alleged offense : pressing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate Burisma Holdings and Hunter Biden.

    Assume Zelenskiy, without prodding, sent to the U.S., as a friendly act to ingratiate himself with Trump, the Burisma file on Hunter Biden.

    Would that have been a crime?

    Why is it then a crime if Trump asked for the file?

    The military aid Trump held up for 10 weeks -- lethal aid Barack Obama denied to Kyiv -- was sent. And Zelenskiy never held the press conference requested, never investigated Burisma, never sent the Biden file.

    There is a reason why no crime was charged in the impeachment of Donald Trump. There was no crime committed.

    Not political, said Pelosi. Why then did she hold up sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate for a month, after she said it was so urgent that Trump be impeached that Schiff and Nadler could not wait for their subpoenas to be ruled upon by the Supreme Court?

    Pelosi is demanding that the Senate get the documents, subpoena and hear the witnesses, and do the investigative work Schiff and Nadler failed to do.

    Does that not constitute an admission that a convincing case was not made? Are not the articles voted by the House inherently deficient if the Senate has to have more evidence than the House prosecutors could produce to convict the president of "abuse of power"?

    Can we really have a fair trial in the Senate, when half of the jury, the Democratic caucus, is as reliably expected to vote to remove the president as Republicans are to acquit him? What kind of fair trial is it when we can predict the final vote before the court hears the evidence?

    It is ridiculous to deny that this impeachment is partisan, political and personal. It reeks of politics, partisanship and Trump-hatred.

    As for patriotic, that depends on where you stand -- or sit.

    But the forum to be entrusted with the decision of "should Trump go?" is not a deeply polarized Senate, but with those the Founding Fathers entrusted with such decisions -- the American people.

    In most U.S. courts, a prosecution case this inadequate, with prosecutors asking the court itself to get more documents and call more witnesses, and so visibly contaminated with malice toward the accused, would be dismissed outright.

    Mitch McConnell should let the House managers make their case, and then call for a vote to dismiss, and treat this indictment with the contempt it so richly deserves.

    [Jan 16, 2020] Trump is a bully and a tyrant and he embodies perfectly what America is and stands for...brute force

    Jan 16, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    Circe , Jan 15 2020 5:59 utc | 130

    Trump is a bully and a tyrant and he embodies perfectly what America is and stands for...brute force. For all those who thought he was taking the Empire down; if that were the case, the EU would reply FU to Trump. Instead they're shaking in their boots.

    Trump sent over 14,000 more troops to to the ME only since last May! And is he satisfied with that? HELL NO. He wants NATO stationed there too!

    And, he has the 2nd in command of Iran murdered and brings everyone to the brink, but he has not an iota of regret and continues thumping his chest and beating the drums of war.

    That looks like a bigger footprint to me.

    [Jan 16, 2020] Escalation is the easy road to hell. De-escalation and working for peace requires skill and intellegence

    Jan 16, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    V , Jan 16 2020 4:55 utc | 208

    Piotr Berman | Jan 16 2020 4:04 utc | 206

    Indeed. Escalation is the easy road to hell. De-escalation and working for peace requires skill and intellegence.
    Very little of either seemingly emanating from the U.S...

    U.S. diplomacy (non-existent) only comes from the barrel of a gun or the drone fired missile...

    [Jan 15, 2020] Impeachment motto: in our guts, we know Trump is nuts

    Jan 06, 2020 | www.unz.com

    Dumbo , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 6:46 pm GMT

    Donald Trump rode to victory in 2016 on a promise to end the useless wars in the Middle East, but he has now demonstrated very clearly that he is a liar

    He also promised a wall. Maybe he meant the Israeli wall?

    [Jan 15, 2020] Trump and the Mad Negotiator Approach

    Notable quotes:
    "... Another aspect of Trump's erraticness is making sudden shifts, or what we have called gaslighting. He'll suddenly and radically change his rhetoric, even praise someone he demonized. That if nothing else again is a power play, to try to maintain his position as driving the pacing and content of the negotiations, which again is meant to position his counterparty as in a weaker position, of having to react to his moves, even if that amounts to identifying them as noise. It is a watered-down form of a cult strategy called love bombing (remember that Trump has been described as often being very charming in first meetings, only to cut down the person he met in a matter of days). ..."
    "... I would disagree with the "selecting staff" part. I can't really think of any of his appointees to any office while he is president that was a good pick. One worse than the other basically. Maybe in his private dealings he did better, but in public office it's a continuous horror show. Examples like Pence, Haley, "Mad Dog", Bolton, DeVos, his son in law, Pompeo. The list goes on. ..."
    "... For me as a foreigner who detests the forever wars and most of the US foreign policy, this is a good thing: the more heavy handed, the more brutal, the more cruel, the more stupid the US policy is, the less is the chance for our euro governments to follow the US in today's war or other policy. ..."
    "... They are not inept and incompetent at what they are trying to achieve. The GOP has long sought to privatize government to help the rich get richer and harm anyone who isn't rich by cutting services and making them harder to get. Trumps picks are carrying out that agenda very well. ..."
    "... Trump is just a huge crude extension of the usual "exceptional" leaders, much more transparent by not pretending he is any sort of representative of democratic and cooperative values claimed by his predecessors. ..."
    "... But what I think is noticeable is that his worst high profile staff picks, while horrible people, are generally those who are under his thumb and so he has control of. ..."
    "... He got elected over the dead bodies of just about everyone who counts in the Republican Party. He pretty much did a hostile takeover of the GOP. So his ability to draw on seasoned hands was nil. And on top of that, he is temperamentally not the type to seek the counsel of perceived wise men in and hanging around the party. The people he has kept around are cronies like Wilbur Ross and Steve Mnuchin. ..."
    "... The one notably competent person he has attracted and retained is Robert Lightizer, the US Trade Representative ..."
    "... oderint, dum metuant ..."
    "... Führerprinzip ..."
    "... Hitler ran the Third Reich by a system of parallel competition among bureaucratic empire builders of all stripes. Anyone who showed servile loyalty and mouthed his yahoo ideology got all the resources they liked, for any purpose they proposed. But the moment he encountered any form of independence or pushback, he changed horses at once. He left the old group in place, but gave all their resources to a burgeoning new bureaucracy that did things his way. If a State body resisted his will, he had a Party body do it instead. He was continually reaching down 2-3 levels in the org charts, to find some ambitious firecracker willing to suck up to him, and leapfrog to the top. ..."
    "... This left behind a complete chaos of rival, duplicated functions, under mainly unfit leaders. And fortunately for the world, how well any of these organizations actually did their jobs was an entirely secondary consideration. Loyalty was all. ..."
    "... Hitler sat at the center of all the resource grabbers and played referee. This made everyone dependent on his nod and ensured his continued power. The message was: there are no superiors in the Reich. There is only der Führer, and his favor trumps everything ..."
    "... The few over-confident generals he picked, except for Flynn, finally caved when they realized staying was an affront to the honor code they swore to back in OCS or their academy. ..."
    "... I don't know how they selected staff in the Reagan years, but lately the POTUS seems to appoint based on who the plutocrats want. As has been noted Bary O took his marching orders from Citigroup if I remember right. I doubt if Trump had even heard of most of the people he appointed prior to becoming president. So at least some of Trump's turnover is due to him firing recommendations from others who didn't turn out how he'd like. That's one reason I didn't get all that upset over the Bolton hiring – I didn't think he'd last a year before Trump canned him. ..."
    "... I would say that Trump, not acting in an intelligent way is doing very clever things according to his interests. My opinion is that his actions/negotiations with foreign countries are 100% directed for domestic consumptiom. He does not care at all about international relationships, just his populist "make America great again" and he almost certainly play closest attention to the impact of his actions in US opinion. ..."
    "... The maintenance of fear, chaos and blowback are exACTLY the desired result. Deliberately and on purpose. ..."
    "... It also helps him do some things quietly in the background ..."
    Jan 15, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

    Trump and the Mad Negotiator Approach Posted on January 14, 2020 by Yves Smith Trump's numerous character flaws, such as his grandiosity, his lack of interest in the truth, his impulsiveness, his habitual lashing out at critics, have elicited boatloads of disapproving commentary. It's disturbing to see someone so emotional and undisciplined in charge of anything, let alone the United States.

    Rather than offer yet more armchair analysis, it might be productive to ask a different question: why hasn't Trump been an abject failure? There are plenty of rich heirs who blow their inheritance or run the family business into the ground pretty quickly and have to knuckle down to a much more modest lifestyle.

    Trump's lack of discipline has arguably cost him. The noise regularly made about his business bankruptcies is wildly exaggerated. Most of Trump's bankruptcies were of casinos , and most of those took place in the nasty 1991-1992 recession. He was one of only two major New York City developers not to have to give meaningful equity in some of their properties in that downturn. He even managed to keep Mar-a-Lago and persuaded his lenders to let him keep enough cash to preserve a pretty flashy lifestyle because he was able to persuade them that preserving his brand name was key to the performance of Trump-branded assets.

    The idea that Trump couldn't borrow after his early 1990s casino bankruptcies is also false. As Francine McKenna pointed out in 2017 in Donald Trump has had no trouble getting big loans at competitive rates:

    The MarketWatch analysis shows a variety of lenders, all big banks or listed specialized finance companies like Ladder Capital, that have provided lots of money to Trump over the years in the forms of short-, medium- and long-term loans and at competitive rates, whether fixed or variable.

    "The Treasury yield that matches the term of the loan is the closest starting benchmark for Trump-sized commercial real estate loans," said Robert Thesman, a certified public accountant in Washington state who specializes in real estate tax issues. The 10-year Treasury swap rate is also used and tracks the bonds closely, according to one expert.

    Trump's outstanding loans were granted at rates between 2 points over and under the matching Treasury-yield benchmark at inception. That's despite the well-documented record of bankruptcy filings that dot Trump's history of casino investment.

    The flip side is that it's not hard to make the case that Trump's self-indulgent style has cost him in monetary terms. His contemporary Steve Ross of The Related Companies who started out in real estate as a tax lawyer putting together Section 8 housing deals, didn't have a big stake like Trump did to start his empire. Ross did have industrialist and philanthropist Max Fisher as his uncle and role model, but there is no evidence that Fisher staked Ross beyond paying for his education . Ross has an estimated net worth of $7.6 billion versus Trump's $3.1 billion.

    Despite Trump's heat-seeking-missile affinity for the limelight, we only get snippets of how he has managed his business, like his litigiousness and breaking of labor laws. Yet he's kept his team together and is pretty underleveraged for a real estate owner.

    The area where we have a better view of how Trump operates is via his negotiating, where is astonishingly transgressive. He goes out of his way to be inconsistent, unpredictable, and will even trash prior commitments, which is usually toxic, since it telegraphs bad faith. How does this make any sense?

    One way to think of it is that Trump is effectively screening for weak negotiating counterparties. Think of his approach as analogous to the Nigerian scam letters and the many variants you get in your inbox. They are so patently fake that one wonders why the fraudsters bother sending them.

    But investigators figured that mystery out. From the Atlantic in 2012 :

    Everyone knows that Nigerian scam e-mails, with their exaggerated stories of moneys tied up in foreign accounts and collapsed national economies, sound totally absurd, but according to research from Microsoft, that's on purpose .

    As a savvy Internet user you probably think you'd never fall for the obvious trickery, but that's the point. Savvy users are not the scammers' target audience, [Cormac] Herley notes. Rather, the creators of these e-mails are targeting people who would believe the sort of tales these scams involve .:

    Our analysis suggests that is an advantage to the attacker, not a disadvantage. Since his attack has a low density of victims the Nigerian scammer has an over-riding need to reduce false positives. By sending an email that repels all but the most gullible the scammer gets the most promising marks to self-select, and tilts the true to false positive ratio in his favor.

    Who would want to get in a business relationship with a guy who makes clear early on that he might pull the rug out from under you? Most people would steer clear. So Trump's style, even if he adopted it out of deep-seated emotional needs, has the effect of pre-selecting for weak, desperate counterparties. It can also pull in people who think they can out-smart Trump and shysters who identify with him, as well as those who are prepared to deal with the headaches (for instance, the the business relationship is circumscribed and a decent contract will limit the downside).

    Mind you, it is more common than you think for businesses to seek out needy business "partners". For instance, back in the day when General Electric was a significant player in venture capital, it would draw out its investment commitment process. The point was to ascertain if the entrepreneurs had any other prospects; they wouldn't tolerate GE's leisurely process if they did. By the time GE was sure it was the only game in town, it would cram down the principals on price and other terms. There are many variants of this playbook, such as how Walmart treats suppliers.

    Trump has become so habituated to this mode of operating that he often launches into negotiations determined to establish that he had the dominant position when that is far from clear, witness the ongoing China trade row. Trump did in theory hold a powerful weapon in his ability to impose tariffs on China. But they are a blunt weapon, with significant blowback to the US. Even though China had a glass jaw in terms of damage to its economy (there were signs of stress, such as companies greatly stretching out when they paid their bills), Trump could not tolerate much of a stock market downdraft, nor could he play a long-term game.

    Another aspect of Trump's erraticness is making sudden shifts, or what we have called gaslighting. He'll suddenly and radically change his rhetoric, even praise someone he demonized. That if nothing else again is a power play, to try to maintain his position as driving the pacing and content of the negotiations, which again is meant to position his counterparty as in a weaker position, of having to react to his moves, even if that amounts to identifying them as noise. It is a watered-down form of a cult strategy called love bombing (remember that Trump has been described as often being very charming in first meetings, only to cut down the person he met in a matter of days).

    Voters have seen another face of Trump's imperative to find or create weakness: that of his uncanny ability to hit opponents' weak spots in ways that get them off balance, such as the way he was able to rope a dope Warren over her Cherokee ancestry claims.

    The foregoing isn't to suggest that Trump's approach is optimal. Far from it. But it does "work" in the sense of achieving certain results that are important to Trump, of having him appear to be in charge of the action, getting his business counterparts on the back foot. That means Trump is implicitly seeing these encounters primarily in win-lose terms, rather than win-win. No wonder he has little appetite for international organizations. You have to give in order to get.


    PlutoniumKun , January 14, 2020 at 7:08 am

    I think this is pretty astute, thanks Yves. One reason I think Trump has been so successful for his limited range of skills is precisely that 'smart' people underestimate him so much. He knows one thing well – how power works. Sometimes that's enough. I've known quite a few intellectually limited people who have built very successful careers based on a very simple set of principles (e.g. 'never disagree with anyone more senior than me').

    Anecdotally, I've often had the conversation with people about 'taking Trump seriously', as in, trying to assess what he really wants and how he has been so successful. In my experience, the 'smarter' and more educated the person I'm talking to is, the less willing they are to have that conversation. The random guy in the bar will be happy to talk and have insights. The high paid professional will just mutter about stupid people and racism.

    I would also add one more reason for his success – he does appear to be quite good at selecting staff, and knowing who to delegate to.

    timotheus , January 14, 2020 at 8:30 am

    There is another figure from recent history who displayed similar astuteness about power while manifesting generally low intelligence: Chile's Pinochet. He had near failing grades in school but knew how to consolidate power, dominate the other members of the junta, and weed out the slightest hint of dissidence within the army.

    Off The Street , January 14, 2020 at 9:17 am

    To the average viewer, Trump's branding extends to the negative brands that he assigns to opponents. Witness Lyin' Ted , Pocahontas and similar sticky names that make their way into coverage. He induces free coverage from Fake News as if they can't resist gawking at a car wreck, even when one of the vehicles is their own. Manipulation has worked quite a lot on people with different world views, especially when they don't conceive of any different approaches.

    drumlin woodchuckles , January 14, 2020 at 6:52 pm

    Scott Adams touted that as one of Trump's hidden persuasionological weapons . . . that ability to craft a fine head-shot nickname for every opponent.

    If Sanders were to be nominated, I suppose Trump would keep saying Crazy Bernie. Sanders will just have to respond in his own true-to-himself way. Maybe he could risk saying something like . . .

    " so Trashy Trump is Trashy. This isn't new."

    If certain key bunches of voters still have fond memories for Crazy Eddie, perhaps Sanders could have some operatives subtly remind people of that.

    Some images of Crazy Eddie, for those who wish to stumble up Nostalgia Alley . . .

    https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=A0geKYkLVB5emoUAN6RXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTEyNm03Y25mBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMyBHZ0aWQDQTA2MTVfMQRzZWMDc2M-?p=crazy+eddie&fr=sfp

    curious euro , January 14, 2020 at 9:23 am

    I would disagree with the "selecting staff" part. I can't really think of any of his appointees to any office while he is president that was a good pick. One worse than the other basically. Maybe in his private dealings he did better, but in public office it's a continuous horror show. Examples like Pence, Haley, "Mad Dog", Bolton, DeVos, his son in law, Pompeo. The list goes on.

    Another indication how bad his delegation skills are is how short his picks stay at their job before they are fired again. Is there any POTUS which had higher staff turnover?

    NotTimothyGeithner , January 14, 2020 at 9:45 am

    Its a horror show because you don't agree with their values. After the last few Presidents, too much movement to the right would catastrophic, so there isn't much to do. His farm bill is a disaster. The new NAFTA is window dressing. He slashed taxes. He's found a way to make our brutal immigration system even more nefarious. His staff seems to be working out despite it not having many members of the Bush crime family.

    Even if these people were as beloved by the press as John McCain, they would still be monsters.

    curious euro , January 14, 2020 at 10:43 am

    It's not their values that make them a horror show, it's their plain inaptitude and incompetency. E.g. someone like that Exxon CEO is at least somewhat capable, which is why I didn't mention him. Though he was quite ineffective as long as he lasted and probably quite corrupt. Pompeo in the same office on the other hand is simply a moron elevated way beyond his station. Words fail and the Peter principle cannot explain.

    The US can paper over this due to their heavy handed application of power for now, but every day he stays in office, friends are abhorred while trying not to show it, and foes rejoice at the utter stupidity of the US how it helps their schemes.

    For me as a foreigner who detests the forever wars and most of the US foreign policy, this is a good thing: the more heavy handed, the more brutal, the more cruel, the more stupid the US policy is, the less is the chance for our euro governments to follow the US in today's war or other policy. So while I am sort of happy about the outcome, I don't see the current monsters at the helm worse than the monsters 4 years ago under Obama. In fact I detested them much more since they had the power to drag my governments into their evil schemes.

    Evil and clearly despicable is always better than evil and sort of charismatic.

    tegnost , January 14, 2020 at 11:29 am

    For me as a foreigner who detests the forever wars and most of the US foreign policy, this is a good thing: the more heavy handed, the more brutal, the more cruel, the more stupid the US policy is, the less is the chance for our euro governments to follow the US in today's war or other policy.

    Indeed, if you look at the trendline from the '80's to now, trump is, in some ways, the less effective evil.

    James O'Keefe , January 14, 2020 at 1:17 pm

    They are not inept and incompetent at what they are trying to achieve. The GOP has long sought to privatize government to help the rich get richer and harm anyone who isn't rich by cutting services and making them harder to get. Trumps picks are carrying out that agenda very well.

    That he still hasn't filled 170 appointed positions is icing on the cake. See stats at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-administration-appointee-tracker/database/

    rosemerry , January 14, 2020 at 4:47 pm

    I feel exactly the same. Trump is just a huge crude extension of the usual "exceptional" leaders, much more transparent by not pretending he is any sort of representative of democratic and cooperative values claimed by his predecessors.

    PlutoniumKun , January 14, 2020 at 10:05 am

    But what I think is noticeable is that his worst high profile staff picks, while horrible people, are generally those who are under his thumb and so he has control of. But in the behind the scenes activities, they've been very effective – as an obvious example, witness how he's put so many conservative Republicans into the judiciary, in contrast with Obamas haplessness.

    curious euro , January 14, 2020 at 10:51 am

    That is not a Trump thing, getting more judges is a 100% rep party thing and only rep party thing. Sure, he is the one putting his rubber stamp on it, but the picking and everything else is a party thing. They stopped the placement for years under Obama before Trump was ever thought about, and now are filling it as fast as they can. Aren't they having complicit democrats helping them or how can they get their picks beyond congress? Or am I getting something wrong and Obama could have picked his judges but didn't?

    The people he chooses to run his administration however are all horrible. Not just horrible people but horrible picks as in incompetent buffoons without a clue. Can you show a evil, horrible or not but actually competent pick of his in his administration?

    The only one I can think of is maybe the new FAA chief Dickson. Who is a crisis manager, after the FAA is in its worst crisis ever right now. So right now someone competent must have this post. All the others seem to be chickenhawk blowhards with the IQ of a fruitfly but the bluster of a texan.

    fajensen , January 14, 2020 at 11:13 am

    Gina Haspel? She is probably equally good with a handgun, an ice pick and a pair of pliers.

    curious euro , January 14, 2020 at 11:49 am

    Is she effective? What has she done to make her a spy mastermind? She is obviously a torturer, but is that a qualification in any way useful to be a intelligence agency boss?

    I have the suspicion Haspel was elevated to their office by threatening "I know where all the bodies are buried (literally) and if you don't make me boss, I will tell". Blackmail can helping a career lots if successful.

    Thuto , January 14, 2020 at 11:18 am

    The outcomes of incompetence and malicious intent are sometimes indistinguishable from one another. With the people Trump has surrounded himself with, horrible, nasty outcomes are par for the course because these guys are both incompetent and chock full of malicious intent. Instead of draining the swamp, he's gone and filled it with psychotic sociopaths.

    drumlin woodchuckles , January 14, 2020 at 7:04 pm

    Some time ago I heard Mulvaney answer the criticism about the Trump budget of the day cutting so much money from EPA that EPA would have to fire half of its relevant scientists. He replied that " this is how we drain the swamp".

    Citing "corruption" was misdirection. Trump let his supporters believe that the corruption was The Swamp. What the Trump Group ACTually means by "The Swamp" is all the career scientists and researchers and etc. who take seriously the analyzing and restraining of Upper Class Looter misbehavior.

    Yves Smith Post author , January 14, 2020 at 12:28 pm

    I limited the post to his negotiating approach. One would think someone so erratic would have trouble attracting people. However, Wall Street and a lot of private businesses are full of high maintenance prima donnas at the top. Some of those operations live with a lot of churn in the senior ranks. For others, one way to get them to stay is what amounts to a combat pay premium, they get paid more than they would in other jobs to put up with a difficult boss. I have no idea how much turnover there is in the Trump Organization or how good his key lieutenants are so I can't opine either way on that part.

    Regarding his time as POTUS, Trump has a lot of things working against him on top of his difficult personality and his inability to pay civil servants a hardship premium:

    1. He got elected over the dead bodies of just about everyone who counts in the Republican Party. He pretty much did a hostile takeover of the GOP. So his ability to draw on seasoned hands was nil. And on top of that, he is temperamentally not the type to seek the counsel of perceived wise men in and hanging around the party. The people he has kept around are cronies like Wilbur Ross and Steve Mnuchin.

    The one notably competent person he has attracted and retained is Robert Lightizer, the US Trade Representative

    2. Another thing that undermines Trump's effectiveness in running a big bureaucracy is his hatred for its structure. He likes very lean organizations with few layers. He can't impose that on his administration. It's trying to put a round peg in a square hole.

    cocomaan , January 14, 2020 at 1:56 pm

    I have no idea how much turnover there is in the Trump Organization or how good his key lieutenants are so I can't opine either way on that part.

    Is it just me or does nobody know? Does it seem to anyone else like there has been virtually no investigation of his organization or how it was run?

    Maybe it's buried in the endless screeds against Trump, but any investigations of his organizations always seem colored by his presidency. I'd love to see one that's strictly historical.

    Yves Smith Post author , January 14, 2020 at 2:10 pm

    I am simply saying that I have not bothered investigating that issue. There was a NY Times Magazine piece on the Trump Organization before his election. That was where I recall the bit about him hating having a lot of people around him, he regards them as leeches. That piece probably had some info on how long his top people had worked for him.

    ObjectiveFunction , January 15, 2020 at 2:30 am

    Congratulations Yves, on another fine piece, one of your best. I might recommend you append this comment to it as an update, or else pen a sequel.

    While Trump has more in common stylistically with a Borgia prince out of Machiavelli, or a Roman Emperor ( oderint, dum metuant ) than with a Hitler or a Stalin, your note still puts me in mind of an insightful comment I pulled off a history board a while ago, regarding the reductionist essence of Führerprinzip , mass movement or no mass movement. It's mostly out of Shirer:

    Hitler ran the Third Reich by a system of parallel competition among bureaucratic empire builders of all stripes. Anyone who showed servile loyalty and mouthed his yahoo ideology got all the resources they liked, for any purpose they proposed. But the moment he encountered any form of independence or pushback, he changed horses at once. He left the old group in place, but gave all their resources to a burgeoning new bureaucracy that did things his way. If a State body resisted his will, he had a Party body do it instead. He was continually reaching down 2-3 levels in the org charts, to find some ambitious firecracker willing to suck up to him, and leapfrog to the top.

    This left behind a complete chaos of rival, duplicated functions, under mainly unfit leaders. And fortunately for the world, how well any of these organizations actually did their jobs was an entirely secondary consideration. Loyalty was all.

    Hitler sat at the center of all the resource grabbers and played referee. This made everyone dependent on his nod and ensured his continued power. The message was: there are no superiors in the Reich. There is only der Führer, and his favor trumps everything .

    As you note, some of these tools (fortunately) aren't available to Cheeto 45 .

    I hope this particular invocation of Godwin's avenger is trenchant, and not OT. Although Godwin himself blessed the #Trump=Hitler comparison some time ago, thereby shark-jumping his own meme.

    Tomonthebeach , January 14, 2020 at 12:53 pm

    It might be as simple as birds of a feather (blackbirds of course) flocking together. Trump seems to have radar for corrupt cronies as we have seen his swamp draining into the federal prison system. The few over-confident generals he picked, except for Flynn, finally caved when they realized staying was an affront to the honor code they swore to back in OCS or their academy.

    lyman alpha blob , January 14, 2020 at 2:16 pm

    The crooks in the Reagan administration were getting bounced seemingly every other day. Just found this from Brookings (blecchh) which if accurate says Trump has recently surpassed Reagan – https://www.brookings.edu/research/tracking-turnover-in-the-trump-administration/

    I don't know how they selected staff in the Reagan years, but lately the POTUS seems to appoint based on who the plutocrats want. As has been noted Bary O took his marching orders from Citigroup if I remember right. I doubt if Trump had even heard of most of the people he appointed prior to becoming president. So at least some of Trump's turnover is due to him firing recommendations from others who didn't turn out how he'd like. That's one reason I didn't get all that upset over the Bolton hiring – I didn't think he'd last a year before Trump canned him.

    My recollection of the Reagan years was that he had a lot of staff who left to "spend more time with their families"; in other words they got caught being crooked and we're told to go lest they besmirch the sterling reputation of St. Ronnie.

    drumlin woodchuckles , January 14, 2020 at 6:57 pm

    He early-on adopted the concept of "dismantle the Administrative State". Some of his appointees are designed to do that from within. He appoints termites to the Department of Lumber Integrity because he wants to leave the lumber all destroyed after he leaves the White House.

    His farm bill is only a disaster to those who support Good Farm Bill Governance. His mission is to destroy as much of the knowledge and programs within the USDA as possible. So his farm bill is designed to achieve the destruction he wants to achieve. If it works, it was a good farm bill from his viewpoint. For example.

    Ignacio , January 15, 2020 at 5:38 am

    I would say that Trump, not acting in an intelligent way is doing very clever things according to his interests. My opinion is that his actions/negotiations with foreign countries are 100% directed for domestic consumptiom. He does not care at all about international relationships, just his populist "make America great again" and he almost certainly play closest attention to the impact of his actions in US opinion.

    He calculates the risks and takes measures that show he is a strong man defending US interests (in a very symplistic and populist way) no matter if someone or many are offended, abused or even killed as we have recently seen. Then if it is appreciated that a limit has been reached, and the limit is not set by international reactions but perceived domestic reactions, he may do a setback showing how sensibly magnanimous can a strongman like him be. In the domestic front, IMO, he does not give a damn on centrists of all kinds. Particularly, smart centrists are strictly following Trumps playbook focusing on actions that by no means debilitate his positioning as strongman in foreign issues and divert attention from the real things that would worry Trump. The impeachment is exactly that. Trump must be 100% confident that he would win any contest with any "smart" centrist. Of course he also loves all the noises he generates with, for instance, the Soleimani killing or Huawei banning that distract from his giveaways to the oligarchs and further debilitation of remaining welfare programs and environmental programs. This measures don't pass totally unnoticed but Hate Inc . and public opinions/debates are not paying the attention his domestic measures deserve. Trump's populism feeds on oligarch support and despair and his policies are designed to keep and increase both. Polls on Democrats distract from the most important polls on public opinion about Trum "surprise" actions.

    Trump will go for a third term.

    Seamus Padraig , January 14, 2020 at 7:18 am

    Trump has the rare gift of being able to drive his enemies insane–just witness what's become of the Democrats, a once proud American political party.

    Eureka Springs , January 14, 2020 at 9:39 am

    Democrats have long been (what, 50 plus yrs. – Phil Ochs – Love Me I'm A Liberal) exuding false pride of not appearing to be or sounding insane. Their place, being the concern troll of the duopoly. All are mad. If the Obama years didn't prove it, the Dems during Bush Cheney certainly did.

    curious euro , January 14, 2020 at 10:53 am

    Yes, 50 years. Nixon played mad to get his Vietnam politics through, Reagan was certifiable
    "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever." "We begin bombing in five minutes." live on air.
    Etc.

    vlade , January 14, 2020 at 7:38 am

    I suspect only half of the post was posted? The last para seems to get cut in mid sentence.

    I'd add one more thing (which may be in the second half, assuming there's one). Trump's massively insane demands are a good anchoring strategy. Even semi-rational player will not make out-of-this-earth demands – they would be seen as either undermining their rationality, or clearly meant to only anchor so less effective (but surprisingly, even when we know it's only an anchor it apparently works, at least a bit). With irrational Trump, one just doesn't know.

    vlade , January 14, 2020 at 7:44 am

    Or maybe not (re half posted), now that I re-read it.. More likely it's just me being sleep deprived today :)

    GramSci , January 14, 2020 at 7:41 am

    Classic predatory behaviors: culling the herd and eating the weak.

    David , January 14, 2020 at 8:21 am

    I think Trump understands that one of the basic tactics of negotiation (though forgotten by the Left(tm)) is to set out a maximalist position before the negotiation starts, so that you have room to make compromises later. Sometimes this works better than others – I don't know how far you can do it with the Chinese, for example. But then Trump may have inadvertently played, in that case, into the tradition of scripted public utterances combined with behind-the-scenes real negotiation that tends to characterize bargaining in Asia. But in domestic politics, there's no doubt that publicly announcing extreme negotiating positions is a winning tactic. You force the media and other political actors to comment and make counter-proposals, thus dragging the argument more in your direction from the very start. Trump remembers something that his opponents have willfully forgotten: compromise is something you finish with not something you start from . In itself, any given compromise has no particular virtue or value.

    Michael Fiorillo , January 14, 2020 at 8:59 am

    Yes, Trump does seem to be very good at getting to people to "negotiate against themselves."

    chuck roast , January 14, 2020 at 9:52 am

    and that is why Trump will eat Biden's lunch.

    The Rev Kev , January 14, 2020 at 9:09 am

    There is actually two parts to a negotiation I should mention. There is negotiating a deal. And then there is carrying it out. Not only Trump but the US has shown itself incapable of upholding deals but they will break them when they see an advantage or an opportunity. Worse, one part of the government may be fighting another part of the government and will sabotage that deal in sometimes spectacular fashion.
    So what is the point of having all these weird and wonderful negotiating strategies if any partners that you have on the international stage have learned that Trump's word is merely a negotiating tactic? And this includes after a deal is signed when he applies some more pressure to change something in an agreement that he just signed off on? If you can't keep a deal, then ultimately negotiating a deal is useless.

    curious euro , January 14, 2020 at 9:28 am

    The incapability of the US to keep their treaties has been a founding principle of the country. Ask any Indian.

    Putin or the russian foreign ministry called the US treaty incapable a few years before Trump, and they were not wrong. Trump didn't help being erratic as he is, but he didn't cancel any treaty on his own: JCPOA, INF, etc. He had pretty broad support for all of these. Only maybe NAFTA was his own idea.

    Yves Smith Post author , January 14, 2020 at 12:31 pm

    I would put it a bit differently. Trump's erraticness is a strong signal he fits to a pattern the Russians have used to depict the US: "not agreement capable". That's what I meant by he selects for weak partners. His negotiating style signals that he is a bad faith actor. Who would put up with that unless you had to, or you could somehow build that into your price?

    barnaby33 , January 14, 2020 at 11:53 pm

    Considering I doubt the Russians have ever honored a single deal they made, that's maybe not a good example!

    Yves Smith Post author , January 15, 2020 at 12:16 am

    I have no idea who your mythical Russians are. I know two people who did business in Russia before things got stupid and they never had problems with getting paid. Did you also miss that "Russians" have bought so much real estate in London that they mainly don't live in that you could drop a neutron bomb in the better parts of Chelsea and South Kensington and not kill anyone? Pray tell, how could they acquire high end property if they are such cheats?

    Boomka , January 15, 2020 at 6:38 am

    somebody was eating too much US propaganda? how about this for starters:
    https://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/26-years-on-russia-set-to-repay-all-soviet-unions-foreign-debt

    "It is politically important: Russia has paid off the USSR's debt to a country that no longer exists," said Mr Yuri Yudenkov, a professor at the Russian University of Economics and Public Administration. "This is very important in terms of reputation: the ability to repay on time, the responsibility," he told AFP.

    It would have been very easy for Russia to say it cannot be held responsible for USSR's debts, especially in this case where debt is to a non-existent entity.

    drumlin woodchuckles , January 14, 2020 at 7:09 pm

    In Syria, the Department of Defense was supporting one group of pet jihadis. The CIA was supporting a different group of pet jihadis.

    At times the two groups of pet jihadis were actively fighting eachother. I am not sure how the DoD and CIA felt about their respective pet jihadis fighting eachother. However they felt, they kept right on arming and supporting their respective groups of pet jihadis to keep fighting eachother.

    timbers , January 14, 2020 at 9:47 am

    I'm just not impressed by Trump in any way.

    He owes the fact he's President not to any skill he has, but to Democrats being so bad. Many non establishment types could have beaten Hillary.

    And Trump owes the fact that he's not DOA in 2020 re-election again because Democrats are so bad. There are a handful of extremely popular social programs Democrats could champion that would win over millions of voters and doom Trump's re-election. But instead, they double down on issues that energize Trump's base, are not off-limits to there donors while ignoring what the broad non corporate/rich majority support. For example impeaching him for being the first recent President not to start a major new war for profit and killing millions and then saying it's really because something he did in Ukraine that 95% of Americans couldn't care less about and won't even bother to understand even if they could.

    That leaves the fact he is rather rich and must have done something to become that. I don't know enough about him to evaluate that. But I would never what to know him or have a friend that acts like him. I've avoided people like that in my life.

    Yves Smith Post author , January 14, 2020 at 12:36 pm

    Did you read the post as positive? Please read again. Saying that Trump's strategy works only to the extent that he winds up selecting for weak partners is not praise. First, it is clinical, and second, it says his strategy has considerable costs.

    MyLessThanPrimeBeef , January 14, 2020 at 4:35 pm

    I agree.

    Understanding how it works is the first step in dealing with (or countering) it.

    Someone above mentions Pinochet as being similar. I can't, just now, think of anyone* from history working the way he does. Can anyone name some?

    *Except Shakespeare's Hamlet, or some Kung Fu masters, like Jackie Chan in his 1978 "Drunken Master," or earlier, the not as well-known 1966 film, Come Drink With Me, which was produced by the legendary Run Run Shaw (who lived to be 107, or maybe it was his brother), starring Cheng Pei Pei. The master becomes the master when, or only when, drunk. It reminds of the saying, 'method to the madness.'

    And often what we perceive to be chaotic – in weather, nature, space or human affairs – is only so because we don't truly comprehend it. This is not to say it can not be in fact chaotic.

    rd , January 14, 2020 at 6:54 pm

    I find it interesting that the primary foreign entity who has played Trump like a violin is Kim in North Korea. He has gotten everything he wanted,except sanctions relief over the past couple of years.

    However, Trump's style of negotiating with Iran has made it clear to Kim that North Korea would be idiots to give up their nuclear weapons and missiles. Meanwhile, Iran has watched Trump's attitude towards Kim since Kim blew up his first bomb and Trump is forcing them to develop nuclear weapons to be able to negotiate with Trump and the West.

    ObjectiveFunction , January 15, 2020 at 1:36 am

    But other than the minor matter of US 8th Army (cadre) sitting in the line of fire, the bulk of any risks posed by Li'l Kim are borne by South Korea, Japan and China. So for Trump, it's still down the list a ways, until the Norks can nuke tip a missile and hit Honolulu. So what coup has Kim achieved at Trump's expense, again?

    drumlin woodchuckles , January 14, 2020 at 7:13 pm

    Today's Democrats want to destroy those social programs you cite. They have wanted to destroy those social programs ever since President Clinton wanted to conspire with "Prime Minister" Gingrich to privatize Social Security. Luckily Monica Lewinsky saved us from that fate.

    A nominee Sanders would run on keeping Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid in existence. And he would mean it. A nominee Biden might pretend to say it. But he would conspire with the Republicans to destroy them all.

    The ClintoBama Pelosicrats have no standing on which to pretend to support some very popular social programs and hope to be believed any longer. Maybe that is why they feel there is no point in even pretending any more.

    Carolinian , January 14, 2020 at 10:08 am

    Thanks for the shrewd analysis. The problem is that Trump appears to be morphing from the mad negotiator into someone who really is mad. I think he knows he screwed up with Soleimani and there's no taking it back, only doubling down. You can't talk your way out of some mistakes. Trump is shrewd, but not very smart and like most bullies he's also weak. He gets by being such an obvious bluffer and blowhard but when you start assassinating people and expect to be praised for it it's no longer a game.

    False Solace , January 14, 2020 at 1:03 pm

    If I were Iran I'd think really hard about scheduling something embarrassing to happen just before the election. Jimmy Carter was seriously damaged by hostages, why not Trump?

    drumlin woodchuckles , January 14, 2020 at 7:14 pm

    Trump would simply bomb the hostages.

    MyLessThanPrimeBeef , January 14, 2020 at 4:52 pm

    If you note and believe he tends to start out at the furthest position, the question then becomes, is this his most forceful action.

    Is it the general plus collateral damage, and no more/no worse?

    Or maybe he doesn't always start out at the far end. Then, people need to respond differently, if the aim is to play the man in this chess game.

    Carolinian , January 14, 2020 at 4:59 pm

    I'd say the solution is to give Trump the heave ho this November and not play his game of me me me. Indeed the Iranians seem to be biding their time to see what happens.

    Trump was always only tolerable as long as he spent his time shooting off his mouth rather than playing the imperial chess master. This reality show has gone on long enough.

    MyLessThanPrimeBeef , January 14, 2020 at 5:10 pm

    And to give Trump the heave-ho, we have to know how to play the man. (Then, Iran doesn't have to.)

    But if we don't fully know – if he is unpredictable in how he starts out at the beginning – it makes the venture harder (but not impossible).

    drumlin woodchuckles , January 14, 2020 at 7:22 pm

    Bearing in mind the fact that the DemParty would prefer a Trump re-election over a Sanders election, I don't think anyone will be giving Trump any heave ho. The only potential nominee to even have a chance to defeat Trump would be Sanders. And if Sanders doesn't win on ballot number one, Sanders will not be permitted the nomination by an evil Trumpogenic DemParty elite.

    Even if Sanders wins the nomination, the evil Trumpogenic Demparty leadership and the millions of Jonestown Clintobamas in the field will conspire against Sanders every way they feel they can get away with. The Clintobamas would prefer Trump Term Two over Sanders Term One. They know it, and the rest of us need to admit it.

    If Sanders is nominated, he will begin the election campaign with a permanent deficit of 10-30 million Clintobama voters who will Never! Ever! vote for Sanders. Sanders will have to attract enough New Voters to drown out and wash away the 10-30 million Never Bernie clintobamas.

    OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL , January 14, 2020 at 7:39 pm

    Not sure he "screwed up" with Suleimani. He now has something to point to when Adelson and the Israel Firsters ring up. He has red meat for his base ("look what a tough guy I am"). He can tell the Saudis they now owe him one. He added slightly to the fund of hatred for America in the hearts of Sunnis but that fund is already pretty full. If they respond with a terror attack Trump wins because people will rally around the national leader and partisan differences will be put aside. Notice how fast de-escalation happened, certainly feels alot like pre-orchestrated kayfabe.

    Yves Smith Post author , January 14, 2020 at 6:42 pm

    Mind you, there's no reason to think that this negotiation approach wasn't an adaptation to Trump's emotional volatility, as in finding a way to make what should have been a weakness a plus. And that he's less able to make that adaptation work well as he's over his head, has less control than as a private businessman, and generally under way more pressure.

    marym , January 14, 2020 at 10:23 am

    If someone doesn't care who/what they harm or destroy; or if the harm or destruction is the actual goal, it gives them freedom and power not available to someone with even a crumb-dropping neoliberal sense (or façade) of obligation toward anyone else or to anything constructive.

    With Democrats being unwilling to scrutinize, it's not clear how much Trump and family are winning as far as personal fortune. In his public capacity he has little to show for his winnings that isn't some form of dismantling, destruction, or harm with no constructive replacement and no material benefits outside the donor class.

    xkeyscored , January 14, 2020 at 2:47 pm

    Trying to see things from Trump's perspective, while I don't know how his personal fortune is faring, his lifestyle doesn't seem to have suffered too much of a downturn. He still spends much of his time playing golf and hanging out at Mar-a-Lago. In addition, his name is known around the entire world, to a far greater extent than when he was a mere real estate crook or reality TV phenomenon. Which may be of greater importance to him than the precise extent of his wealth, let alone the fate of his country or the planet.

    Wondering , January 14, 2020 at 10:48 am

    Nice analysis, Yves. A welcome break from the typical centrist hand wringing "What norms has he broken this week?"
    Next question: Given that our system allows for bloviating bullies to succeed, is that the kind of system we want to live under?

    HH , January 14, 2020 at 11:43 am

    I recall reading that Trump's empire would have collapsed during the casino fiasco were it not for lending from his father when credit was not available elsewhere. NYT investigative reporters have turned up evidence of massive financial support from Trump father to son to the tune of hundreds of millions throughout the son's career. So much for the great businessman argument.

    carbpow , January 14, 2020 at 11:45 am

    Trump is nothing more or less than a reflection of the mind set of the US people.The left wing resorts to the same tactics that Trump uses to gain their ends. Rational thought and reasonable discussion seems to be absent. Everyone is looking for a cause for the country's failing infrastructure, declining life expectancy, and loss of opportunity for their children to have a better life than they were able to achieve They each blame the other side. But there are more than two sides to most folks experience. If ever the USA citizens abolish or just gets fed up with the two party system maybe things will change. In reality most people know there is little difference between the two parties so why even vote?

    Thuto , January 14, 2020 at 11:48 am

    While it might work in domestic politics, this mad man negotiating tactic erodes trust in international affairs and it will take decades for the US to recover from the harm done by Trump's school yard bully approach. Even the docile Europeans are beginning to tire of this and once they get their balls stitched back on after being castrated for so long, America will have its work cut out crossing the chasm from unreliable and untrustworthy partner to being seen as dependable and worthy of entering into agreements with.

    Jeremy Grimm , January 14, 2020 at 12:11 pm

    This analysis of Trump reminded me of a story I heard from the founders of a small rural radio station. Both had been in broadcasting for years at a large station in a major market, one as a program director and the other in sales. They competed for a broadcasting license that became available and they won. With the license in-hand they needed to obtain investments to get the station on-air within a year or they would lose the license. Even with their combined savings and as much money as they could obtain from other members of their families and from friends -- they were short what they needed by several hundred thousand dollars. Their collateral was tapped out and banks wouldn't loan on the broadcast license alone without further backing. They had to find private investors. They located and presented to several but their project could find no backers. In many cases prospects told them their project was too small -- needed too little money -- to be of interest. As the deadline for going on-air loomed they were put in touch with a wealthy local farmer.

    After a long evening presenting their business case to this farmer in ever greater detail, he sat back and told them he would give them the money they needed to get their station on-air -- but he wanted a larger interest in the business than what they offered him. He wanted a 51% interest -- a controlling interest -- or he would not give them the money, and they both had to agree to work for the new radio station for a year after it went on-air. The two holders of the soon to be lost broadcast license looked at each other and told the farmer he could keep his money and left. The next day the farmer called on the phone and gave them the names and contact information for a few investors, any one of whom should be able and interested in investing the amounts they needed on their terms. He also told them that had they accepted his offer he would have driven them out of the new station before the end of the year it went on-air. He said he wanted to see whether they were 'serious' before putting them in touch with serious investors.

    juliania , January 14, 2020 at 12:22 pm

    Sorry, assassination doesn't fit into this scenario. That is a bridge too far. Trump has lost his effectiveness by boasting about this. It isn't just unpredictability. It is dangerous unpredictability.

    Yves Smith Post author , January 15, 2020 at 5:52 am

    I never once said that Trump was studied in how he operates, in fact, I repeatedly pointed out that he's highly emotional and undisciplined. I'm simply describing some implications.

    meadows , January 14, 2020 at 12:28 pm

    If our corrupt Congress had not ceded their "co-equal" branch of gov't authority over the last 40 years thereby gradually creating the Imperial Presidency that we have now, we might comfortably mitigate much of the mad king antics.

    Didn't the Founding Fathers try desperately to escape the terrible wars of Europe brought on by the whims and grievances of inbred kings, generation after generation? Now on a whim w/out so much as a peep to Congress, presidential murder is committed and the CongressCritters bleat fruitlessly for crumbs of info about it.

    I see no signs of this top-heavy imperialism diminishing. Every decision will vanish into a black hole marked "classified."

    I am profoundly discouraged at 68 who at 18 years old became a conscientious objector, that the same undeclared BS wars and BS lies are used to justify continuous conflct almost nonstop these last 50 years as if engaging in such violence can ever be sucessful in achieving peaceful ends? Unless the maintenance of fear, chaos and blowback are the actual desired result.

    Trump's negotiating style is chaos-inducing deliberately, then eventually a "Big Daddy" Trump can fix the mess, spin the mess and those of us still in the thrall of big-daddyism can feel assuaged. It's the relief of the famiy abuser who after the emotional violence establishes a temporary calm and family members briefly experience respite, yet remain wary and afraid.

    drumlin woodchuckles , January 14, 2020 at 7:34 pm

    Bingo!

    The maintenance of fear, chaos and blowback are exACTLY the desired result. Deliberately and on purpose.

    Jeff Wells of Rigorous Intuition wrote a post about that years ago, in a different context. Here it is.

    https://rigint.blogspot.com/2006/07/violent-bear-it-away.html

    Edward , January 14, 2020 at 2:14 pm

    In some ways Trump has a very Japanese style; everything is about saving face even if you are saying complete nonsense. You have to divine what his actual agenda is. However his approach to negotiation actually works in the business world, it is a disaster as diplomacy.

    In trying to make sense of his foreign policy, though, there are hidden factors; some how deep state interests are able to maneuver presidents into following the same policies. What is happening behind the scenes? This manipulation may be contaminating his negotiations.

    ian , January 14, 2020 at 7:12 pm

    I saw an interview with someone (can't remember who) who had a great analogy for the relationship between Trump and the press: think of the press as a herd of puppies and Trump is the guy with the tennis ball. He tosses outrageous things out there, they all chase it. One brings it back, he tosses it again.

    Why would he do this? My own take is that he invites chaos – he has a fluid style, changing his mind often, dumping people and the like which thrives in a chaotic environment. He likes to shake things up and look for openings.

    It also helps him do some things quietly in the background, along with key allies. While everyone was foaming at the mouth over Russian collusion, he and Mitch McConnell were busy getting appellate judges confirmed.

    I think it is a mistake to underestimate him – he is an unusual person, but far from stupid.

    xkeyscored , January 15, 2020 at 5:42 am

    It also helps him do some things quietly in the background
    I think you've hit the nail on the head there.

    drumlin woodchuckles , January 14, 2020 at 7:29 pm

    There is a silver lining to that. If another term of Trump inspires the Europeans to abrogate NATO and put an end to that alliance and create their own NEATO ( North East Atlantic Treaty Organization) withOUT America and withOUT Canada and maybe withOUT some of those no-great-bargain East European countries; then NEATO Europe could reach its own Separate Peace with Russia and lower that tension point.

    And America could bring its hundred thousand hostages ( "soldiers") back home from not-NATO-anymore Europe.

    KFritz , January 14, 2020 at 10:17 pm

    Kim Jong Un uses similar tactics, strategy, perhaps even style. Clinically and intellectually, it's interesting to watch their interaction. Emotionally, given their weaponry, it's terrifying.

    Jason , January 15, 2020 at 9:15 am

    Great post! The part about selecting for desperate business partners is very insightful, it makes his cozying up to dictators and pariah states much more understandable. He probably thinks/feels that these leaders are so desperate for approval from a country like the US that, when he needs something from them, he will have more leverage and be able to impose what he wants.

    [Jan 14, 2020] Impeachment Of President Trump An Imperial War Game by By Barbara Boyd

    Highly recommended!
    Barbara Boyd correctly called Kent testimony "obsine" becase it was one grad neocon gallisination, which has nothing to do with real facts on the ground.
    She attributed those dirty games not only to the USA but also to London.
    Nov 22, 2019 | futurefastforward.com

    If you want to stop the coup against the President, you must understand how Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton's State Department carried out a coup against the democratically elected government of Ukraine in 2014.

    In a November 16 webcast, LaRouche PAC's Barbara Boyd presented the real story behind the present impeachment farce: how the very forces running the attack on President Trump, used thugs as their enforcers, in order to turn Ukraine into a pawn in the British geopolitical war drive against Russia.

    https://youtu.be/uBg3vLjWePI

    [Jan 14, 2020] DiGenova Calls Out Soros' Control Over State Department and FBI

    Nov 19, 2019 | canadianpatriot.org
    The Open Society and Anti-Defamation League have gone ballistic last week demanding for the unprecedented eternal banning of Joe diGenova from Fox News or else.

    DiGenova (former Federal Attorney for the District of Columbia) committed a grievous crime indeed, calling out the unspeakable "philanthropist" George Soros on Fox News' Lou Dobbs Show on Nov. 14 as a force controlling a major portion of the American State Department and FBI. To be specific, DiGenova stated: "no doubt that George Soros controls a very large part of the career foreign service of the United States State Department. He also controls the activities of FBI agents overseas who work for NGOs -- work with NGOs. That was very evident in Ukraine. And Kent was part of that. He was a very big protector of Soros." DiGenova was here referencing State Department head George Kent who's testimony is being used to advance President Trump's impeachment.

    Open Society Foundation President Patrick Gaspard denounced Fox ironically calling them "McCarthyite" before demanding the network impose total censorship on all condemnation of Soros. Writing to Fox News' CEO, Gaspard stated: "I have written to you in the past about the pattern of false information regarding George Soros that is routinely blasted over your network. But even by Fox's standards, last night's episode of Lou Dobbs tonight hit a new low This is beyond rhetorical ugliness, beyond fiction, beyond ludicrous."

    Of course, the ADL and Gaspard won't let anyone forget that any attack on George Soros is an attack on Jews the world over, and so it goes that the ADL President Jonathan Greenblatt jumped into the mud saying "Invoking Soros as controlling the State Dept, FBI, and Ukraine is trafficking in some of the worst anti-Semitic tropes." He followed that up by demanding Fox ban DiGenova saying: "If Mr. DiGenova insists on spreading anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, there is absolutely no reason for Fox News to give him an open mic to do so. Mainstream news networks should never give a platform to those who spread hate."

    Even though the MSM including the Washington Post, NY Times and other rags, not to mention countless Soros-affiliated groups have come out on the attack, DiGenova's statements cannot be put back in the bottle, and their attacks just provoke more people to dig more deeply into the dark dealings of Soros and the geopolitical masterclass that use this a-moral, former Nazi speculator as their anti-nation state mercenary.

    A Little Background on Soros

    As has been extensively documented in many locations , ever since young Soros' talents were identified as a young boy working for the Nazis during WWII (a time he describes as the best and most formative of his life), this young sociopath was recruited to the managerial class of the empire becoming a disciple of the "Open Society" post-nation state theories of Karl Popper while a student in London. He latter became one of the first hedge fund managers with startup capital provided by Evelyn Rothschild in 1968 and rose in prominence as a pirate of globalization, assigned at various times to unleash speculative attacks on nations resisting the world government agenda pushed by his masters (in some cases even attacking the center of power- London itself in 1992 which provided an excuse for the London oligarchs to stay out of the very euro trap that they orchestrated for other European nations to walk into).

    https://www.youtube.com/embed/SGWizajL7tA?feature=oembed

    After the Y2K bubble, Soros began devoting larger parts of his resources to international drug legalization, euthanasia lobbying, color revolutions and other regime change programs under the guise of "Human Rights" organizations which have done a remarkable job destroying the sovereignty of Sudan, Libya, Iraq, and Syria to name a few. Since the economic crisis of 2008-09 (which his speculation helped create through unbounded currency and derivatives speculation), Soros has begun to advocate a new world governance system centred on what has recently been called the "Green New Deal" which has less to do with saving nature, and everything to do with depopulation.

    So when the ADL, and Open Society attacks someone for being anti-semitic, you know that whomever they are attacking are probably doing something useful.

    [Jan 14, 2020] Mike Flynn Withdraws Guilty Plea Due To Government's Bad Faith, Vindictiveness, And Breach Of Plea Agreement'

    Jan 14, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    One week after federal prosecutors changed their tune in the Michael Flynn case - recommending he serve up to six months in prison for lying to investigators regarding his contacts with a Russian diplomat, the former National Security Adviser withdrew his guilty plea Tuesday afternoon .

    In a 24-page court filing , Flynn accuses the government of "bad faith, vindictiveness, and breach of the plea agreement," and has asked his January 28th sentencing date to be postponed for 30 days.

    General Flynn has moved to withdraw his guilty plea due to the "government's bad faith, vindictiveness, and breach of the plea agreement." pic.twitter.com/Qp5JcQjXmB

    -- Techno Fog (@Techno_Fog) January 15, 2020

    According to Flynn's counsel, prosecutors "concocted" Flynn's alleged "false statements by their own misrepresentations, deceit, and omissions."

    "It is beyond ironic and completely outrageous that the prosecutors have persecuted Mr. Flynn, virtually bankrupted him, and put his entire family through unimaginable stress for three years," the filing continues.

    "The prosecutors concocted the alleged 'false statements' (relating to FARA filing) by their own misrepresentations, deceit, and omissions." pic.twitter.com/o47WO8qClX

    -- Techno Fog (@Techno_Fog) January 15, 2020

    Prosecutors initially recommended no jail time over Flynn's cooperation in the Russiagate probes, however they flipped negative on him after he "sought to thwart the efforts of the government to hold other individuals, principally Bijan Rafiekian, accountable for criminal wrongdoing."

    The 67-year-old Rafiekian, an Iranian-American and Flynn's former business partner, was charged with illegally acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government. Prosecutors accused Flynn of failing to accept responsibility and "complete his cooperation" - as well as "affirmative efforts to undermine" the prosecution of Rafiekian."

    More on this from attorney and researcher @Techno Fog:

    After Flynn refused to lie for prosecutors (Van Grack), they retaliated by:

    1) Reversing course and labeling Flynn a co-conspirator

    2) Improperly contacted Flynn's son

    3) Put Flynn's son on the witness list for intimidation purposes (never called as a witness) pic.twitter.com/fP4hpVXfGY

    -- Techno Fog (@Techno_Fog) January 15, 2020

    "The govt's tactics in relation for Mr. Flynn's refusal to 'compose' for the prosecution is a due process violation that can and should be stopped dead in its tracks by this Court" pic.twitter.com/ttcFGmyPv7

    -- Techno Fog (@Techno_Fog) January 15, 2020

    Read the filing below:

    https://www.scribd.com/embeds/442971330


    steve2241 , 1 minute ago link

    Most of this prosecution of Flynn has been under TRUMP'S Justice Department! Isn't there ANYBODY in charge in this government? Lyndon Johnson would have literally knocked out an Attorney General that didn't do his bidding. He did, in fact, assault the head of the Federal Reserve back in the day - when America was America!

    Hadenough1000 , 3 minutes ago link

    He got a real attorney

    Bastiat , 1 minute ago link

    Highly recommend her book if you haven't read it: Licensed to Lie. She doesn't come by her contempt for these DOJ assholes casually.

    [Jan 14, 2020] Impeachment Of President Trump An Imperial War Game

    Nov 22, 2019 | futurefastforward.com
    If you want to stop the coup against the President, you must understand how Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton's State Department carried out a coup against the democratically elected government of Ukraine in 2014.

    In a November 16 webcast, LaRouche PAC's Barbara Boyd presented the real story behind the present impeachment farce: how the very forces running the attack on President Trump, used thugs as their enforcers, in order to turn Ukraine into a pawn in the British geopolitical war drive against Russia.

    https://www.youtube.com/embed/uBg3vLjWePI?feature=oembed&wmode=transparent Must Watch Videos

    [Jan 12, 2020] It continue to be highly suspicious of the fact that it is a Ukrainian plane. Ukraine is firmly in the Anglo-Zionist camp,

    Jan 12, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    Tom_LX , Jan 11 2020 19:40 utc | 250

    The fact that the plane was brought down because of the conflict initiated by Trump makes everything about it very suspicious. Just because Iran states that it is responsible does not disqualify the possibility that they were not made to make this mistake. We do not know the facts as to what the Iranian defense system saw as that Ukrainian plane was flying.

    I continue to be highly suspicious of the fact that it is a Ukrainian plane. Ukraine is firmly in the Anglo-Zionist camp, period. Zelensky or not the deal was sealed when V. Nuland finished her work in Kiev. The only reason Ukraine made a deal with Russia is because it is in financial trouble and needs revenue. The West will not keep it afloat. So thinking that suddenly it is conducting its own foreign policy is incorrect.

    As an aside. Does a sovereign country bring in a man like this to help it run its country ?

    Mikheil Saakashvili - born 21 December 1967) is a Georgian and Ukrainian politician.[7][8] He was the third President of Georgia for two consecutive terms from 25 January 2004 to 17 November 2013. From May 2015 until November 2016, Saakashvili was the Governor of Ukraine's Odessa Oblast.[1][9][10] He is the founder and former chairman of the United National Movement party.
    How about this one,
    Natalie Ann Jaresko is an American-born Ukrainian investment banker who served as Ukraine's Minister of Finance from December 2014 until April 2016.[1] In 20 March 2017, she was appointed as executive director of the Financial Oversight & Management Board for Puerto Rico.
    or this one,
    Aivaras Abromavičius is a Lithuanian-born Ukrainian investment banker and politician. On 31 August 2019 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appointed Abromavičius the Director General of Ukroboronprom.[1] Previously he was Ukraine's Minister of Economy and Trade starting in December 2014 (Abromavičius announced his resignation on 3 February 2016). He did not retain his post in the Groysman Government that was installed in 14 April 2016.[2]

    Ukraine is a Captured State.

    Thus the possibility exists that that plane may have had some equipment placed in it in Kiev that could trick the Iranian Defense system to think a craft is a danger to it. Kiev would have been a safe place to do it (reasons above). If this were true does anyone here believe that announcing this fact Public opinion would believe it ? I for one don't. Russia knows how that worked out with Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17). No matter what Iran would have said that would have been spun in the West as attempting to blame someone else. Thanks to this all attention in the Media would have been on Iran which Trump would have loved. Again, Russia knows how this was played out in Malaysia MH17 case. The average CNN viewer in that case would not see how the BUKA Russian was being used as evidence that it was Russia that shot the plane down.

    Iran did the right thing in admitted that it was responsible whether it was their fault or not. There was simply no way to win in the case of having being fooled into shooting the plane down.


    E Mo Scél , Jan 11 2020 20:36 utc | 259

    The FAA banned flights of commercial airplanes over Tehran 2 hours before the plane came down. Note, over Tehran, not over Iran. That's quite specific. Communication was lost when the officer had to make a decision. Communication jamming is part of modern warfare. Maybe this is a thwarted attempt by the US at a "disproportionate response" to Iranian strikes. Maybe this is why Trump is not that excited and had to take drugs before performing his Iran speech.
    alaff , Jan 11 2020 21:00 utc | 265
    Iran deserves respect, if only because it openly and honestly admitted its responsibility for what happened. This shows the maturity and courage of the political and military leadership of this country.
    It is clear that the plane was shot down unintentionally. It is also obvious that Iran was provoked by the actions of the United States.

    This is called life. That happens. And not only that. Human factor. We cannot avoid this and 100% eliminate all risks.

    In 1914, an idiot killed a monarch, which led to a large-scale war and the death of millions of people. Human factor. Soldiers accidentally make the wrong buttons. Workers at an oil factory smoke in the wrong place, resulting in huge fires. People do not notice an extinct burner on a gas stove, resulting in an explosion, collapse of the house and death of people. Vacationers tourists did not extinguish after themselves a fire in the forest, as a result of which a giant fire covers thousands of hectares of territory. During the invasion of Iraq in 2003, American Patriot systems destroyed a friendly British Tornado fighter bomber (in addition to the destroyed American fighters). In February 2017, the Russian Aerospace Forces mistakenly attacked the Turkish military in northern Syria. In 2001, Ukrainian air defense, conducting military exercises, shot down a Russian passenger plane TU-154 over the Black Sea, 78 people died. So on and so on... The technique and equipment is imperfect. People all the more.

    The Iranian situation is very similar to what happened in September 2018. Syrian air defense shot down a Russian military plane, provoked by deliberate actions by Israeli aviation. Just to remind that the Russian side has made it clear who is the true culprit of the tragedy. In the case of Iran, the same thing. It is one thing if the plane crashes as a result of a pilot error or a technical malfunction. But when it is now clear that plane was shot down, and the Iranian air defense acted as it was provoked by the actions of the United States, then the guilt of the United States only increases.

    bevin , Jan 11 2020 19:27 utc | 242
    Iran bears very little, if any responsibility in this matter.
    The United States is entirely to blame-what has occurred is exactly what the
    US government was aiming at. It has created an atmosphere of fear and panic
    in the knowledge that it would create chaos-that normal government would break down
    and mistakes be made.
    The US plays with the lives of people. It plays God, a God dedicated to the principle of pure evil.
    It plays with people's lives, the lives of the 'ants' that Harry Lime saw from above Vienna,
    as a matter of course. In Gaza children with cancer cannot get treatment because the US and Israel
    want to make life harder for their parents. The evil objective is to madden the people to the point
    that they will rise up and kill those who oppose the Occupation. In Colombia, Bolivia, Honduras, Ecuador
    and Brazil-even as we speak Death Squads-trained armed and financed-by the US and Israel stalk those
    who want to reform their society. In Venezuela the supply of food and medicine is interrupted as far as
    the power of the US and its allies extends.
    Around the world where there are evil deeds being carried out, where children are starving, medicines are
    withheld, protesters are being assassinated and militias are terrorising the population-the hands of the
    United States and its allies are always evident. It was they who imported tens of thousands of wahhabis
    into Afghanistan, Russia, China and the battlegrounds that we all know in order to kill, frighten and impoverish
    the people. The people of Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Iran, Lebanon and far beyond- all of them have seen their
    living standards diminished, their security removed their hopes of happiness systematically thwarted.
    In order, evil order, to punish them, not for anything that they have done but in the hope that they will
    surrender themselves to the United States and its agents, submit.
    The truth is that human history has never seen a regime like that now ruling the United States and attempting
    to rule the world. Nothing compares with it, the Nazis were simply malicious pygmies in comparison.
    Many people from Trudeau to posters here refuse to admit what is crystal clear and what history will
    confirm: all the deaths that come, daily, weekly, yearly from this assumption by the United States of
    prerogatives, religion reserves for God; all the deaths that come from this juvenile playing with the lives of
    ordinary people are entirely the choice of the US government.
    Trudeau bears more responsibility for the deaths of these airline passengers than anyone in Iran. It was his choice to
    keep the Embassy doors closed, to withdraw diplomatic representation and to join the US in its sanctions
    against the Iranian people. He has made the same choice in Venezuela, where similar accidents may occur (have occurred
    as in the sabotage of the power grid). People died then, people die daily and they do so because of choices made by
    governments playing with the lives of the people.
    Everyone of the victims would be alive today had not the mafia in Washington decided to smash up their society.
    And they would almost certainly have been alive still had Trudeau and Freeland-and the four parties in Ottawa- done
    , what most Canadians want them to do and disassociate themselves and Canada from the evil games Washington plays.

    I hope that no Iranian is tricked into surrendering to evil. I hope that the tone of the Revolutionary Guards-one
    of sincere regret and manly apology- does not inform their future moves which must be to re-double their commitment
    to the defence of their country and the defeat of the most evil government the world has ever seen.

    Ort , Jan 11 2020 19:30 utc | 243
    Re: Trudeau's escalating attempts at scene-stealing

    The odious, opportunistic popinjay Trudeau seems to have calculated that it's time for him to upgrade his "brand" from "dashing young Bonnie Prince Justin" to "Mature Statesman with Gravitas".

    Thus, his predilection for elbowing his way to the head of the Western Hegemony Official Spokesperson line and bumptiously blowing off his big bazoo.

    The new beard is a "tell"; some men, especially handsome but "baby-faced" men, are susceptible to an abiding adolescent impulse to grow facial hair in order to appear more mature. It can't be a coincidence that Trudeau's beard correlates with his increased penchant for making (fatuous) bold and aggressive pronouncements on geopolitical crises.

    I know that Trudeau has a pedigree that nominally puts him in the top drawer of Canada's political aristocracy. Still, he reminds me a lot of the Venezuelan golpista boy-toy Juan "Random Guy" Guaidó.

    Andromeda , Jan 11 2020 20:38 utc | 261
    Prometheus - Thank you for your information. I previously thought the transponder signal would identify the plane as a civilian aircraft but one question remains for me: even without IFF would the airtraffic control not (verify the identity)and be in contact with the pilot when the course is changed? Is there no coordination between civlian and military air-control? (especially in such a tense situation)

    (the Ukrainain plane turned around - why?)

    Still ...despite the admission it is strange that an aviation expert like Peter Haisenko (retired Lufthansa pilot with special technical knowledge who knows Tehran airport well) came to a very different conclusion: (excerpt from German Original - my translation)

    Weil mittlerweile bekannt ist, dass die Boeing nach dem ersten Aufprall noch etwa 500 Meter über den Boden geschrammt ist, darf man davon ausgehen, dass sie in flachem Winkel den Boden berührt hat, etwa wie bei einer Landung. Sie ist also nicht „ungespitzt" in den Boden gerammt.

    Since it is now known the Boing grazed the ground for about 500 metres after impact it is reasonable to assume that she touched the ground at a flat-angle, like in a regular landing. [...]

    Das deutet wiederum darauf hin, dass sich die Piloten in ihrer Notlage gar nicht bewusst waren, wie nahe sie dem Boden bereits sind und völlig unerwartet Bodenkontakt hatten. [...]

    This is an indication that the Pilots were not aware of their emergency (how close to the ground they were) and unexpectedly touched the ground. [...]


    Fest steht wohl, dass die ukrainische Boeing nach dem Start einen Motorschaden hatte. Und zwar einen soliden, mit Feuer und Totalausfall.

    It appears to be certain that the Ukrainian Boeing suffered an engine breakdown after take-off, a severe one with fire and total failure.


    Zunächst stelle ich fest, dass es nahezu unmöglich ist, ein Passagierflugzeug in dieser Flugphase abzuschießen. Man müsste schon jemanden mit einer kleinen Boden-Luft-Rakete im erwarteten Abflugkorridor platzieren, der dann dem abfliegenden Jet die Rakete hinterher schießt. Dieses hitzesuchende Projektil könnte dann einen Motor treffen, was aber kein zwingender Grund für einen Absturz ist. Mit einem Motor kann das Flugzeug weiter fliegen, wenn die Rahmenumstände entsprechend aller Vorschriften gesetzt worden sind. Eine größere, aufwendigere Flugabwehreinrichtung scheidet für diese Flugphase und den Ort aus. Nicht nur wegen der geringen Höhe über Grund, sondern auch, weil es solche Anlagen in dieser Gegend nicht gibt. Wenn, dann befinden sie sich im weiteren Umkreis, um Angriffe aus größerer Höhe weit vor der Stadt abzuwehren. Warum ist es dann überhaupt zu dem Absturz gekommen?

    https://www.anderweltonline.com/wissenschaft-und-technik/luftfahrt-2020/ist-die-ukrainische-b-737-in-teheran-abgeschossen-worden/

    Haisenko asserts that " it is nearly impossible to shoot down a passenger plane in this phase of the flight. In order to do that you'd need to place a (sort of) MANPAD in the expected flight-corridor and the heat-seaking missile could then destroy one of the engines.But this does not automatically lead to the crashing of the plane since it is able to fly with one engine [...] A bigger anti-aircraft system is not suitable for this phase of the flight ... these systems aim to intercept (destroy) targets flying at much higher altitutes and farther away from the cities ... So why did the crash happen?

    Obviously he wrote that before the Iranian admission was published and with limited knowledge but still one wonders if electronic warfare played a role and certain parties wanted that plane to crash ... (at least a closer look at the passenger list seems advisable)


    Emily , Jan 11 2020 21:01 utc | 266
    Bevin 242

    That is one of the best posts I have ever read and I have read more than a few.
    Never a truer word.
    If it needed a precis.......
    Madeleine Albright.
    The deaths of of 500,000 Iraqi children is a price worth paying.
    This from a woman who had played a leading role in the destruction of Yugoslavia and the handing of the Serbian province of Kosovo to the KLA a forerunner of Al Qaeda and ISIS.
    Today a narco criminal islamic state - and a base for the bloodletting and birthing of the European Caliphate.
    And unlimited proxies for the USA War Of!! Terror across the Middle East.
    Pure evil.

    harold , Jan 11 2020 21:02 utc | 268
    Sadly due to their own incompetence, Iran lost there moral high ground!
    A great disappointment to those of us who supported Iran through thick and thin.

    I'm not convinced this is a moral issue.

    E Mo Scel , Jan 11 2020 21:03 utc | 269
    am repeating my first comment for context sake:

    The FAA banned flights of commercial airplanes over Tehran 2 hours before the plane came down. Note, over Tehran, not over Iran. That's quite specific. Communication was lost when the officer had to make a decision. Communication jamming is part of modern warfare. Maybe this is a thwarted attempt by the US at a "disproportionate response" to Iranian strikes. Maybe this is why Trump is not that excited and had to take drugs before performing his Iran speech.

    Adding:

    This would also explain why this is the first time the US did not respond to a state attacking US institutions/military bases. The Us, in fact, did respond: "Let this serve as a WARNING that if Iran strikes any Americans, or American assets, we have targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD. The USA wants no more threats!"

    we have (!) targeted (that must mean there were plans for imminent actions in place, it's not saying "we will target") Iranian sites, some at a very high level (!), very fast (!) and very hard.

    Their response went horribly wrong. Maybe a US drone was found. Maybe the US jammed communication systems. It's all speculation but it could be that the US response is the cause for the shooting down of the plane. It is a mystery to me why the airport was not closed down that night, esp. in view of the FAA warning that specifically addresses Tehran. The Iranian civil flights authority should have known about this, or is information of this kind proprietary, i.e. not shared across countries/systems? The FAA is a lead aviation agency, it's not as if the aviation agency of Tristan da Cunha had issued such a ban.

    The FAA banning US aircraft flying over Tehran after Iran had struck the bases - my gut tells me the US had planned and were executing a response involving a target in Tehran which resulted in the plane being targeted by Iranian air defense systems... the jamming of communication systems (which would have been part of the US response) would be the direct cause for the plane being targeted. If this is true the US has this blood on their hands, not Iran. Again, that's why Trump was clearly under the influence of some drugs. Because that blood is on his hands, or rather, his big mouth and big ego.

    ...

    "Let this serve as a WARNING that if Iran strikes any Americans, or American assets, we have targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD."

    somebody , Jan 11 2020 21:08 utc | 270
    Daily Telegraph with explanations
    (before Iran confessed)
    How would the passenger plane have been accidentally targeted?

    That is less clear, but is one of the challenges facing any missile operator. While military aircraft will plot course to avoid radar, civilian airliners are equipped with transponders that identify the craft and their flight path set and share it with military bases in the area.

    Theoretically, the Ukrainian Boeing 737-800 should have been identified as a civilian craft on any radar. But if the Western assessment is true, this incident will join other tragic incidents of civilian planes being shot down by anti-aircraft weaponry.

    In 2014, Malaysia Airline Flight 17 was suspected to have been inadvertently shot down by Russian missiles, though Moscow has consistently denied any involvement. And in 1988, a US warship engaging with Iranian gunboats in the Persian Gulf, the USS Vincennes, shot down an Iranian passenger plane after mistaking it for a jet fighter, killing all 290 people on board.

    They have a nice map of Iran's rocket range. The map explains the Russian attitude towards Iran which is complex. Iran's rockets do NOT reach the USA but they reach the whole of the Middle East and a large part of Russia.

    mikh , Jan 11 2020 21:29 utc | 272
    To all the smart asses:Yes Iran should have closed the airport but other have some responsibility too. The Ukraine for example. Allowing planes to fly in to what is practically a war zone. Not that thei have done it before..
    Peter AU1 , Jan 11 2020 21:34 utc | 274
    Iranian military presentation which shows flight path, at what position in the turn
    the aircraft was hit and location of SAM site in relation to the plane.
    https://twitter.com/AbasAslani/status/1215942737557671936

    The aircraft was hit when it had turned directly towards the Tor unit, at that point a
    turn of nearly ninety degrees which I take it was located at the military site.

    Bill Smith , Jan 11 2020 21:46 utc | 281
    According to this Iran has fired this system at other civilian aircraft. From the news in 2012:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/03/world/middleeast/wary-of-israel-iran-is-said-to-blunder-in-strikes.html

    "Iranian air defense units have taken inappropriate actions dozens of times, including firing antiaircraft artillery and scrambling aircraft against unidentified or misidentified targets," noted a heavily classified Pentagon intelligence report, which added that the Iranian military's communications were so inadequate and its training deficiencies so significant that "misidentification of aircraft will continue."

    Peter AU1 , Jan 11 2020 22:14 utc | 291
    E Mo Scel 284

    The Ukraine plane was the target and the operation was successfull.
    this was the only way US could strike Iran without Iran striking US bases throughout the regin plus Israel.
    When Trump threatened strikes against 52 cultural sites if Iran retaliated for the killing of Soleimani, Iran said Isreal would also be hit (it has been noticeable US and Isreal have beeing trying pass of US as threatening Iran as indipendent of Isreal).
    This is when the Trump admin and Israel would have settled on the takedown of a civian craftby Iran air defence. This makes Iran look fools in the eyes of fools as has occurred here and not the highly professional force they truly are.

    Sam , Jan 11 2020 22:21 utc | 292
    Iranians have gathered in the streets of Tehran to demand the resignation of Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei after the regime admitted it had mistakenly shot down a civilian passenger plane.

    Angry crowds gathered on Saturday night in at least four locations in Tehran, chanting 'death to liars' and calling for the country's supreme leader to step down over the tragic military blunder, video from the scene shows.

    What began as mournful vigils for Iranian lives lost on the flight soon turned to outrage and protest against the regime, and riot police quickly cracked down, firing tear gas into the crowd.

    'Death to the Islamic Republic' protesters chanted, as the regime's security forces allegedly used ambulances to sneak heavily armed paramilitary police into the middle of crowds to disperse the demonstration.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7876363/Iranian-protesters-Tehran-turn-against-regime-military-admits-shooting-plane.html

    I don't blame the Iranians protesting the unnecessary deaths of their compatriots through sheer incompetence and lack of coordination among civil and military officials. They clearly should have grounded all commercial flights. Their air defense units should have at least the basic ability to discern between a commercial jet and military aircraft & missiles. If they are this incompetent or their systems are so poor how do they expect to withstand the onslaught of an air attack by the US that would include thousands of missiles and thousands of sorties a day! Tehran will be flattened.

    E Mo Scel , Jan 11 2020 23:19 utc | 313
    Peter AU1 291

    We agree that there was a US response, and that the plane was involved in this response. You think it was the idea from the beginning to trick Iranian air defense into shooting this particular plane down, I think there was a different target and things did not go according to plan, while the plane played a role. Both of us are speculating. You think the operation was successful, I say no, things went wrong. The US could not continue with their operation as this would have made it obvious they had utilized the plane in some way. It's different from the incident where Syria shot down a Russian military plane when Israeli jets used it as cover - this here was a civilian plane. So, speculation from my side.

    It's also to be observed that 146 people on the plane were Iranian citizens; this could speak for your theory as this is a problem for the government of Iran (protests) ("One-hundred forty-six victims held Iranian passport, ten Afghan, five Canadian, four Swede and two Ukrainian. All nine crew members consisting of three cockpit crew and six cabin crew were Ukrainian. Note: A number of victims could have had multiple nationalities, so other news reports might introduce them with different nationalities than the ones in this report. The above list concerns the passport with which they left the Islamic Republic of Iran air border.") https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Iran-CAO-PS752-Initial-Report.pdf

    I have no means to know. I am sure, though, that the big mouthed announcement of Trump is real. There was a response. I hope the dams won't hold for this one.

    Peter AU1 , Jan 11 2020 23:32 utc | 314
    E Mo Scel

    Various MSM have stories of victims. The British and Canadian victims I saw in these articles all had Iranian names. Students expats ect returning to Iran for a visit.
    One couple to get married in Iran.
    Seemed to be a large number of university students including a couple of professors.

    Vasco da Gama , Jan 11 2020 23:39 utc | 317
    Regarding the FAA NOTAMS restricting airspace a list is provided here . It is not accurate to claim only Tehran was restricted:

    KICZ A0001/20 - SECURITY..UNITED STATES OF AMERICA FLIGHT PROHIBITION AGAINST CERTAIN FLIGHTS IN THE BAGHDAD FLIGHT INFORMATON REGION (FIR)
    (ORBB) - 07 JAN 23:45 2020 UNTIL PERM. CREATED: 07 JAN 23:49 2020

    KICZ A0002/20 - SECURITY..UNITED STATES OF AMERICA FLIGHT PROHIBITION AGAINST CERTAIN FLIGHTS IN THE TEHRAN FLIGHT INFORMATON REGION (FIR) (OIIX) - 08 JAN 00:10 2020 UNTIL PERM. CREATED: 08 JAN 00:07 2020

    Notice these cover national airspace, it is not limited to the cities they refer to. The timezones are UTC.

    Zanon , Jan 11 2020 23:41 utc | 318
    Well Israel and neocons sure have a good laugh how well it turned out for them past week. Not sure how Iran will be able to get back from this anytime soon, now being attacked both from abroad and internally. Not to mention the collaboration between protesters and the west.
    Qparticle , Jan 11 2020 23:51 utc | 321
    This site and its comments have been an unfortunate repository of ridiculous, reflexive anti-American nonsense over the past few weeks. The speculation about the flight, and inability to accept Iranian responsibility, was one of the more silly charades.

    Posted by: Daniel Lennon | Jan 11 2020 16:46 utc | 185

    I would add anti-Semitic too....
    In my own country can't criticise Mossad actions on the news.. it would be anti-Semitic too...

    So here what came from a Forbes article that helped uncover a huge Mossad Operation targeting Cyprus Larnaka airport (their Cypriot allies)
    The 2 "ex" agents identified is only probably the tip of the proverbial iceberg...

    "A Multimillionaire Surveillance Dealer Steps Out Of The Shadows . . . And His $9 Million WhatsApp Hacking Van"
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2019/08/05/a-multimillionaire-surveillance-dealer-steps-out-of-the-shadows-and-his-9-million-whatsapp-hacking-van#5787fb8231b7

    Youtube: https://youtu.be/Tl3mpywMYFA

    9.5 million smart phones it is estimated were hacked by the Mossad Stingray like tech discuised as plain ambulances alone in Larnaka air port during the time of the operation.

    Peter AU1 , Jan 12 2020 1:10 utc | 346
    This is looking to be a very complex operation the US and five eyes is pulling off. Rather than simply reacting to events after the killing of Soleimani, the killing was inteded to set up circumstances to induce Iran into firing at a civilian aircraft. The act of war in killing the Iranian military official and diplomat followed by threats against Iranian cultural sites. With Iran air dfences on high alert, all it required was to cut air defence coms and turn an aircraft at the same time. Once that is aclomplashed, making Iran look incompetent in the eyes of the world it is straight into the pre-organised regime change operation.
    I hope Russia and China will be giving Iran a bit of an assist in this because they are facing a very dangerous moment. Anything can happen now that US thinks it has Iran on the backfoot. And I think Iran is on the backfoot at the moment. What has happened has shocked them. Zarif and others, saying the plane definitely was not shot down and then realising they were wrong.
    Very dangerous period for Iran as US will now press its attack harder, and perhaps in more unexpected ways. Hopefully the crew that fired will not be punished because of this. If they are, air defense crew will be hesitant to make decisions anytime their coms are cut.
    The IRGC said they had asked for all flights to be grounded but the request was not acted on. This is the area hopefully the Iranian investigation will focus on.
    Peter AU1 , Jan 12 2020 1:38 utc | 353
    VK "Right after the assassination of Soleimani, Pompeo went publicly and said Iran was "one step closer to regime change""

    The Assassination was the first step. Trump threats against Iran cultural sites the second step. Iran retaliation against the US bases the third step. Downing the civilian aircraft step four. And guess what... regime change operation kicks into gear.

    stevelaudig , Jan 12 2020 1:43 utc | 354
    But for Trump's murder of Soleimani, the Iranians would not have been so jumpy.
    Trump's murder of Soleimani, was a significant factor in making the Iranians jumpy.
    These deaths go on Trump's death count card along with all the dead in Syria.

    [Jan 10, 2020] Joe Biden under cross examination in senate trail would be Conedy Central show transmitted live

    The folks who hatched that particular impeachment plan and pitched it to Nancy Pelosi must have been the same idiots in the DNC who dreamt up the Russiagate scandal and also pursued Paul Manafort to get him off DJT's election campaign team. Dmitri Alperovich / Crowdstrike, Alexandra Chalupa: we're looking at you.
    The real Trump move would be to hit the twitter right before the house impeachment vote and announce that he has instructed the House Republicans to vote for impeachment.
    Notable quotes:
    "... At least this mess made it patently clear the Dem obsession with Russia has been all about preserving their Ukraine pickpocketing operation. ..."
    Nov 27, 2019 | www.forbes.com

    Forbes.com billwhalen 26 September 2019 Link

    I ordered a truckload of pop corn to snack on during the trial in the Senate. Just imagine Joe Biden under cross examination as he flips 'n flops! "Was that me in the Video, I can't recall."

    Maracatu | Nov 26 2019 21:56 utc | 18

    I can see a Trump marketing consultant designing a campaign centered on the impeachment hearings called "The Swamp Strikes Back". It might be most effective as a comic strip.

    Fly | Nov 27 2019 0:30 utc | 33

    At least this mess made it patently clear the Dem obsession with Russia has been all about preserving their Ukraine pickpocketing operation.
    Just Saying | Nov 27 2019 7:22 utc | 58

    All the bull-Schiff comes from Hillary's lingerie. The democrats need to secure a huge laundromat

    [Jan 10, 2020] This reckless act by Trump administion was the last gasp of "Full spectrum dominance" doctime and probably means end of Pompeo career as the Secretary of state and Trump as the President

    See also With his imminent attack fake Mike Pompeo Is a Dollar Store Kissinger
    Notable quotes:
    "... This is not just about how to de-escalate – it's about recognizing that America fundamentally needs to change its disastrous course. Even if de-escalation of the acute tensions is possible, the risks will remain as long as the United States pursues a reckless policy. ..."
    Jan 10, 2020 | www.theguardian.com

    This crisis was sparked by Donald Trump. Trump withdrew from the deal that had stopped Iran's nuclear weapons program, leading Iran to restart its nuclear program. Trump ramped up economic pressure and sent more US troops to the region, and tensions grew. Then the US killed Gen Qassem Suleimani , signaling a significant escalation, to which Iran responded with an attack on Iraqi bases where US and Iraqi troops are stationed.

    ass="inline-garnett-quote inline-icon ">

    ass="inline-garnett-quote inline-icon ">

    America is far worse off today towards Iran and in the Middle East than it was when Trump took office

    It is up to Congress and the American people to force Trump to adopt a more pragmatic path. For too long Congress has ceded to the executive branch its authority to determine when America goes to war, and the current crisis with Iran is exactly the kind of moment that requires intense coordination between the legislative and executive branches. The president cannot start a war without congressional authorization, and with the erratic Trump in office, Congress must make that clear by cutting off the use of funds for war with Iran.

    This is not just about how to de-escalate – it's about recognizing that America fundamentally needs to change its disastrous course. Even if de-escalation of the acute tensions is possible, the risks will remain as long as the United States pursues a reckless policy. America is far worse off today towards Iran and in the Middle East than it was when Trump took office – even worse off than we were on 1 January 2020. Today, Iran is advancing its nuclear program, America has suspended its anti-Isis campaign, Iraq's parliament has voted to evict US troops from the country, and we are in a dangerous military standoff with Iran.

    Digging out of this hole will be difficult and this administration is not capable of it. Over the long run, future administrations will need to reorient America's goals and policies. America needs to re-enter the nuclear deal and begin negotiations to strengthen it; work with partners like Iraq – without a large US troop presence – in countering potential threats like a resurgence of Isis; and adopt a broader regional policy that focuses on protecting US interests and standing up for human rights and democracy rather than picking sides in a regional civil war between dictatorships like Iran and Saudi Arabia.

    Achieving US goals in the region will not be possible with a mere de-escalation of tensions – we need to find a new path towards Iran and the Middle East.

    [Jan 10, 2020] Pompeo evil manipulation of Trump makes Henry Kissinger look like Gandhi by Charles P. Pierce

    In short, all the "imminent threat" palaver was pure moonshine
    First-in-His-Class Mike Pompeo knows his audience. There's no question that he knows how to get what he wants from a guy who doesn't know anything
    Jan 06, 2020 | www.esquire.com
    America's top diplomat does not seem to think his job is to prevent war.

    The Washington Post dives deeply into what is laughingly called the administration*'s "process" leading up to the decision to kill Qasem Soleimani with fire last week. In short, all the "imminent threat" palaver was pure moonshine. According to the Post, this particular catastrophe was brewed up for a while amid the stalactites in the mind of Mike Pompeo, a Secretary of State who makes Henry Kissinger look like Gandhi.

    The secretary also spoke to President Trump multiple times every day last week, culminating in Trump's decision to approve the killing of Iran's top military commander, Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, at the urging of Pompeo and Vice President Pence, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
    Pompeo had lost a similar high-stakes deliberation last summer when Trump declined to retaliate militarily against Iran after it downed a U.S. surveillance drone, an outcome that left Pompeo "morose," according to one U.S. official. But recent changes to Trump's national security team and the whims of a president anxious about being viewed as hesitant in the face of Iranian aggression created an opening for Pompeo to press for the kind of action he had been advocating.

    Poor Mike was morose. So, in an effort to bring himself out of the dumps, Mike decided to keep feeding the rats in the president*'s head.

    Trump, too, sought to draw down from the Middle East as he promised from the opening days of his presidential campaign. But that mind-set shifted on Dec. 27 when 30 rockets hit a joint U.S.-Iraqi base outside Kirkuk, killing an American civilian contractor and injuring service members. On Dec. 29, Pompeo, Esper and Milley traveled to the president's private club in Florida, where the two defense officials presented possible responses to Iranian aggression, including the option of killing Soleimani, senior U.S. officials said.

    Trump's decision to target Soleimani came as a surprise and a shock to some officials briefed on his decision, given the Pentagon's long-standing concerns about escalation and the president's aversion to using military force against Iran. One significant factor was the "lockstep" coordination for the operation between Pompeo and Esper, both graduates in the same class at the U.S. Military Academy, who deliberated ahead of the briefing with Trump, senior U.S. officials said. Pence also endorsed the decision, but he did not attend the meeting in Florida.

    First-in-His-Class Mike Pompeo knows his audience. There's no question that he knows how to get what he wants from a guy who doesn't know anything about anything, and who may have gone, as George V. Higgins once put it, as soft as church music. This, I guess, is a skill. Of course, Pompeo's job is easier because the president* is still a raving maniac on the electric Twitter machine.

    Related Story Trump Dished Some Bullsh*t on Iran

    Respond to this post on the Esquire Politics Facebook page here .

    Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

    [Jan 10, 2020] Paul Craig Roberts The Justice Department Is Devoid Of Justice

    Jan 10, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    me name=

    Skip to main content

    https://www.dianomi.com/smartads.epl?id=4777 Paul Craig Roberts: The Justice Department Is Devoid Of Justice by Tyler Durden Thu, 01/09/2020 - 23:05 0 SHARES

    Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

    In the United States the criminal justice (sic) system is itself not subject to law. We see immunity to law continually as police commit felonies against citizens and even murder children and walk away free. We see it all the time when prosecutors conduct political prosecutions and when they prosecute the innocent in order to build their conviction record. We see it when judges fail to prevent prosecutors from withholding exculpatory evidence and bribing witnesses and when judges accept coerced plea deals that deprive the defendant of a jury trial.

    We just saw it again when federal prosecutors recommended a six month prison sentence for Lt. Gen. Flynn, the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency accused of lying to the FBI about nothing of any importance, for being uncooperative in the Justice (sic) Department's effort to frame President Trump with false "Russiagate" charges. The Justice (sic) Department prosecutor said:

    "The sentence should adequately deter the defendant from violating the law, and to promote respect for the law. It is clear that the defendant has not learned his lesson. He has behaved as though the law does not apply to him, and as if there are no consequences for his actions."

    That is precisely what the Justice (sic) Department itself did for years in their orchestration of the fake Russiagate charges against Trump.

    The prosecutor's hypocrisy is overwhelming.

    The Justice (sic) Department is a criminal organization. It has no sense of justice. Convicting the innocent builds the conviction rate of the prosecutor as effectively as convicting the guilty. The Horowitz report of the Justice (sic) Department's lies to the FISA court did not recommend a six-month prision sentence for those Justice (sic) Deplartment officials who lied to the government. Horowitz covered up the crimes by converting them into "mistakes." Yes, they are embarrassing "mistakes," but mistakes don't bring prison sentences.

    Gen. Flynn, who was President Trump's National Security Advisor for a couple of weeks before Mueller and Flynn's attorneys manuevered him into a plea bargain, allegedly lied to the FBI about whether he met with a Russian. Flynn and his attorneys should never have accepted the proposition that a National Security Advisor shouldn't meet with Russians. Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski met with Russians all the the time. It was part of their job. Trump originally intended to normalize the strained relations with Russia. Flynn should have been meeting with Russians. It was his job.

    Ninety-seven percent of felony cases are resolved with plea bargains. In other words, there is no trial. The defendant admits to guilt for a lighter sentence, and if he throws in "cooperation," which generally means giving false evidence against someone else in the prosecutor's net, no sentence at all. Flynn was expected to help frame Trump and Flynn's former business partner, Bijan Rafiekian, on an unrelated matter. He didn't, which means he is "uncooperative" and deserving of a prison sentence.

    Plea bargains have replaced trials for three main reasons.

    • One is that the defense attorney doesn't want the hard work of defending his client.
    • One is that the majority of defendants cannot afford to pay the cost of defense.
    • One is that refusing to plea guilty and demanding a trial angers both the prosecutor and judge.

    Trials take time and provide a test of often unreliable police and prosecutorial evidence. They mean work for the prosecutor. Even if he secures a conviction, during the same time he could have obtained many more plea bargain convictions. For the judge, trials back up his case docket. Consequently, a trial means for the defendant very high risks of a much longer and more severe sentence than he would get in exchange for saving prosecutor and judge time and energy. All of this is explained to the defendant by his attorney.

    It was explained to Gen. Flynn. He agreed to a plea, most likely advised that his "offense" was so minor, no sentence would be forthcoming. Flynn later tried to revoke his plea, saying it was coerced, but the Clinton-appointed judge refused to let him out of the trap.

    Now that we know the only Russiagate scandal was its orchestration by the CIA, Justice (sic) Department, and Democrats, failing to cooperate with the special counsel investigation of alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election is nonsensical as we know for a definite fact that there was no such interference.

    This is how corrupt American law has become. A man is being put in prison for 6 months for not cooperating with an investigation of an event that did not happen!

    If Trump doesn't pardon Flynn (and Manafort and Stone), and fire the corrupt prosecutors who falsely prosecuted Flynn, Trump deserves no one's support.

    A president who will not defend his own people from unwarranted prosecution is not worthy of support.

    In Flynn's case, we cannot dismiss the suspicion that revenge against Flynn was the driving factor. Gen. Flynn is the official who revealed on television that Obama made the willful decision to send ISIS or whatever we want to call them into Syria. Of course, the Obama regime pretended that the jihadists were moderates seeking to overthrow the alleged dictator Assad and bring democracy to Syria. Washington then pretended that it was fighting the mercenaries it had sent into Syria. Even though the presstitutes did their best to ignore Flynn's information, Flynn gave extreme offense by letting this information out. That bit of truth-telling was Flynn's real offense. Tags Law Crime

    Sponsored Video by How Far Does $1 Million Go in Retirement? Learn More Video Player is loading. Mute Loaded: 0% Current Time 0:00 Playback Rate
    • 2x
    • 1.5x
    • 1x , selected
    • 0.5x
    • 0.25x
    1x Open quality selector menu
    Start AirPlay Fullscreen

    This is a modal window.

    No compatible source was found for this media.

    Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window.

    Text
    Background
    Window
    Font Size
    Text Edge Style
    Font Family
    Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog

    End of dialog window.

    me tabindex=

    Video Ad by × ► ॥

    https://www.dianomi.com/smartads.epl?id=4879&num_ads=18&cf=1258.5.zerohedge%20190919 Show 17 Comments Login

    ZeroHedge Search Today's Top Stories Loading... Contact Information Tips: [email protected]

    General: [email protected]

    Legal: [email protected]

    Advertising: Click here

    Abuse/Complaints: [email protected] Suggested Reading Make sure to read our "How To [Read/Tip Off] Zero Hedge Without Attracting The Interest Of [Human Resources/The Treasury/Black Helicopters]" Guide

    It would be very wise of you to study our disclaimer , our privacy policy and our (non)policy on conflicts / full disclosure . Here's our Cookie Policy .

    How to report offensive comments

    Notice on Racial Discrimination .

    Copyright ©2009-2020 ZeroHedge.com/ABC Media, LTD Want more of the news you won't get anywhere else? Thank you for subscribing! Something went wrong. Please refresh and try again. Sign up now and get a curated daily recap of the most popular and important stories delivered right to your inbox. Please enter a valid email

    Chemical_Engineer_IT_Analyst , 6 minutes ago link

    Then there is the fact that Comey admitted he took advantage of the the situation by catching Flynn off guard without an attorney. This is a warning to everyone: never answer questions by FBI without consulting your attorney first and having him/her present.

    [Jan 09, 2020] It looks like UK and the USA intelligences agencies run the contest to see who can come up with the most surreal anti-Russian propaganda psy-ops

    Highly recommended!
    For MI6 this level of detachment from reality is stunning
    Notable quotes:
    "... "The UK's Secret Intelligence Service, otherwise known as MI6, has been scrambling to prevent President Trump from publishing classified materials linked to the Russian election meddling investigation. ... much of the espionage performed on the Trump campaign was conducted on UK soil throughout 2016." ..."
    "... "Gregory R. Copley, editor and publisher of Defense & Foreign Affairs, posited that Sergei Skripal is the unnamed Russian intelligence source in the Steele dossier. ... In Skripal's pseudo-country-gentleman retirement, the ex-GRU-MI6 double agent was selling custom-made "Russian intelligence"; he had fabricated "material" that went into the Steele dossier..." ..."
    Nov 24, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com
    Likbez,

    It looks like UK and USA are engaged in the contest to see who can come up with the most surreal anti-Russian propaganda psy-ops.

    British Government Runs Secret Anti-Russian Smear Campaigns

    That shed some light on the common origin of MH17, Russiagate and Scripal propaganda campaigns connecting all three with British government's psy-op operation called The ' Integrity Initiative ' which builds 'cluster' or contact groups of trusted journalists, military personal, academics and lobbyists within foreign countries. These people get alerts via social media to take action when the British center perceives a need.

    And among others participants, William Browder is listed too:

    Members of the Atlantic Council, which has a contract to censor Facebook posts , appear on several cluster lists. The UK core cluster also includes some prominent names like tax fraudster William Browder , the daft Atlantic Council shill Ben Nimmo and the neo-conservative Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum. One person of interest is Andrew Wood who handed the Steele 'dirty dossier' to Senator John McCain to smear Donald Trump over alleged relations with Russia. A separate subcluster of so-called journalists names Deborah Haynes, David Aaronovitch of the London Times, Neil Buckley from the FT and Jonathan Marcus of the BBC.
    Here is one interesting comment from MoA:

    Anya, Nov 24, 2018 11:57:00 AM

    The British government has been running a serious meddling into the US affairs:

    https://www.zerohedge.com/n...

    "The UK's Secret Intelligence Service, otherwise known as MI6, has been scrambling to prevent President Trump from publishing classified materials linked to the Russian election meddling investigation. ... much of the espionage performed on the Trump campaign was conducted on UK soil
    throughout 2016."
    A Steele & Skrupal's anti-Russian / anti-Trump saga: https://spectator.org/big-d...
    "Gregory R. Copley, editor and publisher of Defense & Foreign Affairs, posited that Sergei Skripal is the unnamed Russian intelligence source in the Steele dossier. ... In Skripal's pseudo-country-gentleman retirement, the ex-GRU-MI6 double agent was selling custom-made "Russian intelligence"; he had fabricated "material" that went into the Steele dossier..."
    For M16 to expose this level of stupidity is stunning.

    [Jan 09, 2020] AGAINST THE BLITZ WOLF -- RUSSIAN REINFORCEMENTS FOR IRAN'S DEFENCE

    Notable quotes:
    "... National Defence, ..."
    "... National Defence ..."
    Jun 25, 2019 | johnhelmer.net

    The Russian General Staff has reinforced the air defences for Russians at the Iranian nuclear reactor complex at Bushehr, on the Persian Gulf, according to sources in Moscow. At the same time, Iran has allowed filming of the movement of several of its mobile S-300 air-defence missile batteries to the south, covering the Iranian coastline of the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. More secretly, elements of Russian military intelligence, electronic warfare, and command and control advisers for Iran's air defence systems have been mobilized to support Iran against US and allied attacks.

    The range of the new surveillance extends well beyond the S-300 strike distance of 200 kilometres, and covers US drone and aircraft bases on the Arabian peninsula, as well as US warships in (and under) the Persian Gulf and off the Gulf of Oman. Early warning of US air and naval-launched attacks has now been cut below the old 4 to 6-minute Iranian threshold. Counter-firing by the Iranian armed forces has been automated from attack warning and target location.

    This means that if the US is detected launching a swarm of missiles aimed at Iran's air-defence sites, uranium mines, reactors, and military operations bunkers, Iran will launch its own swarm of missiles at the US firing platforms, as well as at Saudi and other oil production sites, refineries, and pipelines, as well tankers in ports and under way in the Gulf.

    "The armed forces of Iran," said a Russian military source requesting anonymity, "have air defence systems capable of hitting air targets at those heights at which drones of the Global Hawk series can fly; this is about 19,000 to 20,000 metres. Iran's means of air defence are both foreign-purchased systems and systems of Iran's own design; among them, in particular, the old Soviet system S-75 and the new Russian S-300. Recently, Iran transported some S-300's to the south, but that happened after the drone was shot down [June 20]. Russian specialists are working at Bushehr now and this means that the S-300's are also for protection of Bushehr."


    Flight distance between Bushehr and Bandar Abbas is about 570 kms. From Bandar Abbas southeast to Kuhmobarak, the site of the Iranian missile firing against the US drone, is another 200 kms.

    Last Thursday, June 20, just after midnight, a US Global Hawk drone was tracked by Iran from its launch at an airbase in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), south of Dubai. The take-off and initial flight route appear to have been more than 300 kms from Iranian tracking radars. Four hours later, the aircraft was destroyed by an Iranian missile at a point at sea off Kuhmobarak. Follow the route tracking data published by the Iranian Foreign Minister, Javad Zarif here .


    KEY: blue line=drone flight path; yellow line=Iranian Flight Information Region (FIR); red line=Iranian territorial waters; green line=Iranian internal waters; yellow dots=Iran radio warnings sent; red square=point of impact. Source: Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif: https://twitter.com/ The US claims the point of impact was outside the red line.

    Additional tracking data on the US drone operation have been published in a simulation by the Iranian state news agency, Fars. The news agency claims the successful strike was by the Iran-made Khordad missile, an S-300 copy; the altitude has not been reported (design ceiling for the aircraft is 18,000 metres). The Russian military source says there is now active coordination between Russian and Iranian military staffs. "About coordination, of course there is participation of Russia in intelligence-sharing because of Bushehr and ISIS. We have a long and successful partnership with Iran, especially in terms of fighting against international terrorism." Two days after the drone incident, Russian specialist media published Iranian video footage of the movement of S-300's on trailer trucks. This report claims that although the S-300's are wheeled and motorized for rapid position changes, the use of highway transporters was intended to minimize road fatigue on the weapons.

    Iranian military sources have told western reporters they have established "a joint operations room to inform all its allies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan of every step it is adopting in confronting the US in case of all-out war in the Middle East."

    Maps published to date in open Russian military sources show the four main anti-air missile defence groups (PVO) on Iranian territory, and the strike range of their missiles. The 3 rd and 4 th PVOs are now being reinforced to oppose US reinforcements at sea and on Saudi and Emirati territory.


    Key: yellow=units of the main air-defence (PVO) groups; split blue circles=military bases; blue diamond=nuclear industry sites; red rings=kill range for missiles; solid red=command-and-control operations centres. Source: Anatoly Gavrilov, "Before the storm", National Defence, April 2019

    The weaknesses and vulnerabilities of Iranian defences against US air attack are, naturally, state secrets. The open-source discussion by Russian air-defence expert Anatoly Gavrilov can be followed here . According to Gavrilov writing in March, the expected plan of US attack will be the use of precision missiles and bombs at "primary targets plants for the production and processing of nuclear fuel, uranium mines, production for its enrichment, refineries, other industrial centers. But initially [the objective] will be to suppress (completely destroy) the air defense system. The mass use of cruise missiles for various purposes and guided aircraft bombs will disable the control system of Iran's troops and suppress the system of reconnaissance and anti-aircraft missile fire. In this case, the task of the attacking side will be the destruction in the first two or three days of 70% to 80% of the radar, and after that, up to 90% manned aircraft will begin to bomb only after the complete suppression of the air defense system. The West protects its professional pilots, and it does not matter that the civilian population of Iran will also suffer."

    The main Iranian vulnerability facing American attack, reports Gavrilov, is less the range, volume and density of firepower with which the Iranians can respond than the relatively slow time they have shown to date for processing incoming attack data, fixing targets, and directing counter-fire. "In today's conditions of organization and conduct of rapid air combat, a high degree of automation of the processes of collection, processing, transmission and exchange of radar information, development of solutions for repelling strikes, and conducting anti-aircraft missile fire is extremely necessary."

    RANGE AND ALTITUDE OF MAIN IRANIAN AIR DEFENCE WEAPONS


    CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE
    Horizontal axis, range in kilometres for each identified weapon; vertical axis, altitude of interception. Source: Anatoly Gavrilov, National Defence , April 2019

    Gavrilov does not estimate how far the Iranians have been able to solve by themselves, and with Russian help, the problems of automation and coordination of fire. To offset whatever weakness may remain, he recommends specific technical contributions the Russians can make. These include the technology of electronic countermeasures (ECM) to jam or deflect US targeting signals and ordnance guidance systems.

    While Gavrilov believes the Iranian military have already achieved high enough density of fire against incoming weapons, he isn't sure the range and altitude of Iranian radars will be good enough to match the attack risks. To neutralize those, he recommends "Russian-made electronic warfare systems. The complex of EW systems is able to significantly reduce the ability of attack aircraft to search for, detect and defeat ground targets; disrupt the onboard equipment of cruise missiles in the GPS satellite navigation system; distort the readings of radio altimeters of attack aircraft, cruise missiles and UAV's [unmanned aerial vehicle, drone] "

    In briefings for sympathetic western reporters, Iranian commanders are emphasizing the Armageddon option; that is, however weak or strong their defences may prove to be under prolonged US attack, the Iranian strategy is not to wait. Their plan, they say, is to counter-attack against Arab as well as American targets as soon as a US missile attack commences; that's to say, at launch, not inflight nor at impact.


    Left: Kremlin photograph of the Security Council meeting at the Kremlin on the afternoon of June 21. Source: http://en.kremlin.ru/ Right: Major General Mohammad Baqeri, Iran's armed forces chief of staff.

    The day following the US attack and Iranian success, President Vladimir Putin chaired a meeting of his regular Security Council members in Moscow. The military were represented by the Defence Minister, Sergei Shoigu. The US attack on Iran was the main issue on the table. "The participants," reported the Kremlin communiqué, "discussed, in particular, the developments in the Persian Gulf. They expressed serious concern over the rising tension and urged the countries involved to show restraint, because unwise actions could have unpredictable consequences in terms of regional and global stability."

    Unpredictable consequences in Russian is being translated in Farsi to mean the cessation of the oil trade in the Persian Gulf. "As oil and commodities of other countries are passing through the Strait of Hormuz, ours are also moving through it," Major General Mohammad Baqeri, the Iranian chief of staff, said on April 28. "If our crude is not to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, others' [crude] will not pass either."

    [Jan 09, 2020] After killing Soleimani the first thing President Trump could come up with was bragging that it was him who gave the order to murder the popular military leader

    Jan 09, 2020 | dissidentvoice.org

    Iran vs. US: The Murder of General Qassem Suleimani

    by Peter Koenig / January 7th, 2020

    Interestingly, after the US attack on Iraqi Militia fighters on 31 December 2020, and the assassination of General Qassem Suleimani , on 2 January, the first thing President Trump could come up with was bragging that it was him who gave the order to murder the popular military leader.

    [Jan 08, 2020] Do you really want to be a one term president? Pompeo can talk big now and then go back to Kansas to run for senator. Where will you be able to take refuge?

    Highly recommended!
    Iran has incentives to increase the chance of a Democrat administration, bearing in mind the great deal they got from the last one and the lack of anything they can expect from Trump Term Two.
    Notable quotes:
    "... Reflection, self criticism or self restraint are not exactly the big strengths of Trump. He prefers solo acts (Emergency! Emergency!) and dislikes advice (especially if longer than 4 pages) and the advice of the sort " You're sure? If you do that the the shit will fly in your face in an hour, Sir ". ..."
    "... Trump can order attacks and I don't expect much protest from Mark Esper and it depends on the military (which likely will obey). ..."
    "... These so called grownups have been replaced by (then still) happy Bolton (likely, even after being fired, still war happy) and applauders like Pompeo and his buddy Esper. ..."
    "... As a thank you to Trump calling the Israel occupied Golan a part of Israel Netanyahu called an (iirc also illegal) new Golan settlement "Ramat Trump" ..."
    "... I disagree. Trump maybe the only person who could sell a war with Iran. What he has cultivated is a rabid base that consists of sycophants on one extreme end and desperate nationalists on the other. His base must stick with him...who else do they have? ..."
    "... The Left is indifferent to another war. Further depleting the quality stock of our military will aid there agenda of international integration. A weaker US military will force us to collaborate with the world community and not lead it is their thinking. ..."
    "... Göring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship. ..."
    "... Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country. ..."
    "... We have been so thoroughly indoctrinated with the idea that Iran and Russia are intrinsically and immutable evil and hostile that the thought of actual two sided diplomacy does not occur. IMO neither of these countries are what we collectively think them. So, we could actually give it a try rather than trying to beggar them and destroy their economies. If all fails than we have to be prepared to defend our forces. DOL ..."
    Sep 18, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
    • You have just several thousand soldiers in Iraq and Syria. These countries have large proxy forces of Iran's allies in the form of Shia militias in Iraq and actual Iranian Quds Force troops in Syria. These forces will be used to attack and kill our soldiers.
    • The Iranians have significant numbers of ballistic missiles which they have already said will be used against our forces
    • The US Navy has many ships in the Gulf and the Arabian Sea. The Iranian Navy and the IRGC Navy will attack our naval vessels until the Iranian forces are utterly destroyed. In that process the US Navy will loose men and ships.
    • In direct air attacks on Iran we are bound to lose aircraft and air crew.
    • The IRGC and its Quds Force will carry out terrorist attacks across the world.

    Do you really want to be a one term president? Pompeo can talk big now and then go back to Kansas to run for senator. Where will you be able to take refuge? Don't let the neocons like Pompeo sell you on war.

    Make the intelligence people show you the evidence in detail. Make your own judgments. pl


    Vegetius , 17 September 2019 at 08:37 PM

    Whatever else he knows, Trump knows that he can't sell a war to the American people.
    confusedponderer -> Vegetius... , 18 September 2019 at 03:51 AM
    Vegetius,

    re " Trump knows that he can't sell a war to the American people "

    Are you sure? I am not.

    Reflection, self criticism or self restraint are not exactly the big strengths of Trump. He prefers solo acts (Emergency! Emergency!) and dislikes advice (especially if longer than 4 pages) and the advice of the sort " You're sure? If you do that the the shit will fly in your face in an hour, Sir ".

    A good number of the so called grownups who gave such advice were (gameshow style) fired, sometimes by twitter.

    Trump can order attacks and I don't expect much protest from Mark Esper and it depends on the military (which likely will obey).

    These so called grownups have been replaced by (then still) happy Bolton (likely, even after being fired, still war happy) and applauders like Pompeo and his buddy Esper.

    Israel could, if politically just a tad more insane, bomb Iran and thus invite the inevitable retaliation. When that happens they'll cry for US aid, weapons and money because they alone ~~~

    (a) cannot defeat Iran (short of going nuclear) and ...
    (b) Holocaust! We want weapons and money from Germany, too! ...
    (c) they know that ...
    (d) which does not lead in any way to Netanyahu showing signgs of self restraint or reason.

    Netanyahu just - it is (tight) election time - announced, in his sldedge hammer style subtlety, that (he) Israel will annect the palestinian west jordan territory, making the Plaestines an object in his election campaign.

    IMO that idea is simply insane and invites more "troubles". But then, I didn't hear anything like, say, Trump gvt protests against that (and why expect that from the dudes who moved the US embassy to Jerusalem).

    confusedponderer -> Vegetius... , 18 September 2019 at 07:28 AM
    Vegetius,

    as for Trump and Netanyahu ... policy debate ... I had that here in mind, which pretty speaks for itself. And I thought Trumo is just running for office in the US. Alas, it is a Netanyaho campaign poster from the current election:

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/a6e60efd3bde0befbcb8b0a95a42bf4c2624e017/57_296_5123_3074/master/5123.jpg?width=1920&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=1958b9e7cf24d7a3a7b024845de08f7e

    As a thank you to Trump calling the Israel occupied Golan a part of Israel Netanyahu called an (iirc also illegal) new Golan settlement "Ramat Trump"

    https://cdn.mdr.de/nachrichten/mdraktuell-golan-hoehen-trump-hights-100-resimage_v-variantSmall24x9_w-704.jpg?version=0964

    I generously assume that things like that only happen because of the hard and hard ly work of Kushner on his somewhat elusive but of course GIGANTIC and INCREDIBLE Middle East peace plan.

    Kushner is probably getting hard and hard ly supported by Ivanka who just said that she inherited her moral compass from her father. Well ... congatulations ... I assume.

    Stueeeeeeee said in reply to Vegetius... , 18 September 2019 at 08:31 AM
    I disagree. Trump maybe the only person who could sell a war with Iran. What he has cultivated is a rabid base that consists of sycophants on one extreme end and desperate nationalists on the other. His base must stick with him...who else do they have?

    The Left is indifferent to another war. Further depleting the quality stock of our military will aid there agenda of international integration. A weaker US military will force us to collaborate with the world community and not lead it is their thinking.

    The rest of the nation will follow.

    prawnik said in reply to Vegetius... , 18 September 2019 at 10:36 AM
    Need I trot out Goering's statement regarding selling a war once more?

    Göring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.

    Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.

    Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.

    turcopolier , 17 September 2019 at 09:31 PM
    jonst

    We have been so thoroughly indoctrinated with the idea that Iran and Russia are intrinsically and immutable evil and hostile that the thought of actual two sided diplomacy does not occur. IMO neither of these countries are what we collectively think them. So, we could actually give it a try rather than trying to beggar them and destroy their economies. If all fails than we have to be prepared to defend our forces. DOL

    Matt said in reply to turcopolier ... , 18 September 2019 at 12:54 AM
    I agree with your reply 100%
    • Iranophobia goes back to 1979,
    • Russophobia goes back to at least 1917 if not further, especially in the UK,
    • Sinophobia for the US reaches back to the mid to late 1800's

    these phobias are so entrenched now they're a huge obstacle to overcome,

    Mark Twain: "It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled."

    William Casey: "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false"

    Christian Chuba , 18 September 2019 at 05:22 AM
    The 'ivestigations are a formality. The Saudis (with U.S. backing) are already saying that the missiles were Iranian made and according to them, this proves that Iran fired them. The Saudis are using the more judicious phrase 'behind the attack' but Pompeo is running with the fired from Iran narrative.

    How can we tell the difference between an actual Iranian manufactured missile vs one that was manufactured in Yemen based on Iranian designs? We only have a few pictures Iranian missiles unlike us, the Iranians don't toss them all over the place so we don't have any physical pieces to compare them to.

    Perhaps honest investigators could make a determination but even if they do exist they will keep quiet while the bible thumping Pompeo brays and shamelessly lies as he is prone to do.

    PRC90 said in reply to Christian Chuba... , 18 September 2019 at 10:36 AM
    These kinds of munition will leave hundreds of bits scattered all over their targets. I'm waiting for the press conference with the best bits laid out on the tables.
    I doubt that there will be any stencils saying 'Product of Iran', unless the paint smells fresh.
    Nuff Sed , 18 September 2019 at 07:22 AM
    1. I am still waiting to read some informed discussion concerning the *accuracy* of the projectiles hitting their targets with uncanny precision from hundreds of miles away. What does this say about the achievement of those pesky Eye-rainians? https://www.moonofalabama.org/images9/saudihit2.jpg

    2. "The US Navy has many ships in the Gulf and the Arabian Sea. The Iranian Navy and the IRGC Navy will attack our naval vessels until the Iranian forces are utterly destroyed.: Ahem, Which forces are utterly destroyed? With respect colonel, you are not thinking straight. An army with supersonic land to sea missiles that are highly accurate will make minced meat of any fool's ship that dare attack it. The lesson of the last few months is that Iran is deadly serious about its position that if they cannot sell their oil, no one else will be able to either. And if the likes of the relatively broadminded colonel have not yet learned that lesson, then this can only mean that the escalation ladder will continue to be climbed, rung by rung. Next rung: deep sea port of Yanbu, or, less likely, Ra's Tanura. That's when the price of oil will really go through the roof and the Chinese (and possibly one or two of the Europoodles) will start crying Uncle Scam. Nuff Sed.

    turcopolier , 18 September 2019 at 08:07 AM
    nuff Sed

    It sounds like you are getting a little "help" with this. You statement about the result of a naval confrontation in the Gulf reflects the 19th Century conception that "ships can't fight forts." that has been many times exploded. You have never seen the amount of firepower that would be unleashed on Iran from the air and sea. Would the US take casualties? Yes, but you will be destroyed.

    Nuff Sed -> turcopolier ... , 18 September 2019 at 08:18 AM
    We will have to agree to disagree. But unless I am quite mistaken, the majority view if not the consensus of informed up to date opinion holds that the surest sign that the US is getting ready to attack Iran is that it is withdrawing all of its naval power out of the Persian Gulf, where they would be sitting ducks.

    Besides, I don't think it will ever come to that. Not to repeat myself, but taking out either deep sea ports of Ra's Tanura and/ or Yanbu (on the Red Sea side) will render Saudi oil exports null and void for the next six months. The havoc that will play with the price of oil and consequently on oil futures and derivatives will be enough for any president and army to have to worry about. But if the US would still be foolhardy enough to continue to want to wage war (i.e. continue its strangulation of Iran, which it has been doing more or less for the past 40 years), then the Yemeni siege would be broken and there would be a two-pronged attack from the south and the north, whereby al-Qatif, the Shi'a region of Saudi Arabia where all the oil and gas is located, will be liberated from their barbaric treatment at the hands of the takfiri Saudi scum, which of course is completely enabled and only made possible by the War Criminal Uncle Sam.

    Go ahead, make my day: roll the dice.

    scott s. said in reply to Nuff Sed ... , 18 September 2019 at 11:32 AM
    AFAIK the only "US naval power" currently is the Abraham Lincoln CSG and I haven't seen any public info that it was in the Persian Gulf. Aside from the actual straits, I'm not sure of your "sitting ducks" assertion. First they wouldn't be sitting, and second you have the problem of a large volume of grey shipping that would complicate the targeting problem. Of course with a reduced time-of-flight, that also reduces target position uncertainty.
    CK said in reply to turcopolier ... , 18 September 2019 at 09:55 AM
    Forts are stationary.
    Nothing I have read implies that Iran has a lot of investment in stationary forts.
    Millennium Challenge 2002, only the game cannot be restarted once the enemy does not behave as one hopes. Unlike in scripted war simulations, Opfor can win.
    I remember the amount of devastation that was unleashed on another "backwards nation" Linebackers 1 - 20, battleship salvos chemical defoliants, the Phoenix program, napalm for dessert.
    And not to put to fine a point on it, but that benighted nation was oriental; Iran is a Caucasian nation full of Caucasian type peoples.
    Nothing about this situation is of any benefit to the USA.
    We do not need Saudi oil, we do not need Israel to come to the defense of the USA here in North America, we do not need to stick our dick into the hornet's nest and then wonder why they sting and it hurts. How many times does Dumb have to win?
    Nuff Sed , 18 September 2019 at 08:07 AM
    3. Also, I can't imagine this event as being a very welcome one for Israeli military observers, the significance of which is not lost on them, unlike their US counterparts. If Yemen/ Iran can put the Abqaiq processing plant out of commission for a few weeks, then obviusly Hezbollah can do the same for the giant petrochemical complex at Haifa, as well as Dimona, and the control tower at Ben Gurion Airport.
    http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/239251

    https://www.timesofisrael.com/haifa-municipal-workers-block-refinery-access-for-2nd-day/

    These are the kinds of issues which are germane: the game has changed. What are the implications?

    turcopolier , 18 September 2019 at 08:08 AM
    nuff sed

    I have said repeatedly that Hizbullah can destroy Israel. Nothing about that has changed.

    turcopolier , 18 September 2019 at 08:17 AM
    Yeah, right

    It was late at night when I wrote this. Yeah, Right. the Iranians could send their massive ground force into Syria where it would be chewed up by US and Israeli air. Alternatively they could invade Saudi arabia.

    Yeah, Right said in reply to turcopolier ... , 18 September 2019 at 08:38 AM
    Thank you for the reply but actually I was thinking that an invasion of Afghanistan would be the more sensible ploy.

    To my mind if the Iranian Army sits on its backside then the USAF and IAF will ignore it to roam the length and breadth of Iran destroying whatever ground targets are on their long-planned target-list.

    Or that Iranian Army can launch itself into Afghanistan, at which point all of the USA plans for a methodical aerial pummelling of Iran's infrastructure goes out the window as the USAF scrambles to save the American forces in Afghanistan from being overrun.

    Isn't that correct?

    So what incentive is there for that Iranian Army to sit around doing nothing?

    Iran will do what the USAF isn't expecting it to do, if for no other reason that it upsets the USA's own game-plan.

    johnf , 18 September 2019 at 08:41 AM
    There seems to be a bit of a hiatus in proceedings - not in these columns but on the ground in the ME.

    Everyone seems to be waiting for something.

    Could this "something" be the decisive word fron our commander in chief Binyamin Netanyahu?

    The thing is he has just pretty much lost an election. Likud might form part of the next government of Israel but most likely not with him at its head.

    Does anyone have any ideas on what the future policy of Israel is likely to be under Gantz or whoever? Will it be the same, worse or better?

    turcopolier , 18 September 2019 at 08:51 AM
    Yeah Right

    The correct US move would be to ignore an Iranian invasion of Afghanistan and continue leaving the place. The Iranian Shia can then fight the Sunni jihadi tribesmen.

    Yeah, Right said in reply to turcopolier ... , 18 September 2019 at 09:29 AM
    Oh, I completely agree that if the Iranians launch an invasion of Afghanistan then the only sensible strategy would be for the US troops to pack up and get out as fast as possible.

    But that is "cut and run", which many in Washington would view as a humiliation.

    Do you really see the beltway warriors agreeing to that?

    turcopolier , 18 September 2019 at 08:53 AM
    Stueee

    A flaw in your otherwise sound argument is that the US military has not been seriously engaged for several years and has been reconstituting itself with the money Trump has given them.

    turcopolier , 18 September 2019 at 08:57 AM
    Nuff Sed

    Re-positioning of forces does not indicate that a presidential decision for war has been made. The navy will not want to fight you in the narrow, shallow waters of the Gulf.

    Lars , 18 September 2019 at 09:53 AM
    I would think that Mr. Trump would have a hard time sell a war with Iran over an attack on Saudi Arabia. The good question about how would that war end will soon be raised and I doubt there are many good answers.

    The US should have gotten out of that part of the world a long time ago, just as they should have paid more attention to the warnings in President Eisenhower's farewell address.

    turcopolier , 18 September 2019 at 10:12 AM
    CK

    The point was about shore based firepower, not forts. don't be so literal.

    CK said in reply to turcopolier ... , 18 September 2019 at 10:34 AM
    The Perfumed Fops in the DOD restarted Millennium Challenge 2002,because Gen Van Riper had used 19th and early 20th century tactics and shore based firepower to sink the Blue Teams carrier forces. There was a script, Van Riper did some adlibbing. Does the US DOD think that Iran will follow the US script? In a unipolar world maybe the USA could enforce a script, that world was severely wounded in 1975, took a sucking chest wound during operation Cakewalk in 2003 and died in Syria in 2015. Too many poles too many powers not enough diplomacy. It will not end well.
    turcopolier , 18 September 2019 at 10:16 AM
    lars

    We would crush Iran at some cost to ourselves but the political cost to the anti-globalist coalition would catastrophic. BTW Trump's "base" isn't big enough to elect him so he cannot afford to alienate independents.

    prawnik , 18 September 2019 at 10:32 AM
    Even if Rouhani and the Iranian Parliament personally designed, assembled, targeted and launched the missiles (scarier sounding version of "drones"), then they should be congratulated, for the Saudi tyrant deserves every bad thing that he gets.
    turcopolier , 18 September 2019 at 10:49 AM
    prawnik (Sid) in this particular situation goering's glittering generalization does not apply. Trump needs a lot of doubting suburbanites to win and a war will not incline them to vote for him.
    Bill Wade , 18 September 2019 at 10:53 AM
    Looks like President Trump is walking it back, tweet: I have just instructed the Secretary of the Treasury to substantially increase Sanctions on the country of Iran!
    PRC90 , 18 September 2019 at 11:34 AM
    I doubt there will be armed conflict of any kind.
    Everything Trump does from now (including sacking the Bolton millstone) will be directed at winning 2020, and that will not be aided by entering into some inconclusive low intensity attrition war.
    Iran, on the other hand, will be doing everything it can to increase the chance of a Democrat administration, bearing in mind the great deal they got from the last one and the lack of anything they can expect from Trump Term Two.
    This may be a useful tool for determining their next move, but the limit of their actions would be when some Democrats begin making the electorally damaging mistake of critising Trump for not retaliating against Iranian provocations.
    Terence Gore , 18 September 2019 at 11:35 AM
    Pros and cons of many options considered against Iran

    https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/06_iran_strategy.pdf

    [Jan 08, 2020] If we assume that Pompeo persuaded Trump to order to kill a diplomatic envoy, Trump is now a dead man walking as after Iran responce Pelosi impeachment gambit now have legs

    Highly recommended!
    This is truly shocking: Trump assassinates diplomatic envoy he himself arranged for. . If the U.S. lured Soleimani to Iraq with a promise of negotiations with the Iraqis as mediators and then proceeded to kill him, surely that would be an impeachable offense. Particularly in view of the failure to brief Congress. If it was Saudi tricked Soleimani by getting Iraq to "mediate" (Iraq's prime minister was expecting a message by him on the mediation when he was assassinated), Saudi will get targeted.
    The US changed the rules of engagement. They had decided to assassinate Soleimani when he was in Syria, having just returned from a short journey to Lebanon, before boarding a commercial flight from Damascus airport to Baghdad. The US killing machine was waiting for him to land in Baghdad and monitored his movements when he was picked up at the foot of the plane. The US hit the two cars, carrying Soleimani and the al-Muhandes protection team, when they were still inside the airport perimeter and were slowing down at the first check-point.
    US forces will no longer be safe in Iraq outside protected areas inside the military bases where they are deployed. A potential danger or hit-man could be lurking at every corner; this will limit the free movement of US soldiers. Iran would be delighted were the Iraqi groups to decide to hit the American forces and hunt them wherever they are. This would rekindle memories of the first clashes between Jaish al-Mahdi and US forces in Najaf in 2004-2005.
    Jan 06, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
    Tom , Jan 5 2020 15:55 utc | 16
    Impeachment with GOP support could be just around the corner. And who lost Iraq??? He would be a dead man walking in that case. I can't see the evangelical crowd saving him. President Pence. Might have to get use to that.

    Here is a link to a twitter account with a good video of massive crowds on the streets of Mashhad awaiting the arrival of Qassem Suleimani. Very powerful.

    https://twitter.com/sonofnariman/status/1213792565075550208


    Piotr Berman , Jan 5 2020 16:02 utc | 17

    There will be no draining of any swamps. Trump-Kushner just another Bibi lackey.

    Posted by: Jerry | Jan 5 2020 15:48 utc | 13

    1. Draining swamps was a marker of progress in the past. >>Wiki:But in the late 1960s and early 1970s, researchers found that marshes and swamps "were worth billions annually in wildlife production, groundwater recharge, and for flood, pollution, and erosion control." This motivated the passage of the 1972 federal Water Pollution Control Act.<<

    2. To recognize this vital role, parties should adopt more acquatic symbols. Caymans are a bit too similar to alligators, but, say, Alligators vs Snapping Turtles?

    Sasha , Jan 5 2020 16:02 utc | 18
    A video which says it all...
    Gen. #Soleimani, enemy of Daesh and Trump!

    Trump has threatened #Iran with destroying its cultural sites but that is not his only similarity with Daesh, they both hated General Soleimani.

    https://twitter.com/PressTV/status/1213804505537679362


    Bemildred , Jan 5 2020 16:02 utc | 19
    Posted by: Tom | Jan 5 2020 15:55 utc | 16

    Yes, it might just be that this debacle provides the extra impulse to get him removed. Can't say I can even imagine what that would look like, but there would seem to be a good argument now that he must be restrained somehow. Somebody needs to tell Pompeous to stop digging the hole deeper (shutup) too.

    [Jan 08, 2020] Trump established Guinness record in US Present lawless, petty, childish, infantile, imbecile behaviour

    Jan 08, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    bjd , Jan 7 2020 1:28 utc | 153

    Zarif is blocked from addressing the UN Security Council .
    The level of lawless, petty, childish, infantile, imbecile behaviour is breathtaking.

    [Jan 08, 2020] Three major Trump accomplishments

    Jan 08, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    Bubbles , Jan 8 2020 16:29 utc | 103

    arby @90

    Trump has accomplished 3 things in 3 years.

    1. Being Santa Claus to Netanyahu, the far right and the very rich (Generous donors)
    2. Doing the impossible, making Hillary look like the better of 2 terrible choices
    3. Proving 42% of the American public aren't too swift.


    [Jan 08, 2020] Assassination of Soleimani was done on false pretences much like Bush II Iraq war justification. Trump abused his power and now needs to be impeached

    The neocon cabal of Pompeo, Ester and O'bian needs to be fired immediately and investigated by FBI.
    Notable quotes:
    "... As for the war powers resolution justification provided by the administration, that legislation was not designed to alter the fundamental constitutional balance, but to restore it, Healy says. Critically, it does not give presidents a free pass to carry out military action for 60 days without congressional approval, as some have suggested. ..."
    "... The war powers resolution itself was introduced after Congress discovered Nixon's secret war in Cambodia in 1973. It was designed to allow Congress to terminate any unauthorized actions taken by the executive branch and to require transparency. If the president responds to any "imminent threat" not covered by an existing statute or law authorizing use of force, then the president must within 48 hours report to Congress what actions have been taken. ..."
    "... "With the Soleimani strike, the administration is saying they're responding to an imminent threat, but they have not publicly stated what that threat is," said Kate Kizer, policy director at Win Without War, in an interview with TAC. "From reporting, there's not a lot of evidence of an imminent attack. So they should have come to Congress first and said what they were going to do." ..."
    "... The Constitution clearly gives the power to declare war to Congress. Article II states that the president can act without Congress only when it is necessary to do so against imminent threats to U.S. territories, possessions, or citizens.​ ..."
    Jan 08, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com
    claims the strike was "authorized" in part by the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), which provided the legal basis for the war in Iraq. ​

    "Unless Trump is using his presidential sharpie, it's not at all clear how this 17-year-old statute authorizes what seems to be a major escalation that could start a whole new war," said Gene Healy, vice president of the Cato Institute, in an interview with The American Conservative. ​

    As for the war powers resolution justification provided by the administration, that legislation was not designed to alter the fundamental constitutional balance, but to restore it, Healy says. Critically, it does not give presidents a free pass to carry out military action for 60 days without congressional approval, as some have suggested.

    The war powers resolution itself was introduced after Congress discovered Nixon's secret war in Cambodia in 1973. It was designed to allow Congress to terminate any unauthorized actions taken by the executive branch and to require transparency. If the president responds to any "imminent threat" not covered by an existing statute or law authorizing use of force, then the president must within 48 hours report to Congress what actions have been taken.

    In the case of Soleimani, "the Pentagon statement doesn't mention any imminent attacks," notes Healy . Secretary of State Mike "Pompeo says Soleimani was planning an attack that could have killed hundreds of lives, but he's provided no evidence for that. I think it's hardly cynical to verify, instead of blindly trusting, given the track record of this administration and recent past administrations."

    "With the Soleimani strike, the administration is saying they're responding to an imminent threat, but they have not publicly stated what that threat is," said Kate Kizer, policy director at Win Without War, in an interview with TAC. "From reporting, there's not a lot of evidence of an imminent attack. So they should have come to Congress first and said what they were going to do."

    ​That's because there's ​simply ​ " no viable argument " that the 2002 AUMF authorizes force against Iran ​, according to ​ Brian Egan, a former legal adviser to both the State Department ​ and the NSC, and ​Tess Bridgeman, a senior fellow at NYU School of Law and former a ssociate ​c​ ounsel to the ​p​ resident. ​ ​

    The 2002 AUMF allows the president to "defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq " and "enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions against Iraq " ​ ( e mphasis added ).

    "Those are plainly not relevant to the situation" today, Egan and Bridgeman write.​

    The ​Trump administration also said it does not ​"​ need congressional sign off from a legal standpoint" for the Soleimani strike because ​of the president's authority​ as​ commander-in-chief under Article II of the Constitution ​, CNN reported.

    The Constitution clearly gives the power to declare war to Congress. Article II states that the president can act without Congress only when it is necessary to do so against imminent threats to U.S. territories, possessions, or citizens.​

    That's why Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Pentagon chief Mark Esper, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley were so emphatic Monday that the U.S. was responding to an "imminent threat."​ But so far, no evidence of that has been provided.

    ​While a 2018 Office of Legal Council (OLC) opinion offers a very liberal definition of executive authority and provides ​ " very little constraint on modern presidential uses of force," it appears to classify the Soleimani strike as an act of war, since Iran is a nation state that will likely escalate its military retaliation in response to the killing of their uniformed military member.

    Indeed, the U.S. has already said it will send 3,500 additional troops to the Middle East "after Iran vowed to exact 'severe revenge.'" ​The U.S. has warned its citizens to leave Iraq​, and Iran has already begun firing at housing for American forces in Iraq: all signs that point to escalation.

    Moreover, targeted political assassinations, like the kind used against Soleimani, have been banned by executive order since the Ford administration. Ronald Reagan signed Executive Order 12333, which reads: "No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination."

    Soleimani was "not a rogue outlaw, but a military official of a sovereign government we were not at war with, making his killing an assassination," writes Ben Friedman, policy director at Defense Priorities. "His actions, however evil, served Iranian policy."

    "The idea that the president can, without going to Congress, take out a top level official of a country we're not in an authorized war with, is crossing a Rubicon," said Healy.

    So what happens now?

    Congress has several choices to make in the days ahead. It can pass empty, non-binding resolutions, that require the president's sign-off, like the kind suggested by Kaine and Pelosi. Or it can repeal the decades-old AUMFs that have been used to justify continuing U.S. escalations in the Middle East. Congress could also pass bills like those by Representative Khanna and Senator Sanders to strip funding for offensive military action against Iran from the NDAA.

    It remains to be seen if Congress will choose substantive actions, like defunding unauthorized wars, over window dressing.

    [Jan 08, 2020] Donald Trump presidency Chaos and surprises emerge as twin crises - CNNPolitics

    Jan 08, 2020 | www.cnn.com

    Washington (CNN) The increasingly chaotic aftermath of the US strike against Iran has left President Donald Trump's team scrambling to keep up with his unpredictable decisions and inflammatory pronouncements, and suggests dysfunction at the heart of the nation's critical national security process.

    Top Trump aides are making frantic efforts to justify the killing of Qasem Soleimani , one of Iran's top leaders, and are bracing for a possible reprisal attack as the Islamic Republic moves around military hardware . But they are still refusing to publicly offer Americans details of the "imminent" attacks that they said the top general was planning. A farcical episode on Monday when at one point it seemed the military had announced it was pulling back troops from Iraq -- then said it made a mistake -- painted an unflattering picture of the administration's decision-making process. And t op officials have twice had to rule out Trump's warning that he could strike at "cultural" targets in Iran if it tries to avenge Soleimani's killing. Such action could amount to war crimes. The churn in Washington and growing questions over the rationale for an escalation that some fear could lead the US and Iran closer to war is complicating Trump's hopes of presenting a clean narrative that he acted decisively to eliminate a terrorist mastermind and to save the lives of hundreds of Americans.

    [Jan 08, 2020] Is Trump that stupid and malleble? Yes, he is. Now MAGA should be read "Make the USA go away"

    Notable quotes:
    "... It is clear to me after watching that extraordinary video of Trump's ignorance and stupidity that he is the idiot piper leading the West into the abyss. There could be no better epitome of the neoliberal sociopathy that drives our collapsing phase of late-capitalism. Putin's wet dream: a narcissist half-wit driving the western bus. ..."
    "... As for trying to put the blame on Pentagon staffers, even if they chose such weird options for Trump to choose, at the end of the day, it's the President himself who chose - as another one said decades ago, "the buck stops here" and the guy in the Oval Office has to bear the full responsibility. ..."
    Jan 08, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    David G , Jan 6 2020 19:57 utc | 19

    b writes:
    The New York Times reported yesterday that Trump picked the 'wrong' item from a list of possible courses of action that the military had presented him. That sounded like bullshit invented to take blame away from Trump and to put it onto the military.
    To me it looks more like the opposite: the Times's Pentagon sources pinning it on loose cannon Trump's going with the extreme option that the military hadn't intended him to. But whatever. The U.S. is facing the same harsh new reality regardless.

    Patroklos , Jan 6 2020 20:03 utc | 21

    The Times in London ran with a front page "We Will Kill UK Troops, warns Iran" ( here's the Guardian summary ). Despite initial reports that the UK and EU were distancing themselves from the assassination, the MSM have clearly been given their orders to begin banging the drum for war. The scramble for a casus belli reminds me of WMD, so I think a war of some scope is strongly desired and Boris Johnson has been brought on board. France will stay out and Germany will look first at Russia's position.

    It is clear to me after watching that extraordinary video of Trump's ignorance and stupidity that he is the idiot piper leading the West into the abyss. There could be no better epitome of the neoliberal sociopathy that drives our collapsing phase of late-capitalism. Putin's wet dream: a narcissist half-wit driving the western bus.

    lgfocus , Jan 6 2020 19:40 utc | 11

    Moqtada Al-Sadr to Trump
    "We are demanders of peace if you surrender and war if you fight. Do you threaten us? How dare you"

    read from Elijah Magnier's thread on Al-Sadr's letter.

    Zanon , Jan 6 2020 19:37 utc | 7
    Trump is probably not stupid enough to launch such a war and certainly not during an election year.

    During his campaign Trump said he wanted the U.S. military out of the Middle East. Iran and its allies will help him to keep that promise.

    Hasnt Trump proved he is stupid enough by now? How much more evidence is needed to drop him? Trump start wars to get another election win, I think that is obvious? And allies keeping him back? Which allieshave even remotely criticized his threats and murder? People need to realize that there is nothing stopping Trump, he and Israel will keep bombing and unfortunately its not much Iran could do.

    Clueless Joe , Jan 6 2020 19:37 utc | 8
    Dan: The guy fought the Talibans and ISIS, and has always been opposed to them; that's good enough for me, and that's definitely more than any of the coward and treacherous Western leaders that pussy-foot instead of calling out the US for what tantamounts to a declaration of war on both Iraq and Iran.

    As for trying to put the blame on Pentagon staffers, even if they chose such weird options for Trump to choose, at the end of the day, it's the President himself who chose - as another one said decades ago, "the buck stops here" and the guy in the Oval Office has to bear the full responsibility.

    Col. Lang is once again warning that Trump trying to keep the troops in Iraq would be a terrible mistake with bad consequences, and that it's just not realistic. He probably prefers not to say it that way when stating it's a long road from Kuwait to Baghdad, but if shit hits the fan and Iraqis decide to go after the US troops, then those who can't evacuate fast enough will end up in a position similar to that of the British in Kabul, in the very first days of 1842.

    Phryne's frock , Jan 6 2020 19:37 utc | 9
    Aghast at your words, dan. I am an aging homemaker from usa midwest and I have yet to stop weeping for Qassem Soleimani, his poor widow, and the rest of his family. I feel I owe him a personal debt for fighting zionists/terrorists/imperialists, for if they are not defeated once and for all, my captive government will continue in perpetuity to serve their horridmurderousthieving agenda, enslaving my every descendent and robbing humanity of any chance for peace on this pretty garden harbor planet. May justice be done to give peace a chance.
    Paul Bogdanich , Jan 6 2020 20:25 utc | 30
    What I wonder is who is the genius in the chain of command who brought this "opportunity" to Trump's attention and who vetted the decision? Trump made a large error when he surrounded himself with neocons (Abrahams, Bolton, Pompeo, Haspel, Esper). Anyway it's a tangle and it's pretty clear he (Trump) is in over his head. When he paniks he talks tough and he's making threats. It's also no wonder he has not received any support on his decision to murder Soleimani. From anywhere. Not even Israel is publicly supporting the decision. I think that surprised him. For 350 years there has been an unwritten rule that you don't go after generals or ambassadors or visiting politicians unless they are actively engaged in a combat zone. Remember the outrage when the barbarian Libyans killed a mere station chief? How outraged we were? Well, Trump overtly and with malice of forethought broke the rule. If I were the Iranian's and I could get to any U.S. generals or high ranking officials (working or visiting overseas) that's what I would do. Create animus within his own military and cabinet departments. Get them at the supermarket, speaking engagements, on vacation, at home, wherever. Doesn't matter. Wherever you can get them. Shitty thing to do no doubt but he started it and something the American and other populations would instinctively understand. Blood for blood retribution. No need to explain it to people.
    Alpi , Jan 6 2020 20:43 utc | 41
    ......." Trump is probably not stupid enough to launch such a war and certainly not during an election year."

    b,

    you are assuming that you are dealing with someone with a full deck of cards. If He was stupid enough to kill a sovereign nation's top general, he will be stupid enough to start a war. In fact that is his biggest wish. Elections be damned. Maybe the military would put on the breaks but not this stupid sick man.

    Robert Snefjella , Jan 6 2020 21:49 utc | 75
    Few points: (1) Thanks to Trump, Pompeo and Esper every American soldier everywhere now wears a bulls eye;
    (2) Any soldier -including Americans - might find a great deal to admire in Soliemani, a guy with a humble background who accomplished an extraordinary track record, a legendary strategist';

    (3) Has the US military's 'faith' in the sanity and competence of the civilian authority been stretched near to some breaking point?

    Lurk , Jan 6 2020 22:00 utc | 89
    Trump and Pence are dumb and dumber.

    Pence claimed on twitter that Suleimani assisted the 12 9/11 hijackers, for which he was instantly ridiculed.

    Trump wants billions payback for airbases in Iraq that were already fully transferred upon American withdrawal in december 2011.

    BTW, the trolls are obvious trolls. Could be from Tel Aviv, but perhaps from London, too (Integrity Initiative) Brits must be banging their heads against the wall over orange utan dropping a monkey wrench into the gears of the imperial machine that they too depend on. You bet that they need to spin this hard.

    Antigone , Jan 6 2020 22:02 utc | 91
    "We have a very extraordinarily expensive air base that's there. It cost billions of dollars to build. Long before my time. We're not leaving unless they pay us back for it,"
    Trump said

    Paying us back?

    Just ask the Iraqis - here is a reminder of what the bitter reality of economic violence looks like:

    The Crimes of Neoliberal Rule in Occupied Iraq

    The clearest statement of intent for the future of the Iraqi economy is contained in Order 39, which permitted full foreign ownership of Iraqi state-owned assets and decreed that over 200 state-owned enterprises, including electricity, telecommunications and the pharmaceuticals industry, could be dismantled. Order 39 also permitted 100 per cent foreign ownership of Iraqi banks, mines and factories; and allowed these firms to move their profits out of Iraq. It has been argued already in the British courts that Order 39 constitutes an act of ILLEGAL OCCUPATION under the terms of the Hague and Geneva treaties : The effect of Article 55 is to outlaw privatization of a country's assets whilst it is under occupation by a hostile military power."
    The mandate of the CPA was clear: to meet the 'humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people', to meet the costs of 'reconstruction and repair of Iraq's infrastructure', to meet the costs of disarmament and the civil administration of the country and other purposes 'benefiting the people of Iraq'. The terms of UNSCR 1483 are unequivocal in this regard. It was this resolution that established the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI)
    • DFI revenue, was available to the CPA immediately, in the form of $100,000 bundles of $100 bills, shrink-wrapped in $1.6 million 'cashpaks'. Pallets of cashpaks were flown into Baghdad direct from the US Federal Reserve Bank in New York. Some of this cash was held by the CPA in the basement of its premises in Baghdad Republican Palace. It has been reported that Paul Bremer controlled a personal slush fund of $600 million (Harriman 2005). One advantage of the use of cash payments and transfers was that the CPA transactions left no paper trail and therefore they remained relatively invisible
    • The disbursal of Iraqi oil revenue by the CPA also has had profound implications for the future structure of the Iraqi economy. ..Spending (in excess of $20 billion, partly based upon projected income) had to be underwritten by US government loans .. (which) has effectively deepened the debt that was originally accumulated during the period of UN-enforced sanctions following the 1991 Gulf War (Alexander 2005).
    • The right to self-determination and sovereign decision making over economic, social and cultural development is in international law a principle of jus cogens In this regard, the CPA clearly acted beyond its remit in terms of both the spirit and the letter of the international laws of conflict. It is the anti-democratic and pre-emptive nature of Anglo-American economic restructuring that most clearly demonstrates that the CPA regime was in violation of international law.
    • Similar violations arise from the CPA's governance of Iraqi oil wealth. Article 49 of the Hague rules notes that 'money contributions' levied in the occupied territory 'shall only be for the needs of the army or of the administration of the territory in question'.
    The political strategy was characteristically neo-liberal (evasion of 'red tape' and any obstacles that might hinder or limit the reallocation of wealth to the growing armies of private enterprises). This strategy was given momentum by the granting of formal LEGAL IMMUNITY to US personnel for activities related to the reconstruction economy. On the same day that the CPA was created by UNSCR 1483, George W. Bush signed Executive Order 13303, 2 The terms of the exemption provide immunity from prosecution for the theft or embezzlement of oil revenue, or incidentally, from any safety or environmental violations that might be committed in the course of producing Iraqi oil. Executive Order 13303 is therefore a guarantee of IMMUNITY from PROSECUTION for white-collar and corporate crimes that involve Iraqi oil. Two months later, in June 2003, Paul Bremer issued CPA Order 17. Bremer's decree guaranteed that members of the coalition military forces, the CPA, foreign missions and contractors -- and their personnel -- would remain immune from the Iraqi legal process. This carte blanche provision of immunity was extended again in June 2004.

    What we are beginning to trace out here is a US government policy of suspending the normal rule of law in the US and Iraq (so much for respecting Iraqi sovereigntx...)

    https://academic.oup.com/bjc/article/47/2/177/519163
    https://www.globalresearch.ca/neoliberalism-and-the-killing-for-profit-in-iraq/5699525

    [Jan 08, 2020] Trump as a destoryer of the US empire: Unless the USA reinvades and reoccupies Iraq, the USA military forces will be gone from Syria, probably just after the election in November so Trump can say he stood up to the Iraqis

    Jan 08, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    Ghost Ship , Jan 6 2020 22:48 utc | 112

    The three most important things for doing battle are logistics, logistics and logistics, and as Pat lang explains, the US forces in Syria are essentially fucked:
    We have around 5,500 people there now spread across the country in little groups engaged in logistics, intelligence and training missions. They are extremely vulnerable. There are something like 150 marines in the embassy. There are also a small number of US combat forces in Syria east and north of the Euphrates river. These include a battalion of US Army National Guard mechanized troops "guarding" Syria's oil from Syria's own army and whatever devilment the Iranians might be able to arrange.

    4. This is an untenable logistical situation. Supply and other functions require a major airfield close to Baghdad. We have Balad airbase and helicopter supply and air support from there into Baghdad is possible from there but may become hazardous. Iraq is a big country. It is a long and lonely drive from Kuwait for re-supply from there or evacuation through there. The same thing is true of the desert route to Jordan.

    Unless it reinvades and reoccupies, the United States will be gone from Syria, probably just after the election in November so Trump can say he stood up to the Iraqis.

    [Jan 08, 2020] Trump the Intimidator Fails Again by Paul Krugman

    Jan 08, 2020 | www.nytimes.com


    Trump the Intimidator Fails Again

    Because he's just a bully with delusions of grandeur.

    International crises often lead, at least initially, to surging support for a country's leadership. And that's clearly happening now. Just weeks ago the nation's leader faced public discontent so intense that his grip on power seemed at risk. Now the assassination of Qassim Suleimani has transformed the situation, generating a wave of patriotism that has greatly bolstered the people in charge.

    Unfortunately, this patriotic rallying around the flag is happening not in America, where many are (with good reason) deeply suspicious of Donald Trump's motives, but in Iran .

    In other words, Trump's latest attempt to bully another country has backfired -- just like all his previous attempts.

    From his first days in office, Trump has acted on the apparent belief that he could easily intimidate foreign governments -- that they would quickly fold and allow themselves to be humiliated. That is, he imagined that he faced a world of Lindsey Grahams, willing to abandon all dignity at the first hint of a challenge.

    But this strategy keeps failing; the regimes he threatens are strengthened rather than weakened, and Trump is the one who ends up making humiliating concessions. Paul Krugman's Newsletter Get a better understanding of the economy -- and an even deeper look at what's on Paul's mind. Sign up here.

    Remember, for example, when Trump promised " fire and fury " unless North Korea halted its nuclear weapons program? He claimed triumph after a 2018 summit meeting with Kim Jong-un, North Korea's leader. But Kim made no real concessions, and North Korea recently announced that it might resume tests of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles.

    Or consider the trade war with China, which was supposed to bring the Chinese to their knees. A deal has supposedly been reached, although details remain scarce; what's clear is that it falls far short of U.S. aims, and that Chinese officials are jubilant about their success in facing Trump down.

    Why does Trump's international strategy, which might be described as winning through intimidation, keep failing? And why does he keep pursuing it anyway?

    One answer, I suspect, is that like all too many Americans, Trump has a hard time grasping the fact that other countries are real -- that is, that we're not the only country whose citizens would rather pay a heavy price, in money and even in blood, than make what they see as humiliating concessions.

    Ask yourself, how would Americans have reacted if a foreign power had assassinated Dick Cheney, claiming that he had the blood of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis on his hands? Don't answer that Suleimani was worse. That's beside the point. The point is that we don't accept the right of foreign governments to kill our officials. Why imagine that other countries are different?

    Of course, we have many people in the diplomatic corps with a deep knowledge of other nations and their motivations, who understand the limits of intimidation. But anyone with that kind of understanding has been excluded from Trump's inner circle.

    Now, it's true that for many years America did have a special leadership position, one that sometimes involved playing a role in reshaping other countries' political systems. But here's where Trump's second error comes in: He has never shown any sign of understanding why America used to be special.

    Part of the explanation, of course, was raw economic and military power: America used to be just much bigger than everyone else. That is, however, no longer true. For example, by some key measures China's economy is significantly bigger than that of the United States.

    Even more important, however, was the fact that America was something more than a big country throwing its weight around. We always stood for something larger.

    That doesn't mean that we were always a force for good; America did many terrible things during its reign as global hegemon. But we clearly stood for global rule of law, for a system that imposed common rules on everyone, ourselves included. The United States may have been the dominant partner in alliances like NATO and bodies like the World Trade Organization, but we always tried to behave as no more than first among equals. Editors' Picks Headless Body in Cave Is Identified as 1916 Ax Murder Suspect Adam Driver Has Put Everything He's Got Onscreen Office Treats Bring Out the Worst of Humanity Advertisement Continue reading the main story

    Oh, and because we were committed to enforcing rules, we were also relatively trustworthy; an alliance with America was meaningful, because we weren't the kind of country that would betray an ally for the sake of short-term political convenience.

    Trump, however, has turned his back on everything that used to make America great. Under his leadership, we've become nothing more than a big, self-interested bully -- a bully with delusions of grandeur, who isn't nearly as tough as he thinks. We abruptly abandon allies like the Kurds; we honor war criminals ; we slap punitive tariffs on friendly nations like Canada for no good reason. And, of course, after more than 15,000 lies , nothing our leader and his minions say can be trusted.

    Trump officials seem taken aback by the uniformly negative consequences of the Suleimani killing: The Iranian regime is empowered, Iraq has turned hostile and nobody has stepped up in our support. But that's what happens when you betray all your friends and squander all your credibility.


    Steve LHR 2h ago Times Pick

    It's finally abundantly clear that the great deal maker is nothing more than an emperor with no clothes. The real shame is the inability of a large part of America to see this for what it is: a failure of leadership from voter on up. Unfortunately, America has lost its moral ability to lead, and more's the pity as the ascendancy of others, like China, will not be as progressive as America was in the past. You'd think that the great deal maker would understand that leaders are not bullies. Sad.
    Robert AJ, AZ 2h ago Times Pick
    I have been reading a lot of commentary on very little news. One thing that is not generally mentioned is that while Iran is no match for us by itself, they are not without friends, i.e., Russia (is there a mutual defense treaty still in place?) China and North Korea. On the other hand our allies are ... well maybe Israel. We haven't always been the nice guys. Remember the novel 'The Ugly American' the 1956 novel by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer?
    Lauwenmark Belgium 5h ago Times Pick
    Excellent analysis. I note that the streets of Teheran were crowded by hundred of thousands people, because one of their leaders were killed. The US President's decision put his own country in danger of facing another costly war. Why aren't there hundreds of thousands of people crowding the streets of Washington, New-York or Los Angeles, asking for his removal from office? I keep reading that US citizens are patriots, proud of their country, their values, their constitution. Where are those proud guys? Your streets should be full of protesters, strikes to defend endangered democratic values should happen everywhere, artists should occupy the media space to denounce the abuses of a mad man. The passivity of US population shows that there are more, much more Americans supporting Trump and his ideas than votes show. And it also makes more and more probable than you'll see more Trump and Trump-like presidents in the future.
    LT Chicago 6h ago
    Did the assassination of Suleimani objectively make the United States safer and/or advance its interests now or in the future? The answer is meaningless in understanding Trump's decision because the question is meaningless to Trump. If assassinating Suleimani made Trump feel better in the moment, made him feel "strong" than that is more than reason enough. The future is not Trump's problem, if it turns out badly he'll just lie about it and blame someone else safe in the knowledge that his core supporters also prefer feeling strong in the moment than dealing with a messy reality. And his supporters of convenience? The Lindsey Graham's of the world? They are in too deep to turn back now. Like all bubbles, the belief in Trump requires a suspension of a belief in reality. Likr all bubbles it will eventually burst. And this one is going to leave a mess that will take decades to repair. If we are lucky.
    Jeff M CT 6h ago
    Suleimani worse than Cheney? Don't think so. A simple body count makes that clear. Plus, it's unclear Suleimani has ever encouraged torture. Any notion that the US was ever a force for good in the world is, well, very strange. Just work your way backwards listing things we've done, I'm not holding my breath until you get to a good one.
    Lewis Sinclair Baltimore 6h ago
    What's really frightening is this president's completely impulsive behavior. There's no plan, no endgame, just a series of inexplicable tantrums (or inactions). Right now, foreign policy has no more direction than when Gilligan and the Skipper randomly spun the ship's wheel in the opening of "Gilligan's Island."
    E Chicago, IL 6h ago
    I'd love to see a column on the financial costs of endless war to us here in the USA. We've apparently spent trillions in Afghanistan alone. How much did we spend in Iraq? How does that compare to our overall budget? What could the money have been spent on instead? How much would a war with Iran cost? I realize that all of those numbers are out there, but I haven't seen them packaged together in a way that really drives home how much money we are wasting. Paul, please write this column!
    JoeyJ Canada 5h ago
    I'll never understand why the USA thinks it has to have it's hand in every countries business (other than controlling all the world's natural resources). If the USA had stayed home and minded it's own business, they'd have excellent healthcare, affordable education and a much improved infrastructure. Apparently the military/industrial complex has no interest in that...
    William Minnesota 6h ago
    As bad as Trump's foreign affairs blunders have been, this is no time to gloss over earlier American blunders in foreign affairs. In Iran in 1953, the CIA engineered the removal of their prime minister, Mosaddegh, to be replaced by officials more amenable to British and American oil interests, marking the start of tensions between Iran and America. And then there was George W. Bush's Iraq war, an epic blunder shrouded in lies. Overthrowing governments in South America and replacing them by dictators who gave United Fruit and other corporations what they wanted belongs on this long, ignoble list.
    Socrates Downtown Verona. NJ 5h ago
    Trump's not just a weak bully pretending to be a tough guy, which is bad enough, but he's also the nation's leading Dunning–Kruger citizen, with delusions of his own superiority that comes from his inability to recognize his own lack of ability and lack of intelligence. Without any self-awareness, Dunning-Krugerites like Trump can't recognize their own incompetence or ignorance, and instead remain deluded with their 'superior' sense of themselves even though they're incompetent, unqualified and often clueless. "I'm like a smart person" said Trump to a CIA audience the day after he was inaugurated, using a phrase that no smart person would ever use. The University of Pennsylvania's student newspaper reported that Trump never made the Dean's List. Former classmates described him as a lackluster student. You don't have to get A's in school to be smart, but Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen said this about Trump to the House Oversight Committee : "I'm talking about a man who declares himself brilliant, but directed me to threaten his high school, his colleges and the College Board to never release his grades or SAT scores." "I don't think you have to put him on the couch to see that someone who has such a consistent need to build himself up and belittle everyone else must have some problems with self-esteem," said Trump biographer Gwenda Blair. "It's a lifelong theme for him." Or as Charles Darwin wrote: "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge." Sad.
    Colin Somewhere 4h ago
    Whether you like it or not, Donald Trump is the (top) representative of the US. What happened is fully the doing of the USA as a country, and not that of Mr. Trump as a person. And this is the face of all Americans, including you, for the rest of the world to see. If you don't like what you see in the mirror, seeking to change it might be a better idea than refusing your part of responsibility, however small.
    Barry Henson Sydney, Australia 3h ago
    The American narrative that we support democracy, human rights, our allies, and freedom, is gone. Trump and his minions have replaced this narrative with 'America first' and accordingly we are a diminished nation with no moral compass. Values mean nothing. Shared history means nothing. Shared sacrifices mean nothing. Today everything is a transaction to win or lose, and we are losing.
    M.Downey Helena, MT 6h ago
    It seems clear that Suleimani was a "Bad Guy". What's more profoundly disturbing is that it appears that this fact was the extent of the calculation that went into the order for his demise. Perhaps the most shocking part of this story is the absence of any apparent strategy or end game in a decision that amounts to an act of war against a major power in a region of the world as deeply unsettled as the Middle East. There are lots of bad guys out there. Depending upon your point of view, many reside in this country. What happens when leaders around the world apply the "Bad Guy" litmus test as their reasoning to justify an act of war? It means that we will soon find ourselves in the midst of a world war. Since the Senate can't muster the courage necessary to perform its constitutional obligation, let's all pray we can vote the madman out of office before it is too late.
    Alan Shapiro Frankfurt 6h ago
    Excellent article by Krugman. The entire world is now suffering the cataclysmic consequences of the bizarro worldview of the 46% of American voters who electoral-colleged that world-historic con artist into power in November 2016. It is so interesting and is indeed true that the majority of the Iranian people do not like their regime and are indeed much closer to the values of the West than Saudi Arabia, etc. Iranians I know in both Europe and the US are much more enlightened and secular than people from other Mideast countries. When Trump claimed to be anti-war in October 2016, it was so interesting that he was not able to articulate even one sentence explaining WHY he was anti-war. It was a giveaway that it was fraud. He just said it to get votes. His entire personality and personal culture scream I AM A WARMONGER. No empathy, no respect for human life. It will be interesting to see what the "great" Tulsi Gabbard comes up with now.
    Charles Skeen New York, NY 6h ago
    @PATRICK . In another sphere, Democrats have been left to clean up the fiscal mess created by irresponsible Republican tax cuts (by Reagan, GW Bush, and Trump). Despite Republican claims that the "tax cuts would pay for themselves", it never happened. In the wake of the tax cuts, the debt always grew faster than the economy; GDP as a percentage of publicly held debt has grown from about 25% when Reagan got started to 78% now -- and it's headed to 95%, according to the CBO.
    Mr. Jones Raleigh, NC 4h ago
    Dr. Krugman assumes, incorrectly I think, that Trump is a rational actor with an almost unfailing tendency to misjudge the consequences of his actions. No, for Trump, worrying about consequences is for losers. He is in it for the pure chaos, the utter joy of setting a million things in motion at once with no predictable outcome, and skating clear of the vortex. This is textbook pathological narcissisism.
    Laurie Raymond Glenwood Springs CO 5h ago
    From my training and practice in mediation and conflict resolution, I know one thing for sure: without empathy, without a reasonably accurate "theory of mind," not only can you not successfully engage in negotiation, you cannot even think strategically. Trump has been called many things, though not, as I would suggest, an actual solipsist. He doesn't believe other countries are real because he doesn't believe any one but himself is real.
    JoOregon Portland, OR 6h ago
    The plot is much thicker. It became obvious when Trump withdrew from the Iran Nuclear Agreement that he was declaring economic war on Iran. He has been pushing, or has been pushed, toward conflict all along. Perhaps the Evangelicals in his administration have been behind this move, as they support every destabilizing move Trump has made in the Middle East. That he is a dupe and proxy for other people's agenda seems apparent by the child-like reasons and responses he twitters. His talking points have been fed to him. Our dear leader. Heaven help us!!
    Jerry Engelbach Mexico 6h ago
    @David, Iran is not a third-world fleabag banana republic. It's a first world nation with a strong, committed military and millions more eager to enlist. A war with Iran would cost hundreds of thousands of military lives and at least as many civilians. It's the United States that is the aggressor here, not Iran, and feeling in the US is running strongly against more war.
    David D. Boston 4h ago
    America hasn't been trustworthy in a long time. We lost all moral authority in 1953 when we installed the Shah in Iran at the behest of the same oil companies that have been destroying our planet ever since. Less than a decade after coming to the rescue of a world at war, we began shredding the goodwill we'd earned. Trump is just continuing that fine tradition -- as George W. Bush did after 9-11 with his ill-considered invasions. When will we learn?
    Jmduarte Portugal 6h ago
    Kudos to you, Mr. Krugman. One of the best, and more to the point, articles I've read about this debacle. Particularly regarding America's legitimacy through adherence to laws and respect for alies and partners. That used to be a great part of what made America a reliable superpower. Not any more. And it's sad to see Europeans and other democracies forced to make concessions to dictatorships like China, because America can't be relied upon anymore. This benefits no one, particularly democracies. However, instead of taking lessons from the universal scorn and silence this action has prompted at home and abroad, Trump will only see it as further evidence that he must keep on bullying others into submission -- with increasingly bad results. At some point, America -- even Republicans -- will have to wake up and smell the coffee of what's really at stake here.
    MG Massachusetts 6h ago
    I do not think that he really took any serious geo-political considerations into account when he ordered the attack. I believe that to him assassinating the Iran general just looked like an excellent opportunity to distract the nation from the impeachment process, which is getting more and more serious for him, and to regain the upper hand and the center stage. Besides, in an international crisis his position would be reinforced despite the impeachment, because who would undermine the government effectiveness and the authority of the commander in chief in times of national emergency, right? Well, as your column points out, this type of approach is, once again, wrong. Just another outstanding example of incompetence and another immense damage done to the country.
    Joe Scientist New York 5h ago
    Interesting that in the last paragraph Dr. Krugman states that "Trump officials seem taken aback by the uniformly negative consequences of the Suleimani killing". From what I saw on Fox news, they were portraying the Suleimani killing as the greatest US foreign policy achievement of the last decade. I fear that those who matter in the Trump administration (i.e. mostly Trump, surrounded by his base) may be unaware of negative consequences of anything he does, including this.
    stu freeman brooklyn 5h ago
    Trump's people are now telling us that the U.S. won't cooperate with the Iraqi government's demand that we pull our troops out of that country. Which makes ours an army of occupation, for the first time since Bush and Cheney sent U.S. forces into Iraq. And, by the way, Suleimani was no worse than Cheney who actually DID have the blood of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis on his hands (not to mention American servicemen and women).
    CS Midwest 3h ago
    The years 1945 to 1975 created a distorted image for most Baby Boomers. The United States appeared, and in many ways was, without any viable competitor on the world stage. This image was largely result of the fact that most of the industrialized world had been destroyed by a World War and was still recovering from it. By 1975 that dominance had largely come to an end. Japan, Germany, and other industrialized powers were outpacing the United States in both production and quality. Then OPEC entered the scene and showed how truly vulnerable the United States was. The fall of the Soviet Bloc masked what should have been a harsh realization, but that realization never sunk in. Many, and Trump is a prime example, still believe we live in a world like the 1950s, where U.S. power is undisputed. It is not, and the more we act like it is, only to have it thrown back in our face that it is not, the weaker and less capable we appear. The sooner Trump and his delusional sycophants leave DC, the sooner we can start the years, maybe even generations, that it will take rebuild respect for the United States abroad.
    Louis Denver, CO 5h ago
    The question is not one of Qassim Suleimani's character--there is no question he was responsible for a number of American casualties and civilian casualties as well--but rather one of whether taking him out was the right move. Taking out a high-level military or government official, no matter what the justification might be, is an act of war and will be regarded as such. You don't undertake an action like this unless you've really thought through the consequences and are prepared for a response. President Trump clearly did not think this through and we're all going to have to suffer the consequences as a result.
    O MD 4h ago
    @Ronald B. Duke Not everything is tactical. For the Republicans, perhaps, who have long ago shed any vestige of a moral compass and rely solely on tactics - whatever wins, whatever - but for Democrats impeachment wasn't a "gambit", it was a duty that many of them had to be dragged to the table to perform. The fact that they did despite the political risk shows that at least one party still places the welfare of our nation over their personal political fortune. We hardly need sticks to beat up Trump. He does a fine job all by himself. The problem is that he is a human wrecking ball, and he is now that he is pretty much alone in the white house, or anyway surrounded by people deeply unqualified to be there, his wrecking is just getting more dangerous. It would be one thing to "disagree" with US foreign policy - if there was in fact a foreign policy. But there is none left. Trump has wrecked that too. The only thing left for anyone is to vote this president out of office, if only to make the country and world a safer place.
    Barry Long Australia 4h ago
    The US has always used its economic and military power to get what it wants from other countries (enemies and allies alike). Trump has taken this to another level. And in doing so, he has abandoned the responsibilities that comes with that power. Trump's power has gone to his head. He is using sanctions and military might to do whatever he wants. What's to stop him from using these tools to extract assets, wealth and subservience from countries like Australia, the UK, Europe etc. While I have great fear of China's intentions, I am glad that China can serve somewhat as a counterbalance to Trump's greed and aggression. The rest of the world needs to unite and push back against Trump's overblown and growing sense of entitlement. I now regard America as being as big a threat as China to world peace and prosperity.
    friend New England 2h ago
    The first and most fundamental rule of strategy and negotiation--something I teach on the first day and most days of my game theory class-- is "Know your enemy." (Or if you prefer a less confrontational and less pithy version, "Know the person you are dealing with.") Trump fails over and over because he doesn't know, doesn't want to know, and won't be told. He has no idea what is important to them or how they view things. So he imagines them all backing down and doing as he wishes and glorifying him, which is what he wants and needs everyone to do. But most of us know that it doesn't work that way.
    henri Australia 4h ago
    Like the Roman period termed Pax Romana and the later Pax Britannica (1815–1914), Pax Americana being promoted as a time of relative peace and stability is built on too many lies to recount here. What America is doing, under Trump, is no different to the 1840's when the US seized half of Mexico. From that time many people believed that the US had a 'manifest destiny' to occupy and settle all the land bounded by Canada, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. That the US is somehow the upholder of universal moral principles is a pill too hard to swallow for anyone who has been or is still under their imperial thumb, or has been 'bombed back to the stone age'. Sometimes the insularity of thinking and learning about the rest of the world astounds me.
    Ray Haining Hot Springs, AR 5h ago
    Because of the enormous power of the United States military at Trump's disposal and because Trump is virtually a madman, this is an extremely dangerous and frightening situation. I've said it before and I'll say it again: if we stumble into World War III under Trump, it will be the world against the United States with Trump the target everyone will be focused on. And the U.S. cannot win a war against the rest of the world. So out will come the nuclear weapons. And then it will be the end of civilization as we know it. And "there ain't no Jesus gonna come from the sky" to set things right.
    cljuniper denver 6h ago
    Krugman brilliant as usual. Useful to go back to 1953 and the US-organized coup bringing down an elected Iranian prime minister in collusion with the Shah since he might be too left-wing for US tastes/preferences, and, as US Ambassador Loy Henderson described him, "so lacking in stability and clearly dominated by emotions and prejudices" (hmmm - who does that sound like?) to not be a sufficient "bulwark" against communism (see David Halberstam's book The Fifties). US involvement in regime changes, beginning with Iran, have been disasters, especially in the Middle East including Afghanistan. Yet somehow presidents who say they don't want to be doing that (e.g. W. and Trump) and want to reduce our involvement (Obama - but then supporting the Syrian rebels was a big US mistake destabilizing things) end up worsening our involvement and making a big mess of no-win situations. And as Krugman aptly points out - would we tolerate other nations doing these things to us? Isn't that the basic Christian and other religions' mantra for living a good life? As the 60s peace song goes: "When will they ever learn; when will they, ever learn?"
    Matt VT 7h ago
    "Why does Trump's international strategy, which might be described as winning through intimidation, keep failing? And why does he keep pursuing it anyway?" It's simple. Soft power strategies are much more effective in the contemporary international system than hard power strategies; hence the failure. Why does he keep pursuing it? When you lose soft power and the ability to form coalitions, the only thing left is hard power.
    RjW Chicago 6h ago
    "Trump the Intimidator Fails Again" Don't underestimate this guy. A normal person would resign. He will not. The senate refuses to save the country, our destiny must have been thus. Our time upon the stage will end. The American spirit will have expired. It's worth a fight to the bitter end so... Write, vote, advocate... do whatever you can to avert this seemingly unavoidable disaster. On Iran, we should drop the sanctions and apologize.
    Notmypresident Los Altos 6h ago
    I have always read Dr. Krugman's column with some degree of trust and respect. But this time I must take some exception to what he said. Such as "we weren't the kind of country that would betray an ally for the sake of short-term political convenience". Really? Let's not even talk about the Kurds. Ask the S Koreans after UN authorized the reunification of both N and S Korea. Ask the government of S Vietnam and that is beyond whether or not we had any business being there, not to mention the government (corrupt as it was) of Nationalist China. Also, let the people decide whether or not W's adventure into Iraq ended up being a betrayal - do we really have the right to march in the way we did and left the country in a total wreck? Then Afghanistan - aren't we preparing even as I typed this for yet another betrayal? As to Putin's Donny (certainly not we as Americans) slapping punitive tariffs on friendly nations like Canada for no good reason, maybe there is a good reason after all. Do we really know that is not what Putin wants? Reply 22 Recommend Share
    Rafael Gonzalez Sanford, Florida 6h ago
    On the surface all this criticism of the maniacal chief executive in charge of the federal government in Washington would appear to be harsh. But no, it's by far too tame. And one fact that always transcends all self-criticism seems to be the critical "but" included when comparing our criminal actions across the globe in order to advance the so-called "national interest" with other nations' doings. Never mind that from its very inception this country has always guided itself by its favorite mantra of "manifest destiny" to physically demolish others in its way toward pursuing openly imperialistic and bloody goals. Enough said already.
    Ed Marth St Charles 6h ago
    We see what Edmund Burke called unbounded power with undefined purpose. It is policy which is as feeble as it is violent. The experts who offer presidents choices in actions always list least to best, in defining potential success to match policy objectives to most strident with unknown results. Trump chose the most strident with the most unknown result as if he can bully equally strong-minded people who also talk to god as he talks to himself. Equally bad combinations on each side. If, and it is still a big IF, given Trump's long held belief that experts are not to be believed, that taking out the top commander would be a shot to cower the unhappy masses in Iran, it served instead to unify them in the time honored way of starting wars to unify at home. That might have been Trump's real objective here given all the deserved impeachment activity, but it also served to unify the people smart policy would have worked to divide. The plumb line drops straight from the decision to walk away from the nuclear treaty all be cause Obama negotiated it with international expertise and support. Now, the dogs of war are being unleashed all for pet peeves. Reply 22 Recommend Share
    Rima Regas Southern California 5h ago
    The way to look at what Trump does isn't to measure by what we would deem proper and appropriate but, rather, how it personally benefits him and is perceived by his base. Has his order to assassinate a foreign military leader increased or decreased his popularity with Republicans? Does his base even care that we have an entire intelligence apparatus that is supposed to advise a president and that a functioning NSA would have done all it could to discourage him? The same goes for his generals. They carried out his order. Has anyone quit since the order was carried out? Has James Mattis come out in public and told the public how Trump makes his decisions? No. We need to stop applying our logic and our values to score what Trump does and, instead, analyze what is behind what he does. Who is benefitting the most from Trump's foreign and military policy? Who is benefitting from frayed relations with NATO? In whose hands (seen or unseen) will Syria and Iraq be? If we do end up leaving Iraq, will we do so with matters settled and in order for us and for the people of Iraq whom we've let down? Does Trump care? Trump is repaying his debt to Putin while scoring points for more electoral help and turning our attention away from his impeachment. When's the last time he's tweeted about that. The departments of State and Defense will do as ordered. If Trump thinks there are votes in vaporizing Persepolis, the military will carry out his orders no matter what Esper says. Reply 22 Recommend Share
    Peter Vander Arend Pasadena, CA 5h ago
    In retrospect, it's truly sad a young Donald Trump didn't get the stuffing beat out of him as kid in elementary school or at the NY Military Academy. And that made me think of all those supporters who relish the behavior of narcissist megalomaniac who has demonstrated absolutely NO capacity to do the most important job in the nation, and world. The thug Donald Trump as a youngster has morphed into the adult monster who is about to create chaos on an international scale. If Republicans refuse to act because they cower from Trump's (empty) threats, it's conceivable the world will unite and act against a delusional Imperial Monarch. The American public doesn't have to wait for either option - imagine the consequences of massive peaceful protests which shutdown Washington DC and major metropolitan areas. If Americans can demonstrate their outrage and anger PLUS demand action by their elected officials in the House and Senate, all of this madness will be over shortly. Truly, "We the People" have had enough. Reply 21 Recommend Share
    asian observer Narberth, PA 5h ago
    Nothing else needed to be added: "From his first days in office, Trump has acted on the apparent belief that he could easily intimidate foreign governments -- that they would quickly fold and allow themselves to be humiliated. That is, he imagined that he faced a world of LINDSEY GRAHAMS, willing to abandon all dignity at the first hint of a challenge."...Touché
    Casual Observer Los Angeles 2h ago
    The worst may be yet to come. Countries that consider Iran a a troublemaker and even an adversary who rely upon affordable mid-East oil are unwilling to just watch the flow stop due to conflict. Remember how quiet were the Saudis when their oil processing facilities were attacked by Iranian proxies? Striking back would shut down oil exports for a long time. The big European states are not supporting what we did and are attempting to convince Iran to avoid going to war or setting loose it's proxies. The world is no longer relying upon the U.S. for peace and leadership. Rather the world is trying to find a way to achieve a safe distance from us. The U.S. is becoming the most powerful and wealthy country that nobody trusts, anymore.

    [Jan 08, 2020] Impeachment as a way out for the USa for create Trump Soliemani muder deadlock with Iran

    Jan 08, 2020 | www.nytimes.com

    Hineni47 NYC area 6h ago

    "Unlike with North Korea, it's difficult to imagine any photo op or exchange of love letters defusing the crisis the president has created. " The only thing that might defuse this crisis would be the Senate convicting Trump and removing him from office. It would be a good idea if the House passes another article of impeachment accusing the president of committing an act of war without Congressional authorization.
    Sirlar Jersey City 3h ago Times Pick
    Threatening to destroy cultural sites of a country is the sign of a deranged madman. I can't believe a US president would dare say something like that. It goes against all the principles America stands for. Nothing will motivate the people of Iran to fight the US more than the threat of destruction to their cultural sites. If we go to war with Iran, this is a Republican war. They own it. When are decent Republicans going to stand up and do the right thing? If they don't, this could be very, very, bad.
    PatMurphy77 Michigan 5h ago
    The Defense department is already walking back Trump's tweet about bombing Iran culture sites. Unfortunately, it's too late because the damage to our reputation as the "shining light on the hill" has already been destroyed. I'm afraid more than now than I have ever been in my life. Who knows when or where the revenge will occur but I'm fairly certain it will happen and we'll be more isolated than ever before. It's taken centuries to build goodwill and our reputation as a beacon of democracy for the world. We gave the keys to the kingdom to a false prophet and we'll pay for his indiscretions for the rest of my lifetime. God help us all.
    stan continople brooklyn 3h ago Times Pick
    You've sure got it right with "rapture-mad", and the most frightening thing is that the religious zealotry of Pompeo, Pence, Mulvaney and Barr, inoculates them against any criticism, because they believe they are serving a "higher"power and any criticism is a testimony to their faith. In fact, by turning themselves into martyrs, they get to advance in line for the Rapture. It seems particularly ironic that Evangelicals who support Israel do so because they see God's plan unfolding there. The Jews, just happen to be sacrificial lambs in the grand scheme. so they must must be preserved until the time is ripe for their rightful annihilation, heralding the Second Coming. So, the problem of Pompeo, et al, is not Iran destroying Israel, it's just that they've determined the timing is off.
    Eric Ashland 4h ago Times Pick
    As for the "wag the dog" theory, sure, Trump sees no difference between his personal fortunes and national interests. But worse, the impeachment rests upon evidence that points to a personal criminality on an international scale, which is the landscape where we find ourselves. The president pardons convicts like Gallagher and Arpaio because they are cruel or bloodthirsty. He admires dictators and ignores the law whenever he can, both as a private individual and a president, and has obstructed a legal investigation into his corruption. Now, on the international stage, by bypassing Congress, he is ignoring the sovereignty of the American people, while incoherently threatening war crimes. Trump is fully blossoming into a man like those he admires, an unrestrained, unprincipled, heavy hitting international tyrant. I'm so disgusted with those whose job it is to check this man, and have abdicated their responsibility, because they want to be like him. Reply 230 Recommend Share
    Aaron San Francisco 4h ago Times Pick
    I was at a friend's house on election night ready to celebrate Clinton's victory. When the networks suddenly announced that Trump had won Florida, a professor of international relations who was with us ominously predicted, "we are going to war with Iran." And here we are.
    PT Melbourne, FL 4h ago Times Pick
    America has become a living nightmare. A global power perceived mostly as benevolent by the world is now a danger to all, including itself. Already having killed the Paris Agreement, and Iran Nuclear Treaty, not to mention walking away from a nuclear arms treaty with the Russians, Trump is now ready to wreak real havoc on the world - start a war. Boy will they forget about impeachment now!
    Jonathan Baron Staunton, Virginia 5h ago
    We haven't authorized the assassination of a military leader since the daring mission to kill Japanese Admiral Yamamoto in 1943. Although he'd been the architect of the Pearl Harbor attack, and we were at war with Japan, this was a departure so significant that it only proceeded after lengthy deliberation. And now, this. Your article fills in precisely how this was so very much not that. But one party is in so cult-deep into this president now that the lies won't stop. Thousands of Iranian have lost their lives in the past month trying to rid themselves of this regime. Not only were those deaths rendered in vain by the assassination of Suleimani, but the Iranian people are also even more yoked to a government they hate. And wasn't the idea of grassroots-driven change in regime a core strategy behind pulling out of the nuclear deal? And it's not okay because Suleimani is "evil." That's both subjective and never a justification for an assassination of a foreign military leader of a nation we're not at war with. As I noted, it was questionable when it was a military leader of nation we were at war with. But, most important, what did we gain from this? Following yet another disasterous military and foreign policy snap decision it only makes the importance of removing Trump from office more urgent. Come for the Constitutional crime but convict because the defendant is also manifestly unfit for the office. People are dying because of it and more will die if he stays. Reply 186 Recommend Share
    Joe Portland, ME 3h ago Times Pick
    What, then, for an effective response? Outrage is mere fuel: what is the engine? A full year seems too long. The Senate seems hopeless. What does that leave? Must we take to the streets to stop this disaster of a president? All this time spent wondering how this will end makes me feel like a victim of domestic abuse. What a waste. 1 Reply 180 Recommend Share
    AnitaSmith New Jersey 4h ago Times Pick
    The near silence of the countries frequently referred to as our allies -- before the age of Trump -- is deafening.

    [Jan 08, 2020] The Nightmare Stage of Trump's Rule Is Here by Michelle Goldberg Michelle Goldberg

    Jan 08, 2020 | www.nytimes.com

    After three harrowing years, we've reached the point many of us feared from the moment Donald Trump was elected. His decision to kill Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, Iran's second most important official, made at Mar-a-Lago with little discernible deliberation , has brought the United States to the brink of a devastating new conflict in the Middle East.

    We don't yet know how Iran will retaliate, or whether all-out war will be averted. But already, NATO has suspended its mission training Iraqi forces to fight ISIS . Iraq's Parliament has voted to expel American troops -- a longtime Iranian objective. (On Monday, U.S. forces sent a letter saying they were withdrawing from Iraq in response, only to then claim that it was a draft released in error .) On Sunday, Iran said it will no longer be bound by the remaining restrictions on its nuclear program in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the deal that Trump abandoned in 2018. Trump has been threatening to commit war crimes by destroying Iran's cultural sites and tried to use Twitter to notify Congress of his intention to respond to any Iranian reprisals with military escalation.

    The administration has said that the killing of Suleimani was justified by an imminent threat to American lives, but there is no reason to believe this. One skeptical American official told The New York Times that the new intelligence indicated nothing but "a normal Monday in the Middle East," and Democrats briefed on it were unconvinced by the administration's case. The Washington Post reported that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo -- who last year agreed with a Christian Broadcasting Network interviewer that God might have sent Trump to save Israel from the "Iranian menace" -- has been pushing for a hit on Suleimani for months.

    Rather than self-defense, the Suleimani killing seems like the dreadful result of several intersecting dynamics. There's the influence of rapture-mad Iran hawks like Pompeo and Vice President Mike Pence. Defense officials who might have stood up to Trump have all left the administration. According to Peter Bergen's book "Trump and His Generals," James Mattis, Trump's former secretary of defense, instructed his subordinates not to provide the president with options for a military showdown with Iran. But with Mattis gone, military officials, The Times reported, presented Trump with the possibility of killing Suleimani as the "most extreme" option on a menu of choices, and were "flabbergasted" when he picked it.

    Trump likely had mixed motives. He was reportedly upset over TV images of militia supporters storming the American Embassy in Iraq. According to The Post, he also was frustrated by "negative coverage" of his decision last year to order and then call off strikes on Iran.

    Beyond that, Trump, now impeached and facing trial in the Senate, has laid out his rationale over years of tweets. The president is a master of projection, and his accusations against others are a decent guide to how he himself will behave . He told us, over and over again , that he believed Barack Obama would start a war with Iran to "save face" and because his "poll numbers are in a tailspin" and he needed to "get re-elected." To Trump, a wag-the-dog war with Iran evidently seemed like a natural move for a president in trouble.

    ... ... ...

    Even if Iran were to somehow decide not to strike back at the United States, it's still ramping up its nuclear program, and Trump has obliterated the possibility of a return to negotiations. "His maximum pressure policy has failed," Nasr said of Trump. "He has only produced a more dangerous Iran."

    ... ... ... Michelle Goldberg has been an Opinion columnist since 2017. She is the author of several books about politics, religion and women's rights, and was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize for public service in 2018 for reporting on workplace sexual harassment issues. @michelleinbklyn

    [Jan 08, 2020] McConnell Wrangles Republicans For Speedy Trump Acquittal As Schumer Cries Cover-Up

    Jan 08, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    McConnell Wrangles Republicans For Speedy Trump Acquittal As Schumer Cries Cover-Up by Tyler Durden Tue, 01/07/2020 - 15:11 0 SHARES

    Most Senate Republicans have lined up behind Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's plan for a lightning-fast, witness-free impeachment trial which will end with the acquittal of President Trump - much to the chagrin of Senate Democrats led by Chuck Schumer of New York.

    McConnell (R-KY) has been unswayed by former National Security Adviser John Bolton's offer to testify, as well as the recent emergence of emails suggesting Trump's direct involvement in his administration's pausing of US aid to Ukraine after asking President Volodomyr Zelensky to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden ahead of the 2020 US election.

    Two Republicans who have on occasion broken with Trump and have criticized McConnell's statements about the trial -- Alaska's Lisa Murkowski and Maine's Susan Collins -- say they back his plan to follow the precedent of Bill Clinton's 1999 impeachment trial by delaying any decision on witnesses.

    "I think we need to do what they did the last time they did this unfortunate process, and that was to go through a first phase and then they reassessed after that," Murkowski said.

    McConnell likely has the votes to force the issue without cooperation from Democrats . - Bloomberg

    McConnell has guaranteed that Senate Democrats won't have the 67 votes required to convict Trump and remove him from office. Meanwhile, he can simply point to Clinton's impeachment as precedent on witness testimony, as it would allow Trump's lawyers and White House impeachment managers to make their arguments and answer questions from Senators before administration figures such as Bolton and acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney have a chance to speak.

    There have been no discussions between McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who can go pound sand as talks seem unlikely.

    "If every Republican senator votes for a rigged trial that hides the truth, the American people will see that the Republican Senate is part of a large and awful cover-up," said Schumer in a Tuesday screed on the Senate floor.

    Chuck Schumer: "Whoever heard of a trial without witnesses and documents? It's unprecedented ... Witnesses and documents? Fair trial. No witnesses and no documents? Cover-up. That simple sentence describes it all." Via ABC pic.twitter.com/eKhKoBjIVP

    -- Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) January 7, 2020

    According to Trump, Bolton 'would know nothing' about the Ukraine situation.

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), meanwhile, has yet to reveal when she plans to transmit the articles of impeachment to the Senate, thereby making Trump's impeachment official according to House Democratic witness and Harvard Law professor, Dr. Noah Feldman.

    Pelosi's allies argue that the Senate turning down Bolton's offer to testify under subpoena suggest that Republicans are involved in covering up evidence against Trump.

    "McConnell is making very plain he's not interested in the country learning the full extent" of Trump's misconduct, according to a Tuesday statement by House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff. "And apparently there are any number of senators willing to go along with that head-in-the-sand strategy," he added.


    Albertarocks , 9 minutes ago link

    Six ways from Sunday Chuck. "Six ways from Sunday." It must really suck to be you these days.

    Nov1917Sucks , 10 minutes ago link

    The only difference between a Dem and a Repub in Congress is the shear ignorance of their voters. But Trump has exposed his voters to be the biggest dolts of the last century!

    BryanM , 17 minutes ago link

    If Pelosi could have offed that terrorist Salami to change the subject she would have. She has seriously misjudged this escapade. I'm sure Schiff and Nadler convinced her they could use the MSM to split off some republican votes and gain momentum. Their case is so weak they couldn't even get any the 30+ republicans that are retiring with nothing to lose to split off and vote with the dems. Where's the popcorn?

    [Jan 08, 2020] The former reality-TV star has long been ignorant of world history and current events. During a 2015 interview, then-candidate Trump did not even know who Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani was.

    Jan 08, 2020 | www.msn.com

    ...The former reality-TV star has long been ignorant of world history and current events. During a 2015 interview , then-candidate Trump did not even know who Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani was. After prompting, Trump mistakenly identified the Iranian general as a Kurdish commander. Once Trump's ignorance was revealed, the frustrated candidate weakly attacked the interviewer for "throwing around names of people and where they live."

    The danger posed by that ignorance is matched daily by the crises created by Trump's own erraticism. His performance as commander in chief has been shaped by a collection of scattered grievances, emotional impulses and random tweets. As the Financial Times's Philip Stephens has said of Trump's foreign policy, "Looking for a framework is like searching for symmetrical patterns in a bowl of spaghetti."

    This is, after all, a president who spent last summer withholding military aid from a besieged democratic ally while pressuring its leaders to investigate a political opponent. Then, stepping in front of a bank of White House cameras , he asked the same of China. Trump also declared himself " The Chosen One " while embracing the title of "King of Israel," ordered American companies to leave China , manipulated U.S. markets by lying about phone calls with leaders of that same country and canceled bilateral meetings with a NATO leader because she refused to sell Greenland.

    Trump's increasingly erratic behavior received much attention at the time, with the Associated Press's Jonathan Lemire and Zeke Miller noting in July that the United States' foreign policy had become unmoored after Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats and others were driven from the administration. Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of the Atlantic, followed with an article appropriately titled " He's Getting Worse ," in which he glumly noted that "there is no reason to hope that he will reform. His followers reward his radicalism and his handlers are among the most cynical figures in American political history."

    We now find ourselves living through a time when those same administration officials are providing reckless counsel to an ignorant and erratic president. Though he shares MacArthur's sense of infallibility, Trump spends most of his waking hours showing the world just how fallible he is. Critics have long warned of a time when this fatally flawed man would be forced to confront an international crisis.

    That time has arrived and it is a crisis of Trump's own making.

    Soleimani was a malevolent force on the world stage. But so, too, is Kim Jong Un. Will the North Korean dictator be next on the president's kill list? What of Syria's Bashar al-Assad? He is responsible for more deaths than any Arab leader since Saddam Hussein . And what stabilizing impact did the Iraqi tyrant's death have on the region?

    Contrary to the vows of candidate Trump, it is likely that the killing of Soleimani will now only deepen U.S. involvement in a region that has already claimed too many American lives. With Russia firmly ensconced in Syria, Iraqi discontent on the rise and Iran's nuclear program restarted, expect more Americans to die across the Middle East in the coming years. With his audacious attack, Trump has further isolated the United States from its allies, provided a lifeline to Iran's terrorist regime and broken yet another of his campaign promises.

    Inchon this is not.

    [email protected]

    Read more from Joe Scarborough's archive , follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook .

    [Jan 07, 2020] a popular figure

    Notable quotes:
    "... Naturally, we learned soon after from the Iraqi PM himself that Soleimani was in Iraq as part of a diplomatic effort to de-escalate tensions. In other words, he was apparently lured to Baghdad under false pretenses so he'd be a sitting duck for a U.S. strike. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story. ..."
    "... As you'd expect, some of the most ridiculous propaganda came from Mike Pompeo, a man who genuinely loves deception and considers it his craft.. For example: ..."
    "... Moving on to the really big question: what does this assassination mean for the future role of the U.S. in the Middle East and American global hegemony generally? A few important things have already occurred. For starters, the Iraqi parliament passed a resolution calling for U.S. troops to leave. Even more important are the comments and actions of Muqtada al-Sadr. ..."
    "... Unmentioned in the above tweet, but extremely significant, is the fact al-Sadr has been a vocal critic of both the American and Iranian presence in Iraq. He doesn't want either country meddling in the affairs of Iraqis, but the Soleimani assassination clearly pushed him to focus on the U.S. presence. This is a very big deal and ensures Iraq will be far more dangerous for U.S. troops than it already was. ..."
    Jan 07, 2020 | twitter.com

    Before discussing what happens next and the big picture implications, it's worth pointing out the incredible number of blatant lies and overall clownishness that emerged from U.S. officials in the assassination's aftermath. It started with claims from Trump that Soleimani was plotting imminent attacks on Americans and was caught in the act. Mass media did its job and uncritically parroted this line, which was quickly exposed as a complete falsehood.

    CNN anchor uncritically repeating government lies.
    This is what mass media does to get wars going. https://t.co/QK1JET7TIj

    -- Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) January 6, 2020

    It's incredibly telling that CNN would swallow this fact-free claim with total credulity within weeks of discovering the extent of the lies told about Syrian chemical attacks and the Afghanistan war . Meanwhile, when a reporter asked a state department official for some clarification on what sorts of attacks were imminent, this is what transpired.

    When asked by a reporter for details about what kinds of imminent attacks Soleimani was planning, the State Dept. responds with:

    "Jesus, do we have to explain why we do these things?"

    Totally normal. pic.twitter.com/FDWtpfItEp

    -- Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) January 6, 2020

    Naturally, we learned soon after from the Iraqi PM himself that Soleimani was in Iraq as part of a diplomatic effort to de-escalate tensions. In other words, he was apparently lured to Baghdad under false pretenses so he'd be a sitting duck for a U.S. strike. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

    Iraqi Prime Minister AbdulMahdi accuses Trump of deceiving him in order to assassinate Suleimani. Trump, according to P.M. lied about wanting a diplomatic solution in order to get Suleimani on a plane to Baghdad in the open, where he was summarily executed. https://t.co/HKjyQqXNqP

    -- Joshua Landis (@joshua_landis) January 5, 2020

    As you'd expect, some of the most ridiculous propaganda came from Mike Pompeo, a man who genuinely loves deception and considers it his craft.. For example:

    Pompeo on CNN says US has "every expectation" that people "in Iran will view the American action last night as giving them freedom."

    -- Josh Lederman (@JoshNBCNews) January 3, 2020

    Then there's what actually happened.

    Absolutely massive crowds on the streets of Mashhad awaiting the arrival of Qassem Suleimani.

    "We are ready for war." pic.twitter.com/ZK4O8KQB17

    -- Sam (@sonofnariman) January 5, 2020

    Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Qassem Soleimani's daughter Zeinab were among the hundreds of thousands mourning Soleimani in Tehran today. Iranian state TV put the crowd size at 'millions,' though that number could not be verified. https://t.co/R6EbKh6Gow

    -- CBC News Alerts (@CBCAlerts) January 6, 2020

    Moving on to the really big question: what does this assassination mean for the future role of the U.S. in the Middle East and American global hegemony generally? A few important things have already occurred. For starters, the Iraqi parliament passed a resolution calling for U.S. troops to leave. Even more important are the comments and actions of Muqtada al-Sadr.

    WOW,

    Iraqi Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr orders the return of "Mahdi Army" in response the American strike that killed Suleimani.

    Mahdi Army fought against the US troops during the invasion in 2003. Sadr disbanded the group in 2008.

    -- Ragıp Soylu (@ragipsoylu) January 3, 2020

    Unmentioned in the above tweet, but extremely significant, is the fact al-Sadr has been a vocal critic of both the American and Iranian presence in Iraq. He doesn't want either country meddling in the affairs of Iraqis, but the Soleimani assassination clearly pushed him to focus on the U.S. presence. This is a very big deal and ensures Iraq will be far more dangerous for U.S. troops than it already was.

    Going forward, Iran's response will be influenced to a great degree by what's already transpired. There are three things worth noting. First, although many Trump supporters are cheering the assassination, Americans are certainly nowhere near united on this , with many including myself viewing it as a gigantic strategic blunder. Second, it ratcheted up anti-American sentiment in Iraq to a huge degree without Iran having to do anything, as highlighted above. Third, hardliners within Iran have been given an enormous gift. With one drone strike, the situation went from grumblings and protests on the ground to a scene where any sort of dissent in the air has been extinguished for the time being.

    Exactly right, which is why Iran will go more hardline if anything and more united.
    If China admitted to taking out Trump even Maddow wouldn't cheer. https://t.co/zqaEDIoWH1

    -- Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) January 6, 2020

    Iranian leadership will see these developments as important victories in their own right and will likely craft a response taking stock of this much improved position. This means a total focus on making the experience of American troops in the region untenable, which will be far easier to achieve now.

    If that's right, you can expect less shock and awe in the near-term, and more consolidation of the various parties that were on the fence but have since shifted to a more anti-American stance following Soleimani's death. Iran will start with the easy pickings, which consists of consolidating its stronger position in Iraq and making dissidents feel shameful at home. That said, Iran will have to publicly respond with some sort of a counterattack, but that event will be carefully considered with Iran's primary objective in mind -- getting U.S. troops out of the region.

    This means no attacks on U.S. or European soil, and no attacks targeting civilians either. Such a move would be as strategically counterproductive as Assad gassing Syrian cities after he was winning the war (which is why many of us doubted the narrative) since it would merely inflame American public opinion and give an excuse to attack Iran in Iran. There is no way Iranian leadership is that stupid, so any such attack must be treated with the utmost skepticism.

    [Jan 07, 2020] The neocon foreign policy brings only bankruptcy moral and financial by Ron Paul

    Jan 06, 2020 | www.unz.com

    President Trump and his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told us the US had to assassinate Maj. Gen. Qassim Soleimani last week because he was planning "Imminent attacks" on US citizens. I don't believe them.

    Why not? Because Trump and the neocons – like Pompeo – have been lying about Iran for the past three years in an effort to whip up enough support for a US attack. From the phony justification to get out of the Iran nuclear deal, to blaming Yemen on Iran, to blaming Iran for an attack on Saudi oil facilities, the US Administration has fed us a steady stream of lies for three years because they are obsessed with Iran.

    And before Trump's obsession with attacking Iran, the past four US Administrations lied ceaselessly to bring about wars on Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Serbia, Somalia, and the list goes on.

    At some point, when we've been lied to constantly and consistently for decades about a "threat" that we must "take out" with a military attack, there comes a time where we must assume they are lying until they provide rock solid, irrefutable proof. Thus far they have provided nothing. So I don't believe them.

    President Trump has warned that his administration has already targeted 52 sites important to Iran and Iranian culture and the US will attack them if Iran retaliates for the assassination of Gen. Soleimani. Because Iran has no capacity to attack the United States, Iran's retaliation if it comes will likely come against US troops or US government officials stationed or visiting the Middle East. I have a very easy solution for President Trump that will save the lives of American servicemembers and other US officials: just come home. There is absolutely no reason for US troops to be stationed throughout the Middle East to face increased risk of death for nothing.

    In our Ron Paul Liberty Report program last week we observed that the US attack on a senior Iranian military officer on Iraqi soil – over the objection of the Iraq government – would serve to finally unite the Iraqi factions against the United States. And so it has: on Sunday the Iraqi parliament voted to expel US troops from Iraqi soil. It may have been a non-binding resolution, but there is no mistaking the sentiment. US troops are not wanted and they are increasingly in danger. So why not listen to the Iraqi parliament?

    Bring our troops home, close the US Embassy in Baghdad – a symbol of our aggression – and let the people of the Middle East solve their own problems. Maintain a strong defense to protect the United States, but end this neocon pipe-dream of ruling the world from the barrel of a gun. It does not work. It makes us poorer and more vulnerable to attack. It makes the elites of Washington rich while leaving working and middle class America with the bill. It engenders hatred and a desire for revenge among those who have fallen victim to US interventionist foreign policy. And it results in millions of innocents being killed overseas.

    There is no benefit to the United States to trying to run the world. Such a foreign policy brings only bankruptcy – moral and financial. Tell Congress and the Administration that for America's sake we demand the return of US troops from the Middle East! (Republished from The Ron Paul Institute by permission of author or representative)

    [Jan 07, 2020] Impeachment as a way out for the USa for create Trump Soliemani muder deadlock with Iran

    Jan 07, 2020 | www.nytimes.com

    Hineni47 NYC area 6h ago

    "Unlike with North Korea, it's difficult to imagine any photo op or exchange of love letters defusing the crisis the president has created. " The only thing that might defuse this crisis would be the Senate convicting Trump and removing him from office. It would be a good idea if the House passes another article of impeachment accusing the president of committing an act of war without Congressional authorization.
    Sirlar Jersey City 3h ago Times Pick
    Threatening to destroy cultural sites of a country is the sign of a deranged madman. I can't believe a US president would dare say something like that. It goes against all the principles America stands for. Nothing will motivate the people of Iran to fight the US more than the threat of destruction to their cultural sites. If we go to war with Iran, this is a Republican war. They own it. When are decent Republicans going to stand up and do the right thing? If they don't, this could be very, very, bad.
    PatMurphy77 Michigan 5h ago
    The Defense department is already walking back Trump's tweet about bombing Iran culture sites. Unfortunately, it's too late because the damage to our reputation as the "shining light on the hill" has already been destroyed. I'm afraid more than now than I have ever been in my life. Who knows when or where the revenge will occur but I'm fairly certain it will happen and we'll be more isolated than ever before. It's taken centuries to build goodwill and our reputation as a beacon of democracy for the world. We gave the keys to the kingdom to a false prophet and we'll pay for his indiscretions for the rest of my lifetime. God help us all.

    [Jan 07, 2020] The Nightmare Stage of Trump's Rule Is Here by Michelle Goldberg Michelle Goldberg

    Jan 07, 2020 | www.nytimes.com

    After three harrowing years, we've reached the point many of us feared from the moment Donald Trump was elected. His decision to kill Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, Iran's second most important official, made at Mar-a-Lago with little discernible deliberation , has brought the United States to the brink of a devastating new conflict in the Middle East.

    We don't yet know how Iran will retaliate, or whether all-out war will be averted. But already, NATO has suspended its mission training Iraqi forces to fight ISIS . Iraq's Parliament has voted to expel American troops -- a longtime Iranian objective. (On Monday, U.S. forces sent a letter saying they were withdrawing from Iraq in response, only to then claim that it was a draft released in error .) On Sunday, Iran said it will no longer be bound by the remaining restrictions on its nuclear program in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the deal that Trump abandoned in 2018. Trump has been threatening to commit war crimes by destroying Iran's cultural sites and tried to use Twitter to notify Congress of his intention to respond to any Iranian reprisals with military escalation.

    The administration has said that the killing of Suleimani was justified by an imminent threat to American lives, but there is no reason to believe this. One skeptical American official told The New York Times that the new intelligence indicated nothing but "a normal Monday in the Middle East," and Democrats briefed on it were unconvinced by the administration's case. The Washington Post reported that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo -- who last year agreed with a Christian Broadcasting Network interviewer that God might have sent Trump to save Israel from the "Iranian menace" -- has been pushing for a hit on Suleimani for months.

    [Jan 07, 2020] Trump the Intimidator Fails Again by Paul Krugman

    Jan 07, 2020 | www.nytimes.com


    Trump the Intimidator Fails Again

    Because he's just a bully with delusions of grandeur.

    International crises often lead, at least initially, to surging support for a country's leadership. And that's clearly happening now. Just weeks ago the nation's leader faced public discontent so intense that his grip on power seemed at risk. Now the assassination of Qassim Suleimani has transformed the situation, generating a wave of patriotism that has greatly bolstered the people in charge.

    Unfortunately, this patriotic rallying around the flag is happening not in America, where many are (with good reason) deeply suspicious of Donald Trump's motives, but in Iran .

    In other words, Trump's latest attempt to bully another country has backfired -- just like all his previous attempts.

    From his first days in office, Trump has acted on the apparent belief that he could easily intimidate foreign governments -- that they would quickly fold and allow themselves to be humiliated. That is, he imagined that he faced a world of Lindsey Grahams, willing to abandon all dignity at the first hint of a challenge.

    But this strategy keeps failing; the regimes he threatens are strengthened rather than weakened, and Trump is the one who ends up making humiliating concessions. Paul Krugman's Newsletter Get a better understanding of the economy -- and an even deeper look at what's on Paul's mind. Sign up here.

    Remember, for example, when Trump promised " fire and fury " unless North Korea halted its nuclear weapons program? He claimed triumph after a 2018 summit meeting with Kim Jong-un, North Korea's leader. But Kim made no real concessions, and North Korea recently announced that it might resume tests of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles.

    Or consider the trade war with China, which was supposed to bring the Chinese to their knees. A deal has supposedly been reached, although details remain scarce; what's clear is that it falls far short of U.S. aims, and that Chinese officials are jubilant about their success in facing Trump down.

    Why does Trump's international strategy, which might be described as winning through intimidation, keep failing? And why does he keep pursuing it anyway?

    One answer, I suspect, is that like all too many Americans, Trump has a hard time grasping the fact that other countries are real -- that is, that we're not the only country whose citizens would rather pay a heavy price, in money and even in blood, than make what they see as humiliating concessions.

    Ask yourself, how would Americans have reacted if a foreign power had assassinated Dick Cheney, claiming that he had the blood of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis on his hands? Don't answer that Suleimani was worse. That's beside the point. The point is that we don't accept the right of foreign governments to kill our officials. Why imagine that other countries are different?

    Of course, we have many people in the diplomatic corps with a deep knowledge of other nations and their motivations, who understand the limits of intimidation. But anyone with that kind of understanding has been excluded from Trump's inner circle.

    Now, it's true that for many years America did have a special leadership position, one that sometimes involved playing a role in reshaping other countries' political systems. But here's where Trump's second error comes in: He has never shown any sign of understanding why America used to be special.

    Part of the explanation, of course, was raw economic and military power: America used to be just much bigger than everyone else. That is, however, no longer true. For example, by some key measures China's economy is significantly bigger than that of the United States.

    Even more important, however, was the fact that America was something more than a big country throwing its weight around. We always stood for something larger.

    That doesn't mean that we were always a force for good; America did many terrible things during its reign as global hegemon. But we clearly stood for global rule of law, for a system that imposed common rules on everyone, ourselves included. The United States may have been the dominant partner in alliances like NATO and bodies like the World Trade Organization, but we always tried to behave as no more than first among equals. Editors' Picks Headless Body in Cave Is Identified as 1916 Ax Murder Suspect Adam Driver Has Put Everything He's Got Onscreen Office Treats Bring Out the Worst of Humanity Advertisement Continue reading the main story

    Oh, and because we were committed to enforcing rules, we were also relatively trustworthy; an alliance with America was meaningful, because we weren't the kind of country that would betray an ally for the sake of short-term political convenience.

    Trump, however, has turned his back on everything that used to make America great. Under his leadership, we've become nothing more than a big, self-interested bully -- a bully with delusions of grandeur, who isn't nearly as tough as he thinks. We abruptly abandon allies like the Kurds; we honor war criminals ; we slap punitive tariffs on friendly nations like Canada for no good reason. And, of course, after more than 15,000 lies , nothing our leader and his minions say can be trusted.

    Trump officials seem taken aback by the uniformly negative consequences of the Suleimani killing: The Iranian regime is empowered, Iraq has turned hostile and nobody has stepped up in our support. But that's what happens when you betray all your friends and squander all your credibility.

    [Jan 07, 2020] Trump is the kind of child leader that will throw temper tantrums in front of the world. Id impulses are running the world here and when id impulses run the world from the White House we are certain that whatever manifests will be destructive beyond imagination for most adults in the world.

    Jan 07, 2020 | off-guardian.org

    MASTER OF UNIVE American corporations will start falling into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Q1 if the USA MIC cannot find new contracts to profit from via kinetic war. The USA's last war was Iraq post-911 and the USA MIC made good money & profit from that war. Without forever wars the USA Ponzi Corporatocracy will deflate. If the USA Ponzi Corporatocracy deflates due to recession it means the end of USA Imperialism.
    If the hawks can generate forever wars the MIC suppliers may have a chance to stay in business, but if they don't get new contracts for new forever wars they all know implicitly that that is a Zero Sum game for the entire USA population.

    BIG Chief Trump little penis has only one chance to stay in power at this juncture. He has ordered troupes to Iraq and approximately 2000 marines are on the way right now. In brief, 2000 marines were not ordered to Iraq to escort the base troupes out of Iraq safely. They were sent on a mission.

    Impeachment, DOW Share Price, and no Trade Deal with China will put Trump on the defensive and he will start threatening everyone in the world if he does not get his way.

    Trump is the kind of child leader that will throw temper tantrums in front of the world. Temper tantrums worked with his parents, and the Real Estate community in New York shitty.

    Trump is a child of roughly 6 or 7 mentally & socially. Id impulses are running the world here and when id impulses run the world from the White House we are certain that whatever manifests will be destructive beyond imagination for most adults in the world.

    Children with anger management issues & rage issues will understand Trump best.

    [Jan 07, 2020] McConnell Wrangles Republicans For Speedy Trump Acquittal As Schumer Cries Cover-Up

    Jan 07, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    McConnell Wrangles Republicans For Speedy Trump Acquittal As Schumer Cries Cover-Up by Tyler Durden Tue, 01/07/2020 - 15:11 0 SHARES

    Most Senate Republicans have lined up behind Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's plan for a lightning-fast, witness-free impeachment trial which will end with the acquittal of President Trump - much to the chagrin of Senate Democrats led by Chuck Schumer of New York.

    McConnell (R-KY) has been unswayed by former National Security Adviser John Bolton's offer to testify, as well as the recent emergence of emails suggesting Trump's direct involvement in his administration's pausing of US aid to Ukraine after asking President Volodomyr Zelensky to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden ahead of the 2020 US election.

    Two Republicans who have on occasion broken with Trump and have criticized McConnell's statements about the trial -- Alaska's Lisa Murkowski and Maine's Susan Collins -- say they back his plan to follow the precedent of Bill Clinton's 1999 impeachment trial by delaying any decision on witnesses.

    "I think we need to do what they did the last time they did this unfortunate process, and that was to go through a first phase and then they reassessed after that," Murkowski said.

    McConnell likely has the votes to force the issue without cooperation from Democrats . - Bloomberg

    McConnell has guaranteed that Senate Democrats won't have the 67 votes required to convict Trump and remove him from office. Meanwhile, he can simply point to Clinton's impeachment as precedent on witness testimony, as it would allow Trump's lawyers and White House impeachment managers to make their arguments and answer questions from Senators before administration figures such as Bolton and acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney have a chance to speak.

    There have been no discussions between McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who can go pound sand as talks seem unlikely.

    "If every Republican senator votes for a rigged trial that hides the truth, the American people will see that the Republican Senate is part of a large and awful cover-up," said Schumer in a Tuesday screed on the Senate floor.

    Chuck Schumer: "Whoever heard of a trial without witnesses and documents? It's unprecedented ... Witnesses and documents? Fair trial. No witnesses and no documents? Cover-up. That simple sentence describes it all." Via ABC pic.twitter.com/eKhKoBjIVP

    -- Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) January 7, 2020

    According to Trump, Bolton 'would know nothing' about the Ukraine situation.

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), meanwhile, has yet to reveal when she plans to transmit the articles of impeachment to the Senate, thereby making Trump's impeachment official according to House Democratic witness and Harvard Law professor, Dr. Noah Feldman.

    Pelosi's allies argue that the Senate turning down Bolton's offer to testify under subpoena suggest that Republicans are involved in covering up evidence against Trump.

    "McConnell is making very plain he's not interested in the country learning the full extent" of Trump's misconduct, according to a Tuesday statement by House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff. "And apparently there are any number of senators willing to go along with that head-in-the-sand strategy," he added.

    [Jan 07, 2020] Trump wags the hippopotamus - The Washington Post

    Jan 07, 2020 | www.washingtonpost.com

    The idea of launching military action to distract from domestic political troubles has been a thing at least since the 1997 film "Wag the Dog" (as in, the tail wagging the dog) gave it a name. Republicans accused President Bill Clinton of it in 1998 when he ordered airstrikes against Sudan and Iraq as impeachment loomed. Trump alleged (wrongly) that President Barack Obama would " start a war with Iran " before the 2012 election.

    Trump's assassination of Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani has, at least for the moment, shifted attention from the Senate trial. Before the attack, pro-impeachment activists had scheduled a protest inside the Hart Senate Office Building for Monday, but only 45 demonstrators showed up for the event, nearly equaled by the 20 journalists and 15 police officers who greeted them. Though wearing "Remove Trump" and "Trump is Guilty" T-shirts, they were about as disruptive as a tour group.

    ... ... ...

    Now, Trump has lit the Middle East on fire, with only a halfhearted attempt to justify the sudden urgency ("This president waited three years. I mean, we've had Soleimani in our sights for just as long as we've been here," Trump strategist Kellyanne Conway told Fox News on Monday). Thousands of U.S. troops are hurriedly deploying to the region, Iraq is demanding that U.S. troops leave the country , and Iran is threatening retaliation and renewing its nuclear ambitions .

    This is precisely why the impeachment trial -- and Bolton's long-sought testimony -- must go forward. The same lawlessness and recklessness that led Trump to extort political help from Ukraine has now brought us, willy-nilly, to the precipice of war, as Trump openly threatens to commit war crimes. If unchecked, he'll do this again -- and worse.

    [Jan 06, 2020] Trump as a destoryer of the US empire: Unless the USA reinvades and reoccupies Iraq, the USA military forces will be gone from Syria, probably just after the election in November so Trump can say he stood up to the Iraqis

    Jan 06, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    Ghost Ship , Jan 6 2020 22:48 utc | 112

    The three most important things for doing battle are logistics, logistics and logistics, and as Pat lang explains, the US forces in Syria are essentially fucked:
    We have around 5,500 people there now spread across the country in little groups engaged in logistics, intelligence and training missions. They are extremely vulnerable. There are something like 150 marines in the embassy. There are also a small number of US combat forces in Syria east and north of the Euphrates river. These include a battalion of US Army National Guard mechanized troops "guarding" Syria's oil from Syria's own army and whatever devilment the Iranians might be able to arrange.

    4. This is an untenable logistical situation. Supply and other functions require a major airfield close to Baghdad. We have Balad airbase and helicopter supply and air support from there into Baghdad is possible from there but may become hazardous. Iraq is a big country. It is a long and lonely drive from Kuwait for re-supply from there or evacuation through there. The same thing is true of the desert route to Jordan.

    Unless it reinvades and reoccupies, the United States will be gone from Syria, probably just after the election in November so Trump can say he stood up to the Iraqis.

    [Jan 06, 2020] Is Trump that stupid and malleble?

    Jan 06, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    lgfocus , Jan 6 2020 19:40 utc | 11

    Moqtada Al-Sadr to Trump
    "We are demanders of peace if you surrender and war if you fight. Do you threaten us? How dare you"

    read from Elijah Magnier's thread on Al-Sadr's letter.


    Zanon , Jan 6 2020 19:37 utc | 7

    Trump is probably not stupid enough to launch such a war and certainly not during an election year.

    During his campaign Trump said he wanted the U.S. military out of the Middle East. Iran and its allies will help him to keep that promise.

    Hasnt Trump proved he is stupid enough by now? How much more evidence is needed to drop him? Trump start wars to get another election win, I think that is obvious? And allies keeping him back? Which allieshave even remotely criticized his threats and murder? People need to realize that there is nothing stopping Trump, he and Israel will keep bombing and unfortunately its not much Iran could do.

    Clueless Joe , Jan 6 2020 19:37 utc | 8
    Dan: The guy fought the Talibans and ISIS, and has always been opposed to them; that's good enough for me, and that's definitely more than any of the coward and treacherous Western leaders that pussy-foot instead of calling out the US for what tantamounts to a declaration of war on both Iraq and Iran.

    As for trying to put the blame on Pentagon staffers, even if they chose such weird options for Trump to choose, at the end of the day, it's the President himself who chose - as another one said decades ago, "the buck stops here" and the guy in the Oval Office has to bear the full responsibility.

    Col. Lang is once again warning that Trump trying to keep the troops in Iraq would be a terrible mistake with bad consequences, and that it's just not realistic. He probably prefers not to say it that way when stating it's a long road from Kuwait to Baghdad, but if shit hits the fan and Iraqis decide to go after the US troops, then those who can't evacuate fast enough will end up in a position similar to that of the British in Kabul, in the very first days of 1842.

    Phryne's frock , Jan 6 2020 19:37 utc | 9
    Aghast at your words, dan. I am an aging homemaker from usa midwest and I have yet to stop weeping for Qassem Soleimani, his poor widow, and the rest of his family. I feel I owe him a personal debt for fighting zionists/terrorists/imperialists, for if they are not defeated once and for all, my captive government will continue in perpetuity to serve their horridmurderousthieving agenda, enslaving my every descendent and robbing humanity of any chance for peace on this pretty garden harbor planet. May justice be done to give peace a chance.

    [Jan 06, 2020] Pompeo's Petty Decision to Bar Zarif

    Jan 06, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

    Pompeo's Petty Decision to Bar Zarif European External Action Service/Flickr

    January 6, 2020

    |

    8:43 pm

    Daniel Larison Colum Lynch and Robbie Gramer report on the Trump administration's decision to refuse a visa to Iran's foreign minister. Barring Zarif from the U.S. is a blatant violation of U.S. obligations as the host of U.N. headquarters:

    "Any foreign minister is entitled to address the Security Council at any time and the United States is obligated to provide access to the U.N. headquarters district," said Larry Johnson, a former U.N. assistant secretary-general. Under the terms of the U.S. agreement with the United Nations, "they are absolutely obligated to let him in."

    Johnson, who currently serves as an adjunct professor at Columbia University Law School, noted that the U.S. Congress, however, passed legislation in August 1947, the so-called Public Law 80-357, that granted the U.S. government the authority to bar foreign individuals invited by the United Nations to attend meetings at its New York City headquarters if they are deemed to pose a threat to U.S. national security. But Johnson said the U.S. law would require the individual be "expected to commit some act against the U.S. national security interest while here in the United States."

    Refusing to admit Zarif is another foolish mistake on the administration's part. Preventing him from coming to the U.N. not only breaches our government's agreement with the U.N., but it also closes off a possible channel of communication and demonstrates to the world that the U.S. has no interest in a diplomatic resolution of the current crisis. Far from conveying the "toughness" that Pompeo imagines he is showing, keeping Zarif out reeks of weakness and insecurity. Zarif is a capable diplomat, but is the Trump administration really so afraid of what he would say while he is here that they would ignore U.S. obligations to block him?

    By barring Zarif, the Trump administration has given him and his government another opportunity to score an easy propaganda win. They have squandered an opportunity to reduce tensions between the U.S. and Iran. The U.S. needs to find an off-ramp to avoid further conflict following the president's assassination order, but thanks to Pompeo's decision that off-ramp won't be found in New York.

    [Jan 04, 2020] The Real Bob Mueller by Coleen Rowley

    Notable quotes:
    "... What's not well understood is that Comey's and Mueller's joint intervention to stop Bush's men from forcing the sick Attorney General to sign the certification that night was a short-lived moment. A few days later, they all simply went back to the drawing board to draft new legal loopholes to continue the same (unconstitutional) surveillance of Americans. ..."
    "... Mueller is another spook dredged up from the bowels of Hell, in order to fool the honest citizens and ensure Deep State and its useful idiots continue on their way to Oblivion. ..."
    "... Some history: Robert Swan Mueller III married his childhood sweetheart Ann Cabell Standish in 1966, three years after the JFK assassination. Her grandfather, Charles Cabell, was second in command at the CIA during the Bay of Pigs failure and was fired, along with Allen Dulles and Richard Bissell, for lying to him about the mission, which had been doomed to failure before its start. Her great uncle, Earle Cabell Jr. was the mayor of Dallas when it hosted the JFK assassination in 1963. Documents declassified in the last few years revealed that Earle Cabell was himself a "CIA asset" as well. Before anyone thinks that Mueller married into the CIA, his own great uncle was the aforementioned Richard Bissell. ..."
    "... A closer review, here, shows Mueller's career covering up CIA criminal activities, to include Pan Am 103, the prosecution of Manuel Noriega, BCCI, 9/11 et al. He was promoted to handle those cases by former CIA Director GHW Bush. A week before 9/11 he took over as Director of the FBI, appointed by the son of the CIA Director, George W Bush. ..."
    "... Joseph Misfud, a former ambassador for Malta, has been identified in Mueller's report as a Russian agent without proof. In fact, Misfud's career and allegiance has been to western intelligence. Mueller offers no proof to the contrary. But if in fact Misfud is an agent of Russia shouldn't he have made an attempt to interview him. Or interview Assange, who actually received the information? Or interview Craig Murray who claims to know about how the information was transferred from the DNC to Wikileaks? Or to William Binney? ..."
    Jun 06, 2017 | consortiumnews.com

    Robert Mueller Wednesday implied he would have indicted Donald Trump if he could have, resurrecting his saint-like status among Democrats who will now likely go for impeachment. But who is the real Bob Mueller? Ex-FBI official Coleen Rowley explained on June 6, 2017.

    Mainstream commentators display amnesia when they describe former FBI Directors Robert Mueller and James Comey as stellar and credible law enforcement figures. Perhaps if they included J. Edgar Hoover, such fulsome praise could be put into proper perspective.

    Mueller with President George W. Bush on July 5, 2001, as Bush nominated him to be FBI Director. (White House photo)

    Although these Hoover successors, now occupying center stage in the investigation of President Trump, have been hailed for their impeccable character by much of Official Washington, the truth is, as top law enforcement officials of the George W. Bush Administration (Mueller as FBI Director and James Comey as Deputy Attorney General), both presided over post-9/11 cover-ups and secret abuses of the Constitution, enabled Bush-Cheney fabrications used to launch wrongful wars, and exhibited plain vanilla incompetence.

    TIME Magazine would probably have not called my own disclosures a " bombshell memo " to the Joint Intelligence Committee Inquiry in May 2002 if it had not been for Mueller's having so misled everyone after 9/11. Although he bore no personal responsibility for intelligence failures before the attack, since he only became FBI Director a week before, Mueller denied or downplayed the significance of warnings that had poured in yet were all ignored or mishandled during the Spring and Summer of 2001.

    Bush Administration officials had circled the wagons and refused to publicly own up to what the 9/11 Commission eventually concluded, "that the system had been blinking red ." Failures to read, share or act upon important intelligence, which a FBI agent witness termed " criminal negligence " in later trial testimony, were therefore not fixed in a timely manner. (Some failures were never fixed at all.)

    Worse, Bush and Cheney used that post 9/11 period of obfuscation to "roll out" their misbegotten "war on terror," which only served to exponentially increase worldwide terrorism .

    Unfulfilled Promise

    I wanted to believe Director Mueller when he expressed some regret in our personal meeting the night before we both testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee. He told me he was seeking improvements and that I should not hesitate to contact him if I ever witnessed a similar situation to what was behind the FBI's pre 9/11 failures.

    Some of the original detainees jailed at the Guantanamo Bay prison, as put on display by the U.S. military.

    A few months later, when it appeared he was acceding to Bush-Cheney's ginning up intelligence to launch the unjustified, counterproductive and illegal war on Iraq, I took Mueller up on his offer, emailing him my concerns in late February 2003. Mueller knew, for instance, that Vice President Dick Cheney's claims connecting 9/11 to Iraq were bogus yet he remained quiet. He also never responded to my email.

    Beyond ignoring politicized intelligence, Mueller bent to other political pressures. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Mueller directed the " post 9/11 round-up " of about 1,000 immigrants who mostly happened to be in the wrong place (the New York City area) at the wrong time. FBI Headquarters encouraged more and more detentions for what seemed to be essentially P.R. purposes. Field offices were required to report daily the number of detentions in order to supply grist for FBI press releases about FBI "progress" in fighting terrorism. Consequently, some of the detainees were brutalized and jailed for up to a year despite the fact that none turned out to be terrorists .

    A History of Failure

    Long before he became FBI Director, serious questions existed about Mueller's role as Acting U.S. Attorney in Boston in effectively enabling decades of corruption and covering up of the FBI's illicit deals with mobster Whitey Bulger and other "top echelon" informants who committed numerous murders and crimes. When the truth was finally uncovered through intrepid investigative reporting and persistent, honest judges, U.S. taxpayers footed a $100 million court award to the four men framed for murders committed by (the FBI-operated) Bulger gang.

    Current media applause omits the fact that former FBI Director Mueller was the top official in charge of the Anthrax terror fiasco investigation into those 2001 murders , which targeted an innocent man (Steven Hatfil l) whose lawsuit eventually forced the FBI to pay $5 million in compensation. Mueller's FBI was also severely criticized by Department of Justice Inspector Generals finding the FBI overstepped the law improperly serving hundreds of thousands of "national security letters" to obtain private (and irrelevant) metadata on citizens, and for infiltrating nonviolent anti-war groups under the guise of investigating "terrorism."

    For his part, Deputy Attorney General James Comey , too, went along with the abuses of Bush and Cheney after 9/11 and signed off on a number of highly illegal programs including warrantless surveillance of Americans and torture of captives . Comey also defended the Bush Administration's three-year-long detention of an American citizen without charges or right to counsel.

    Up to the March 2004 night in Attorney General John Ashcroft's hospital room, both Comey and Mueller were complicit with implementing a form of martial law, perpetrated via secret Office of Legal Counsel memos mainly written by John Yoo and predicated upon Yoo's singular theories of absolute "imperial" or "war presidency" powers, and requiring Ashcroft every 90 days to renew certification of a "state of emergency."

    The Comey/Mueller Myth

    What's not well understood is that Comey's and Mueller's joint intervention to stop Bush's men from forcing the sick Attorney General to sign the certification that night was a short-lived moment. A few days later, they all simply went back to the drawing board to draft new legal loopholes to continue the same (unconstitutional) surveillance of Americans.

    Former FBI Director James Comey

    The mythology of this episode, repeated endlessly throughout the press, is that Comey and Mueller did something significant and lasting in that hospital room. They didn't. Only the legal rationale for their unconstitutional actions was tweaked.

    Mueller was even okay with the CIA conducting torture programs after his own agents warned against participation. Agents were simply instructed not to document such torture, and any "war crimes files" were made to disappear. Not only did "collect it all" surveillance and torture programs continue, but Mueller's (and then Comey's) FBI later worked to prosecute NSA and CIA whistleblowers who revealed these illegalities.

    Neither Comey nor Mueller -- who are reported to be " joined at the hip " -- deserve their current lionization among politicians and mainstream media. Instead of Jimmy Stewart-like "G-men" with reputations for principled integrity, the two close confidants and collaborators merely proved themselves, along with former CIA Director George "Slam Dunk" Tenet, reliably politicized sycophants, enmeshing themselves in a series of wrongful abuses of power along with official incompetence.

    It seems clear that based on his history and close "partnership" with Comey, called "one of the closest working relationships the top ranks of the Justice Department have ever seen," Mueller was chosen as Special Counsel not because he has integrity but because he will do what the powerful want him to do.

    Mueller didn't speak the truth about a war he knew to be unjustified. He didn't speak out against torture. He didn't speak out against unconstitutional surveillance. And he didn't tell the truth about 9/11. He is just "their man."

    Coleen Rowley, a retired FBI special agent and division legal counsel whose May 2002 memo to then-FBI Director Robert Mueller exposed some of the FBI's pre-9/11 failures, was named one of TIME magazine's "Persons of the Year" in 2002. Her 2003 letter to Robert Mueller in opposition to launching the Iraq War is archived in full text on the NYT and her 2013 op-ed entitled " Questions for the FBI Nominee " was published on the day of James Comey's confirmation hearing. This piece will also be cross-posted on Rowley's Huffington Post page.)

    Relevant links:


    Rowena , June 2, 2019 at 15:32

    When these reports come out that share how so-and-so corrupt federal official *actually* did this and this in his past, my fall back is to share (briefly) such news to my well-informed European friends.

    Unlike "America" that's never been invaded, never suffered through the Black Plague, never went through an entire continent of revolutions, never met starvation and hundreds of millions of deaths from WWI & II, – instead, well-informed Europeans look at all this skullduggery with a shrug of their shoulders.

    **If** the more informed Americans took the time to read about the World's History of carnage and traveled around the world, they would return home far, FAR wiser, and more informed citizens. What desperate shape America is in.

    lila york , June 2, 2019 at 10:56

    I am still waiting for someone – anyone – to take issue with Mueller report itself. I don't believe or trust a word of it. anyone?

    Tiu , May 31, 2019 at 22:45

    Descriptions such as "failure" and "incompetence" are not how I'd describe the intentional activities of Mueller, Comey and numerous other people purported working for democracy and law in the US and elsewhere. They are working purposefully on the New World Order agenda, which by definition will sooner or later render nation states and their governments obsolete. They are using the Hegelian Dialectic, Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis, or Problem, Reaction, Solution to keep the little people running around lining up behind the numerous divisions that have been created for us with the help of the media and education systems.

    jaycee , May 30, 2019 at 21:10

    The anthrax attacks of 2001 were the double-tap to follow the events of 9/11, and were crucial to the successful passage of the Patriot Act. The Patriot Act effectively cancelled the privacy protections of the U.S. Constitution, and reversed the onus of a presumption of innocence in U.S. legal practice. The failure of the FBI, under the leadership of Mueller, to provide or uncover an adequate explanation for the anthrax attacks is a signature black mark in the FBI's history, if not the history of the republic.

    Hank , May 31, 2019 at 09:24

    "Failure" is just the icing on the cake that covers up INTENT! "Failure" should really be "criminal"!

    alexandra Moffat , May 30, 2019 at 17:34

    I knew that things could not possible be as angelic as portrayed regarding Mueller & Comey. But I didn't know any details. Any way to get this out in to the MSM. Thank you, Consortium and Ms Rowley.

    BTW, Mueller was paid by us, the taxpayers. We deserve to see him questioned in person, alive, by a Congressional Hearing.

    LJ , May 30, 2019 at 15:05

    Well, then logically, one would have to assume that those in Trump's inner circle, for instance maybe Sessions and Rothstein , who advised and/or went along with the idea that Mueller should be appointed to investigate his successor and friend Comey were acting in the hope that Trump would eventually be forced from office. Clearly the information put forth in this article must have been known to all. Why did Trump go along with Mueller's appointment when obvious conflict of interest existed.? When an obvious fix was in? Had he no choice or was he blind and/or being led by the blind? I have read that he is an "extremely stable genius". At least so he says. How could he then be so stupid? Is he so arrogant that he is blind or was he intentionally ill advised by his own appointees and possibly the White House attorney ( I'm not talking Cohen here)? Good thing for him I guess that there was no tape to erase and the investigation went through to it's bitter end without actual obstruction. At least he's that smart. If the Democrats had won the Senate in the midterm he would be gone for certain.

    East Indian , June 1, 2019 at 01:46

    Mueller was appointed by Rod Rosenstein, on his own counsel. I doubt if the President or his office had any role in that.

    LJ , June 1, 2019 at 14:40

    Yeah since Sessions backed out of oversight , recused himself > The guy who volunteered to wear a wire to record an irrational Trump outburst which might perhaps be used to force Trump from office through application of the 25th Amendment was behind this appointment. Trump , the elected President could not stop the appointment of Mueller but could end the investigation which could automatically be considered as obstruction. Check/Checkmate. Exactly my point.

    Raymond Comeau , May 30, 2019 at 14:14

    Mueller is another spook dredged up from the bowels of Hell, in order to fool the honest citizens and ensure Deep State and its useful idiots continue on their way to Oblivion.

    Bob In Portland , May 30, 2019 at 12:40

    Some history: Robert Swan Mueller III married his childhood sweetheart Ann Cabell Standish in 1966, three years after the JFK assassination. Her grandfather, Charles Cabell, was second in command at the CIA during the Bay of Pigs failure and was fired, along with Allen Dulles and Richard Bissell, for lying to him about the mission, which had been doomed to failure before its start. Her great uncle, Earle Cabell Jr. was the mayor of Dallas when it hosted the JFK assassination in 1963. Documents declassified in the last few years revealed that Earle Cabell was himself a "CIA asset" as well. Before anyone thinks that Mueller married into the CIA, his own great uncle was the aforementioned Richard Bissell.

    A closer review, here, shows Mueller's career covering up CIA criminal activities, to include Pan Am 103, the prosecution of Manuel Noriega, BCCI, 9/11 et al. He was promoted to handle those cases by former CIA Director GHW Bush. A week before 9/11 he took over as Director of the FBI, appointed by the son of the CIA Director, George W Bush.

    Another key player in our current political show is William Barr. While Barr was getting his law degree he was employed by the CIA. Surprise surprise. One of the main figures in Russiagate is Paul Manafort, whose career consists of him working with world leaders who were either put into power by the CIA, kept in power by the CIA, removed from power by the CIA or murdered by the CIA. It should not be surprising to anyone willing to look that the current maneuvering appears to many to be an attempt to remove Trump from office.

    Joseph Misfud, a former ambassador for Malta, has been identified in Mueller's report as a Russian agent without proof. In fact, Misfud's career and allegiance has been to western intelligence. Mueller offers no proof to the contrary. But if in fact Misfud is an agent of Russia shouldn't he have made an attempt to interview him. Or interview Assange, who actually received the information? Or interview Craig Murray who claims to know about how the information was transferred from the DNC to Wikileaks? Or to William Binney?

    Robert Mueller is just doing what he's always done: cover up for the CIA.

    https://caucus99percent.com/content/what-mueller-wont-find

    Bob Van Noy , May 30, 2019 at 21:26

    Many Thanks Bob In Portland. I was an 18 year old soldier in the 101st. Airborne on alert for the invasion of Cuba so I share you lifetime of frustration.

    To the extent that there is "Continuity In Government", this is it. Great research and information

    Drew Hunkins , May 30, 2019 at 10:15

    Mueller's proven himself to be just another mouthpiece for power and the "respected" establishment. He's been championing the very dangerous lie that the Kremlin interfered in the '16 election, even though there has never been one piece of credible evidence proving that Moscow did any such thing.

    As this canard gets repeated over and over it's sinking in to the public consciousness that the Putin administration is something to be feared.

    exiled off mainstreet , May 30, 2019 at 00:00

    This reveals the deplorable record of Mueller and Comey as lackeys for a corrupt authoritarian regime.

    Doggrotter , May 29, 2019 at 23:50

    Can I share this article I just found. I typed into google "is Mueller a phycopath?" and up popped this. I know next to nothing about the site or authour. Will explore a bit.
    https://nationalvanguard.org/2018/12/robert-mueller-the-quintessential-psychopath/

    Andrew Nichols , May 29, 2019 at 22:47

    Failures to read, share or act upon important intelligence, which a FBI agent witness termed "criminal negligence" in later trial testimony, were therefore not fixed in a timely manner. (Some failures were never fixed at all.)

    Deliberate failures

    Tom , May 29, 2019 at 21:20

    Isn't this the same Robert Mueller who prosecuted Lyndon LaRouche in the late eighties?

    robert , June 19, 2017 at 20:43

    Colleen's article or op ed here seems to be a straight forward, fact based account that the mainstream media would do well to study and consider [of course they generally wouldnt]. I wonder what all the links she has posted in support show?

    I am glad to say I voted for Jill Stein last Nov. She has proven to be too decent for America, I suppose.

    If Americans expected or wanted something better, why did 40% or so last Nov. sit back and refuse to vote, and those that did vote vote for obvious bums like Trump and Hilary? ?

    Rob Roy , May 30, 2019 at 14:41

    Thanks, robert, your letter says exactly what I would write. It's not that good people don't run for office, but the Powers That Be will not allow them to get air time and the MSM goes along with the exclusion, in fact, strongly supports it. War is the business of the USA and must not be stopped. Tulsi Gabbard is the one candidate that opposes war she will be shoved aside, destroyed by lies and ignored by the MSM. I have come to realize Americans are stupid politically and it's not going to stop. It's not just Americans people in Europe have good candidates, but, like here, those good candidates will not be allowed to win important positions. Corbyn comes to mind.

    Vincent Marcantelli , June 9, 2017 at 17:15

    Well, Mr. Comey, should be felling rather safe about now. Why, [you ask] well he is in GOOD hands, his old friend is going to be working the case. they both were Big Shots in the FBI and in the Justice Department. And, just like in any other "secret" unit or outfit, those who are or were in will ALL-WAYS be IN! Mr. Comey, came off as being VERY confident in his questioning, what is it that he is so confident about?
    In a few weeks their could be a very Special hearing, and Mr. Comey will be on the block, but yet he is or was very comfortable during the questioning on the other day. I, do think, that this is going to be another "white wash" of the facts, and the Left, then walks away saying ."See, we knew that the GOP was doing this and or that". Mr. Comey and his old time friend need to be watched!

    Vincent Marcantelli , June 9, 2017 at 17:01

    Hate to say such a thing ..Both of these men, as [honest as they have been portrayed to be], getting them both together, one "against" the other, all that means is "look, were BROTHERS together, were both Good Guys, were both former FBI, were of that brotherhood". Folk's that's something, that is just about as thick as Blood, visa Water. If, someone is NOT watching, President Trump, will be in some serious crap. Would you, want to talk to Comey about ANYTHING, knowing that he is so political, and can "turn on a dime"?. Going back, to the other guy, again would you trust him knowing that he is and has been so close to Comey as it's being tolk and as it's coming out, be it EVER so slow, but as we go deeper into this mess, ALL of these "OUTSTANDING Federal Law Officers", their histories WILL, or at the very least START to show!"

    rm , June 8, 2017 at 05:24

    Mueller was 911 'speed of deceit' cover-up man. All he had to do was follow the forensics. A safe pair of hands,

    Michael Morrissey , June 7, 2017 at 12:51

    Mythical heroes and real criminals. I know that Coleen was much more the hero herself in trying to do her job at the FBI (see her Wiki) and now -- much more so -- as an activist and member (along with Ray McGovern et al.) of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, but

    Well, I respect her a lot, and I would not like to offend her, but I would love to see how she would react in a detailed discussion of what is actually known about 9/11 (which for me is collected in the work of David Ray Griffin). Ditto for Ray McGovern, though I believe he is somewhat more receptive to what let's call for lack of a better term the "inside job" theory. (I hope we are past the notion that the govt's laughable conspiracy theory is in any respect less "speculative" than the solid presentation of facts and argumentation by David Griffin -- whose work is of course based on that of many others.)

    It won't happen, I know. We will all go to our graves, and maybe our children and grandchildren will too, before the NYT or its equivalent says, "Yes, the US govt perpetrated 9/11 in order to scare the crap out of us and make us do everything we have done since."

    Still, Coleen Rowley and Ray McGovern and a few more are way, way ahead of the NYT, their former employers, and I suppose the majority of the US population, and I am glad to be counted as among their supporters and admirers.

    Richard Adams , June 7, 2017 at 12:20

    Now this is what journalist should do. Find the facts and give it to the puplic.

    Rodger Malcolm Mitchell , June 7, 2017 at 10:17

    It takes only two things to keep people in chains: The ignorance of the oppressed and the treachery of their leaders. ( https://mythfighter.com/2017/06/05/here-we-go-again-more-privatization-scam/ )

    Tomk , June 7, 2017 at 21:49

    I think he will, I am not kidding . I really believe we are going to see some unbelievably nasty, nasty knives out full out war ., go back to that speech he gave on the Inauguration Day and HOW VERY INAPPROPRIATE it was viewed by all the "in" crowd sitting there, all the "in" group, all the Bohemian Grovers like Obama was (an attendee he was, already groomed to be President years before, so says Zachary King the ex-high Satanist priest who was there yearly and ran into him and was told his future .) and so many of the others CFR, Trilateral Commission etc. part of the Luciferian loony globalist creeps who truly believe they run the show and watch out if you are not on their "team" and don't tell me when you watched that -- that there was no doubt Trump knew he was throwing it right at them, he knows who and what they are–many on here do too from the comments I have seen –I just don't think Trump got the fact then of how well they have the corporate media totally in the bag and how even with a blatant lie like "Russia did it", that any idiot knows is bs, they will keep on going and going, I think that threw him a good bit but if that Inauguration speech is not enough of a signal that he will go to war here shortly–How about this? -- Secretary of State Tillerson in the last day or so saying he is going forward with making things better with Russia? If Trump was on board now believing he could make peace with the Deep Staters –No way that statement is made by Tillerson, that is a statement of "back at ya" No, Trump is a guy who "gets even" and he is not going to roll for them, he may head fake that way, but he doesn't roll that way, he gets even .and why? Just because LOL, because literally his Father growing up you to say "You're the King" and he is that guy lol this is going to go nuclear between him and the Obama/Bush/Deep Staters .He is still getting a feel for what is up 6 months in, I think he now basically has the picture that regardless of what he does they, the Deep State and the corporate media and the loony left that is clueless but buys into what they are fed, plan to skin him alive, pour salt on him, and hang him out as a trophy -- warning any future non-insider to get their message THIS IS WHAT WE DO TO OUTSIDERS! -- much like all future insiders got their message when JFK was shot down by them like a dog in the street and a "lone nut" was the laughable patsy, no one believes that err except the NYTs lol .Trump now knows there is NO MERCY coming his way, none nada, that this is bloodsport, why do you think he is yelling at Sessions? Sessions–what a horrible choice that was and Trump knows it now decided to recuse himself out of the war lol the "ethics" don't you know and brought in the guy as number 2 who put a hatchet in Trump's back bringing in the cleaner -- Mueller -- Mueller the professional hatchet man who had no problem screwing the country as to 911, "joined at the hip" to Comey the Deep State stooge, intends to seek out anything possible to gut and clean Trump for dinner (check out the "team" Mueller has in place–as if going after Al Capone in a case where everyone knows there is nothing "there" as to Russian "collusion" by Trump -- they are planning to roll Trump so incredibly badly–no way Trump doesn't know this now thus the screaming at Sessions who now, having rolled over with his "recusal" LOL , offers to resign like that will reverse the damage he's done .) and destroy him completely, taxes, investments, businesses–Trump's entire life will be microscoped for anything, ANYTHING, they can hang on him and every lying disgruntled ex-employee and adversary will be heard from, amplified, and leaked to the globalist corporate media that loathes him–all of which will have nothing to do with the "Russia" collusion lie that Podesta's 2015 emails show he came up with to attack Trump bc he was sanely suggesting that not having a war with Russia was a good idea .If you look at Trump's history, again, he IS NOT, definitely NOT, a nice guy and he has played in the nasty, nasty league of the big money chase almost all his life and he is, do not forget, a billionaire several times over who has his own private security force around him at all times and, despite what the media portrays, he has many, many allies .The country will never be the same again by the time this is "over"–if it ever really ends fireworks are coming beyond our imagination Trump is not going to limp off into the night and they are not going to let him even if he wanted to he is a cornered Wolverine get some popcorn this is going to be a wild ride .

    Dave P. , June 8, 2017 at 12:31

    Tomk: Well done, your analysis is breathtaking. I had flashes in my mind of some of these things coming. I hope this dirty business of Clinton/Bush/Obama also gets aired out in Public View, and the Whole World to look at. It blows my mind watching how "The Deep State" is going after Trump – for almost a year now – who was duly elected President by the U.S. Citizens. Their only vendetta against him is that he wanted to get along with Russia. A child can tell that this whole "Russia Gate" is utterly a Fabrication by the Ruling Establishment. Going on for a year now, these Evil Forces have turned the Country into almost a Lunatic Asylum.

    Obama is all over hatching new plots. He was with Merkel, and a few days back seen with Justin Trudeau. What a useful tool of the Ruling Establishment Obama is. I bet Trump is watching all this. He is not that naive as some people think of him . It seems like, either he is going to submit and leave the scene with guarantees of not bothering him afterwards. or He is going to fight a fight not seen before in U.S. History. It is hard to tell how it will end.

    Sleepless In Mars , June 7, 2017 at 07:31

    "Let me come back again to the waking state. I have no choice but to consider it a phenomenon of interference. Not only does the mind display, in this state, a strange tendency to lose its bearings (as evidenced by the slips and mistakes the secrets of which are just beginning to be revealed to us), but, what is more, it does not appear that, when the mind is functioning normally, it really responds to anything but the suggestions which come to it from the depths of that dark night to which I commend it." Agent Breton

    The White House wants to silence the media and press. They've lost their bearings. The OCB case is expanding. McPike won't let go. We won't be fooled again.

    Pft , June 7, 2017 at 01:03

    Baghdad Bob was more credible and believable than anyone in the MSM today. Its loony tunes. Maybe that Anthrax did the trick and scares them into submission.

    Drew Hunkins , June 6, 2017 at 23:20

    Beyond absurdity that an ostensible hustler who ran cover for years for Boston's ultra-violent Winter Hill Gang now has the authority to overturn the election of the president of the United States. (Albeit a president as flawed as he is, and NOT due to anything involving "RUSSIA!")

    Tomk , June 6, 2017 at 21:51

    Mueller the hatchet man for the Deep State (911 was ok by him it seems, no need to investigate .) has one purpose and that is to take out Trump as his favorable statements as to ending the new Cold War with Russia made him an enemy of those who believe they run the country and who look to profit incredibly by the money they can make from an "enemy" like Russia–much better than the "terrorism" one they created for us .Appointing Sessions AG was a really terrible mistake by Trump given his foreseeable recusal on the most important issue facing Trump (the phony "Russia did it" Trojan Horse to get a Mueller to go fishing to find, or create, ANYTHING to get rid of him .) Sessions is a loser all around igniting a new war on drugs – an incredibly unpopular issue Trump did not even run on and although the cries of "Racist" might be unfair Sessions said some stupid "jokes" that also should have sidelined him given all the enemies Trump knew he had coming in and what he needed at AG–an unimpeachable ally .Trump has to know what is up and it is not his nature to sit back and be harpooned, which is what his enemies do plan ., so this will be a fascinating year to see what he does to stop them from doing him Don't forget Trump is not a particularly nice guy and given he is getting some feel for what he is dealing with, and the incredible gravity of what he is up against, I guarantee we will see some moves coming in response to his enemies that we have never seen, or had anyone even consider, before .

    Stephen J, , June 6, 2017 at 17:02

    I believe this is what happens:

    When gangsters are in control, endless wars slaughter millions of souls
    And countries are destroyed by the hit men of the gangster ghouls
    The unethical money changers finance their dirty depredations
    And corporate cannibals profit from the bloody confrontations

    Government by gangsters is now "the rule of law"
    And "justice" is in the hands of criminals and outlaws
    The language is twisted and debased
    To suit these evil demons of the "human race"

    Fancy titles and Houses of ill repute
    Is where these villains consort and debut
    Making "laws" to screw the masses
    Yet, people continue to vote for these asses

    If there really was "law and order"
    These gangsters would be charged with genocide and murder
    Instead these war criminals parade on the world stage
    When they should be in a big enormous prison cage
    [read more at link below]
    http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2017/01/when-gangsters-are-in-control.html

    backwardsevolution , June 6, 2017 at 17:03

    Stephen J. – you are so right. Good job!

    Stephen J, , June 6, 2017 at 20:09

    Thanks backwardsevolution, I appreciate your comments.
    Cheers Stephen J.

    backwardsevolution , June 6, 2017 at 16:14

    And President Woodrow Wilson being blackmailed to the tune of $40,000.00 over some love letters he had sent to a colleague's wife. Mr. Samuel Untermeyer agreed to pay the blackmail money in return for Wilson appointing Judge Louis Brandeis to the Supreme Court, which he did.

    "Justice Brandeis volunteered his opinion to President Wilson that the sinking of the S.S. Sussex by a German submarine in the English Channel with the loss of lives of United States citizens justified the declaration of war against Germany by the United States. Relying to a great extent upon the legal opinion of Justice Brandeis, President Wilson addressed both houses of Congress on April 2, 1917. He appealed to Congress to declare war against Germany and they did on April 7, 1917."

    Blackmail and threats still work. Comey always strikes me as being very matter-of-fact and cavalier in his answers, as if nothing could ever touch him. I mean, even I would have known not to let Clinton off. He acts as if a mafia-type organization has got his back and he doesn't have to worry, which is probably the case.

    mike k , June 6, 2017 at 17:50

    Yes. The chance of the lying, corrupt cowards "representing" us really calling Comey out on his record are nil. And Trump started a fight with the "intelligence" guys that he now knows he can't finish, so his lawyers will treat Comey very carefully. (In my fantasy Trump's lawyers tear Comey apart, and bring up all his rotten record, reducing him to a blubbering mess ..) Yes I have a fantasy life, but I try not to get it mixed up too much with our so-called reality.

    backwardsevolution , June 6, 2017 at 20:22

    mike k – an interesting thing about that Woodrow Wilson blackmailing (in my above post) is that these guys, with the blackmail knowledge in hand, bankrolled and helped Wilson get into the White House, and then they blackmailed him AFTER he got there. Of course, this way they ensured that they had their man all sewn up. They got him there, he owed them, and they had the damning information. They and they alone end up owning you.

    Trump was bankrolled by a few powerful people. I just wonder if the same thing isn't happening with Trump, some old pictures. Whatever it is, I'm quite sure something happened.

    Joe Tedesky , June 6, 2017 at 22:57

    In our family we have a lawyer (now retired) who once worked under Peter Rodino during the Watergate Hearings. I'll never forget how when I asked my cousin if Nixon would serve time, she said never, because all the politicians who stood in judgement of Nixon had their own skeletons in the closet to hide. D.C. is a nest of degenerates, and charlatan fraudsters, but history proves that this is nothing original. The best 'we the people' can hope for, is when these masters and mistresses of ours decide it is time to feed us, because maybe they need our votes. Who knows? Yes blackmail will insure a trustworthy employee every time. John Lennon had it right, everybody's got something to hide, except for me and my monkey.

    evelync , June 6, 2017 at 16:13

    sorry, May 2002 not 2001 (above)

    Sleepless In Mars , June 6, 2017 at 16:13

    This isn't Seattle, but you can see it from here.

    OCB is working the case with Bob Miller and Agent Vince.

    The mind of the man who dreams is fully satisfied by what happens to him. The agonizing question of possibility is no longer pertinent. Kill, fly faster, love to your heart's content. And if you should die, are you not certain of re-awaking among the dead? Let yourself be carried along, events will not tolerate your interference. You are nameless. The ease of everything is priceless.

    Take it easy. Company has the solution, which is inside the problem.

    Democracy is The Tyranny of The Minority!

    evelync , June 6, 2017 at 14:44

    I am so grateful to Colleen Rowley who has been my heroine, too, since 2001 when she publicly felt, thank goodness, that she must speak out. Rowley stood up with courage, spunk, honor, strength of character, respect for the truth, fearless determination to stand alone, if necessary, in defiance of corruption and lies. Her loyalty was to truth, the constitution and the people of this country, most of whom toil under challenging circumstances, get sent to trumped up wars, get ripped off by big banks and after a lifetime of work are still struggling. Rowley gives us strength and hope that there's something better.

    I suspect Colleen Rowley unlike some of the show boaters is herself a modest person and is just doing what's "necessary" and it's part of who she is.

    Thank you, Colleen. I hate being confused by these people who lie to us and serve their own self interests instead of the public interest.
    And how else would we know?
    Some of them are pretty good at taking credit and are not as obviously horrific to us as, say, a Dick Cheney or a Donald Rumsfeld who seem to be more cartoonish characters than people.
    Thank you.

    Oz , June 6, 2017 at 14:39

    It should also be noted that Mueller was a key figure during the 1980s in the government's campaign to frame and silence Lyndon LaRouche and his movement, a campaign which former AG Ramsey Clark described as the most appalling campaign of its sort that he had seen (and combatting such campaigns is his specialty.)

    F. G. Sanford , June 6, 2017 at 14:00

    Jedgar, as comedienne Lily Tomlin called him, was a career blackmailer, eavesdropper, extortionist and enabler of organized crime dynasties. It's not a coincidence that, in her comedic vehicle as a telephone operator, her routine suggested "listening in" as an extracurricular activity perhaps not disdained by Jedgar himself. Sure, a warrant was needed to use evidence gained by wiretapping in a court of law. But if the motive was blackmail, who needs a warrant? Apparently, this reality is lost on the American public. We should certainly realize that every phone conversation is now retrievable by electronic means. All the FISA Court mumbo jumbo and its purported "checks and balances" is a farce designed to create a veneer of legitimacy. What does anybody think Jedgar bothered getting a warrant to bug Martin Luther King – then subsequently revealed the playbacks and suggested that King commit suicide? Anyone who has spent even a modicum of time looking onto the fraudulent Warren Commission Report must realize that Jedgar was completely complicit. On the ballistics evidence alone, he could have blown the case wide open. At best, he was a criminal coconspirator in a massive coverup. At worst, he ranks among the most vile traitors in our nation's history. This, then, is the legacy of the organization to which the two coconspirators in the present article appertain. On November 22, 1963, our government was hijacked by "deep state" militarists, and a system of permanent war economy was installed. We have descended deeper into that abyss with each passing year. The elected government now serves as a mere facade. I'd suggest that doubters read Vince Salandria's book, especially the recently added chapter on Ruth and Michael Paine at the end. Check the contents – you'll find it. It's free online, and can be accessed from several internet addresses. Unless this sentinel crime is addressed, there is no hope for American democracy. We're done.
    ratical . org/FalseMystery
    ratical . org/falsemystery
    ratical . org/FM
    ratical . org/fm
    Take out the spaces on either side of the dots to use the links. And, I'd advise, don't be fooled by "leaks" which bolster the "deep state" agenda, even if they arrest the leaker.

    BannanaBoat , June 6, 2017 at 14:33

    The Postal service states it photographs every piece of mail.

    backwardsevolution , June 6, 2017 at 15:26

    F.G. Sanford – thank you for the links. This is going to be excellent reading. That Vince Salandria is quite the guy:

    "Only by the war production of World War II were we brought out of the great depression. It was not difficult to discern that we were artfully thrust into the war. I can recall that at the time of Pearl Harbor I was in the 8th grade of Vare Junior High School in Philadelphia. On December 8, 1941, in my math class, our teacher, Miss Wogan, suggested that rather than do our math we should discuss current events.

    I went to the front of the classroom and informed my classmates that I could not accept as plausible President Roosevelt's assertion that the attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise, sneak attack. I pointed out that all of us had known for months about the tension between the U.S. and Japan. I asked how, in light of those months of crisis and tautly strained relations between the two countries, could the battleships at Pearl Harbor have been lined up so closely together, presenting perfect targets for the Japanese? How could the planes I saw in the newspapers burning on our airfields have been positioned wing-tip to wing-tip?

    I reminded the class that President Roosevelt had promised that he would not send our troops into a foreign war. I then offered my conclusion that inviting the Pearl Harbor attack was President Roosevelt's duplicitous device to eliminate the powerful neutralist sentiment in our country while thrusting us into the war."

    Very smart for Grade 8!

    backwardsevolution , June 6, 2017 at 15:41

    "On November 23, 1963 I discussed the assassination with my then brother-in-law, Harold Feldman. I told him that we should keep our eyes focused on what if anything would happen to the suspected assassin that weekend. I said that if the suspect was killed during the weekend, then we would have to consider Oswald's role to be that of a possible intelligence agent and patsy. I told him if such happened, the assassination would have to be considered as the work of the very center of U.S. power. [ ]

    When Oswald was served up on camera as disposable Dealey Plaza flotsam and jetsam and was killed by Jack Ruby I saw a subtle signal of a high level conspiracy. There is every reason to think that intelligence agencies, when they choose a killer to dispose of a patsy, make that choice by exercising the same degree of care that they employ in selecting the patsy. Their choice of Jack Ruby much later would – by providing a fall-back position for the government – serve the interests of the assassins. As the Warren Report would unravel, a deceased Ruby's past connections to the Mafia produced a false candidate for governmental apologists to designate as the power behind the killing.

    Immediately following the assassination I began to collect news items about Lee Harvey Oswald. A pattern began to emerge. Oswald's alleged defection to the Soviets, his alleged Castro leanings as the sole member of a Fair Play for Cuba chapter in New Orleans, his posing with a rifle and a Trotskyist newspaper, his writings to the Communist Party USA, his study of the Russian language while in the Marine Corps, told me that he was not a genuine leftist, but rather was a U.S. intelligence agent."

    Oswald was set up from the get-go. Poor kid, he didn't realize he was playing with fire.

    The Kennedy assassination, 9/11, the other false flags, color revolutions, coups are all the work of those who possess a psychopathic mind.

    Virginia , June 6, 2017 at 15:43

    Remarkable! Good for you.

    David Smith , June 6, 2017 at 17:34

    B.E. as The Empire of Japan's operations plan called for invasion of The Philippines and Wake Island, both defended by United States forces, The United States would have been at war with Japan without a Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. I know The White House was not privy to Japan's operation plan, but it was a certainty that any Japanese move would involve taking Malaya and the Dutch East Indies therefore it would be idiotic to assume they would leave The Philippines alone. In short, the idea that Roosevelt knew and let Pearl Harbor happen to get us into the war is a steaming pile of cowflap. If you are unconvinced by my argumentation and wish to debate further it would be my pleasure. Good luck, you're gonna need it.

    BannanaBoat , June 7, 2017 at 14:31

    According to an old edition of US History magazine, shortly after P.H., pilots at the USA airfeild near Manila spotted a squadron of Nippon fighterbombers circling their airfield, the Japanese failed to spot the airfield and the USA pilots began to scramble. But the pilots were ordered out of their planes, resulting in devastation during the Japanese fighterbombers' next pass.

    BannanaBoat , June 8, 2017 at 16:41

    The high command allowed the USA Pacific airfleet to be destroyed.

    David Smith , June 9, 2017 at 13:37

    Fallacy of Begging The Question. You continue to fail to address my argumentation.

    David Smith , June 8, 2017 at 15:24

    B.B. it is unclear what point you are trying to make, but it is clear it does not address my argumentation.

    LJ , June 1, 2019 at 18:20

    Classified Information and you don't have clearance and nobody else does either. What was that old quote? "When you make assumptions ..," Any opinion on this is as valid as anyone else's without any way to clarify the positions. Fact is we won the War and the Japanese never had a chance. They were suckered into the conflict , Now if you look at History the USA lied about every conflict we ever entered into from the Indian wars up to our 21 bases in Syria now.. We never told the truth once. Not in over 100 interventions in South America, not with 300,000 dead in the Philippines, Grenada, Vietnam, Iraq, Libya, Name one. Never . You believe what you want but I can tell you this , the best indicator of future performance is past performance. And, if you repeat the same experiment over and over and expect a different outcome you are not in search of truth but instead looking for an excuse to advance an alternate version of the truth. In other words rather than truth, one chooses to present a version of the truth thereby demonstrating a preconceived bias against the truth. An aversion to the truth. Peace baby.. Right On.

    Brad Owen , June 7, 2017 at 11:58

    I rather agree with EIR's description in:"Why FDR's explosive 1933-145 recovery worked". The trick was Glass-Steagall and the re-structuring of RFC into a Hamiltonian credit bank all to cut Wall Street outta the loop. To suggest that WWII ended the Depression is to put the cart before the horse. It was the massive generation of credit for re-industrializing and infrastructure, for use in CIVILIAN areas of life, then RE-TOOLED for war production, that ended the war. Minus the New Deal, we would have gone into war grossly unable to equip ourselves for the task. FDR also new the LONG-RANGE threat of the Fascist-NAZI movements as being the outcome of longtime Synarchist plans that preceded and succeeds WWII, obtained from O.S.S. and military and French intelligence (see Synarchy against America by Anton Chaitkin, from EIR). Its' VITALLY important to realize that China's New Silk Road is exactly like FDR's New Deal and can succeed in developing the World, without war or Western Bankers' speculation . The WWII was partly meant to DERAIL FDR's New Deal demonstration of spectacular development without the need for WAR or Wall Street SPECULATION. this is THE SAME fear the DEEP STATE of the Trans-Atlantic Community has of Russia, China and their New Silk Road policy.

    curious , June 3, 2019 at 04:17

    B.E.
    Yes, good instincts for an 8th grader. Just some oddities to add to your analysis, especially the "sneak attack" version.
    For those who have a critical thinking gene, I'll add this: Japan was, and still is an island. Shipping and fuel was very well know even back then. It wasn't too difficult to have intel regarding the amount of steel they were importing, nor fuel. They didn't grow these large ships and multiple planes in the rice fields.
    Many people in the US still don't realize Hawaii was not a US State. So was this an attack on the US, or just some US assets? Given the fact that there were many spotters on most of the islands because of Japanese activity across the South Pacific, we were never clueless on their movements, nor surprised. Hiding aircraft carriers, even to a man with only a 4x binoculars, is extremely difficult. I'll leave that bit of research as to the amount of island spotters the US had for you to read at your leisure. I think it very odd that our newest and bestest aircraft carriers and battleships were not ported in Pearl. This speaks volumes as to our advance knowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack.

    Abe , June 6, 2017 at 17:03

    "Yes, it does sound rather un-American, doesn't it?"
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0l9fE2RAj8
    [Video minutes 3:15-6:25]

    Alexandr , June 6, 2017 at 13:38

    Aaaghh! Damn. Hello everybody! Guys I am trying hard. Almost finished synchronising the subtitles for "Evening with Vladimir Soloviev" TV-show, one of the series. I could have upload it with the subs only, but I do want to make DUB for You and everyone else. So, I need a little more time. Unfortunately this series is outdated enough already. However I wouldn't say that there is much changes happened during this period. And also I wanted to say About Megyn Kelly's FAKE NBC NEWS interview. I guess all of You have seen it already and read YouTube's comments that it was CUTTED hard! Huh. Another evidence of the Western fake news. Just now I have watched 60Minutes TV-show and this was a theme of the relay. Anyway. I look forward to upload the material ASAP. Although I am not sure You need this.

    Jessejean , June 6, 2017 at 13:34

    O god I love this woman. Smart brave educated articulate and patriotic–how could she possibly be heard from in the Amerikan media? I watched Joy Reid disgrace herself last night on MSNBC in place of Rachel disgracing herself. It just breaks my heart. But we still have Consortium News, Robert Parry and Colleen " the hammer" ;-) Rowley. Now, could someone please explain what's really going on with Ms Reality? She seems like a cat's paw, not a whistle blower.

    backwardsevolution , June 6, 2017 at 14:18

    Jessejean – I agree wholeheartedly. Coleen Rowley is a very brave lady. Thank you, Ms. Rowley for a great article and for not being afraid to tell the truth.

    mike k , June 6, 2017 at 13:16

    Until one understands that the US government is a criminal enterprise, and that everyone involved in it is a criminal, with extremely few exceptions – you will not understand what goes on there. The same holds true for the main stream media, these are criminal, lying propaganda outlets for the rich and powerful who own them. Also the US Military is a vicious criminal enterprise pure and simple.

    If you are inclined to cut any of these actors any slack whatever, and forget who they really are, you will simply become a victim of their lies and criminal activities. Regardless of the unceasing barrage of positive images and ideas we are soaked in from childhood, we need to constantly remind ourselves of who these evil people really are, and the horrendous crimes they are responsible for. The idea that James Comey, the head of the secret police is some kind of role model is outrageous. This man deserves to be imprisoned for the rest of his life.

    Dave P. , June 6, 2017 at 15:50

    The irony of all this is that America could be a great positive force for good and beneficial change on the planet. It's location, between two great Oceans, it's physical beauty, and it's resources – America has it all. There is nothing like America on this Planet. [It makes me feel sad about American Indians, who lost it all during the last three or four centuries]. And now, for the last five decades or so, all the best and the brightest from top schools in India, now China, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere (and Iran too !) come to U.S. Universities, and work here. One of the major engines of our high tech sector boom – and leadership in the World – has been due to this foreign born talent. And this talent has contributed a lot in other sectors as well.

    And from all what I have read, after the collapse of Communism, the World was and is willing to accept American leadership. If you watch Putin's speeches at Valdai International Discussion Club, he acknowledges America's leadership, but not complete subservience to U.S.

    Would big countries and ancient civilizations like China and India, or big countries like Brazil, South Africa agree to be completely subservient to U.S.? Should these countries (and the other countries of the World) become U.S.'s vassal states. It is preposterous to think of it. What happened to this idea of Freedom, which is drilled into masses here 24/7 by the Media and the Ruling Establishment. As we want to live free, don't these countries would like to live free.

    And we are waging wars on the Nations to bring freedom and democracy – and American values. What a hypocrisy?

    And we are discussing about Comey and Mueller here! It is hard to comprehend to what lower depths the country has sunk to.
    Trump was not wrong when he was saying during the campaign that the whole place ( Washington) is a swamp. The country was ready for a Populist. Unfortunately, Trump was not the right one.

    I do not have much hope that the upper echelons in this country will learn some wisdom to change their course.

    backwardsevolution , June 6, 2017 at 17:18

    Dave P. – good points. I don't think Trump was the "perfect" one, but I think he could have been the "right" one, had they laid off him, but he's had everything but the kitchen sink thrown at him (the pussy hats, the Berkeley rioters, the media, the Democrats, his own Republican Party). The Deep State has gone after him like crazy because they're fighting for their very survival, and Trump was going to end it.

    I think he WOULD have ended the wars, cut back on NATO, brought affordable healthcare, enforced the border laws (without which you don't have a country, at least not for long), brought jobs back from China/Asia, rebuilt infrastructure, and protected the citizens.

    It appears people don't want that. Go figure.

    Dave P. , June 6, 2017 at 17:40

    backwardsevolution, I agree with you. I think Trump meant to do all these things you mentioned. What I meant to say was that, he did not have any clue of what was to come. Trump does not have any communication skills like Obama, and Clinton, and is not well read or any thing like that. And I think that they – the Deep State – have a very thick dossier on his business deals, and all that. I sometimes feel sorry for him – the guy is caught in the nest of scorpions. When I watch him on TV sometimes, he seems like he is scared, and will do any thing they will ask him to do.

    backwardsevolution , June 6, 2017 at 19:41

    Dave P. – re your "nest of scorpions" comment. Yes, I agree that Trump had no idea what he'd be stepping into. We probably don't know the half of it. Could be death threats against himself (or maybe his family) or blackmail. Something happened because all of a sudden Trump and Tillerson both changed, seemingly overnight, and you're right, Trump has a scared look in his eyes.

    If a thick-skinned braggart like Trump can't go up against these guys, then who can?

    Dave P. , June 6, 2017 at 16:19

    backwardsevolution: Exactly, "Hell is empty and all the devils are here". You have described Washington – Nation's Capitol – of Today – all the devils are here.

    Coleen Rowley , May 31, 2019 at 08:36

    Yes, that's what I think too! I will share some of your comments about the devils and the "nest of scorpions" on my FB page.

    derek leisure , June 6, 2017 at 18:15

    "Hell is empty and all the devils are here." that is much more true than can be seen ./wink

    Stephen J, , June 6, 2017 at 12:58

    I believe the "system" is totally corrupted. We are prisoners in a so-called "democracy."

    The Prisoners of the System
    By Stephen J. Gray

    The prisoners of the system thought they were free
    After all, they lived in a "democracy?"
    Every few years they were allowed to vote
    Then they got punished by the winning lot

    Oh well, at least the masses are allowed to go on holiday
    At the airports they are patted down and groped in the name of security
    Still, their governments were keeping them all safe
    As they spy on them and all the human race.

    Big Brother and Big Sister are now in charge
    And Orwell's "1984" is now here and at large
    Computers are monitored and cell phones too
    Fridges are bugged and smart meters knew

    [read more at link below]
    http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2012/05/prisoners-of-system.html

    mike k , June 6, 2017 at 17:16

    Good one Stephen. Keep 'em coming ..

    Bill Bodden , June 6, 2017 at 12:52

    I will very likely go to my grave with the strong suspicion that the alleged Christmas Bomber (2010) in Portland, Oregon was a case of entrapment. Assuming that kid really did have intentions of setting off a bomb, the FBI agents should have educated him as to why setting off a bomb as a Christmas tree lighting ceremony was a very bad thing to do instead of going through some ritual of simulations. Of course, the FBI agents claim they gave him chances to back out, but I suspect he was like most teenagers who didn't want to be considered as "chicken." – http://theweek.com/articles/488966/portland-bomb-plot-entrapment

    backwardsevolution , June 6, 2017 at 13:41

    Bill – using entrapment in order to move public opinion in a certain direction, steer the herd, influence their thinking, allowing them then to engage in what they want carried out. Sickening. Heat coming down on Israel a little too much? Just create an incident, elicit sympathy, and the whole thing blows over.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/opinion/sunday/terrorist-plots-helped-along-by-the-fbi.html

    Bob Van Noy , June 6, 2017 at 12:51

    Thank you Coleen Rowley especially for clearing up for me The Comey/Mueller Myth. I've bookmarked your article for its invaluable links and truth For many of us you will remain forever a hero

    backwardsevolution , June 6, 2017 at 13:34

    Bob Van Noy – totally agree. Bookmark that Mike Whitney article as well that D5-5 posted above, especially when he says that Rod Rosenstein would not have acted alone on this special prosecutor appointment, and also for what he perceives will be Trump's eventual outcome. As in toast.

    Bill Bodden , June 6, 2017 at 12:26

    To paraphrase Shakespeare: Age has not withered Coleen Rowley nor custom faded her infinite courage.

    Cal , June 6, 2017 at 22:52

    Ditto .

    Joe Tedesky , June 6, 2017 at 12:26

    Thank you Coleen Rowley for jogging my memory in regard to Mueller and Comey. I know you have heard this before, but until the day comes when I will turn on the MSM news, and see you Ms Rowley, and such people like Ray McGovern, Paul Craig Roberts, and of course Robert Parry, then it's the same old song sung by the same old choir. Thank you for the reminder. Joe

    Bill Bodden , June 6, 2017 at 12:22

    Beyond ignoring politicized intelligence, Mueller bent to other political pressures.

    Bending to political and other pressures is one of the rules for "success" in Washington and Wall Street. There must be very few people who have made it to the upper echelons butting heads with the oligarchs running the show. Lewis Lapham, a national treasure of an essayist and author, frequently skewered the "rules of success" and those who played by them.

    D5-5 , June 6, 2017 at 12:13

    Mike Whitney chimes in here:

    http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47117.htm

    [Jan 04, 2020] The Three Main Reasons Trump Can't Lose 2020 Dispelling Nonsense Polls and Wishful Thinking

    Jan 04, 2020 | www.strategic-culture.org

    Looking at Pelosi's statements and methods, it would appear that the process left Democrats looking extremely partisan to the detriment of getting the business of the country done. That business included the USMCA, the Mexico-Canada Agreement that redefines a host of matters previously mishandled by Bill Clinton's tremendously unpopular NAFTA. Why this seems to be the case – Trump was in the process of getting his USMCA through congress, and with high support from organized labor. As we consistently explain, Democrats rely on organized labor not only for votes, but more critically for their entire ground campaigns, especially making phone calls to other voters, and precinct walking during the campaign and on Election Day. That labor always opposed NAFTA and generally supports the USMCA is critical. The key line in Pelosi's post impeachment charade statement, regarding why they were not actually going to send the articles to the Senate and therefore complete the process of impeaching the president, was that she said specifically that they needed instead to prioritize passing the USMCA.

    Imagine that for a moment. Because of the relationship between labor and the Democrat Party, it was necessary for Democrats to appear as its champion, even that it was their idea in the first place. This means that Democrats had the practical wisdom to understand that their impeachment charade did not appeal to blue collar Democrat voters, but in fact would work against them. What they needed in part in the impeachment, apart from implementing their strategy of a thousand cuts, was to energize college educated upper middle-class boomers, which form the bulk of the Rachel Maddow, and Democrat leaning mainstream media consumer demographic. While these people control work-place politics and effectively police water-cooler talk, this back-fires. Voting in the US is secret ballot – and so with this class in control of people's ability to remain employed, unenthusiastic, rehearsed, regurgitated, manufactured 'orange man bad' utterances are more commonly heard than they are truly believed. People say one thing at work to keep their job, and then vote another way on Election Day.

    But the USMCA fiasco surrounding the impeachment tells us a lot. Eight years of Bill Clinton and decades of his NAFTA has been symptomatic of the Democrat's anti-labor politics. Democrats from that time onward invested their political capital into developing socialism. However, they didn't develop this in the US, but in China – while in the US a crony class grew up and lined their own pockets from it all. This is something which is perhaps, in a strange turn of events, quite good for China and many other developing parts of the world including Africa. But that has come at the expense not of America's wealthy 'bourgeoisie', but rather its own 'working class'. Bill Clinton was supposed to work to reverse 12 years of Reagan-Bush, whose anti-labor policies amounted to one of the single greatest austerity campaigns in US history. And yet this was only to be outdone by Clinton's outsourcing and off-shoring of jobs, and deregulation of the financial sector.

    What has shown to matter least of all, and especially where Trump is concerned, are polls. And even here too, polls – when read correctly – point to a Trump victory.

    There are also reasons why left-wing Democrats like documentary film maker Michael Moore also understand that Trump is likely to win. Needless to say, his fixation therefore on an impeachment succeeding, and his blanket support for Nancy Pelosi's absurd and failing strategy, is also why even progressive Democrats like Sanders fail to understand why Trump is unbeatable. Their placing hopes in impeachment isn't so much that impeachment is viable or likely, but from a sober and scientific approach, it's only more likely than an electoral defeat of Trump at the polls given that the party stubbornly insists on promoting Biden and Buttigieg.

    "It's the economy, stupid"

    Sure, it will always be argued that the improved economy under Trump was in fact either related to impersonal forces of the global economy unrelated to Trump; sun spots, the invisible hand, or Obama policies whose fruits we are now only reaping. But voters never go for this reasoning. Partisans do, but voters don't.

    Democrats at best are going to point out that while employment numbers have improved, 'never before have so many earned so little'. And while that's true, we are dealing with a badly bruised and insecure American working class. Things right now appear to be going in the right direction, and so being able to find work even if it's a lower salary than they had before their several-year unemployed stint, they are literally thanking the heavens, the stars, and even Trump, that today they have any job at all. And even here, Trump's tax cuts put a few thousand dollars back in the pockets of households where the average combined income is about $70k. His even larger, but targeted, tax cuts for the rich in certain areas, due to the economic growth these cuts in part inspired, resulted in more tax revenues overall.

    And yes, we get it – old black people like Biden . At least mainstream media reports on certain polls, whose methodologies we can't see, report as much. What did that question actually look like? We think the push-poll went something like: "In the coming election, would you support Obama's good friend and Vice President , a gay mayor, a neurotic Jew, a Hindu veteran who may have PTSD, Pocahontas, or a Chinaman good at math? Obama's VP was Biden. Will you vote for Biden? Y/N".

    But still this figure is misleading, and doesn't relate to Biden's electability, but is supposed to get past this trope that he's a racist – a meme trending surrounding the first few debates. Older black voters won't turn swing-states, and older black voters aren't part of an energized or energizing electorate for new voters. This means that the media's reportage cycle on this 'factoid' is about virtue signaling to the above mentioned Rachel Maddow demographic that Biden is ' progressive since black people like him '. Oh, you don't like Biden? Well black people like Biden. Don't you like black people?

    And our jokingly hypothetical poll question aside, the reality isn't far off. This targeted poll of black voters relates almost entirely back to labor union activism. The DNC controls organized labor, and Biden is the DNC's choice. Black workers are extraordinarily over-represented in the public sector, and the public sector is extraordinarily over-represented in union membership. Older people are more likely to be involved in activism in their labor union, and as a consequence, older black people trend towards Biden more than other candidates. This factoid may trend well right now in media, but will have nothing to do with the outcome of the election except that it will guarantee Trump's victory if Biden is the Democrat nominee.

    And so we have it, our three primary reasons Trump will win: the lack of enthusiasm for the DNC's picks, the increasing enthusiasm among Trump supporters which will be contagious (again), and the economic growth which, while favoring the rich, in fact did in this case 'trickle down'.

    [Jan 04, 2020] Trump is a bully and a tool, Isreal lobby tool. He has no vision for the future other than Eretz Yisrael , the failed free market, deregulation, and small government Koch Brothers claptrap preached by the extreme right since Calvin Coolidge.

    Jan 04, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    jadan , Jan 4 2020 23:48 utc | 112

    @ Hal Duell 23
    "But can we please stop underestimating him? He has straddled the world for four years now. His only peers are Putin and Xi."

    "Straddled the world", you say? Beshitting the world with toxic narcissism is the truth. Trump is using US power to advance his own brand, his cult of personality and pursuit of emoluments. World leaders cringe when he is among them. He has intensified conflict with Iran by refusing to honor a hard won treaty that promised to stabilize relations in the region, just as he has rebuked nuclear arms agreements with Russia, and created unnecessary conflict with China. This unilateral scofflaw approach to international relations is extremely dangerous. Trump is a bully and a fool. When he claims the fat North Korean dictator "likes him", he broadcasts what a dope he really is. He has no vision for the future other than the failed free market, small government Koch Brothers claptrap preached by the extreme right since Calvin Coolidge.

    And you admire this man and think he measures up to a Xi or Putin? Trump is a coward and a bully and his supporters confuse his mindless aggression with strength as they pretend he's playing 3 or 4 dimensional chess when what he's really doing is playing them for the chumps they are. It won't be long now before you seriously regret any positive opinion to have had of this "world straddling" horse's ass.

    [Jan 03, 2020] Skripals false flag along with Douma false flag and OPCW role in it, as well as DNC hack and Gussifer 2.0 false flags might be a watershed events in terms of the ability of the neoliberal MSM to control public opinion.

    Notable quotes:
    "... That is if the MSM get their way! Maybe I am being overoptimistic, but Russia - as a permanent member of the UNSC and a member of the OPCW - will do everything in it's powers to pursue this matter, and it seems quite possible they will be able to force it onto the main agenda within 2020. If that happens it will be impossible for the MSM to push it under the rug. ..."
    "... The other aspect it is that the MSM ability to suppress this news is dependent on behaviour of the MSM community in its totality, and the relationship to reader plausibility ..."
    "... What determines whether one MSM decides to break the pack and publish news on OPCW? Well, for one thing, MoA articles can influence individual journalists and individual editors! ..."
    Jan 01, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    BM , Dec 31 2019 17:18 utc | 15

    B, under the "major stories covered" title you should include Skripal, about which you wrote many important articles; I believe ultimately - like OPCW and Russiagate - it will prove to be history-making event in terms of impact on public perceptions of media and the ability of the media to control public opinion. Probably eventually whistleblowers will come forward like the OPCW, and only thin will it have it's maximum impact.

    (Well, the original event was 2018 not 2019, but some of the reports were in 2019 anyway)

    BM , Dec 31 2019 17:36 utc | 20

    My predictions on these issue for next year are:
    ...
    Mainstream media have suppressed all news about the OPCW scandal. This will only change if major new evidence comes to light.

    That is if the MSM get their way! Maybe I am being overoptimistic, but Russia - as a permanent member of the UNSC and a member of the OPCW - will do everything in it's powers to pursue this matter, and it seems quite possible they will be able to force it onto the main agenda within 2020. If that happens it will be impossible for the MSM to push it under the rug.

    The other aspect it is that the MSM ability to suppress this news is dependent on behaviour of the MSM community in its totality, and the relationship to reader plausibility. There are a few factors that could influence this independently of major new evidence, such as the behaviour of a few outlier MSM's that decide to release information (and whether or not that information then takes off in the public consciousness); pressure that could build up in social media calling for the MSM to respond and attacking MSM credibility; or other forms of pressure from the public calling on the MSM to respond. It is therefore a dynamic that is not entirely predictable.

    Both of the above are distinct from the emergence of new major evidence, although both cases would seem likely to provoke new revelations in turn.

    What determines whether one MSM decides to break the pack and publish news on OPCW? Well, for one thing, MoA articles can influence individual journalists and individual editors!

    [Jan 03, 2020] If a conflict between USA led NATO and Russia goes thermonuclear,we can all kiss our asses goodbye. Two maybe three hundred million dead outright within an hour or so. What then?? Who the fuck knows.

    Jan 03, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

    Northern Star

    January 2, 2020 at 5:30 pm
    "With each passing day of the impeachment crisis, the distance between the official reasons for the conflict in Washington and the real reasons grows wider.

    It has become increasingly clear that the central issue is not Trump's attempt to "solicit interference from a foreign country" by "pressuring a foreign country to investigate one of the president's main domestic political rivals," as alleged in the whistleblower complaint that triggered the impeachment inquiry.
    Rather, the conflict raging within the state centers on Trump's decision to temporarily delay a massive weapons shipment to Ukraine.

    The ferocity with which the entire US national security apparatus responded to the delay raises the question: Is there a timetable for using these weapons in combat to fight a war against Russia?

    A New York Times front-page exposé published Monday, coming in at 5,000 words and bearing six bylines, makes it clear that Trump's decision to withhold military aid -- over a month before his phone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky -- triggered the conflict that led to the president's impeachment.

    As the Times reports, "Mr. Trump's order to hold $391 million worth of sniper rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, night vision goggles, medical aid and other equipment the Ukrainian military needed to fight a grinding war against Russian-backed separatists would help pave a path to the president's impeachment."

    "Despite the unforeseen and disastrous consequences of the CIA-backed coup in Ukraine, the United States is determined to continue its efforts to militarily encircle Russia, which it sees as a major obstacle to its central geopolitical aim -- control of the Eurasian landmass, which would give it a staging ground for a conflict with China."

    If a conflict between USA led NATO and Russia goes thermonuclear, we can all kiss our asses goodbye. Two maybe three hundred million dead outright within an hour or so. What then?? Who the fuck knows.

    However if the conflict remains non thermonuclear -but possibly involving tac nukes -- I can conceive of no scenario in which Russia does not stomp the living shit out of a USA/NATO aggressor. Russia and China allied and working together? Capitulation of the USA/NATO forces within a month tops.

    The problem is that we have psychopaths in D.C. and Brussels who actually believe that the peoples of the Eurasian land mass can be subjugated. As long as their insanity is tolerated ,we are all living on borrowed time.

    https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/12/31/pers-d31.html

    Northern Star January 2, 2020 at 5:34 pm
    Yup!!!
    Like I was saying:

    https://www.checkpointasia.net/with-the-demented-advice-biden-is-getting-on-russia-better-buckle-your-seatbelts-if-he-wins-2020/

    [Jan 02, 2020] Obama's NSC Holdovers Finally Booted After Three Years Of Non-Stop Leaks

    Jan 02, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    by Tyler Durden Wed, 01/01/2020 - 22:30 0 SHARES

    The White House National Security Council is sharply downsizing 'in a bid to improve efficiency' by consolidating positions and cutting staff, according to the Washington Times - which adds that a secondary, unspoken objective (i.e. the entire reason) for the cuts is to address nonstop leaks that have plagued the Trump administration for nearly three years.

    President Trump and new National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien

    Leaks of President Trump 's conversations with foreign leaders and other damaging disclosures likely originated with anti-Trump officials in the White House who stayed over from the Obama administration, according to several current and former White House officials. - Washington Times

    The reform is being led by National Security Adviser Robert C. O'Brien , who told the Times that 40-45 NSC staff officials had been sent back to their home-agencies, and more are likely to be moved out.

    "We remain on track to meeting the right-sizing goal Ambassador O'Brien outlined in October, and in fact may exceed that target by drawing down even more positions ," said NSC spokesman John Ullyot.

    Under Obama, the NSC ballooned to as many as 450 people - and officials wielded 'enormous power' according to the report, directly telephoning commanders in Afghanistan and other locations in the Middle East to give them direct orders in violation of the military's strict chain of command.

    Meanwhile, the so-called second-hand 'whistleblower' at the heart of President Trump's impeachment was widely reported to be a NSC staffer on detail from the CIA, Eric Ciaramella, who took umbrage with Trump asking Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky to investigate former VP Joe Biden - who Ciaramella worked with.

    After O'Brien is done, less than 120 policy officials will remain after the next several months.

    The downsizing will be carried out by consolidating positions and returning officials to agencies and departments such as the CIA, the State and Defense departments and the military.

    Mr. O'Brien noted that the NSC had a policymaking staff of 12 in 1962 when President Kennedy faced down the Soviet Union during the Cuban missile crisis. During the 2000s and the George W. Bush administration, the number of NSC staff members increased sharply to support the three-front conflict in Iraq, Afghanistan and the war on terrorism.

    However, it was during the Obama administration that the NSC was transformed into a major policymaking agency seeking to duplicate the functions of the State and Defense departments within the White House . - Washington Times

    "The NSC staff became bloated during the prior administration," said O'Brien. "The NSC is a coordinating body. I am trying to get us back to a lean and efficient staff that can get the job done, can coordinate with our interagency partners, and make sure the president receives the best advice he needs to make the decisions necessary to keep the American people safe."

    "I just don't think that we need the numbers of people that it expanded to under the last administration to do this job right," he added.

    Obama-era NSC officials are suspected of leaking classified details of President Trump's phone conversations with foreign counterparts .

    After Mr. Trump 's election in November 2016 and continuing through the spring of 2017, a series of unauthorized disclosures to news outlets appeared to come from within the White House . Several of the leaks involved publication of sensitive transcripts of the president's conversations with foreign leaders.

    Rep. Devin Nunes, California Republican and former chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said this year that he sent the Justice Department eight criminal referrals related to the leaks, including those related to Mr. Trump 's conversations with the leaders of Mexico and Australia.

    Former White House strategist Steve Bannon said efforts to weed out the Obama holdovers was a priority early in the administration.

    " The NSC had gotten so big there were over 450 billets ," said Mr. Bannon, adding that he and others tried to remove the Obama detailees from the White House .

    "We wanted them out," he said. "And I think we would have avoided a lot of the problems we got today if they had been sent back to their agencies ."- Washington Times

    In addition to Ciaramella, Lt. Col. Alexander Vimdman (likely Ciaramella's source) testified against President Trump during the House Impeachment investigations - telling the Democratic-led House Intelligence Committee that he was "concerned" by what he heard on Trump's call with Zelensky.

    NSC official Tim Morrison, meanwhile, testified that Vindman was suspected of leaking sensitive information to the press , a claim Vindman denied.

    Read the rest of the report here .


    MaxThrust , 34 seconds ago link

    These holdovers from the Obama presidency will be sent back to their respective intelligence agencies but not retrenched. They will continue to be employed, do nothing useful and receive salary until their retirement date. Great working for .gov isn't it.

    Lord Raglan , 2 minutes ago link

    My question is whether little weenie ******** Vindman who wore his uniform to the hearings but wore a suit every day to the White House is out of the White House and kicking horse turds down the street. Imagine being President of the United States and you can't get that *** hole out of your house each day. Same comment with Tim Morrison.

    CosmoJoe , 8 minutes ago link

    "The NSC staff became bloated during the prior administration," said O'Brien."

    Imagine that! Useless ******* parasite government employees sucking up a paycheck, probably paid handsomely. When you see a useless **** government employee, imagine them with a bandit mask with their hand in the pocket of hard working private sector Americans.

    Boonster , 1 minute ago link

    Yes. Worked at Office of Personnel management for 2 years as a contractor. Full of lazy incompetents hired for any reason other than talent. Deadwood everywhere.

    [Jan 01, 2020] Must-read on George Soros's manipulations in Ukraine.

    Jan 01, 2020 | www.unz.com

    Skeptikal , says: December 30, 2019 at 1:39 am GMT

    An expose by F. William Engdahl constitutes what might be considered evidence of Mr. Joyce's assertion.

    Must=read, in any case, on George Soros's manipulations in Ukraine.

    "An American Oligarch's Dirty Tale of Corruption"

    http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52773.htm

    [Jan 01, 2020] DiGenova: Comey And Brennan Were 'Coup Leaders'

    Brennan probably will take the bullet for Obama...
    Jan 01, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    https://www.dianomi.com/smartads.epl?id=4777 DiGenova: Comey And Brennan Were 'Coup Leaders' by Tyler Durden Wed, 01/01/2020 - 19:30 0 SHARES

    Former US Attorney Joe diGenova told OANN 's John Hines that former FBI Director James Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan were "coup leaders" in an attempt to reverse the outcome of the 2016 US election.

    DiGenova says the Obama Justice Department was corrupted under Attorneys General Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch, "with the authority and knowledge of then-president" Obama, and that a 'stupid and arrogant' Susan Rice was dumb enough to document his knowledge in a January 20th, 2017 email.

    "And you'll never forget, I'm sure, that famous Susan Rice email on inauguration day of Donald Trump, where she sends an email to the file memorializing that there had been a meeting on January 5th with the president of the United States, all senior law enforcement and intelligence officials, where they reviewed the status of Crossfire Hurricane and the president announced - President Obama - that he was sure that everything had been done by the book.

    I want to thank Susan Rice for being so stupid and so arrogant to write that email on January 20th because that's exhibit A for Barack Obama - who knew all about this from start to finish, and was more than happy to have the civil rights of a massive number of Americans violated so he could get Donald Trump." -Joe diGenova

    Moreover, diGenova says that after "all this stuff involving Trump and Page and Papadopoulos and Michael Flynn," anyone who couldn't see that the "corrupt investigative process of the FBI and DOJ was basically being used to conduct a coup d'état" is an idiot.

    "This was not hard. If you're a good prosecutor you look at the facts in the Trump case, and the Page case, the Flynn case. There's only one conclusion you can come to; none of this makes any sense. None of these people were evil. None of them. They were framed , and the whole process was playing out, and you knew it on July 5th 2016, when James Comey announced - usurping the functions of the Attorney General, that no reasonable prosecutor would bring a case against Hillary Clinton. That was ludicrous! She destroyed 30,000 emails that were under subpoena. If you or I did that, we would be in prison today . She got a break because she was Hillary Clinton, and James Comey was trying to kiss her fanny because he wanted something from her when she became president of the United States.

    All of these people who watched that news conference and didn't think that it was a disgrace for the FBI. And then subsequently, watched all this stuff involving Trump and Page and Papadopoulos and Michael Flynn - and couldn't see that the corrupt investigative process of the FBI and the DOJ was basically being used to conduct a coup d'état . I mean you have to be an idiot. Any first year assistant US attorney would look at all these facts and say 'there's a coup underway. There's a conspiracy.'

    But for those of us thought that, the Washington Post, the New York Times. We were 'conspiracy theorists.' You know what? Pretty damn good theory, it appears today.

    " To what extent is the CIA involved in this? " asked Hines.

    " Well there's no doubt that John Brennan was the primogenitor of the entire counterintelligence investigation, " replied diGenova. "It was John Brennan who went to James Comey and basically pummeled him into starting a counterintelligence investigation against Trump. Brennan's at the heart of this. He went around the world. He enlisted the help of foreign intelligence services. He's responsible for Joseph Mifsud and other people."

    " People do not have even the beginning of an understanding of the role that John Brennan played in this . He is a monstrously important person, and I underscore monstrously important person. He has done more damage to the Central Intelligence Agency - it's equal to what James Comey has done to the FBI. It's pretty clear that James Comey will go down in history as the single worst FBI director in history, regardless of how Mr. Durham treats him."


    gold_silver_as_money , 23 minutes ago link

    Brennan was just the puppet. The real question is who the power brokers were behind the scenes pulling strings and giving all the government officials cover. That's probably what Durham is/needs to get to the bottom of. Hillary is untouchable until those guys get the book thrown at them. My guess is the Queen is involved, probably the Vatican and Mossad as well.

    Leguran , 24 minutes ago link

    Full agreement with Joe DiGenova. In addition, I believe President Obama was an instigator of this coup d'état. It could only happen in the intelligence field with his consent. His whole persona is based on his willingness to calculate political gain and he had no qualms or ethics. He was hailed as the first "black" President. His role in this coup was made possible by all the people who thought black people were inferior and needed an opportunity to get ahead. Depending upon how you look at that, that picture is in tatters. Black folks are incredibly fortunate to have President Trump who will not blame black folks for the travesties and destruction wrought by another black man. Would a died in the wool radical like Hillary Clinton think that way?

    Schroedingers Cat , 48 minutes ago link

    The good men of the agencies should punish Comey and Brennan. They have "six ways 'til Tuesday to get even." Why not teach them a lesson from the inside? Many MANY people in the agency have been insulted by this and they deserve justice against Comey and Brennan.

    Dumpster Elite , 51 minutes ago link

    Gotta give it to the OAN network. They're not dumb. If this actually DID pan out (indictments and such, as a result of this investigative stuff, with no help whatsoever from Barr, etc.), then OAN will be the lead network covering this.

    Needless to say, it speaks VOLUMES upon VOLUMES, that Fox News isn't covering this (other than Hannity).

    Md4 , 52 minutes ago link

    "And you'll never forget, I'm sure, that famous Susan Rice email on inauguration day of Donald Trump, where she sends an email to the file memorializing that there had been a meeting on January 5th with the president of the United States, all senior law enforcement and intelligence officials, where they reviewed the status of Crossfire Hurricane and the president announced - President Obama - that he was sure that everything had been done by the book."

    Now... let's, for a moment, imagine this scene.

    We've already had a Watergate in our history, involving the spying of one party on another during a presidential campaign season.

    These people know how that turned out.

    Most of them are lawyers, and at least one is a supposed Constitutional scholar and professor of Constitutional law.

    That's Blo.

    Does Rice really expect us to believe they didn't know Crossfire Hurricane was based on Clinton Campaign-paid for ********?

    Wouldn't a law professor president wanna know the basis, and the veracity of the details, of such a risky operation before authorizing it?

    Or are we to believe he merely accepted the assembled "assurances" in this meeting?

    Were there presidential meetings about spying on Trump that occurred well before this one?

    [Jan 01, 2020] Tulsi Gabbard Defends 'Present' Vote; Warns Impeachment Will Backfire

    Tulsi proved to be amazingly talented politician. Viva Tulsi. Down with old neocon and war criminal Pelosi
    Jan 01, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
    by Tyler Durden Tue, 12/31/2019 - 11:15 0 SHARES

    Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D) has taken flack from the left after voting "present" during last week's formal House impeachment vote, and now says that the process may only "embolden" President Trump and increase his chances of reelection (which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned about before she caved to her party).

    "I think impeachment, unfortunately, will only further embolden Donald Trump, increase his support and the likelihood that he'll have a better shot at getting elected while also seeing the likelihood that the House will lose a lot of seats to Republicans," said Gabbard in a Saturday interview with ABC News in Hudson, New Hampshire.

    Tulsi Gabbard: "Unfortunately the House impeachment of the President has greatly increased the likelihood that Donald Trump will remain the President for the next 5 years... Furthermore the House impeachment has increased the likelihood that Republicans will take over the House." pic.twitter.com/gQIPssX0nS

    -- The Hill (@thehill) December 31, 2019

    Gabbard also told CBS News that impeachment may allow Republicans to regain the majority in the House after the 2020 election.

    WATCH: I sat down with @TulsiGabbard to discuss her "present" vote on impeachment. Gabbard says the Senate trial will strengthen President Trump.

    Most Gabbard supporters I've spoken with in New Hampshire approve of her vote, particularly independents.

    🔗 https://t.co/SOsvF9jsHQ pic.twitter.com/hDi7JoI4Kg

    -- Nicole Sganga (@NicoleSganga) December 31, 2019

    Gabbard -- a 2020 president candidate -- noted that the prospect of a second term for Trump and a Republican-controlled House is a "serious concern" of hers, adding that she's worried about the potential ramifications that will be left if Trump is acquitted.

    She told ABC News that it could leave "lasting damage" on the country as a whole.

    The Democratic congresswoman -- who is known to be an outspoken critic of her own party -- was the lone lawmaker to not choose a side on impeachment, and has faced intense criticism for her choice. - ABC News

    Gabbard defended her decision to vote present, calling it an "active protest" against the "terrible fallout of this zero sum mindset" between Democrats and Republicans. She told ABC News that her vote was "not a decision of neutrality," and that she was indeed "standing up for the people of this country and our ability to move forward together.


    A rope leash , 4 minutes ago link

    If she isn't the Democratic nominee, the Democratic Party will cease to exist.

    She is clearly the only uncorrupted adult running, including Trump.

    She is running on foriegn policy. Those worried about her domestic policy forget it will go nowhere in a Republican Congress.

    She's the only anti-war candidate. You want Tulsi or you want war.

    GALLGE , 12 minutes ago link

    DiGenova: Comey and Brennan were 'coup leaders'

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Oea0Dz0w4U

    Vince Clortho , 15 minutes ago link

    Observe Tulsi while you can. She is the last of a dying breed -- a relatively moderate democrat. In today's Glo-Bol-Commiecrat party you have to be completely onboard with their 4 sheets to the wind extremist platform or you are the enemy.

    ddiduck , 48 minutes ago link

    Not to worry folks, if Tulsi is announcing president Trump and a majority in both the house and senate it is safe to say things are right on track. However, HERE COME THE CIA and NSA orchestrated false flag distractions and diversions I.e, Iran.. Also expect a much amped up domestic terrorism by the MKULTRA radical nut jobs they will be using to divert attention. Also creating a civil war starting in Virginia is examples of the allegiances to the satanic fraternity by certain governors. These retards will also becoming out of the woodwork.

    ddiduck , 48 minutes ago link

    Not to worry folks, if Tulsi is announcing president Trump and a majority in both the house and senate it is safe to say things are right on track. However, HERE COME THE CIA and NSA orchestrated false flag distractions and diversions I.e, Iran.. Also expect a much amped up domestic terrorism by the MKULTRA radical nut jobs they will be using to divert attention. Also creating a civil war starting in Virginia is examples of the allegiances to the satanic fraternity by certain governors. These retards will also becoming out of the woodwork.

    Polymarkos , 50 minutes ago link

    I wish you conspiracy twits would drop the MKULTRA nonsense. MKULTRA was an UMBRELLA PROGRAM that covered hundreds of classified operations, almost NONE of which had anything to do with anything you people think it did. Head out of ***, please!

    emmanuelthoreau , 34 minutes ago link

    Oh, yeah, MKULTRA was totally cool, normal stuff, really. Just the Dulles Brothers and a bunch of other psychos throwing people out of windows in the name of protecting Amurica from the dirty Reds.

    Glad to know a self-identified former intel person is on here making death threats against Gabbard, by the way. Guess you have a get out of jail free card, huh? Why don't we find out?

    MauiJeff , 51 minutes ago link

    She is my Congresswoman. Tulsi is not perfect but she is good enough. Both the Democrat Senator (Schatz and Hirono) don't support her on our only other Democrat Congressperson does not support her. She is also despised by the national Dem party. This means she is doing something right.

    Savyindallas , 1 hour ago link

    Leave Tulsi alone. She's the best of the group by far. Some of you sound like all the George Bush supporters I knew who loved young Bush because he was so "pro-life". Give me a break. She has socially conservative roots. Unfortunately she has had to take on some of this progressive **** to be elected in a Democratic District. I have heard her views repeatedly on abortion, gun rights and immigration. She doesn't worry me at all. I trust her on all these issues more than Trump or any other establishment republican who I know are owned by the elites and who will sell us out when they are told to.

    This is the real Tulsi. Look at her Christmas eve video--enjoy:

    https://www.tulsi2020.com/updates/2019-12-25-special-holiday-message?sourceid=1014165&ms=em191225&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=em191225&emci=bb9e7d2e-6727-ea11-a601-2818784d6d68&emdi=bc9e7d2e-6727-ea11-a601-2818784d6d68&ceid=117332

    kalboking , 1 hour ago link

    TULSI GABBARD IS true patriot Dont y'all remember when she called trump as Israel's bitch?

    [Jan 01, 2020] Twitter Scrubs Viral Trump Retweet Of Alleged Hoaxblower's Name

    Jan 01, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    Twitter blamed a computer glitch after President Trump's retweet of a post containing the name alleged whistleblower Eric Ciaramella mysteriously disappeared from his timeline. After 'fixing' the issue and restoring the retweet, the user was simply banned from the platform so that nobody could see the tweet, which quickly went viral.

    " Rep. Ratliffe suggested Monday that the "whistleblower" Eric Ciaramella committed perjury by making false statements in his written forms filed with the ICIG and that Adam Schiff is hiding evidence of Ciaramella's crimes to protect him from criminal investigations," read the tweet made by by now-banned @surfermom77, which describes herself as living in California and a "100% Trump supporter."

    Ciaramella has been outed in several outlets as the 'anonymous' CIA official whose whistleblower complaint over a July 25 phone call between Trump and with his Ukrainian counterpart is at the heart of Congressional impeachment proceedings.

    Trump retweeted the post around midnight Friday. By Saturday morning, it was no longer visible in his Twitter feed.

    When contacted by The Guardian 's Lois Beckett for explanation, Twitter blamed an "outage with one of our systems."

    Some people reported earlier today that someone had deleted the alleged-whistleblower's name-retweet from Trump's timeline. Others of us still see *that tweet* on Trump's timeline. When asked for clarification, Twitter said this: https://t.co/Rftkg3nbus https://t.co/XREAvvxjhf

    -- Lois Beckett (@loisbeckett) December 29, 2019

    By Sunday morning, the tweet had been restored to Trump's timeline - however hours later the user, @Surfermom77, was banned from the platform .

    Running cover for Twitter is the Washington Post , which claims " The account shows some indications of automation , including an unusually high amount of activity and profile pictures featuring stock images from the internet."

    Surfermom77 has displayed some hallmarks of a Twitter bot, an automated account. A recent profile picture on the account, for instance, is a stock photo of a woman in business attire that is available for use online.

    Surfermom77 has also tweeted far more than typical users, more than 170,000 times since the account was activated in 2013. Surfermom77 has posted, on average, 72 tweets a day, according to Nir Hauser, chief technology officer at VineSight, a technology firm that tracks online misinformation. - WaPo

    Meanwhile, Trump retweeted another Ciaramella reference on Thursday, after the @TrumpWarRoom responded to whistleblower attorney Mark Zaid's tweet calling for the resignation of Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) from the Senate Whistleblower Caucus after she made "hostile" comments - after she tweeted in November that "Vindictive Vindman is the "whistleblower's" handler (a reference to impeachment witness Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman.

    It's pretty simple. The CIA "whistleblower" is not a real whistleblower! https://t.co/z6bjGaFCSH pic.twitter.com/RHhkY1BGei

    -- FOLLOW Trump War Room (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TrumpWarRoom) December 26, 2019

    As the Washington Times notes, "This week, it was revealed that conservative organization Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act request in November for the communications of Ciaramella, a 33-year-old CIA analyst who is alleged to be the whistleblower."

    "The watchdog group requested conversations between Ciaramella and special counsel Robert Mueller, former FBI agent Peter Strzok, former FBI Director Andrew McCabe, and former FBI attorney Lisa Page."


    Wahooo , 12 minutes ago link

    No one likes a rat

    Deep Snorkeler , 39 minutes ago link

    Trump Makes The Joker Look Normal

    We are a Christian Nation, but it's a myth.

    We are an empire, without a military success.

    Every country is a threat, every friend an enemy.

    Americans hate Americans, most of all.

    America, a humorous exaggeration of Rome.

    Is-Be , 31 minutes ago link

    The USA is an over-confident teenager.

    SweetDoug , 40 minutes ago link

    '

    '

    Deep Snorkeler , 1 hour ago link

    The American Empire Has Reached a Dead End

    despair and spiritual decay

    paranoia and mistrust and hysteria

    slow and vulnerable - - -

    Led by the Lawrence Welk of Washington,

    Don Trump.

    [Jan 01, 2020] Is FBI unredeemably corrupted?

    Jan 01, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    Paul Damascene , Dec 28 2019 22:58 utc | 36

    FBI unredeemably corrupted...?

    I think some my still hold out the hope or expectation that the DOJ will get to the bottom of national-security state malfeasance, beginning with FBI.

    Kim Strassel of the WSJ quite pointedly asks why there was so little interest at the FIS court in the Nunez memo, which the IG report now bears out. Covering for malfeasance might just be the FISC's job one.

    Now, a similarly gimlet-eyed view of the FBI, as arguably beyond saving ...

    https://amgreatness.com/2019/12/22/the-fbis-darkest-hour/

    Continued

    Recommended Links

    Google matched content

    Softpanorama Recommended

    Top articles

    [Oct 19, 2020] The Emails Are Russian- Will Be The Narrative, Regardless Of Facts Or Evidence by Caitlin Johnstone Published on Oct 19, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    [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 Published on Oct 01, 2020 | www.rt.com

    [Sep 30, 2020] DNI Letter Supports Allegation That Hillary Clinton Created 'Russiagate' by b Published on Sep 30, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    [Sep 28, 2020] Truth be told: political operatives own and run our MSM. This is why the press is called the 'Fourth Estate' Published on Aug 21, 2020 | www.unz.com

    [Sep 23, 2020] How fake media actually works: reporter are given the narrative and they should rehash their stories to fit it Published on Sep 23, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    [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 Published on Sep 23, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    [Sep 21, 2020] Stephen F. Cohen- The Ukrainian Crisis - It s not All Putin s Fault Published on Sep 21, 2020 | www.youtube.com

    [Sep 21, 2020] Stephen Cohen at the AJC 2017 Forum, about Russia and Terrorism Published on Jun 23, 2017 | www.youtube.com

    [Sep 20, 2020] CJ Hopkins Exposes The Final Act In 'The War On Populism' Published on Sep 20, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    [Sep 20, 2020] Darren Beattie Tucker Carlson Discuss Color Revolutions The Plot To Oust President Trump Published on Sep 16, 2020 | www.youtube.com

    [Sep 20, 2020] Norm Eisen And The Colour Revolution Playbook! Published on Sep 16, 2020 | www.youtube.com

    [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 Published on Sep 20, 2020 | conservativefiringline.com

    [Sep 17, 2020] Why the Blob Needs an Enemy by ARTA MOEINI Published on Sep 09, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

    [Sep 09, 2020] Proof of collusion at last! - IRRUSSIANALITY Published on Sep 09, 2020 | irrussianality.wordpress.com

    [Aug 23, 2020] Catapulting Russian-Meddling Propaganda by Ray McGovern Published on Aug 23, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    [Aug 19, 2020] The Republican led Senate Select Committee on Intelligence repeats the lies about Guccifer 2.0 Published on Aug 19, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    [Aug 16, 2020] CIA Behind Guccifer Russiagate A Plausible Scenario Published on Aug 16, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    [Aug 08, 2020] Russia Hoax- Are We All Being Played- Put Up Or Shut Up! - Zero Hedge Published on Aug 08, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    [Aug 03, 2020] Trump DID commit obstruction of justice... he refused to force HIS Dept of Justice to indict Hillary, Comey, Brennan and Clapper Published on Apr 19, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    [Aug 02, 2020] Russiagate, Nazis, and the CIA by ROB URIE Published on Jul 31, 2020 | www.counterpunch.org

    [Jul 31, 2020] Tucker Carlson calls Obama 'one of the sleaziest and most dishonest figures' in US political history Published on Jul 31, 2020 | www.msn.com

    [Jul 21, 2020] This Skripal thing smelled to high heaven from day 1. My opinion is that Sergei Skripal was involved (to what degree is open to speculation) with the Steele dossier. Published on Apr 20, 2019 | theduran.com

    [Jul 20, 2020] The Real 'Russian Playbook' Is Written in English -- Strategic Culture Published on Jul 17, 2020 | www.strategic-culture.org

    [Jul 13, 2020] George Washington Tried To Warn Americans About Foreign Policy Today by Doug Bandow Published on Jul 13, 2020 | original.antiwar.com

    [Jul 03, 2020] I don't think we can assume that even now Trump actually has control of the FBI; it is still in hands of Obama faction Published on Jul 03, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    [Jul 01, 2020] Russiagate's Last Gasp by Ray McGovern Published on Jun 29, 2020 | consortiumnews.com

    [Jul 01, 2020] Control freaks that cannot even control their own criminal impulses! Published on Jul 01, 2020 | www.unz.com

    [Jun 28, 2020] Russian position for Start talks: "We don't believe the US in its current shape is a counterpart that is reliable, so we have no confidence, no trust whatsoever". Published on Jun 28, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    [Jun 23, 2020] CIA's massive 'Vault 7' leak resulted from 'woefully lax' security protocols within the agency's own network by Sonam Sheth Published on Jun 20, 2020 | taskandpurpose.com

    [Jun 15, 2020] Do Deep State Elements Operate within the Protest Movement? by Mike Whitney Published on Jun 15, 2020 | www.unz.com

    [Jun 15, 2020] Full Special Investigation - Donald Trump vs The Deep State Published on Jun 15, 2020 | www.youtube.com

    [Jun 14, 2020] Jeane J. Kirkpatrick 30 Years Unheeded Published on Jun 14, 2020 | nationalinterest.org

    [Jun 12, 2020] Flynn Case 85 Lies, Contradictions, Oddities, Unusual Occurrences by Petr Svab Published on Jun 11, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    [Jun 03, 2020] Mueller investigation was never about Trump colluding with Russia. It was always about Trump obstructing the investigation of the collusion with Russia that the investigation was not about Published on Apr 26, 2019 | off-guardian.org

    [Jun 03, 2020] Not The Onion: NY Times Urges Trump To Establish Closer Ties With Moscow Published on Jul 23, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    [Jun 03, 2020] Rule of law in Murrika is kaput Published on Jun 16, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    [Jun 03, 2020] Requiem to Russiagate: this was the largest and the most successful attempt to gaslight the whole US population ever attempted by CIA and Clinton wing of Dems by CJ Hopkins Published on Apr 02, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    [Jun 03, 2020] RussiaGate for neoliberal Dems and MSM honchos is the way to avoid the necessity to look into the camera and say, I guess people hated us so much they were even willing to vote for Donald Trump Published on Mar 31, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

    [Jun 01, 2020] More Evidence of the Fraud Against General Michael Flynn by Larry C Johnson Published on Jun 01, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    [Jun 01, 2020] More Evidence of the Fraud Against General Michael Flynn by Larry C Johnson Published on Jun 01, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    [May 30, 2020] More On "Obamagate!" Published on May 30, 2020 | angrybearblog.com

    [May 26, 2020] News Stories Avoid Naming Israel by Philip Giraldi Published on May 26, 2020 | www.unz.com

    [May 24, 2020] Guccifer 2.0 was always John Brennan 1.0 Published on May 24, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    [May 24, 2020] FBI Document Reveals That Without Direct Israeli 'Intervention' Trump Would Have Lost 2016 Election Published on May 24, 2020 | christiansfortruth.com

    [May 24, 2020] Obamagate as the reaction of managerial class neoliberals on the crisis of neoliberalism Published on May 24, 2020 | angrybearblog.com

    [May 24, 2020] Guccifer 2.0's Hidden Agenda : looks like Gussifer 2.0 was a false flag operation designed to smear WikiLeaks and distract from the content of the stolen by Seth Rich or some other insider DNC emails Published on May 24, 2020 | consortiumnews.com

    [May 22, 2020] Time to Break up the FBI by William S. Smith Published on May 18, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

    [May 20, 2020] Newly Revealed Texts Show Strzok, Page Altered Flynn Interview Notes Published on Apr 30, 2020 | www.newsmax.com

    [May 20, 2020] McGovern Turn Out The Lights, Russiagate Is Over by Ray McGovern Published on May 19, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    [May 20, 2020] Phone Calls Between Biden And Ukraine's Poroshenko Leaked; Details $1 Billion Quid Pro Quo To Fire Burisma Prosecutor Zero Published on May 20, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    [May 19, 2020] America: "We demand an coronavirus origin investigation, but the investigators must agree on the outcome that we specify before they begin investigating!" Published on May 19, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    [May 19, 2020] Russophobia in the Age of Donald Trump Published on May 19, 2020 | www.oxfordscholarship.com

    [May 18, 2020] FBI under Comey as an uncontrolled political police operating without any oversight from Justice Department Published on May 18, 2020 | www.washingtontimes.com

    [May 17, 2020] General Flynn investigation 'has tarnished Obama's legacy' - YouTube Published on May 17, 2020 | www.youtube.com

    [May 17, 2020] Apparently, the FBI, and not the CIA, are the real government. Published on Jan 15, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    [May 16, 2020] A model democrat Published on May 16, 2020 | www.youtube.com

    [May 16, 2020] Bought MSM experts typically are just MIC prostitutes: most are neocons and "Russiagaters" Published on May 16, 2020 | www.rt.com

    [May 16, 2020] Tucker Adam Schiff should resign Published on May 16, 2020 | www.youtube.com

    [May 15, 2020] The Complete Collusion Against Trump Timeline Published on May 15, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    [May 13, 2020] From RussiaGate To ObamaGate The End Of Boomerville by Tom Luongo Published on May 13, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    [May 11, 2020] Lee Zeldin Adam Schiff 'should resign today' for role in Russia investigation by Dominick Mastrangelo Published on May 11, 2020 | www.washingtonexaminer.com

    [May 11, 2020] McCarthy: It would be 'profoundly crazy if Obama wasn't in on Flynn case' Published on May 11, 2020 | www.youtube.com

    [May 11, 2020] Twin Pillars of Russiagate Crumble by Ray McGovern Published on May 11, 2020 | original.antiwar.com

    [May 10, 2020] Did the FBI target Michael Flynn to protect Obama's policies, not national security by Kevin R. Brock Published on May 10, 2020 | thehill.com

    [May 10, 2020] Does Obama now feels his potential liability for staging coup d' tat and gaslighting the whole nation? Published on May 10, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    [May 07, 2020] Media Malpractice Is Criminalizing Better Relations With Russia by Stephen F. Cohen Published on Dec 13, 2017 | thenation.com

    [May 07, 2020] There's No Question It's A Fraud Fmr Trump Attorney Says Mueller Badly Misled White House, Schiff Is Nancy's Liar Zero Published on May 07, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    [May 07, 2020] Angry Bear " "cannot remember a single International Crisis in which the United States had no global presence at all" Published on May 07, 2020 | angrybearblog.com

    [May 05, 2020] Newly released FBI documents show Israel intervened in 2016 election to help Trump Published on May 05, 2020 | caucus99percent.com

    [May 03, 2020] Flynn told the investigators that he knew that the call was inevitably monitored and that a transcript existed. However, he did not recall discussing sanctions with Kislyak. There was no reason to hide such a discussion Published on May 03, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

    [Apr 22, 2020] Especially as the insane neoliberal economy we live in, we are ruled by a group of kleptocrats and vicious stooges. Which make allegations against Biden deserving a closer look but that does not make them automatically credible Published on Apr 22, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

    [Apr 17, 2020] The WHO provided validated working test kits on 16th of January. The USA botched the delopyment due to CDC incompetence and NIH syndrom Published on Apr 17, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    [Apr 17, 2020] Declassified Horowitz Footnotes Show Obama Officials Knew Steele Dossier Was Russian Disinfo Designed To Target Trump Zero He Published on Apr 17, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    [Apr 17, 2020] Barr just said the Russia collusion probe was a travesty, had no basis and was intended to sabotage Trump. Published on Apr 17, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    [Apr 02, 2020] Bloomberg spent north of $500 millions to become president with zero results, and you want me to believe that Russians spent 1% of that and got better results Published on Apr 02, 2020 | hub.jhu.edu

    [Mar 21, 2020] When reading any article concerning current events (ie. Ukraine, Syria, Iran, Venezuela, or Coronavirus) consider how the The Seven Principles of Propaganda may apply Published on Mar 22, 2020 | https://www.moonofalabama.org

    [Mar 17, 2020] DOJ drops charges against Russian trolls after they dared demand evidence in US court -- RT USA News Published on Mar 17, 2020 | www.rt.com

    [Mar 12, 2020] Did Joe Biden's Former IT Guy Masquerade as Guccifer 2.0 by Larry C Johnson Published on Mar 12, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    [Mar 04, 2020] Russiagate should be viewed as classic, textbook case of gaslighting and projecting election interference Published on Mar 04, 2020 | caucus99percent.com

    [Mar 03, 2020] Whacking Rich is a reminder to Sanders what the party establishmen is capable of Published on Mar 03, 2020 | www.unz.com

    [Feb 29, 2020] CrowdStrike s Dmitri Alperovitch by William F. Jasper Published on www.theamericanconservative.com

    [Feb 29, 2020] A very interesting and though provoking presentation by Ambassador Chas Freeman "America in Distress: The Challenges of Disadvantageous Change" Published on Feb 29, 2020 | angrybearblog.com

    [Feb 28, 2020] Chas Freeman America in Distress The Challenges of Disadvantageous Change Published on Feb 24, 2020 | www.youtube.com

    [Feb 28, 2020] The impact of coronavirus on Trump reelection chances Published on Feb 28, 2020 | angrybearblog.com

    [Feb 22, 2020] The Red Thread A Search for Ideological Drivers Inside the Anti-Trump Conspiracy by Diana West Published on Feb 22, 2020 | www.amazon.com

    [Feb 21, 2020] Why Both Republicans And Democrats Want Russia To Become The Enemy Of Choice by Philip Giraldi Published on Feb 07, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    [Feb 16, 2020] Understanding the Ukraine Story by Joe Lauria Published on Feb 14, 2020 | consortiumnews.com

    [Feb 15, 2020] How does one say Adam Schiff without laughing? by title="View user profile." href="https://caucus99percent.com/users/alligator-ed">Alligator Ed Published on Feb 15, 2020 | caucus99percent.com

    [Feb 09, 2020] Trump demand for 50% of Iraq oil revenue sound exactly like a criminal mob boss Published on Jan 21, 2020 | www.unz.com

    [Feb 08, 2020] Is Iraq About To Switch From US to Russia Published on Feb 08, 2020 | angrybearblog.com

    [Feb 04, 2020] The FBI is the secret police force of the authoritarian (aching to be totalitarian) govt hidden behind "Truth, Justice the American Way" Published on Feb 04, 2020 | off-guardian.org

    [Feb 03, 2020] White House Warriors: How the National Security Council Transformed the American Way of War Published on Feb 03, 2020 | www.amazon.com

    [Feb 02, 2020] The most interesting issue is the role of NSC in this impeachment story Published on Feb 02, 2020 | angrybearblog.com

    [Jan 31, 2020] Trump excoriates Bolton in tweets this morning Published on Jan 31, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    [Jan 27, 2020] The end of Trump? Trump betrayed all major promises of his 2016 election campaign. Trump needs to go... Published on Jan 27, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    [Jan 23, 2020] An incredible level of naivety of people who still think that a single individual, or even two, can change the direction of murderous US policies that are widely supported throughout the bureaucracy? Published on Jan 23, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    [Jan 20, 2020] Fake Investigations... Designed To Fool by Bryce Buchanan Published on Jan 20, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

    [Jan 17, 2020] Ukraine is a deeply sick patient. The destiny of ordinary Ukrainians is deeply tragic. Diaspora is greedy and want a piece of cake immediately Published on Jan 17, 2020 | www.unz.com

    [Jan 14, 2020] Impeachment Of President Trump An Imperial War Game by By Barbara Boyd Published on Nov 22, 2019 | futurefastforward.com

    [Jan 09, 2020] It looks like UK and the USA intelligences agencies run the contest to see who can come up with the most surreal anti-Russian propaganda psy-ops Published on Nov 24, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    [Jan 08, 2020] Do you really want to be a one term president? Pompeo can talk big now and then go back to Kansas to run for senator. Where will you be able to take refuge? Published on Sep 18, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    [Jan 08, 2020] If we assume that Pompeo persuaded Trump to order to kill a diplomatic envoy, Trump is now a dead man walking as after Iran responce Pelosi impeachment gambit now have legs Published on Jan 06, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    Oldies But Goodies

  • [Oct 12, 2016] NSA whistleblower says DNC hack was not done by Russia, but by US intelligence
  • [Jan 06, 2018] Russia-gate Breeds Establishment McCarthyism by Robert Parry
  • [Sep 14, 2016] The story of Chile s popular, and democratic rejection of government by oligarchs is today s must-read, and provides unsettling similarities to current events
  • [Jul 11, 2016] 5 Reasons The Comey Hearing Was The Worst Education In Criminal Justice The American Public Has Ever Had by Seth Abramson
  • [Jul 06, 2016] FBI Rewrites Federal Law to Let Hillary Off the Hook by Andrew C. McCarthy
  • [Jan 09, 2016] Allen Dulles and modern neocons
  • [Dec 31, 2017] How America Spreads Global Chaos by Nicolas J.S. Davies
  • [Dec 31, 2017] What Happens When A Russiagate Skeptic Debates A Professional Russiagater
  • [Nov 29, 2019] Where s the Collusion
  • [Dec 31, 2017] EXCLUSIVE FBI s Own Political Terror Plot; Deputy Director and FBI Brass Secretly Conspired to Wage Coup Against Flynn Trump
  • [Dec 31, 2017] How America Spreads Global Chaos by Nicolas J.S. Davies
  • [Dec 28, 2017] How CrowdStrike placed malware in DNC hacked servers by Alex Christoforou
  • [May 11, 2019] Why Crowdstrike's Russian Hacking Story Fell Apart -- Say Hello to Fancy Bear
  • [Dec 28, 2017] How CrowdStrike placed malware in DNC hacked servers by Alex Christoforou
  • [Dec 28, 2017] The CIA as Organized Crime How Illegal Operations Corrupt America and the World
  • [Dec 28, 2017] Regime Change Comes Home: The CIA s Overt Threats against Trump by James Petras
  • [Dec 28, 2017] On your surmise that Putin prefers Trump to Hillary and would thus have incentive to influence the election, I beg to differ. Putin is one smart statesman; he knows very well it makes no difference which candidates gets elected in US elections.
  • [Dec 27, 2017] Mueller investigation can be viewed as an attempt to avoid going after Clinton and hide the fact that a corrupted intelligence service worked to derail Sanders
  • [Dec 27, 2017] Putin is one smart statesman; he knows very well it makes no difference which candidates gets elected in US elections. Any candidate that WOULD make a difference would NEVER see the daylight of nomination, especially at the presidential level. I myself believe all the talk of Russia interfering the 2016 Election is no more than a witch hunt
  • [Sep 17, 2017] The So-called Russian Hack of the DNC Does Not Make Sense by Publius Tacitus
  • [Dec 23, 2017] Russiagate as bait and switch maneuver
  • [Dec 22, 2017] Beyond Cynicism America Fumbles Towards Kafka s Castle by James Howard Kunstler
  • [Dec 22, 2017] Rosenstein knew that he is authorizing a fishing expedition against Trump, so he is a part of the cabal
  • [Dec 21, 2017] The RussiaGate Witch-Hunt Stockman Names Names In The Deep State's Insurance Policy by David Stockman
  • [Dec 16, 2017] Former US attorney says FBI wants to frame the President
  • [Dec 14, 2017] Was Peter Strzok the principal FBI liaison to CIA Director John Brennan?
  • [Dec 14, 2017] The Foundering Russia-gate 'Scandal' Consortiumnews
  • [Dec 13, 2017] All the signs in the Russia probe point to Jared Kushner. Who next?
  • [Dec 11, 2017] How Russia-gate Met the Magnitsky Myth by Robert Parry
  • [Dec 11, 2017] Strzok-Gate And The Mueller Cover-Up by Alexander Mercouris
  • [Dec 10, 2017] Russia-gate s Reach into Journalism by Dennis J Bernstein
  • [Dec 09, 2017] Hyping the Russian Threat to Undermine Free Speech by Max Blumenthal
  • [Dec 01, 2017] JFK The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy by L. Fletcher Prouty, Oliver Stone, Jesse Ventura
  • [Nov 08, 2017] Learning to Love McCarthyism by Robert Parry
  • [Oct 31, 2017] Above All - The Junta Expands Its Claim To Power
  • [Oct 29, 2017] Whose Bright Idea Was RussiaGate by Paul Craig Roberts
  • [Oct 28, 2017] Former CIA Officer 'Russiagate' Was Manufactured By The Clinton Campaign by Philip Giraldi
  • [Oct 13, 2017] Sympathy for the Corporatocracy by C. J. Hopkins
  • [Apr 21, 2019] John Brennan's Police State USA
  • [Oct 09, 2017] After Nine Months, Only Stale Crumbs in Russia Inquiry by Scott Ritter
  • [Oct 09, 2017] Autopilot Wars by Andrew J. Bacevich
  • [Oct 03, 2017] Russian Ads On Facebook A Click-Bait Campaign
  • [Sep 30, 2017] Yet Another Major Russia Story Falls Apart. Is Skepticism Permissible Yet by Glenn Greenwald
  • [Sep 26, 2017] Is Foreign Propaganda Even Effective by Leon Hadar
  • [Sep 25, 2017] I am presently reading the book JFK and the Unspeakable by James W.Douglass and it is exactly why Kennedy was assassinated by the very same group that desperately wants to see Trump gone and the rapprochement with Russia squashed
  • [Sep 24, 2017] Mark Ames When Mother Jones Was Investigated for Spreading Kremlin Disinformation by Mark Ames
  • [Sep 20, 2017] The Politics of Military Ascendancy by James Petras
  • [Sep 18, 2017] How The Military Defeated Trumps Insurgency
  • [Aug 25, 2017] Some analogies of current events in the USA and Mao cultural revolution: In China when the Mao mythology was threatened the Red Guard raised holy hell and lives were ruined
  • [Aug 26, 2017] The Pink Revolution and How to Beat It by Israel Shamir
  • [Aug 08, 2017] The Tale of the Brothers Awan by Philip Giraldi
  • [Jul 30, 2017] the Ukrainingate emerging from the evidence on Hillary campaign sounds like a criminal conspiracy of foreign state against Trump
  • [Jul 29, 2017] Ray McGovern The Deep State Assault on Elected Government Must Be Stopped
  • [Jul 17, 2017] Tucker Carlson Goes to War Against the Neocons by Curt Mills
  • [Jul 28, 2017] Perhaps Trump asked Sessions to fire Mueller and Sessions refused?
  • [Jul 28, 2017] Imperial Power Centers Divisions, Indecisions and Civil War by James Petras
  • [Jul 25, 2017] Oligarchs Succeed! Only the People Suffer! by James Petras
  • [Jul 26, 2017] Regime Change Comes Home: The CIAs Overt Threats against Trump by James Petras
  • [Jul 25, 2017] The Coup against Trump and His Military by James Petras
  • [Jul 01, 2017] MUST SEE video explains the entire 17 Intelligence Agencies Russian hacking lie
  • [Jun 26, 2017] The Soft Coup Under Way In Washington by David Stockman
  • [Jun 15, 2017] Comeys Lies of Omission by Mike Whitney
  • [Jun 13, 2017] Donald has morphed. He is now part neocon and part Wall St. errand-boy.
  • [May 23, 2017] Trumped-up claims against Trump by Ray McGovern
  • [May 23, 2017] Are they really out to get Trump by Philip Girald
  • [May 21, 2017] What Obsessing About Trump Causes Us To Miss by Andrew Bacevich
  • [May 21, 2017] WhateverGate -- The Crazed Quest To Find Some Reason (Any Reason!) To Dump Trump by John Derbyshire
  • [Feb 19, 2017] The deep state is running scared!
  • [Mar 05, 2019] The Shadow Governments Destruction Of Democracy
  • [Feb 19, 2017] The deep state is running scared!
  • [Jan 16, 2017] Gaius Publius Who is Blackmailing the President Why Arent Democrats Upset About It by Gaius Publius,
  • [Dec 29, 2018] -Election Meddling- Enters Bizarro World As MSM Ignores Democrat-Linked -Russian Bot- Scheme -
  • [Dec 21, 2018] Virtually no one in neoliberal MSM is paying attention to the fact that a group of Pakistani muslims, working for a Jewish Congresswoman from Florida, had full computer access to a large number of Democrat Representatives. Most of the press is disinterested in pursuing this matter
  • [Dec 14, 2018] MI6, along with elements of the CIA, was behind the Steele Dossier. Representatives of John Brennan met in London to discus before the go ahead was given
  • [Dec 10, 2018] One thing that has puzzled me about Trump methods is his constant tweeting of witch hunt with respect to Mueller but his unwillingness to actually disclose what Brennan, Clapper, Comey, et al actually did
  • [Dec 09, 2018] Die Weltwoche Weltwoche Online – www.weltwoche.ch Tucker Carlson Trump is not capable Die Weltwoche, Ausgabe 49-2018
  • [Dec 05, 2018] Beleaguered British Prime Minister Theresa May is wailing loudly against a Trump threat to reveal classified documents relating to Russiagate by Philip Giraldi
  • [Dec 02, 2018] Muller investigation has all the appearance of an investigation looking for a crime
  • [Nov 27, 2018] 'Highly likely' that Magnitsky was poisoned by toxic chemicals on Bill Browder's orders
  • [Dec 21, 2018] Virtually no one in neoliberal MSM is paying attention to the fact that a group of Pakistani muslims, working for a Jewish Congresswoman from Florida, had full computer access to a large number of Democrat Representatives. Most of the press is disinterested in pursuing this matter
  • [Dec 14, 2018] MI6, along with elements of the CIA, was behind the Steele Dossier. Representatives of John Brennan met in London to discus before the go ahead was given
  • [Dec 10, 2018] One thing that has puzzled me about Trump methods is his constant tweeting of witch hunt with respect to Mueller but his unwillingness to actually disclose what Brennan, Clapper, Comey, et al actually did
  • [Dec 09, 2018] Die Weltwoche Weltwoche Online – www.weltwoche.ch Tucker Carlson Trump is not capable Die Weltwoche, Ausgabe 49-2018
  • [Dec 05, 2018] Beleaguered British Prime Minister Theresa May is wailing loudly against a Trump threat to reveal classified documents relating to Russiagate by Philip Giraldi
  • [Dec 02, 2018] Muller investigation has all the appearance of an investigation looking for a crime
  • [Nov 27, 2018] 'Highly likely' that Magnitsky was poisoned by toxic chemicals on Bill Browder's orders
  • [Nov 24, 2018] MI6 Scrambling To Stop Trump From Releasing Classified Docs In Russia Probe
  • [Nov 24, 2018] Anonymous Exposes UK-Led Psyop To Battle Russian Propaganda
  • [Nov 24, 2018] British Government Runs Secret Anti-Russian Smear Campaigns
  • [Nov 24, 2018] Now we know created MH17 smear campaign, who financial Steele dossier and created Skripal affair ;-)
  • [Nov 24, 2018] When you are paid a lot of money to come up with plots psyops, you tend to come up with plots for psyops . The word entrapment comes to mind. Probably self-serving also.
  • [Nov 23, 2018] Sitting on corruption hill
  • [Nov 12, 2018] Obama s CIA Secretly Intercepted Congressional Communications About Whistleblowers
  • [Nov 12, 2018] Protecting Americans from foreign influence, smells with COINTELPRO. Structural witch-hunt effect like during the McCarthy era is designed to supress decent to neoliberal oligarcy by Andre Damon and Joseph Kishore
  • [Nov 24, 2018] MI6 Scrambling To Stop Trump From Releasing Classified Docs In Russia Probe
  • [Nov 24, 2018] Anonymous Exposes UK-Led Psyop To Battle Russian Propaganda
  • [Nov 24, 2018] British Government Runs Secret Anti-Russian Smear Campaigns
  • [Nov 24, 2018] Now we know created MH17 smear campaign, who financial Steele dossier and created Skripal affair ;-)
  • [Nov 24, 2018] When you are paid a lot of money to come up with plots psyops, you tend to come up with plots for psyops . The word entrapment comes to mind. Probably self-serving also.
  • [Nov 23, 2018] Sitting on corruption hill
  • [Nov 12, 2018] Obama s CIA Secretly Intercepted Congressional Communications About Whistleblowers
  • [Nov 12, 2018] Protecting Americans from foreign influence, smells with COINTELPRO. Structural witch-hunt effect like during the McCarthy era is designed to supress decent to neoliberal oligarcy by Andre Damon and Joseph Kishore
  • [Oct 25, 2018] DNC Emails--A Seth Attack Not a Russian Hack by Publius Tacitus
  • [Oct 18, 2018] Donald Trump's Foreign Policy Goes Neocon by Robert W. Merry
  • [Oct 08, 2018] British intelligence now officially is a by-word for organized crime by John Wight
  • [Oct 05, 2018] Alcohol, Memory, and the Hippocampus
  • [Oct 04, 2018] Brett Kavanaugh's 'revenge' theory spotlights past with Clintons by Lisa Mascaro
  • [Oct 02, 2018] Recovered memory is a Freudian voodoo. Notice how carefully manicured these charges are such that they can never be falsified? This is the actual proof she is a liar and this whole thing is staged
  • [Oct 02, 2018] The Kavanaugh hearings and the Lack of Radical Action
  • [Oct 02, 2018] Kavanaugh is the Wrong Nominee by Kevin Zeese - Margaret Flowers
  • [Oct 02, 2018] I m puzzled why CIA is so against Kavanaugh?
  • [Sep 29, 2018] The Schizophrenic Deep State is a Symptom, Not the Disease by Charles Hugh Smith
  • [Sep 24, 2018] Given Trumps kneeling to the British Skripal poisoning 'hate russia' hoax I suspect there is no chance he will go after Christopher Steele or any of the senior demoncrat conspirers no matter how much he would love to sucker punch Theresa May and her nasty colleagues.
  • [Oct 25, 2018] DNC Emails--A Seth Attack Not a Russian Hack by Publius Tacitus
  • [Oct 18, 2018] Donald Trump's Foreign Policy Goes Neocon by Robert W. Merry
  • [Oct 08, 2018] British intelligence now officially is a by-word for organized crime by John Wight
  • [Oct 05, 2018] Alcohol, Memory, and the Hippocampus
  • [Oct 04, 2018] Brett Kavanaugh's 'revenge' theory spotlights past with Clintons by Lisa Mascaro
  • [Oct 02, 2018] Recovered memory is a Freudian voodoo. Notice how carefully manicured these charges are such that they can never be falsified? This is the actual proof she is a liar and this whole thing is staged
  • [Oct 02, 2018] The Kavanaugh hearings and the Lack of Radical Action
  • [Oct 02, 2018] Kavanaugh is the Wrong Nominee by Kevin Zeese - Margaret Flowers
  • [Oct 02, 2018] I m puzzled why CIA is so against Kavanaugh?
  • [Sep 29, 2018] The Schizophrenic Deep State is a Symptom, Not the Disease by Charles Hugh Smith
  • [Sep 24, 2018] Given Trumps kneeling to the British Skripal poisoning 'hate russia' hoax I suspect there is no chance he will go after Christopher Steele or any of the senior demoncrat conspirers no matter how much he would love to sucker punch Theresa May and her nasty colleagues.
  • [Sep 23, 2018] UK Begged Trump Not To Declassify Russia Docs; Cited Grave Concerns Over Steele Involvement
  • [Sep 16, 2018] Looks like the key players in Steele dossier were CIA assets
  • [Sep 15, 2018] BBC is skanky state propaganda
  • [Sep 11, 2018] Is Donald Trump Going to Do the Syria Backflip by Publius Tacitus
  • [Sep 11, 2018] If you believe Trump is trying to remove neocons(Deep State) from the government, explain Bolton and many other Deep State denizens Trump has appointed
  • [Sep 09, 2018] DNC Papadopoulos s UK contact may be dead
  • [Sep 07, 2018] New York Times Undermining Peace Efforts by Sowing Suspicion by Diana Johnstone
  • [Sep 07, 2018] Sarah Huckabee Sanders has a legitimate request to neoliberal MSM - Stop Bugging Me About The New York Times' Trump Op-Ed
  • [Sep 02, 2018] Open letter to President Trump concerning the consequences of 11 September 2001 by Thierry Meyssan
  • [Aug 24, 2018] The priorities of the deep state and its public face the MSM
  • [Aug 22, 2018] The CIA Owns the US and European Media by Paul Craig Roberts
  • [Aug 18, 2018] Pentagon Whistleblower Demoted After Exposing Millions Paid To FBI Spy Halper, Clinton Crony
  • [Aug 18, 2018] MoA - John Brennan Is No Match For Trump
  • [Sep 23, 2018] UK Begged Trump Not To Declassify Russia Docs; Cited Grave Concerns Over Steele Involvement
  • [Sep 16, 2018] Looks like the key players in Steele dossier were CIA assets
  • [Sep 15, 2018] BBC is skanky state propaganda
  • [Sep 11, 2018] Is Donald Trump Going to Do the Syria Backflip by Publius Tacitus
  • [Sep 11, 2018] If you believe Trump is trying to remove neocons(Deep State) from the government, explain Bolton and many other Deep State denizens Trump has appointed
  • [Sep 09, 2018] DNC Papadopoulos s UK contact may be dead
  • [Sep 07, 2018] New York Times Undermining Peace Efforts by Sowing Suspicion by Diana Johnstone
  • [Sep 07, 2018] Sarah Huckabee Sanders has a legitimate request to neoliberal MSM - Stop Bugging Me About The New York Times' Trump Op-Ed
  • [Sep 02, 2018] Open letter to President Trump concerning the consequences of 11 September 2001 by Thierry Meyssan
  • [Aug 24, 2018] The priorities of the deep state and its public face the MSM
  • [Aug 22, 2018] The CIA Owns the US and European Media by Paul Craig Roberts
  • [Aug 18, 2018] Pentagon Whistleblower Demoted After Exposing Millions Paid To FBI Spy Halper, Clinton Crony
  • [Aug 18, 2018] MoA - John Brennan Is No Match For Trump
  • [Aug 14, 2018] I think one of Mueller s deeply embedded character flaw is that once he decides on burying someone he becomes possessed
  • [Aug 14, 2018] US Intelligence Community is Tearing the Country Apart from the Inside by Dmitry Orlov
  • [Aug 14, 2018] I think one of Mueller s deeply embedded character flaw is that once he decides on burying someone he becomes possessed
  • [Aug 14, 2018] US Intelligence Community is Tearing the Country Apart from the Inside by Dmitry Orlov
  • [Aug 08, 2018] Sergei Skripal was linked to a consultant with former UK spy Christopher Steele's Orbis Business Intelligence
  • [Aug 08, 2018] Ten Bombshell Revelations From Seymour Hersh's New Autobiography
  • [Aug 05, 2018] Cooper was equally as unhinged as Boot: Neoliberal MSM is a real 1984 remake.
  • [Jul 31, 2018] Is not the Awan affair a grave insult to the US "Intelligence Community?
  • [Jul 28, 2018] American Society Would Collapse If It Were not For These 8 Myths by Lee Camp
  • [Jul 23, 2018] Chickens with Their Heads Cut Off, Coming Home to Roost. The "Treason Narrative" by Helen Buyniski
  • [Jul 22, 2018] Tucker Carlson SLAMS Intelligence Community On Russia
  • [Jul 20, 2018] So many (ex-) MI6 operators (Steele, Tait, etc) involved in the story. It is interesting that the media don t question the intense involvement of the British in all this. And of course, the British haven t been laggards in adding fuel to the fire by the whole novichok hoax
  • [Jul 20, 2018] Doubting The Intelligence Of The Intelligence Community by Ilana Mercer
  • [Jul 20, 2018] Is President Trump A Traitor Because He Wants Peace With Russia by Paul Craig Roberts
  • [Aug 08, 2018] Sergei Skripal was linked to a consultant with former UK spy Christopher Steele's Orbis Business Intelligence
  • [Aug 08, 2018] Ten Bombshell Revelations From Seymour Hersh's New Autobiography
  • [Aug 05, 2018] Cooper was equally as unhinged as Boot: Neoliberal MSM is a real 1984 remake.
  • [Jul 31, 2018] Is not the Awan affair a grave insult to the US "Intelligence Community?
  • [Jul 28, 2018] American Society Would Collapse If It Were not For These 8 Myths by Lee Camp
  • [Jul 23, 2018] Chickens with Their Heads Cut Off, Coming Home to Roost. The "Treason Narrative" by Helen Buyniski
  • [Jul 22, 2018] Tucker Carlson SLAMS Intelligence Community On Russia
  • [Jul 20, 2018] So many (ex-) MI6 operators (Steele, Tait, etc) involved in the story. It is interesting that the media don t question the intense involvement of the British in all this. And of course, the British haven t been laggards in adding fuel to the fire by the whole novichok hoax
  • [Jul 20, 2018] Doubting The Intelligence Of The Intelligence Community by Ilana Mercer
  • [Jul 20, 2018] Is President Trump A Traitor Because He Wants Peace With Russia by Paul Craig Roberts
  • [Jul 20, 2018] So many (ex-) MI6 operators (Steele, Tait, etc) involved in the story. It is interesting that the media don t question the intense involvement of the British in all this. And of course, the British haven t been laggards in adding fuel to the fire by the whole novichok hoax
  • [Jul 15, 2018] What Mueller won t find by Bob In Portland
  • [Jul 13, 2018] False flag operation covering DNC leaks now involves Mueller and his team
  • [Jul 15, 2018] What Mueller won t find by Bob In Portland
  • [Jul 13, 2018] False flag operation covering DNC leaks now involves Mueller and his team
  • [Jun 09, 2018] Spooks Spooking Themselves by Daniel Lazare
  • [Jun 09, 2018] Still Waiting for Evidence of a Russian Hack by Ray McGovern
  • [May 24, 2018] Most probably Veselnitskaya was a false flag operation to entrap Trump campaign played by British intelligence
  • [May 14, 2018] You will never see a headline in WSJ which reads something like FBI spy infiltrated the Trump campaign .
  • [Apr 24, 2018] The Democratic Party has embraced the agenda of the military-intelligence apparatus and sought to become its main political voice
  • [Mar 27, 2018] Perfidious Albion The Fatally Wounded British Beast Lashes Out by Barbara Boyd
  • [Mar 27, 2018] The Stormy Daniels scandal Political warfare in Washington hits a new low by Patrick Martin
  • [Mar 24, 2018] Assange Suggests British Government Was Involved In Plot To Bring Down Trump by Steve Watson
  • [Mar 23, 2018] Skripal Poisoning a Desperate British Attempt To Resurrect Their American Coup by Barbara Boyd
  • [Mar 13, 2018] The CIA takeover of the Democratic Party by Patrick Martin
  • [Mar 10, 2018] Meier might have discovered that his subject had been, as it were, 'top supporting actor' in the first fumbling attempt by Christopher Steele et al to produce a plausible-sounding scenario as to the background to Litvinenko s death.
  • [Mar 10, 2018] There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign policy agenda for a very long time. It also seems clear that influential journalists, such as Glenn Simpson was before founding Fusion GPS, along with his wife Mary Jacoby, have been strongly involved in this
  • [Jul 17, 2018] I think there is much more to the comment made by Putin regarding Bill Browder and his money flows into the DNC and Clinton campaign. That would explain why the DNC didn t hand the servers over to the FBI after being hacked.
  • [Jul 16, 2018] Putin Claims U.S. Intelligence Agents Funneled $400K To Clinton Campaign Zero Hedge
  • [Jul 16, 2018] Five Things That Would Make The CIA-CNN Russia Narrative More Believable
  • [Jul 15, 2018] What Mueller won t find by Bob In Portland
  • [Jul 15, 2018] Sic Semper Tyrannis HILLARY CLINTON S COMPROMISED EMAILS WERE GOING TO A FOREIGN ENTITY – NOT RUSSIA! FBI Agent Ignored Evide
  • [Jul 15, 2018] Peter Strzok Ignored Evidence Of Clinton Server Breach
  • [Jul 15, 2018] Something Rotten About the DOJ Indictment of the GRU by Publius Tacitus
  • [Jul 13, 2018] False flag operation covering DNC leaks now involves Mueller and his team
  • [Jul 03, 2018] Russia has a lot of information about Lybia that could dig a political grave for Hillary. They did not release it
  • [Jul 03, 2018] Musings II The "Intelligence Community," "Russian Interference," and Due Diligence
  • [Jun 09, 2018] Spooks Spooking Themselves by Daniel Lazare
  • [Jun 09, 2018] Still Waiting for Evidence of a Russian Hack by Ray McGovern
  • [May 24, 2018] Most probably Veselnitskaya was a false flag operation to entrap Trump campaign played by British intelligence
  • [May 14, 2018] You will never see a headline in WSJ which reads something like FBI spy infiltrated the Trump campaign .
  • [Apr 24, 2018] The Democratic Party has embraced the agenda of the military-intelligence apparatus and sought to become its main political voice
  • [Mar 27, 2018] Perfidious Albion The Fatally Wounded British Beast Lashes Out by Barbara Boyd
  • [Mar 27, 2018] The Stormy Daniels scandal Political warfare in Washington hits a new low by Patrick Martin
  • [Mar 24, 2018] Assange Suggests British Government Was Involved In Plot To Bring Down Trump by Steve Watson
  • [Mar 23, 2018] Skripal Poisoning a Desperate British Attempt To Resurrect Their American Coup by Barbara Boyd
  • [Mar 13, 2018] The CIA takeover of the Democratic Party by Patrick Martin
  • [Mar 10, 2018] Meier might have discovered that his subject had been, as it were, 'top supporting actor' in the first fumbling attempt by Christopher Steele et al to produce a plausible-sounding scenario as to the background to Litvinenko s death.
  • [Mar 10, 2018] There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign policy agenda for a very long time. It also seems clear that influential journalists, such as Glenn Simpson was before founding Fusion GPS, along with his wife Mary Jacoby, have been strongly involved in this
  • [Mar 08, 2018] Given the CrowdStrike itself is a massively compromised organization due to its founder and CEO, those "certified true images" are themselves tainted evidence
  • [Mar 08, 2018] Mueller determines the US foreign policy toward Russia; The Intel Community Lies About Russian Meddling by Publius Tacitus
  • [Feb 12, 2018] I am wondering why it is that much of a stretch to believe that the CIA might have engineered the whole thing
  • [Feb 08, 2018] Try Googling Riggs Bank – a lot of interesting information emerges, on matters such as their involvement with Prince Bandar. So, what we are dealing with is a joint Anglo-American attempt to create a comprador oligarchy who could loot Russia s raw materials resources
  • [Feb 04, 2018] DNC collusion with Ukrainian IT Security company Crowdstrike tied to the Atlantic Council to push false narrative of DNC hack and malware to influence US election
  • [Jan 22, 2018] The Justice Department and FBI set up the meeting at Trump Tower between Trump Jr., Manafort and Kushner with controversial Russian officials to make Trump's associates appear compromised
  • [Jan 01, 2018] British Intervention into 2016 U.S. Election
  • [Dec 31, 2017] How America Spreads Global Chaos by Nicolas J.S. Davies
  • [Dec 31, 2017] What Happens When A Russiagate Skeptic Debates A Professional Russiagater
  • [Dec 28, 2017] How CrowdStrike placed malware in DNC hacked servers by Alex Christoforou
  • [Sep 17, 2017] The So-called Russian Hack of the DNC Does Not Make Sense by Publius Tacitus
  • [Jun 13, 2018] How False Flag Operations Are Carried Out Today by Philip M. GIRALDI
  • [Jun 09, 2018] Still Waiting for Evidence of a Russian Hack by Ray McGovern
  • [Jun 06, 2018] Trump Voters, Your Savior Is Betraying You by Nicholas Kristof
  • [May 24, 2018] Most probably Veselnitskaya was a false flag operation to entrap Trump campaign played by British intelligence
  • [May 24, 2018] The diversion of Russia Gate is a continuation of former diversions such as the Tea Party which was invented by the banksters to turn public anger over the big banking collapse and the resulting recession into a movement to gain more deregulation for tax breaks for the wealthy
  • [May 23, 2018] Mueller role as a hatchet man is now firmly established. Rosenstein key role in applointing Mueller without any evidence became also more clear with time. Was he coerced or did it voluntarily is unclear by Lambert Strether
  • [May 23, 2018] If the Trump-Russia set up began in spring 2016 or earlier, presumably it was undertaken on the assumption that HRC would win the election. (I say "presumably" because you never can tell..) If so, then the operation would have been an MI6 / Ukrainian / CIA coordinated op intended to frame Putin, not Trump
  • [May 22, 2018] Cat fight within the US elite getting more intense
  • [May 14, 2018] You will never see a headline in WSJ which reads something like FBI spy infiltrated the Trump campaign .
  • [May 03, 2018] Mueller's questions to Trump more those of a prosecuting attorney than of an impartial investigator by Alexander Mercouris
  • [Apr 21, 2018] On the Criminal Referral of Comey, Clinton et al by Ray McGovern
  • [Apr 18, 2018] The Great American Unspooling Is Upon Us
  • [Apr 17, 2018] Poor Alex
  • [Apr 09, 2018] Trump Is He Stupid or Dangerously Crazy by Justin Raimondo
  • [Apr 01, 2018] Big American Money, Not Russia, Put Trump in the White House: Reflections on a Recent Report by Paul Street
  • [Apr 01, 2018] Does the average user care if s/he is micro-targetted by political advertisements based on what they already believe?
  • [Mar 31, 2018] FBI Director Mueller testified to Congress that Saddam Hussein was responsible for anthrax attack! That was Mueller's role in selling the "intelligence" to invade Iraq.
  • [Mar 27, 2018] The Stormy Daniels scandal Political warfare in Washington hits a new low by Patrick Martin
  • [Mar 27, 2018] Let's Investigate John Brennan, by Philip Giraldi
  • [Mar 25, 2018] Cambridge Analytica Scandal Rockets to Watergate Proportions and Beyond by Adam Garrie
  • [Mar 24, 2018] Assange Suggests British Government Was Involved In Plot To Bring Down Trump by Steve Watson
  • [Mar 24, 2018] Did Trump cut a deal on the collusion charge by Mike Whitney
  • [Mar 22, 2018] I hope Brennan is running scared, along with Power. It's like the Irish Mafia.
  • [Mar 21, 2018] Former CIA Chief Brennan Running Scared by Ray McGovern
  • [Mar 16, 2018] Are We Living Under a Military Coup ?
  • [Mar 16, 2018] Will the State Department Become a Subsidiary of the CIA
  • [Mar 13, 2018] The CIA takeover of the Democratic Party by Patrick Martin
  • [Mar 12, 2018] State Department's War on Political Dissent
  • [Mar 08, 2018] Mueller determines the US foreign policy toward Russia; The Intel Community Lies About Russian Meddling by Publius Tacitus
  • [Mar 11, 2018] The Elephant In The Room by Craig Murray
  • [Mar 10, 2018] Visceral Russo-phobia became a feature in Obama policy and HRC campaign long before any Steele s Dossier. This was a program ofunleashing cold War II
  • [Mar 10, 2018] There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign policy agenda for a very long time. It also seems clear that influential journalists, such as Glenn Simpson was before founding Fusion GPS, along with his wife Mary Jacoby, have been strongly involved in this
  • [Mar 10, 2018] They view the Trump election as an insurgency, and they view themselves as waging a counterinsurgency, which they dare not lose.
  • [Mar 08, 2018] We don t have the evidence yet because Mueller hasn t found it yet! is a classic argument from ignorance, in that is assumes without evidence (there s that pesky word again!) that there is something to be found
  • [Mar 08, 2018] Cue bono question in Scripal case?
  • [Mar 08, 2018] Given the CrowdStrike itself is a massively compromised organization due to its founder and CEO, those "certified true images" are themselves tainted evidence
  • [Mar 08, 2018] A key piece of evidence pointing to 'Guccifer 2.0' being a fake personality created by the conspirators in their attempt to disguise the fact that the materials from the DNC published by 'WikiLeaks' were obtained by a leak rather than a hack had to do with the involvement of the former GCHQ person Matt Tait.
  • [Mar 08, 2018] Mueller determines the US foreign policy toward Russia; The Intel Community Lies About Russian Meddling by Publius Tacitus
  • [Mar 06, 2018] Is MSNBC Now the Most Dangerous Warmonger Network by Norman Solomon
  • [Mar 06, 2018] The current anti-Russian sentiment in the West as hysterical. But this hysteria is concentrated at the top level of media elite and neocons. Behind it is no deep sense of unity or national resolve. In fact we see the reverse - most Western countries are deeply divided within themselves due to the crisis of neolineralism.
  • [May 11, 2019] Crowdstrike planted the malware on DNC systems, which they discovered later discovered and attributed to Russians later
  • [Mar 02, 2018] Contradictions In Seth Rich Murder Continue To Challenge Hacking Narrative
  • [Feb 28, 2018] Perjury traps to manufacture indictments to pressure people to testify against others is a new tool of justice in a surveillance state
  • [Feb 26, 2018] It looks like Christopher Steele's real role was laundering information which had been obtained through continued Inquiries of the NSA mega-file by our Ambassador to the UN
  • [Feb 26, 2018] Democrat Memo Lays Egg by Publius Tacitus
  • [Feb 25, 2018] Russia would not do anything nearing the level of self-harm inflicted by the US elites.
  • [Apr 17, 2019] Deep State and the FBI Federal Blackmail Investigation
  • [Feb 22, 2018] Bill Binney explodes the rile of 17 agances security assessment memo in launching the Russia witch-hunt
  • [Feb 12, 2018] I am wondering why it is that much of a stretch to believe that the CIA might have engineered the whole thing
  • [Feb 20, 2018] Russophobia is a futile bid to conceal US, European demise by Finian Cunningham
  • [Feb 19, 2018] Nunes FBI and DOJ Perps Could Be Put on Trial by Ray McGovern
  • [Feb 19, 2018] The Russiagate Intelligence Wars What We Do and Don't Know
  • [Feb 19, 2018] Russian Meddling Was a Drop in an Ocean of American-made Discord by AMANDA TAUB and MAX FISHER
  • [Feb 18, 2018] Had Hillary Won What Now by Andrew Levine
  • [Feb 15, 2018] Trump's War on the Deep State by Conrad Black
  • [Feb 14, 2018] Recused Judge in Flynn Prosecution Served on FISA Court
  • [Feb 14, 2018] The Anti-Trump Coup by Michael S. Rozeff
  • [Feb 14, 2018] The FBI and the President – Mutual Manipulation by James Petras
  • [Feb 12, 2018] I am wondering why it is that much of a stretch to believe that the CIA might have engineered the whole thing
  • [Feb 08, 2018] Try Googling Riggs Bank – a lot of interesting information emerges, on matters such as their involvement with Prince Bandar. So, what we are dealing with is a joint Anglo-American attempt to create a comprador oligarchy who could loot Russia s raw materials resources
  • [Feb 11, 2018] How Russiagate fiasco destroys Kremlin moderates, accelerating danger for a hot war
  • [Feb 11, 2018] British spy who meddled in US elections disappears
  • [May 11, 2019] CIA Paid $100,000 To Shadowy Russian For Dirt on Trump, Including Sex Video by Chuck Ross
  • [Feb 04, 2018] DNC collusion with Ukrainian IT Security company Crowdstrike tied to the Atlantic Council to push false narrative of DNC hack and malware to influence US election
  • [Jan 22, 2018] The Justice Department and FBI set up the meeting at Trump Tower between Trump Jr., Manafort and Kushner with controversial Russian officials to make Trump's associates appear compromised
  • [Feb 08, 2018] Disinformation Warfare
  • [May 11, 2019] Nunes Memo Details Weaponization of FISA Court for Political Advantage by Elizabeth Lea Vos
  • [Feb 04, 2018] DNC collusion with Ukrainian IT Security company Crowdstrike tied to the Atlantic Council to push false narrative of DNC hack and malware to influence US election
  • [Feb 03, 2018] The FISA Memo, Obama, And The Election that Almost Was not by Tom Luongo
  • [Feb 03, 2018] Sic Semper Tyrannis Habakkuk on 'longtime' sources
  • [Jan 31, 2018] Will Congress Face Down the Deep State by Ray McGovern
  • [Jan 28, 2018] Russiagate Isn t About Trump, And It Isn t Even Ultimately About Russia by Caitlyn Johnstone
  • [Jan 27, 2018] As of January 2018 Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey, is starting to look like something Trump should have done sooner.
  • [Jan 27, 2018] In a Trump Hunt, Beware the Perjury Trap by Pat Buchanan
  • [Jan 26, 2018] Warns The Russiagate Stakes Are Extreme by Paul Craig Roberts
  • [Jan 25, 2018] The Bubble Michael Wolff s book a gift to Trump, liberals say
  • [Jan 25, 2018] Russiagate as Kafka 2.0
  • [Jan 25, 2018] vidence of FBI Conspiracy Grows by Publius Tacitus
  • [Jan 24, 2018] Destroying, suppressing evidence is FBI standard procedure by James Bovard
  • [Jan 24, 2018] The FBI Hand Behind Russia-gate by Ray McGovern
  • [Jan 24, 2018] Whistleblower Confirms Secret Society Meetings Between FBI And DOJ To Undermine Trump
  • [Jan 24, 2018] Brazen Plot To Exonerate Hillary Clinton And Frame Trump Unraveling, Says Former Fed Prosecutor
  • [Jan 23, 2018] Operation Condor – How NSA Director Mike Rogers Saved The U.S. From a Massive Constitutional Crisis by sundance
  • [Jan 22, 2018] Joe diGenova Brazen Plot to Frame Trump
  • [Jan 22, 2018] Clapper may have been the one behind using British intelligence to spy on Trump.
  • [Jan 22, 2018] Not Only Did Loretta Lynch Know in Advance Of Comey's Findings On Hillary the DOJ Helped Comey Write His Memo by streiff
  • [Jan 22, 2018] The Associated Press is reporting that the Department of Justice has given congressional investigators additional text messages between FBI investigator Peter Strzok and his girlfriend Lisa Page. The FBI also told investigators that five months worth of text messages, between December 2016 and May 2017, are unavailable because of a technical glitch
  • [Jan 22, 2018] How Michael Wolff duped the White House into giving him access to Trump's aides by Allahpundit
  • [Jan 22, 2018] EPIC: CNN Host GOES OFF On Anti-Trump Michael Wolff for what he did on Live Tv
  • [Jan 19, 2018] Bannon will do interview with special counsel, avoiding grand jury for now
  • [Jan 19, 2018] #ReleaseTheMemo Extensive FISA abuse memo could destroy the entire Mueller Russia investigation by Alex Christoforou
  • [Jan 16, 2018] The Russia Explainer
  • [Jan 14, 2018] Sic Semper Tyrannis The Trump Dossier Timeline, A Democrat Disaster Looming by Publius Tacitus
  • [Jan 14, 2018] The FBI Hand Behind Russia-gate by Ray McGovern
  • [May 11, 2019] Why Crowdstrike's Russian Hacking Story Fell Apart -- Say Hello to Fancy Bear
  • [Jan 13, 2018] The FBI Hand Behind Russia-gate by Ray McGovern
  • [Jan 13, 2018] Peter Strzok committed treason with anti-Trump texts, president says by Dave Boyer
  • [Jan 12, 2018] The DOJ and FBI Worked With Fusion GPS on Operation Trump
  • [Jan 12, 2018] There are strong suspecions that Fusion GPs was CIA front company
  • [Jan 08, 2018] Someone Spoofed Michael Wolff s Book About Trump And It s Comedy Gold
  • [Jan 08, 2018] Was Flynn Framed? by Tim Suereth
  • [Jan 07, 2018] CONFIRMED: CLINTON OPERATIVES IN FBI MANUFACTURED RUSSIAGATE by Roger Stone
  • [May 11, 2019] Doug Ross @ Journal A TIMELINE OF TREASON How the DNC and FBI Leadership Tried to Fix a Presidential Election [Updated]
  • [Jan 01, 2018] British Intervention into 2016 U.S. Election
  • [Dec 31, 2017] How America Spreads Global Chaos by Nicolas J.S. Davies
  • [Dec 31, 2017] What Happens When A Russiagate Skeptic Debates A Professional Russiagater
  • [Jan 02, 2018] Some investigators ask a sensible question: "It is likely that all the Russians involved in the attempt to influence the 2016 election were lying, scheming, Kremlin-linked, Putin-backed enemies of America except the Russians who talked to Christopher Steele?"
  • [Jan 02, 2018] What We Don t Talk about When We Talk about Russian Hacking by Jackson Lears
  • [Jul 17, 2017] Tucker Carlson Goes to War Against the Neocons by Curt Mills
  • [Feb 19, 2017] The deep state is running scared!
  • [Sep 17, 2017] The So-called Russian Hack of the DNC Does Not Make Sense by Publius Tacitus
  • [Jul 17, 2017] Tucker Carlson Goes to War Against the Neocons by Curt Mills
  • [Feb 19, 2017] The deep state is running scared!
  • [Apr 17, 2019] Six US Agencies Conspired ...
  • [Apr 17, 2019] Deep State and the FBI Federal Blackmail Investigation
  • [Apr 17, 2019] Did CIA Director William Casey really say, We ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false
  • [Dec 22, 2019] So US intelligence tipped off the DNC that their emails were about to be leaked to Wikileaks. That's when the stratagem of attributing the impending Wikileaks release to a Russian hack was born -- distracting from the incriminating content of the emails, while vilifying the Deep State's favorite enemies, Assange and Russia, all in one neat scam
  • [Dec 21, 2019] If the plan was to sabotage Trump's second-term campaign, it seems to have backfired spectacularly
  • [Dec 21, 2019] Time to Terminate Washington's Defense Welfare
  • [Dec 21, 2019] The ruthless neo-colonialists of 21st century
  • [Dec 20, 2019] Intelligence community has become a self licking ice cream cone
  • [Dec 20, 2019] The Tragedy of Donald Trump His Presidency Is Marred with Failure by Doug Bandow
  • [Dec 20, 2019] Did John Brennan's CIA Create Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks by Larry C Johnson
  • [Dec 20, 2019] NSA Whistleblower: "Mueller Report based on fabricated evidence" Former NSA technical chief, Bill Binney, says it looked like the CIA did this, and made it look like the Russians were doing the hack to implicate Russians by Eric Zuesse
  • [Dec 20, 2019] Letter from President Donald J. Trump to the Speaker of the House of Representatives
  • [Dec 20, 2019] Sen. Mitch McConnell great speech in which he slams Dem impeachment on Senate floor
  • [Dec 22, 2019] So US intelligence tipped off the DNC that their emails were about to be leaked to Wikileaks. That's when the stratagem of attributing the impending Wikileaks release to a Russian hack was born -- distracting from the incriminating content of the emails, while vilifying the Deep State's favorite enemies, Assange and Russia, all in one neat scam
  • [Dec 21, 2019] If the plan was to sabotage Trump's second-term campaign, it seems to have backfired spectacularly
  • [Dec 21, 2019] Time to Terminate Washington's Defense Welfare
  • [Dec 21, 2019] The ruthless neo-colonialists of 21st century
  • [Dec 20, 2019] The Tragedy of Donald Trump His Presidency Is Marred with Failure by Doug Bandow
  • [Dec 20, 2019] Did John Brennan's CIA Create Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks by Larry C Johnson
  • [Dec 20, 2019] NSA Whistleblower: "Mueller Report based on fabricated evidence" Former NSA technical chief, Bill Binney, says it looked like the CIA did this, and made it look like the Russians were doing the hack to implicate Russians by Eric Zuesse
  • [Dec 20, 2019] Intelligence community has become a self licking ice cream cone
  • [Dec 20, 2019] Letter from President Donald J. Trump to the Speaker of the House of Representatives
  • [Dec 20, 2019] Sen. Mitch McConnell great speech in which he slams Dem impeachment on Senate floor
  • [Dec 19, 2019] MIC lobbyism (which often is presented as patriotism) is the last refuge of scoundrels
  • [Dec 19, 2019] A the core of color revolution against Trump is Full Spectrum Dominance doctrine
  • [Dec 19, 2019] A joint French-Ukrainian journalistic investigation into a huge money laundering scheme using various shadow banking organizations in Austria and Switzerland, benefiting Clinton friendly Ukrainian oligarchs and of course the Clinton Foundation.
  • [Dec 19, 2019] Historically the ability of unelected, unaccountable, secretive bureaucracies (aka the "Deep State") to exercise their own policy without regard for the public or elected officials, often in defiance of these, has always been the hallmark of the destruction of democracy and incipient tyranny.
  • [Dec 18, 2019] Rudy Giuliani Yovanovitch Was Part Of The Cover-Up, She Had To Be Ousted
  • [Dec 17, 2019] Neocons like car salespeople have a stereotypical reputation for lacking credibility because ther profession is to lie in order to sell weapons to the publin, much like used car saleme lie to sell cars
  • [Dec 17, 2019] Judge Denies Flynn's Requests For Exculpatory Information, Case Dismissal by Peter Svab
  • [Dec 17, 2019] History Doesn t Repeat, But It Often Rhymes: Wilson in UK was subjected to the similar attack by rogue elements in MI5 as Trump in the USA
  • [Dec 19, 2019] MIC lobbyism (which often is presented as patriotism) is the last refuge of scoundrels
  • [Dec 19, 2019] A the core of color revolution against Trump is Full Spectrum Dominance doctrine
  • [Dec 19, 2019] A joint French-Ukrainian journalistic investigation into a huge money laundering scheme using various shadow banking organizations in Austria and Switzerland, benefiting Clinton friendly Ukrainian oligarchs and of course the Clinton Foundation.
  • [Dec 19, 2019] Historically the ability of unelected, unaccountable, secretive bureaucracies (aka the "Deep State") to exercise their own policy without regard for the public or elected officials, often in defiance of these, has always been the hallmark of the destruction of democracy and incipient tyranny.
  • [Dec 17, 2019] Judge Denies Flynn's Requests For Exculpatory Information, Case Dismissal by Peter Svab
  • [Dec 17, 2019] History Doesn t Repeat, But It Often Rhymes: Wilson in UK was subjected to the similar attack by rogue elements in MI5 as Trump in the USA
  • [Dec 14, 2019] Full Interview: Barr Criticizes Inspector General Report On The Russia Investigation
  • [Dec 14, 2019] A Determined Effort to Undermine Russia
  • [Dec 12, 2019] Threat Inflation Poisons Our Foreign Policy by Daniel Larison
  • [Dec 12, 2019] The FBI - Pushed By John Brennan - Lied To The Court Seven Times To Spy On The Trump Campaign
  • [Dec 11, 2019] The fundamental question is: How is lying the country into the Iraq war not impeachable, and this mass of anodyne trivialities impeachable?
  • [Dec 14, 2019] Full Interview: Barr Criticizes Inspector General Report On The Russia Investigation
  • [Dec 14, 2019] A Determined Effort to Undermine Russia
  • [Dec 12, 2019] The FBI - Pushed By John Brennan - Lied To The Court Seven Times To Spy On The Trump Campaign
  • [Dec 11, 2019] The fundamental question is: How is lying the country into the Iraq war not impeachable, and this mass of anodyne trivialities impeachable?
  • [Dec 10, 2019] Carter Page may have just let slip that he's an FBI and CIA informant by Bill Palmer
  • [Dec 10, 2019] The level of Neo-McCarthyism and the number of lunitics this NYT forums is just astonishing: When it comes to Donald Trump and Russia, everything is connected.
  • [Dec 10, 2019] Carter Page may have just let slip that he's an FBI and CIA informant by Bill Palmer
  • [Dec 10, 2019] The level of Neo-McCarthyism and the number of lunitics this NYT forums is just astonishing: When it comes to Donald Trump and Russia, everything is connected.
  • [Dec 07, 2019] Impeachment does not require a crime.
  • [May 11, 2019] Crowdstrike planted the malware on DNC systems, which they discovered later discovered and attributed to Russians later
  • [May 11, 2019] Why Crowdstrike's Russian Hacking Story Fell Apart -- Say Hello to Fancy Bear
  • [May 11, 2019] Intel and Law Enforcement Tried to Entrap Trump by Larry C Johnson
  • [May 11, 2019] Just worth noting that in the hand-written notes taken by Bruce Ohr after meetings with Chris Steele, there is the comment that the majority of the Steele Dossier was obtained from an expat Russian living in the US, and not from actual Russian sources in Russia
  • [Dec 07, 2019] Impeachment does not require a crime.
  • [Dec 06, 2019] Who Is Making US Foreign Policy by Stephen F. Cohen
  • [Dec 06, 2019] Who Is Making US Foreign Policy by Stephen F. Cohen
  • [Dec 04, 2019] The central question of Ukrainegate is whether CrowdStrike actions on DNC leak were a false flag operation designed to open Russiagate and what was the level of participation of Poroshenko government and Ukrainian Security services in this false flag operation by Factotum
  • [Dec 04, 2019] Responding to Lt. Col. Vindman about my Ukraine columns with the facts John Solomon Reports
  • [Dec 04, 2019] Ukrainegaters claim that Trump Reduced the USA empire 'Global Commitments' was fraudulent from the very beginning. Trump is yet another imperial president who favours the "Full spectrum Dominance; The problem is that the time when the USA can have it are in the past. Europe finally recovered from WWII losses and that alone dooms the idea
  • [Dec 04, 2019] Common Funding Themes Link 'Whistleblower' Complaint and CrowdStrike Firm Certifying DNC Russia 'Hack' by Aaron Klein
  • [Dec 04, 2019] DNC Russian Hackers Found! You Won't Believe Who They Really Work For by the Anonymous Patriots
  • [Dec 04, 2019] June 4th, 2017 Crowdstrike Was at the DNC Six Weeks by George Webb
  • [Dec 04, 2019] Cyberanalyst George Eliason Claims that the "Fancy Bear" Who Hacked the DNC Server is Ukrainian Intelligence – In League with the Atlantic Council and Crowdstrike
  • [Dec 04, 2019] Fancy Bear - Conservapedia
  • [Dec 04, 2019] June 2nd, 2018 Alperovich's DNC Cover Stories Soon To Match With His Hacking Teams by George Webb
  • [Dec 04, 2019] America's War Exceptionalism Is Killing the Planet by William Astore
  • [Dec 04, 2019] Atkinson role in Ukrainegate
  • [Dec 04, 2019] The central question of Ukrainegate is whether CrowdStrike actions on DNC leak were a false flag operation designed to open Russiagate and what was the level of participation of Poroshenko government and Ukrainian Security services in this false flag operation by Factotum
  • [Dec 04, 2019] Responding to Lt. Col. Vindman about my Ukraine columns with the facts John Solomon Reports
  • [Dec 04, 2019] Ukrainegaters claim that Trump Reduced the USA empire 'Global Commitments' was fraudulent from the very beginning. Trump is yet another imperial president who favours the "Full spectrum Dominance; The problem is that the time when the USA can have it are in the past. Europe finally recovered from WWII losses and that alone dooms the idea
  • [Dec 04, 2019] Common Funding Themes Link 'Whistleblower' Complaint and CrowdStrike Firm Certifying DNC Russia 'Hack' by Aaron Klein
  • [Dec 04, 2019] DNC Russian Hackers Found! You Won't Believe Who They Really Work For by the Anonymous Patriots
  • [Dec 04, 2019] June 4th, 2017 Crowdstrike Was at the DNC Six Weeks by George Webb
  • [Dec 04, 2019] Cyberanalyst George Eliason Claims that the "Fancy Bear" Who Hacked the DNC Server is Ukrainian Intelligence – In League with the Atlantic Council and Crowdstrike
  • [Dec 04, 2019] Fancy Bear - Conservapedia
  • [Dec 04, 2019] June 2nd, 2018 Alperovich's DNC Cover Stories Soon To Match With His Hacking Teams by George Webb
  • [Dec 04, 2019] America's War Exceptionalism Is Killing the Planet by William Astore
  • [Dec 04, 2019] Atkinson role in Ukrainegate
  • [Dec 02, 2019] The cost of militarism cannot be measured only in lost opportunities, lives and money. There will be a long hangover of shame
  • [Dec 02, 2019] The cost of militarism cannot be measured only in lost opportunities, lives and money. There will be a long hangover of shame
  • [Dec 02, 2019] A Think Tank Dedicated to Peace and Restraint
  • [Dec 02, 2019] A Think Tank Dedicated to Peace and Restraint
  • [Nov 30, 2019] CrowdStrike: a Conspiracy Wrapped in a Conspiracy Inside a Conspiracy by Oleg Atbashian
  • [Nov 29, 2019] Where s the Collusion
  • [Nov 30, 2019] CrowdStrike: a Conspiracy Wrapped in a Conspiracy Inside a Conspiracy by Oleg Atbashian
  • [Nov 29, 2019] Where s the Collusion
  • [Nov 28, 2019] WSJ story reopens the claim Comey had a report there was an email exchange between Loretta Lynch and Clinton claiming Lynch promised her the DOJ would go easy on Clinton.
  • [Nov 27, 2019] Obama Admits He Would Speak Up Only To Stop Bernie Sanders Nomination
  • [Nov 27, 2019] Could your county use some extra money?
  • [Nov 26, 2019] John Solomon Everything Changes In The Ukraine Scandal If Trump Releases These Documents
  • [Nov 24, 2019] Chris Hedges on Death of the Liberal Class - YouTube
  • [Nov 24, 2019] When you consider military assistance as the way to pressure the country, the first thing to discuss is whether this military assistance serves the USA national interests or not. This was not done
  • [Nov 23, 2019] In Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskiy Must Tread Carefully or May End up Facing Another Maidan Uprising by Stefan Wolff and Tatyana Malyarenko
  • [Nov 22, 2019] CROWDSTRIKE's role in the Democrat impeachment smokescreen needs to keep moving forward because, it is not going away.
  • [Nov 22, 2019] Impeachment is DemoRats election strategy, because then have nothing better to offer their voters
  • [Nov 15, 2019] Letter to Congressman Adam Schiff from Krishen Mehta - American Committee for East-West Accord
  • [Nov 13, 2019] Understanding What Sidney Powell is Doing to Kill the Case Against Michael Flynn by Larry C Johnson
  • [Nov 09, 2019] Donald Trump s Only Crime Is Defending Himself by Daniel McCarthy
  • [Nov 03, 2019] Growing Indicators of Brennan's CIA Trump Task Force by Larry C Johnson - Sic Semper Tyrannis
  • [Nov 01, 2019] Viable Opposition The Legal Connection Between Washington and Kiev
  • [Nov 01, 2019] Color revolution is a method of using a minority to render the country ungovernble, waving a simplistic banner against corruption and for (undefined) democracy, which leaves the masses unorganized and eschews even a platform, in favor of a secret coterie run by intelligence againces
  • [Oct 26, 2019] The Plundering of Ukraine by Corrupt American Democrats by Israel Shamir
  • [Oct 25, 2019] Trump-Haters, Not Trump, Are The Ones Wrecking America s Institutions, WSJ s Strassel Says
  • [Oct 19, 2019] Kunstler One Big Reason Why America Is Driving Itself Bat$hit Crazy
  • [Nov 28, 2019] WSJ story reopens the claim Comey had a report there was an email exchange between Loretta Lynch and Clinton claiming Lynch promised her the DOJ would go easy on Clinton.
  • [Nov 27, 2019] Obama Admits He Would Speak Up Only To Stop Bernie Sanders Nomination
  • [Nov 27, 2019] Could your county use some extra money?
  • [Nov 26, 2019] John Solomon Everything Changes In The Ukraine Scandal If Trump Releases These Documents
  • [Nov 24, 2019] Chris Hedges on Death of the Liberal Class - YouTube
  • [Nov 24, 2019] When you consider military assistance as the way to pressure the country, the first thing to discuss is whether this military assistance serves the USA national interests or not. This was not done
  • [Nov 23, 2019] Is Fiona Hill a Sleeper Agent
  • [Nov 23, 2019] In Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskiy Must Tread Carefully or May End up Facing Another Maidan Uprising by Stefan Wolff and Tatyana Malyarenko
  • [Nov 22, 2019] CROWDSTRIKE's role in the Democrat impeachment smokescreen needs to keep moving forward because, it is not going away.
  • [Nov 22, 2019] Impeachment is DemoRats election strategy, because then have nothing better to offer their voters
  • [Nov 15, 2019] Letter to Congressman Adam Schiff from Krishen Mehta - American Committee for East-West Accord
  • [Nov 13, 2019] Understanding What Sidney Powell is Doing to Kill the Case Against Michael Flynn by Larry C Johnson
  • [Nov 09, 2019] Donald Trump s Only Crime Is Defending Himself by Daniel McCarthy
  • [Nov 03, 2019] Growing Indicators of Brennan's CIA Trump Task Force by Larry C Johnson - Sic Semper Tyrannis
  • [Nov 01, 2019] Viable Opposition The Legal Connection Between Washington and Kiev
  • [Nov 01, 2019] Color revolution is a method of using a minority to render the country ungovernble, waving a simplistic banner against corruption and for (undefined) democracy, which leaves the masses unorganized and eschews even a platform, in favor of a secret coterie run by intelligence againces
  • [Oct 26, 2019] The Plundering of Ukraine by Corrupt American Democrats by Israel Shamir
  • [Oct 25, 2019] Trump-Haters, Not Trump, Are The Ones Wrecking America s Institutions, WSJ s Strassel Says
  • [Oct 19, 2019] Kunstler One Big Reason Why America Is Driving Itself Bat$hit Crazy
  • [Oct 10, 2019] Trump, Impeachment Forgetting What Brought Him to the White House by Andrew J. Bacevich
  • [Oct 09, 2019] Ukrainegate as the textbook example of how the neoliberal elite manipulates the MSM and the narrative for purposes of misdirecting attention and perception of their true intentions and objectives -- distracting the electorate from real issues
  • [Oct 08, 2019] Parade of whistleblowers: a second whistleblower is now considering filing a complaint about President Donald Trump's conduct regarding Ukraine
  • [Oct 02, 2019] The Self-Set Impeachment Trap naked capitalism
  • [Sep 30, 2019] In Trump impeachment, "no one is above the law" could backfire on Democrats by Byron York
  • [Sep 30, 2019] Stephen Miller calls whistleblower a 'partisan hit job' in fiery interview
  • [Sep 29, 2019] This Man Stopped a Runaway Impeachment by Barbara Boland
  • [Sep 26, 2019] Did Nancy Pelosi Just Make One Of The Biggest Political Mistakes In History
  • [Sep 17, 2019] The Spy Who Failed by Scott Ritter
  • [Sep 15, 2019] How the UK Security Services neutralised the country s leading liberal newspaper by Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis
  • [Sep 15, 2019] Donald Trump as the DNC s nominee by Michael Hudson
  • [Sep 11, 2019] John Brennan's and Jim Clappers' Last Gasp by Larry C Johnson
  • [Sep 10, 2019] Being called a narcissist by Jim Comey is akin to being accused of having sex with underage girls by the late Jeffrey Epstein by Larry C Johnsons
  • [Sep 10, 2019] It s all about Gene Sharp and seeping neoliberal regime change using Western logistical support, money, NGO and intelligence agencies and MSM as the leverage
  • [Aug 23, 2019] Spygate The Inside Story Behind the Alleged Plot to Take Down Trump by Jeff Carlson
  • [Aug 22, 2019] Trump Doesn t Know How to Negotiate by Daniel Larison
  • [Aug 21, 2019] Solomon If Trump Declassifies These 10 Documents, Democrats Are Doomed
  • [Aug 17, 2019] Putin-Trump Derangement Syndrome (PTDS)
  • [Aug 17, 2019] The Unraveling of the Failed Trump Coup by Larry C Johnson
  • [Aug 17, 2019] Debunking the Putin Panic by Stephen F. Cohen
  • [Aug 12, 2019] Bruce Ohr 302s by Larry C Johnson - Sic Semper Tyrannis
  • [Aug 12, 2019] Russiagate is the idea around which varied interests can be organized
  • [Jul 29, 2019] Peace in Ukraine by Stephen F. Cohen
  • [Jul 29, 2019] Looks like Epstein turned informant for Mueller s FBI in 2008. Likely earlier
  • [Jul 29, 2019] The Real Reason The Propagandists Have Been Promoting Russia Hysteria by Caitlin Johnstone
  • [Jul 29, 2019] What Mueller Was Trying to Hide by Kimberley A. Strassel
  • [Jul 28, 2019] Mueller Crumbles Under Questioning by Barbara Boland
  • [Jul 27, 2019] Understanding the Roots of the Obama Coup Against Trump by Larry C Johnson
  • [Jul 26, 2019] Tucker: Democrats believed Mueller would save America. But he is A daft old man blinking in the sunlight once the curtain has been opened
  • [Jul 26, 2019] Tucker What should happen to those who lied about Russian collusion
  • [Jul 13, 2019] Mueller Does Not Have Evidence That The IRA Was Part of Russian Government Meddling by Larry C Johnson
  • [Jul 09, 2019] Ex-FBI, CIA Officials Draw Withering Fire on Russiagate by Ray McGovern
  • [Jul 06, 2019] Mueller Report Gets the Trump Tower Meeting Wrong; Promotes Browder Hoax by Lucy Komisar
  • [Jun 30, 2019] USG's Bizarre Change of Position in the Roger Stone Case by Larry C Johnson
  • [Jun 28, 2019] The Donald's Latest Iranian Caper Sh*t-Faced Stupidity by David Stockman
  • [Jun 19, 2019] Investigation Nation Mueller, Russiagate, and Fake Politics by Jim Kavanagh
  • [Jun 05, 2019] Due to the nature of intelligence agencies work and the aura of secrecy control of intelligence agencies in democratic societies is a difficult undertaking as the entity you want to control is in many ways more politically powerful and more ruthless in keeping its privileges then controllers.
  • [Jun 05, 2019] Do Spies Run the World by Israel Shamir
  • [Jun 04, 2019] Attkisson 10 Questions I d Ask Robert Mueller (If I Were Allowed)
  • [May 30, 2019] Whatever you may think of Trump, the people who set out to 'get him' are the scum of the Earth
  • [May 30, 2019] Everyone here at moa is saying much the same: the CIA is running the usa at this point.. Mueller is ex CIA... So, basically the mueller investigation a cover up and BS for the lemmings... It seems to have worked to a limited degree..
  • [May 29, 2019] Mueller Punts On Obstruction Charges -- Impeachment Would Hurt The Democrats
  • [May 28, 2019] Any time you read an article (or a comment) on Russia, substitute the word Jew for Russian and International Jewry for Russia and re-read.
  • [May 19, 2019] How Russiagate replaced Analysis of the 2016 Election by Rick Sterling
  • [May 19, 2019] Intel agencies of the UK and US are guilty of fabricating evidence, breaking the laws (certainly of the targeted countries, but also of the UK and US), providing fake analysis and operating as evil actors on the dark side of humanity
  • [May 16, 2019] The Disinformationists by C.J. Hopkins
  • [May 15, 2019] Russia-gate s Monstrous Offspring
  • [Oct 10, 2019] Trump, Impeachment Forgetting What Brought Him to the White House by Andrew J. Bacevich
  • [Oct 09, 2019] Ukrainegate as the textbook example of how the neoliberal elite manipulates the MSM and the narrative for purposes of misdirecting attention and perception of their true intentions and objectives -- distracting the electorate from real issues
  • [Oct 08, 2019] Parade of whistleblowers: a second whistleblower is now considering filing a complaint about President Donald Trump's conduct regarding Ukraine
  • [Oct 02, 2019] The Self-Set Impeachment Trap naked capitalism
  • [Sep 30, 2019] In Trump impeachment, "no one is above the law" could backfire on Democrats by Byron York
  • [Sep 30, 2019] Stephen Miller calls whistleblower a 'partisan hit job' in fiery interview
  • [Sep 29, 2019] This Man Stopped a Runaway Impeachment by Barbara Boland
  • [Sep 26, 2019] Did Nancy Pelosi Just Make One Of The Biggest Political Mistakes In History
  • [Sep 17, 2019] The Spy Who Failed by Scott Ritter
  • [Sep 15, 2019] How the UK Security Services neutralised the country s leading liberal newspaper by Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis
  • [Sep 15, 2019] Donald Trump as the DNC s nominee by Michael Hudson
  • [Sep 11, 2019] John Brennan's and Jim Clappers' Last Gasp by Larry C Johnson
  • [Sep 10, 2019] Being called a narcissist by Jim Comey is akin to being accused of having sex with underage girls by the late Jeffrey Epstein by Larry C Johnsons
  • [Sep 10, 2019] It s all about Gene Sharp and seeping neoliberal regime change using Western logistical support, money, NGO and intelligence agencies and MSM as the leverage
  • [Aug 23, 2019] Spygate The Inside Story Behind the Alleged Plot to Take Down Trump by Jeff Carlson
  • [Aug 22, 2019] Trump Doesn t Know How to Negotiate by Daniel Larison
  • [Aug 21, 2019] Solomon If Trump Declassifies These 10 Documents, Democrats Are Doomed
  • [Aug 17, 2019] The Unraveling of the Failed Trump Coup by Larry C Johnson
  • [Aug 17, 2019] Debunking the Putin Panic by Stephen F. Cohen
  • [Aug 17, 2019] Putin-Trump Derangement Syndrome (PTDS)
  • [Aug 12, 2019] Bruce Ohr 302s by Larry C Johnson - Sic Semper Tyrannis
  • [Aug 12, 2019] Russiagate is the idea around which varied interests can be organized
  • [Jul 29, 2019] Peace in Ukraine by Stephen F. Cohen
  • [Jul 29, 2019] Looks like Epstein turned informant for Mueller s FBI in 2008. Likely earlier
  • [Jul 29, 2019] The Real Reason The Propagandists Have Been Promoting Russia Hysteria by Caitlin Johnstone
  • [Jul 29, 2019] What Mueller Was Trying to Hide by Kimberley A. Strassel
  • [Jul 28, 2019] Mueller Crumbles Under Questioning by Barbara Boland
  • [Jul 27, 2019] Understanding the Roots of the Obama Coup Against Trump by Larry C Johnson
  • [Jul 26, 2019] Tucker What should happen to those who lied about Russian collusion
  • [Jul 26, 2019] Tucker: Democrats believed Mueller would save America. But he is A daft old man blinking in the sunlight once the curtain has been opened
  • [Jun 03, 2020] Not The Onion: NY Times Urges Trump To Establish Closer Ties With Moscow
  • [Jul 13, 2019] Mueller Does Not Have Evidence That The IRA Was Part of Russian Government Meddling by Larry C Johnson
  • [Jul 09, 2019] Ex-FBI, CIA Officials Draw Withering Fire on Russiagate by Ray McGovern
  • [Jul 06, 2019] Mueller Report Gets the Trump Tower Meeting Wrong; Promotes Browder Hoax by Lucy Komisar
  • [Jun 30, 2019] USG's Bizarre Change of Position in the Roger Stone Case by Larry C Johnson
  • [Jun 28, 2019] The Donald's Latest Iranian Caper Sh*t-Faced Stupidity by David Stockman
  • [Jun 19, 2019] Investigation Nation Mueller, Russiagate, and Fake Politics by Jim Kavanagh
  • [Jun 03, 2020] Rule of law in Murrika is kaput
  • [Jun 05, 2019] Due to the nature of intelligence agencies work and the aura of secrecy control of intelligence agencies in democratic societies is a difficult undertaking as the entity you want to control is in many ways more politically powerful and more ruthless in keeping its privileges then controllers.
  • [Jun 05, 2019] Do Spies Run the World by Israel Shamir
  • [Jun 04, 2019] Attkisson 10 Questions I d Ask Robert Mueller (If I Were Allowed)
  • [May 30, 2019] Whatever you may think of Trump, the people who set out to 'get him' are the scum of the Earth
  • [May 30, 2019] Everyone here at moa is saying much the same: the CIA is running the usa at this point.. Mueller is ex CIA... So, basically the mueller investigation a cover up and BS for the lemmings... It seems to have worked to a limited degree..
  • [May 29, 2019] Mueller Punts On Obstruction Charges -- Impeachment Would Hurt The Democrats
  • [May 28, 2019] Any time you read an article (or a comment) on Russia, substitute the word Jew for Russian and International Jewry for Russia and re-read.
  • [May 19, 2019] How Russiagate replaced Analysis of the 2016 Election by Rick Sterling
  • [May 19, 2019] Intel agencies of the UK and US are guilty of fabricating evidence, breaking the laws (certainly of the targeted countries, but also of the UK and US), providing fake analysis and operating as evil actors on the dark side of humanity
  • [May 16, 2019] The Disinformationists by C.J. Hopkins
  • [May 15, 2019] Russia-gate s Monstrous Offspring
  • [May 13, 2019] Angry Bear Senate Democratic Jackasses and Elmer Fudd
  • [May 13, 2019] US Foreign Policy as Bellicose as Ever by Serge Halimi
  • [May 13, 2019] Angry Bear Senate Democratic Jackasses and Elmer Fudd
  • [May 13, 2019] US Foreign Policy as Bellicose as Ever by Serge Halimi
  • [May 12, 2019] Is rabid warmonger, neocon chickenhawk Bolton a swinger? That is a mental picture that s deeply disturbing yet funny at the same time
  • [May 11, 2019] Just worth noting that in the hand-written notes taken by Bruce Ohr after meetings with Chris Steele, there is the comment that the majority of the Steele Dossier was obtained from an expat Russian living in the US, and not from actual Russian sources in Russia
  • [May 11, 2019] Crowdstrike planted the malware on DNC systems, which they discovered later discovered and attributed to Russians later
  • [May 11, 2019] Why Crowdstrike's Russian Hacking Story Fell Apart -- Say Hello to Fancy Bear
  • [May 11, 2019] Whitney Judgment Day Looms For John Brennan
  • [May 11, 2019] Intel and Law Enforcement Tried to Entrap Trump by Larry C Johnson
  • [May 11, 2019] Doug Ross @ Journal A TIMELINE OF TREASON How the DNC and FBI Leadership Tried to Fix a Presidential Election [Updated]
  • [May 11, 2019] Christopher Steele, FBI s Confidential Human Source by Publius Tacitus
  • [May 11, 2019] Nunes Memo Details Weaponization of FISA Court for Political Advantage by Elizabeth Lea Vos
  • [May 11, 2019] CIA Paid $100,000 To Shadowy Russian For Dirt on Trump, Including Sex Video by Chuck Ross
  • [May 10, 2019] Mueller Report - Expensive Estimations And Elusive Evidence by Adam Carter
  • [May 10, 2019] Biden is up to neck in Spygate dirt by Jeff Carlson
  • [May 10, 2019] Obama administration raced to obtain FICA warrant on Carter Page before Rogers investigation closes on them and that was definitely an obstruction of justice and interference with the ongoing investigation
  • [May 10, 2019] What was the meaning of the term "insurance policy" in Stzok messages to Lisa Page
  • [May 10, 2019] The Battle Between Rosenstein and McCabe
  • [May 08, 2019] Obama Spied on Other Republicans and Democrats As Well by Larry C Johnson
  • [May 07, 2019] Look! A whale!
  • [May 07, 2019] Chris Hedges: The Demonization of Russia is Driven by Defense Contractors
  • [May 05, 2019] Did Mueller substituted Russia for Israel in his report
  • [May 03, 2019] Former high-ranking FBI officials on Andrew McCabe's alarming admissions
  • [May 03, 2019] Andrew McCabe played the key role in the appointment of the special prosecutor
  • [May 03, 2019] The Wheels Of Real Justice Are In Motion Now Kunstler Fears The Desperate Resistance Next Move...
  • [May 02, 2019] Neoliberalism and the Globalization of War. America s Hegemonic Project by Prof Michel Chossudovsky
  • [May 02, 2019] Checkmate - How President Trump s Legal Team Outfoxed Mueller by Will Chamberlain
  • [Apr 29, 2019] The Mueller Report Indicts the Trump-Russia Conspiracy Theory by Aaron Maté
  • [Apr 28, 2019] The British Role in Russiagate Is About to Be Fully Exposed
  • [Apr 28, 2019] Tit For Tat: Why Did Mueller Let Trump Off the Hook by Mike Whitney
  • [Apr 28, 2019] Breath of fresh air--real journalism again! Have so much respect for Chris Hedges and Aaron Mate, great work!
  • [Apr 28, 2019] On Contact Russiagate Mueller Report w- Aaron Mate
  • [Apr 26, 2019] Jared Kushner, Not Maria Butina, Is America's Real Foreign Agent by Philip Giraldi
  • [Apr 26, 2019] Intelligence agencies meddling in elections
  • [Apr 22, 2019] FBI top brass have been colluding with top brass of CIA and MI6 to pursue ambitious anti-Russian agenda
  • [Apr 22, 2019] Current Neo-McCarthyism hysteria as a smoke screen of the UK and the USA intent to dominate European geopolitics and weaken Russia and Germany
  • [Apr 21, 2019] Makes me wonder if this started out as a standard operation by the FBI to gain leverage over a presidential contender
  • [Apr 21, 2019] Muller report implicates Obama administration in total and utter incompetence, if not pandering to the foreign intervention into the USA elections. The latter is called criminal negligence in legal speak.
  • [Apr 21, 2019] John Brennan's Police State USA
  • [Apr 21, 2019] Special Counsel Mueller -- Disingenuous and Dishonest by Larry C Johnson
  • [Apr 20, 2019] Trump has certainly made the world safer
  • [Apr 20, 2019] Sure, blame those guys over there for Hillary fiasco and hire Mueller to get the goods . That s the ultimate the dog ate my homework excuse.
  • [Apr 17, 2019] Six US Agencies Conspired ...
  • [Apr 17, 2019] Deep State and the FBI Federal Blackmail Investigation
  • [Apr 17, 2019] Did CIA Director William Casey really say, We ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false
  • [Apr 16, 2019] CIA Director Used Fake Skripal Incident Photos To Manipulate Trump
  • [Apr 15, 2019] War is the force that gives America its meaning.
  • [Apr 10, 2019] Habakkuk on cockroaches and the New York Times
  • [Apr 08, 2019] Aaron Maté Was Also Right About Russiagate
  • [Apr 07, 2019] Nunes The Russian Collusion Hoax Meets An Unbelievbable End
  • [Apr 04, 2019] Was John Brennan The Russia Lie Ringleader
  • [Apr 03, 2019] Jewish Power Rolls Over Washington by Philip Giraldi
  • [Mar 31, 2019] A Reprise of the Iraq-WMD Fiasco by James W Carden
  • [Mar 30, 2019] The Real Costs of Russiagate
  • [Mar 25, 2019] Russiagate was never about substance, it was about who gets to image-manage the decline of a turbo-charged, self-harming neoliberal capitalism by Jonathan Cook
  • [Mar 25, 2019] Meet The Kushners First Couple In-Waiting by Ilana Mercer
  • [Mar 25, 2019] Spygate The True Story of Collusion (plus Infographic) by Jeff Carlson
  • [Mar 25, 2019] Nuland role in Russiagate
  • [Mar 25, 2019] Another SIGINT compromise ...
  • [Mar 24, 2019] The accountability that must follow Mueller's report
  • [Mar 24, 2019] "Russia Gate" investigation was a color revolution agaist Trump. But a strnge side effect was that Clintons have managed to raise a vicious, loud mouthed thug to the status of some kind of martyr.
  • [Mar 24, 2019] With RussiaGate Over Where's Hillary
  • [Mar 24, 2019] One could wish that DOJ IG Horowitz could investigate and sanction British Intelligence for its use of official and non-official officials in starting this debacle.
  • [Mar 24, 2019] One thing left out is the ability of readers to call BS on a story i.e. a robust comment section for debates.
  • [Mar 23, 2019] Brennan pipe dream obliterated. The color revolution against Trump failed
  • [Mar 23, 2019] Mueller stopped following the money the moment he realized it was all leading back to Israel.
  • [Mar 22, 2019] Glenn Greenwald on Twitter The Mueller investigation is complete and this is a simple fact that will never go away
  • [Mar 18, 2019] Journalists who are spies
  • [Mar 17, 2019] Mueller uses the same old false flag scams, just different packaging of his forensics-free findings
  • [Mar 17, 2019] VIPS- Mueller's Forensics-Free Findings
  • [Mar 14, 2019] Manafort's Ukrainians were actually pro-West? - Habakkuk
  • [Mar 11, 2019] Bruce Ohr, Liar or Moron by Larry C Johnson
  • [Mar 05, 2019] The Shadow Governments Destruction Of Democracy
  • [Feb 24, 2019] David Stockman on Peak Trump : Undrainable swamp (which is on Pentagon side of Potomac river) and fantasy of MAGA (which become MIGA -- make Israel great again)
  • [Feb 18, 2019] Do You Believe in the Deep State Now by Robert W. Merry
  • [Feb 17, 2019] Trump is Russian asset memo is really neocon propaganda overkill
  • [Feb 16, 2019] MSM Begs For Trust After Buzzfeed Debacle by Caitlin Johnstone
  • [Feb 16, 2019] Death Of Russiagate: Mueller Team Tied To Mifsud s Network
  • [Feb 13, 2019] Stephen Cohen on War with Russia and Soviet-style Censorship in the US by Russell Mokhiber
  • [Feb 09, 2019] Did The Department Of Justice Protect Brenda Snipes From Prosecution For Ballot Destruction by Elizabeth Lea Vos
  • [Feb 08, 2019] To understand Steele and the five eyes involvement in the Russia hoax you need to go to the library
  • [Jan 21, 2019] Beyond BuzzFeed The 10 Worst, Most Embarrassing US Media Failures On The Trump-Russia Story by Glenn Greenwald
  • [Jan 20, 2019] Doctor, nurse, Chief Nursing Officer of the Army, whatever.
  • [Jan 19, 2019] Coincidence - Chief Nurse Of British Army Was First Person To Arrive At Novichoked Skripal Scene
  • [Jan 13, 2019] As FBI Ramped Up Witch Hunt When Trump Fired Comey, Strzok Admitted Collusion Investigation A Joke
  • [Jan 11, 2019] New Documents Reveal a Covert British Military-Intelligence Smear Machine Meddling In American Politics by Mark Ames
  • [Jan 11, 2019] Facts does not matter in the current propoganda environment, the narrative is everything
  • [Jan 08, 2019] Shock Files- What Role Did Integrity Initiative Play in Sergei Skripal Affair- - Sputnik International
  • [Jan 08, 2019] Skripal spin doctors- Documents link UK govt-funded Integrity Initiative to anti-Russia narrative
  • [Jan 06, 2019] British elite fantasy of again ruling the world (with American and Zionist aid) has led to a series of catastrophic blunders and overreaches in both foreign and domestic policies.
  • [Jan 02, 2019] Russian bots - How An Anti-Russian Lobby Creates Fake News
  • [Jan 02, 2019] The Only Meddling "Russian Bots" Were Actually Democrat-Led "Experts" by Mac Slavo
  • [Jan 02, 2019] Did Mueller Patched Together Much of His Indictment from 2015 Radio Free Europe Article ?
  • [Dec 30, 2018] RussiaGate In Review with Aaron Mate - Unreasoned Fear is Neoliberalism's Response to the Credibility Gap
  • [Dec 29, 2018] -Election Meddling- Enters Bizarro World As MSM Ignores Democrat-Linked -Russian Bot- Scheme -
  • [Dec 21, 2018] Virtually no one in neoliberal MSM is paying attention to the fact that a group of Pakistani muslims, working for a Jewish Congresswoman from Florida, had full computer access to a large number of Democrat Representatives. Most of the press is disinterested in pursuing this matter
  • [Dec 14, 2018] MI6, along with elements of the CIA, was behind the Steele Dossier. Representatives of John Brennan met in London to discus before the go ahead was given
  • [Dec 10, 2018] One thing that has puzzled me about Trump methods is his constant tweeting of witch hunt with respect to Mueller but his unwillingness to actually disclose what Brennan, Clapper, Comey, et al actually did
  • [Dec 09, 2018] Die Weltwoche Weltwoche Online – www.weltwoche.ch Tucker Carlson Trump is not capable Die Weltwoche, Ausgabe 49-2018
  • [Dec 05, 2018] Beleaguered British Prime Minister Theresa May is wailing loudly against a Trump threat to reveal classified documents relating to Russiagate by Philip Giraldi
  • [Dec 02, 2018] Muller investigation has all the appearance of an investigation looking for a crime
  • [Nov 27, 2018] 'Highly likely' that Magnitsky was poisoned by toxic chemicals on Bill Browder's orders
  • [Nov 24, 2018] MI6 Scrambling To Stop Trump From Releasing Classified Docs In Russia Probe
  • [Nov 24, 2018] Anonymous Exposes UK-Led Psyop To Battle Russian Propaganda
  • [Nov 24, 2018] British Government Runs Secret Anti-Russian Smear Campaigns
  • [Nov 24, 2018] Now we know created MH17 smear campaign, who financial Steele dossier and created Skripal affair ;-)
  • [Nov 24, 2018] When you are paid a lot of money to come up with plots psyops, you tend to come up with plots for psyops . The word entrapment comes to mind. Probably self-serving also.
  • [Nov 23, 2018] Sitting on corruption hill
  • [Nov 12, 2018] Obama s CIA Secretly Intercepted Congressional Communications About Whistleblowers
  • [Nov 12, 2018] Protecting Americans from foreign influence, smells with COINTELPRO. Structural witch-hunt effect like during the McCarthy era is designed to supress decent to neoliberal oligarcy by Andre Damon and Joseph Kishore
  • [Oct 25, 2018] DNC Emails--A Seth Attack Not a Russian Hack by Publius Tacitus
  • [Oct 18, 2018] Donald Trump's Foreign Policy Goes Neocon by Robert W. Merry
  • [Oct 08, 2018] British intelligence now officially is a by-word for organized crime by John Wight
  • [Oct 05, 2018] Alcohol, Memory, and the Hippocampus
  • [Oct 04, 2018] Brett Kavanaugh's 'revenge' theory spotlights past with Clintons by Lisa Mascaro
  • [Oct 02, 2018] Recovered memory is a Freudian voodoo. Notice how carefully manicured these charges are such that they can never be falsified? This is the actual proof she is a liar and this whole thing is staged
  • [Oct 02, 2018] The Kavanaugh hearings and the Lack of Radical Action
  • [Oct 02, 2018] Kavanaugh is the Wrong Nominee by Kevin Zeese - Margaret Flowers
  • [Oct 02, 2018] I m puzzled why CIA is so against Kavanaugh?
  • [Sep 29, 2018] The Schizophrenic Deep State is a Symptom, Not the Disease by Charles Hugh Smith
  • [Sep 24, 2018] Given Trumps kneeling to the British Skripal poisoning 'hate russia' hoax I suspect there is no chance he will go after Christopher Steele or any of the senior demoncrat conspirers no matter how much he would love to sucker punch Theresa May and her nasty colleagues.
  • [Sep 23, 2018] UK Begged Trump Not To Declassify Russia Docs; Cited Grave Concerns Over Steele Involvement
  • [Sep 16, 2018] Looks like the key players in Steele dossier were CIA assets
  • [Sep 15, 2018] BBC is skanky state propaganda
  • [Sep 11, 2018] Is Donald Trump Going to Do the Syria Backflip by Publius Tacitus
  • [Sep 11, 2018] If you believe Trump is trying to remove neocons(Deep State) from the government, explain Bolton and many other Deep State denizens Trump has appointed
  • [Sep 09, 2018] DNC Papadopoulos s UK contact may be dead
  • [Sep 07, 2018] New York Times Undermining Peace Efforts by Sowing Suspicion by Diana Johnstone
  • [Sep 07, 2018] Sarah Huckabee Sanders has a legitimate request to neoliberal MSM - Stop Bugging Me About The New York Times' Trump Op-Ed
  • [Sep 02, 2018] Open letter to President Trump concerning the consequences of 11 September 2001 by Thierry Meyssan
  • [Aug 24, 2018] The priorities of the deep state and its public face the MSM
  • [Aug 22, 2018] The CIA Owns the US and European Media by Paul Craig Roberts
  • [Aug 18, 2018] Pentagon Whistleblower Demoted After Exposing Millions Paid To FBI Spy Halper, Clinton Crony
  • [Aug 18, 2018] MoA - John Brennan Is No Match For Trump
  • [Aug 14, 2018] I think one of Mueller s deeply embedded character flaw is that once he decides on burying someone he becomes possessed
  • [Aug 14, 2018] US Intelligence Community is Tearing the Country Apart from the Inside by Dmitry Orlov
  • [Aug 08, 2018] Sergei Skripal was linked to a consultant with former UK spy Christopher Steele's Orbis Business Intelligence
  • [Aug 08, 2018] Ten Bombshell Revelations From Seymour Hersh's New Autobiography
  • [Aug 05, 2018] Cooper was equally as unhinged as Boot: Neoliberal MSM is a real 1984 remake.
  • [Jul 31, 2018] Is not the Awan affair a grave insult to the US "Intelligence Community?
  • [Jul 28, 2018] American Society Would Collapse If It Were not For These 8 Myths by Lee Camp
  • [Jul 23, 2018] Chickens with Their Heads Cut Off, Coming Home to Roost. The "Treason Narrative" by Helen Buyniski
  • [Jul 22, 2018] Tucker Carlson SLAMS Intelligence Community On Russia
  • [Jul 20, 2018] So many (ex-) MI6 operators (Steele, Tait, etc) involved in the story. It is interesting that the media don t question the intense involvement of the British in all this. And of course, the British haven t been laggards in adding fuel to the fire by the whole novichok hoax
  • [Jul 20, 2018] Doubting The Intelligence Of The Intelligence Community by Ilana Mercer
  • [Jul 20, 2018] Is President Trump A Traitor Because He Wants Peace With Russia by Paul Craig Roberts
  • [Jul 15, 2018] What Mueller won t find by Bob In Portland
  • [Jul 13, 2018] False flag operation covering DNC leaks now involves Mueller and his team
  • [May 11, 2019] Whitney Judgment Day Looms For John Brennan
  • [May 11, 2019] Doug Ross @ Journal A TIMELINE OF TREASON How the DNC and FBI Leadership Tried to Fix a Presidential Election [Updated]
  • [May 11, 2019] Christopher Steele, FBI s Confidential Human Source by Publius Tacitus
  • [May 11, 2019] Nunes Memo Details Weaponization of FISA Court for Political Advantage by Elizabeth Lea Vos
  • [May 11, 2019] CIA Paid $100,000 To Shadowy Russian For Dirt on Trump, Including Sex Video by Chuck Ross
  • [May 10, 2019] Mueller Report - Expensive Estimations And Elusive Evidence by Adam Carter
  • [May 10, 2019] Biden is up to neck in Spygate dirt by Jeff Carlson
  • [May 10, 2019] Obama administration raced to obtain FICA warrant on Carter Page before Rogers investigation closes on them and that was definitely an obstruction of justice and interference with the ongoing investigation
  • [May 10, 2019] What was the meaning of the term "insurance policy" in Stzok messages to Lisa Page
  • [May 10, 2019] The Battle Between Rosenstein and McCabe
  • [May 08, 2019] Obama Spied on Other Republicans and Democrats As Well by Larry C Johnson
  • [May 07, 2019] Look! A whale!
  • [May 07, 2019] Chris Hedges: The Demonization of Russia is Driven by Defense Contractors
  • [May 05, 2019] Did Mueller substituted Russia for Israel in his report
  • [May 03, 2019] Former high-ranking FBI officials on Andrew McCabe's alarming admissions
  • [May 03, 2019] Andrew McCabe played the key role in the appointment of the special prosecutor
  • [May 03, 2019] The Wheels Of Real Justice Are In Motion Now Kunstler Fears The Desperate Resistance Next Move...
  • [May 02, 2019] Neoliberalism and the Globalization of War. America s Hegemonic Project by Prof Michel Chossudovsky
  • [May 02, 2019] Checkmate - How President Trump s Legal Team Outfoxed Mueller by Will Chamberlain
  • [Apr 29, 2019] The Mueller Report Indicts the Trump-Russia Conspiracy Theory by Aaron Maté
  • [Apr 28, 2019] The British Role in Russiagate Is About to Be Fully Exposed
  • [Apr 28, 2019] Tit For Tat: Why Did Mueller Let Trump Off the Hook by Mike Whitney
  • [Apr 28, 2019] Breath of fresh air--real journalism again! Have so much respect for Chris Hedges and Aaron Mate, great work!
  • [Apr 28, 2019] On Contact Russiagate Mueller Report w- Aaron Mate
  • [Apr 26, 2019] Jared Kushner, Not Maria Butina, Is America's Real Foreign Agent by Philip Giraldi
  • [Apr 26, 2019] Intelligence agencies meddling in elections
  • [Apr 22, 2019] FBI top brass have been colluding with top brass of CIA and MI6 to pursue ambitious anti-Russian agenda
  • [Apr 22, 2019] Current Neo-McCarthyism hysteria as a smoke screen of the UK and the USA intent to dominate European geopolitics and weaken Russia and Germany
  • [Apr 21, 2019] Makes me wonder if this started out as a standard operation by the FBI to gain leverage over a presidential contender
  • [Apr 21, 2019] Muller report implicates Obama administration in total and utter incompetence, if not pandering to the foreign intervention into the USA elections. The latter is called criminal negligence in legal speak.
  • [Apr 21, 2019] John Brennan's Police State USA
  • [Apr 21, 2019] Special Counsel Mueller -- Disingenuous and Dishonest by Larry C Johnson
  • [Apr 20, 2019] Trump has certainly made the world safer
  • [Apr 20, 2019] Sure, blame those guys over there for Hillary fiasco and hire Mueller to get the goods . That s the ultimate the dog ate my homework excuse.
  • [Apr 16, 2019] CIA Director Used Fake Skripal Incident Photos To Manipulate Trump
  • [Apr 15, 2019] War is the force that gives America its meaning.
  • [Apr 10, 2019] Habakkuk on cockroaches and the New York Times
  • [Apr 08, 2019] Aaron Maté Was Also Right About Russiagate
  • [Apr 07, 2019] Nunes The Russian Collusion Hoax Meets An Unbelievbable End
  • [Apr 04, 2019] Was John Brennan The Russia Lie Ringleader
  • [Apr 03, 2019] Jewish Power Rolls Over Washington by Philip Giraldi
  • [Apr 15, 2019] War is the force that gives America its meaning.
  • [Mar 31, 2019] A Reprise of the Iraq-WMD Fiasco by James W Carden
  • [Mar 30, 2019] The Real Costs of Russiagate
  • [Mar 25, 2019] Russiagate was never about substance, it was about who gets to image-manage the decline of a turbo-charged, self-harming neoliberal capitalism by Jonathan Cook
  • [Mar 25, 2019] Meet The Kushners First Couple In-Waiting by Ilana Mercer
  • [Mar 25, 2019] Spygate The True Story of Collusion (plus Infographic) by Jeff Carlson
  • [Mar 25, 2019] Nuland role in Russiagate
  • [Mar 25, 2019] Another SIGINT compromise ...
  • [Mar 24, 2019] The accountability that must follow Mueller's report
  • [Mar 24, 2019] "Russia Gate" investigation was a color revolution agaist Trump. But a strnge side effect was that Clintons have managed to raise a vicious, loud mouthed thug to the status of some kind of martyr.
  • [Mar 24, 2019] With RussiaGate Over Where's Hillary
  • [Mar 24, 2019] One could wish that DOJ IG Horowitz could investigate and sanction British Intelligence for its use of official and non-official officials in starting this debacle.
  • [Mar 24, 2019] One thing left out is the ability of readers to call BS on a story i.e. a robust comment section for debates.
  • [Mar 23, 2019] Brennan pipe dream obliterated. The color revolution against Trump failed
  • [Mar 23, 2019] Mueller stopped following the money the moment he realized it was all leading back to Israel.
  • [Mar 22, 2019] Glenn Greenwald on Twitter The Mueller investigation is complete and this is a simple fact that will never go away
  • [Mar 18, 2019] Journalists who are spies
  • [Mar 17, 2019] Mueller uses the same old false flag scams, just different packaging of his forensics-free findings
  • [Mar 17, 2019] VIPS- Mueller's Forensics-Free Findings
  • [Mar 14, 2019] Manafort's Ukrainians were actually pro-West? - Habakkuk
  • [Mar 11, 2019] Bruce Ohr, Liar or Moron by Larry C Johnson
  • [Mar 05, 2019] The Shadow Governments Destruction Of Democracy
  • [Feb 24, 2019] David Stockman on Peak Trump : Undrainable swamp (which is on Pentagon side of Potomac river) and fantasy of MAGA (which become MIGA -- make Israel great again)
  • [Feb 18, 2019] Do You Believe in the Deep State Now by Robert W. Merry
  • [Feb 17, 2019] Trump is Russian asset memo is really neocon propaganda overkill
  • [Feb 16, 2019] MSM Begs For Trust After Buzzfeed Debacle by Caitlin Johnstone
  • [Feb 16, 2019] Death Of Russiagate: Mueller Team Tied To Mifsud s Network
  • [Feb 13, 2019] Stephen Cohen on War with Russia and Soviet-style Censorship in the US by Russell Mokhiber
  • [Feb 09, 2019] Did The Department Of Justice Protect Brenda Snipes From Prosecution For Ballot Destruction by Elizabeth Lea Vos
  • [Feb 08, 2019] To understand Steele and the five eyes involvement in the Russia hoax you need to go to the library
  • [Jan 21, 2019] Beyond BuzzFeed The 10 Worst, Most Embarrassing US Media Failures On The Trump-Russia Story by Glenn Greenwald
  • [Jan 20, 2019] Doctor, nurse, Chief Nursing Officer of the Army, whatever.
  • [Jan 19, 2019] Coincidence - Chief Nurse Of British Army Was First Person To Arrive At Novichoked Skripal Scene
  • [Jan 13, 2019] As FBI Ramped Up Witch Hunt When Trump Fired Comey, Strzok Admitted Collusion Investigation A Joke
  • [Jan 11, 2019] New Documents Reveal a Covert British Military-Intelligence Smear Machine Meddling In American Politics by Mark Ames
  • [Jan 11, 2019] Facts does not matter in the current propoganda environment, the narrative is everything
  • [Jan 08, 2019] Shock Files- What Role Did Integrity Initiative Play in Sergei Skripal Affair- - Sputnik International
  • [Jan 08, 2019] Skripal spin doctors- Documents link UK govt-funded Integrity Initiative to anti-Russia narrative
  • [Jan 06, 2019] British elite fantasy of again ruling the world (with American and Zionist aid) has led to a series of catastrophic blunders and overreaches in both foreign and domestic policies.
  • [Jan 02, 2019] Russian bots - How An Anti-Russian Lobby Creates Fake News
  • [Jan 02, 2019] The Only Meddling "Russian Bots" Were Actually Democrat-Led "Experts" by Mac Slavo
  • [Jan 02, 2019] Did Mueller Patched Together Much of His Indictment from 2015 Radio Free Europe Article ?
  • [Dec 30, 2018] RussiaGate In Review with Aaron Mate - Unreasoned Fear is Neoliberalism's Response to the Credibility Gap
  • [Dec 29, 2018] -Election Meddling- Enters Bizarro World As MSM Ignores Democrat-Linked -Russian Bot- Scheme -
  • [Dec 21, 2018] Virtually no one in neoliberal MSM is paying attention to the fact that a group of Pakistani muslims, working for a Jewish Congresswoman from Florida, had full computer access to a large number of Democrat Representatives. Most of the press is disinterested in pursuing this matter
  • [Oct 19, 2020] The Emails Are Russian- Will Be The Narrative, Regardless Of Facts Or Evidence by Caitlin Johnstone
  • [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
  • [Sep 30, 2020] DNI Letter Supports Allegation That Hillary Clinton Created 'Russiagate' by b
  • [Sep 28, 2020] Truth be told: political operatives own and run our MSM. This is why the press is called the 'Fourth Estate'
  • [Sep 23, 2020] How fake media actually works: reporter are given the narrative and they should rehash their stories to fit it
  • [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
  • [Sep 21, 2020] Stephen F. Cohen- The Ukrainian Crisis - It s not All Putin s Fault
  • [Sep 21, 2020] Stephen Cohen at the AJC 2017 Forum, about Russia and Terrorism
  • [Sep 20, 2020] CJ Hopkins Exposes The Final Act In 'The War On Populism'
  • [Sep 20, 2020] Darren Beattie Tucker Carlson Discuss Color Revolutions The Plot To Oust President Trump
  • [Sep 20, 2020] Norm Eisen And The Colour Revolution Playbook!
  • [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
  • [Sep 17, 2020] Why the Blob Needs an Enemy by ARTA MOEINI
  • [Sep 09, 2020] Proof of collusion at last! - IRRUSSIANALITY
  • [Aug 23, 2020] Catapulting Russian-Meddling Propaganda by Ray McGovern
  • [Aug 19, 2020] The Republican led Senate Select Committee on Intelligence repeats the lies about Guccifer 2.0
  • [Aug 16, 2020] CIA Behind Guccifer Russiagate A Plausible Scenario
  • [Aug 08, 2020] Russia Hoax- Are We All Being Played- Put Up Or Shut Up! - Zero Hedge
  • [Aug 03, 2020] Trump DID commit obstruction of justice... he refused to force HIS Dept of Justice to indict Hillary, Comey, Brennan and Clapper
  • [Aug 02, 2020] Russiagate, Nazis, and the CIA by ROB URIE
  • [Jul 31, 2020] Tucker Carlson calls Obama 'one of the sleaziest and most dishonest figures' in US political history
  • [Jul 21, 2020] This Skripal thing smelled to high heaven from day 1. My opinion is that Sergei Skripal was involved (to what degree is open to speculation) with the Steele dossier.
  • [Jul 20, 2020] The Real 'Russian Playbook' Is Written in English -- Strategic Culture
  • [Jul 13, 2020] George Washington Tried To Warn Americans About Foreign Policy Today by Doug Bandow
  • [Jul 03, 2020] I don't think we can assume that even now Trump actually has control of the FBI; it is still in hands of Obama faction
  • [Jul 01, 2020] Russiagate's Last Gasp by Ray McGovern
  • [Jul 01, 2020] Control freaks that cannot even control their own criminal impulses!
  • [Jun 28, 2020] Russian position for Start talks: "We don't believe the US in its current shape is a counterpart that is reliable, so we have no confidence, no trust whatsoever".
  • [Jun 23, 2020] CIA's massive 'Vault 7' leak resulted from 'woefully lax' security protocols within the agency's own network by Sonam Sheth
  • [Jun 15, 2020] Do Deep State Elements Operate within the Protest Movement? by Mike Whitney
  • [Jun 15, 2020] Full Special Investigation - Donald Trump vs The Deep State
  • [Jun 14, 2020] Jeane J. Kirkpatrick 30 Years Unheeded
  • [Jun 12, 2020] Flynn Case 85 Lies, Contradictions, Oddities, Unusual Occurrences by Petr Svab
  • [Jun 03, 2020] Mueller investigation was never about Trump colluding with Russia. It was always about Trump obstructing the investigation of the collusion with Russia that the investigation was not about
  • [Jun 03, 2020] Not The Onion: NY Times Urges Trump To Establish Closer Ties With Moscow
  • [Jun 03, 2020] Rule of law in Murrika is kaput
  • [Jun 03, 2020] Requiem to Russiagate: this was the largest and the most successful attempt to gaslight the whole US population ever attempted by CIA and Clinton wing of Dems by CJ Hopkins
  • [Jun 03, 2020] RussiaGate for neoliberal Dems and MSM honchos is the way to avoid the necessity to look into the camera and say, I guess people hated us so much they were even willing to vote for Donald Trump
  • [Jun 01, 2020] More Evidence of the Fraud Against General Michael Flynn by Larry C Johnson
  • [Jun 01, 2020] More Evidence of the Fraud Against General Michael Flynn by Larry C Johnson
  • [May 30, 2020] More On "Obamagate!"
  • [May 26, 2020] News Stories Avoid Naming Israel by Philip Giraldi
  • [May 24, 2020] Guccifer 2.0 was always John Brennan 1.0
  • [May 24, 2020] FBI Document Reveals That Without Direct Israeli 'Intervention' Trump Would Have Lost 2016 Election
  • [May 24, 2020] Obamagate as the reaction of managerial class neoliberals on the crisis of neoliberalism
  • [May 24, 2020] Guccifer 2.0's Hidden Agenda : looks like Gussifer 2.0 was a false flag operation designed to smear WikiLeaks and distract from the content of the stolen by Seth Rich or some other insider DNC emails
  • [May 22, 2020] Time to Break up the FBI by William S. Smith
  • [May 20, 2020] Newly Revealed Texts Show Strzok, Page Altered Flynn Interview Notes
  • [May 20, 2020] McGovern Turn Out The Lights, Russiagate Is Over by Ray McGovern
  • [May 20, 2020] Phone Calls Between Biden And Ukraine's Poroshenko Leaked; Details $1 Billion Quid Pro Quo To Fire Burisma Prosecutor Zero
  • [May 19, 2020] America: "We demand an coronavirus origin investigation, but the investigators must agree on the outcome that we specify before they begin investigating!"
  • [May 19, 2020] Russophobia in the Age of Donald Trump
  • [May 18, 2020] FBI under Comey as an uncontrolled political police operating without any oversight from Justice Department
  • [May 17, 2020] General Flynn investigation 'has tarnished Obama's legacy' - YouTube
  • [May 17, 2020] Apparently, the FBI, and not the CIA, are the real government.
  • [May 16, 2020] A model democrat
  • [May 16, 2020] Bought MSM experts typically are just MIC prostitutes: most are neocons and "Russiagaters"
  • [May 16, 2020] Tucker Adam Schiff should resign
  • [May 15, 2020] The Complete Collusion Against Trump Timeline
  • [May 13, 2020] From RussiaGate To ObamaGate The End Of Boomerville by Tom Luongo
  • [May 11, 2020] Lee Zeldin Adam Schiff 'should resign today' for role in Russia investigation by Dominick Mastrangelo
  • [May 11, 2020] McCarthy: It would be 'profoundly crazy if Obama wasn't in on Flynn case'
  • [May 11, 2020] Twin Pillars of Russiagate Crumble by Ray McGovern
  • [May 10, 2020] Did the FBI target Michael Flynn to protect Obama's policies, not national security by Kevin R. Brock
  • [May 10, 2020] Does Obama now feels his potential liability for staging coup d' tat and gaslighting the whole nation?
  • [May 07, 2020] Media Malpractice Is Criminalizing Better Relations With Russia by Stephen F. Cohen
  • [May 07, 2020] There's No Question It's A Fraud Fmr Trump Attorney Says Mueller Badly Misled White House, Schiff Is Nancy's Liar Zero
  • [May 07, 2020] Angry Bear " "cannot remember a single International Crisis in which the United States had no global presence at all"
  • [May 05, 2020] Newly released FBI documents show Israel intervened in 2016 election to help Trump
  • [May 03, 2020] Flynn told the investigators that he knew that the call was inevitably monitored and that a transcript existed. However, he did not recall discussing sanctions with Kislyak. There was no reason to hide such a discussion
  • [Apr 22, 2020] Especially as the insane neoliberal economy we live in, we are ruled by a group of kleptocrats and vicious stooges. Which make allegations against Biden deserving a closer look but that does not make them automatically credible
  • [Apr 17, 2020] The WHO provided validated working test kits on 16th of January. The USA botched the delopyment due to CDC incompetence and NIH syndrom
  • [Apr 17, 2020] Declassified Horowitz Footnotes Show Obama Officials Knew Steele Dossier Was Russian Disinfo Designed To Target Trump Zero He
  • [Apr 17, 2020] Barr just said the Russia collusion probe was a travesty, had no basis and was intended to sabotage Trump.
  • [Apr 02, 2020] Bloomberg spent north of $500 millions to become president with zero results, and you want me to believe that Russians spent 1% of that and got better results
  • [Mar 21, 2020] When reading any article concerning current events (ie. Ukraine, Syria, Iran, Venezuela, or Coronavirus) consider how the The Seven Principles of Propaganda may apply
  • [Mar 17, 2020] DOJ drops charges against Russian trolls after they dared demand evidence in US court -- RT USA News
  • [Mar 12, 2020] Did Joe Biden's Former IT Guy Masquerade as Guccifer 2.0 by Larry C Johnson
  • [Mar 04, 2020] Russiagate should be viewed as classic, textbook case of gaslighting and projecting election interference
  • [Mar 03, 2020] Whacking Rich is a reminder to Sanders what the party establishmen is capable of
  • [Feb 29, 2020] CrowdStrike s Dmitri Alperovitch by William F. Jasper
  • [Feb 29, 2020] A very interesting and though provoking presentation by Ambassador Chas Freeman "America in Distress: The Challenges of Disadvantageous Change"
  • [Feb 28, 2020] Chas Freeman America in Distress The Challenges of Disadvantageous Change
  • [Feb 28, 2020] The impact of coronavirus on Trump reelection chances
  • [Feb 22, 2020] The Red Thread A Search for Ideological Drivers Inside the Anti-Trump Conspiracy by Diana West
  • [Feb 21, 2020] Why Both Republicans And Democrats Want Russia To Become The Enemy Of Choice by Philip Giraldi
  • [Feb 16, 2020] Understanding the Ukraine Story by Joe Lauria
  • [Feb 15, 2020] How does one say Adam Schiff without laughing? by title="View user profile." href="https://caucus99percent.com/users/alligator-ed">Alligator Ed
  • [Feb 09, 2020] Trump demand for 50% of Iraq oil revenue sound exactly like a criminal mob boss
  • [Feb 08, 2020] Is Iraq About To Switch From US to Russia
  • [Feb 04, 2020] The FBI is the secret police force of the authoritarian (aching to be totalitarian) govt hidden behind "Truth, Justice the American Way"
  • [Feb 03, 2020] White House Warriors: How the National Security Council Transformed the American Way of War
  • [Feb 02, 2020] The most interesting issue is the role of NSC in this impeachment story
  • [Jan 31, 2020] Trump excoriates Bolton in tweets this morning
  • [Jan 27, 2020] The end of Trump? Trump betrayed all major promises of his 2016 election campaign. Trump needs to go...
  • [Jan 23, 2020] An incredible level of naivety of people who still think that a single individual, or even two, can change the direction of murderous US policies that are widely supported throughout the bureaucracy?
  • [Jan 20, 2020] Fake Investigations... Designed To Fool by Bryce Buchanan
  • [Jan 17, 2020] Ukraine is a deeply sick patient. The destiny of ordinary Ukrainians is deeply tragic. Diaspora is greedy and want a piece of cake immediately
  • [Jan 14, 2020] Impeachment Of President Trump An Imperial War Game by By Barbara Boyd
  • [Jan 09, 2020] It looks like UK and the USA intelligences agencies run the contest to see who can come up with the most surreal anti-Russian propaganda psy-ops
  • [Jan 08, 2020] Do you really want to be a one term president? Pompeo can talk big now and then go back to Kansas to run for senator. Where will you be able to take refuge?
  • [Jan 08, 2020] If we assume that Pompeo persuaded Trump to order to kill a diplomatic envoy, Trump is now a dead man walking as after Iran responce Pelosi impeachment gambit now have legs
  • [Jan 27, 2020] The end of Trump? Trump betrayed all major promises of his 2016 election campaign. Trump needs to go...
  • [Jan 23, 2020] An incredible level of naivety of people who still think that a single individual, or even two, can change the direction of murderous US policies that are widely supported throughout the bureaucracy?
  • [Jan 20, 2020] Fake Investigations... Designed To Fool by Bryce Buchanan
  • [Jan 17, 2020] Ukraine is a deeply sick patient. The destiny of ordinary Ukrainians is deeply tragic. Diaspora is greedy and want a piece of cake immediately
  • Sites



    Etc

    Society

    Groupthink : Two Party System as Polyarchy : Corruption of Regulators : Bureaucracies : Understanding Micromanagers and Control Freaks : Toxic Managers :   Harvard Mafia : Diplomatic Communication : Surviving a Bad Performance Review : Insufficient Retirement Funds as Immanent Problem of Neoliberal Regime : PseudoScience : Who Rules America : Neoliberalism  : The Iron Law of Oligarchy : Libertarian Philosophy

    Quotes

    War and Peace : Skeptical Finance : John Kenneth Galbraith :Talleyrand : Oscar Wilde : Otto Von Bismarck : Keynes : George Carlin : Skeptics : Propaganda  : SE quotes : Language Design and Programming Quotes : Random IT-related quotesSomerset Maugham : Marcus Aurelius : Kurt Vonnegut : Eric Hoffer : Winston Churchill : Napoleon Bonaparte : Ambrose BierceBernard Shaw : Mark Twain Quotes

    Bulletin:

    Vol 25, No.12 (December, 2013) Rational Fools vs. Efficient Crooks The efficient markets hypothesis : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2013 : Unemployment Bulletin, 2010 :  Vol 23, No.10 (October, 2011) An observation about corporate security departments : Slightly Skeptical Euromaydan Chronicles, June 2014 : Greenspan legacy bulletin, 2008 : Vol 25, No.10 (October, 2013) Cryptolocker Trojan (Win32/Crilock.A) : Vol 25, No.08 (August, 2013) Cloud providers as intelligence collection hubs : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : Inequality Bulletin, 2009 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Copyleft Problems Bulletin, 2004 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Energy Bulletin, 2010 : Malware Protection Bulletin, 2010 : Vol 26, No.1 (January, 2013) Object-Oriented Cult : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2011 : Vol 23, No.11 (November, 2011) Softpanorama classification of sysadmin horror stories : Vol 25, No.05 (May, 2013) Corporate bullshit as a communication method  : Vol 25, No.06 (June, 2013) A Note on the Relationship of Brooks Law and Conway Law

    History:

    Fifty glorious years (1950-2000): the triumph of the US computer engineering : Donald Knuth : TAoCP and its Influence of Computer Science : Richard Stallman : Linus Torvalds  : Larry Wall  : John K. Ousterhout : CTSS : Multix OS Unix History : Unix shell history : VI editor : History of pipes concept : Solaris : MS DOSProgramming Languages History : PL/1 : Simula 67 : C : History of GCC developmentScripting Languages : Perl history   : OS History : Mail : DNS : SSH : CPU Instruction Sets : SPARC systems 1987-2006 : Norton Commander : Norton Utilities : Norton Ghost : Frontpage history : Malware Defense History : GNU Screen : OSS early history

    Classic books:

    The Peter Principle : Parkinson Law : 1984 : The Mythical Man-MonthHow to Solve It by George Polya : The Art of Computer Programming : The Elements of Programming Style : The Unix Hater’s Handbook : The Jargon file : The True Believer : Programming Pearls : The Good Soldier Svejk : The Power Elite

    Most popular humor pages:

    Manifest of the Softpanorama IT Slacker Society : Ten Commandments of the IT Slackers Society : Computer Humor Collection : BSD Logo Story : The Cuckoo's Egg : IT Slang : C++ Humor : ARE YOU A BBS ADDICT? : The Perl Purity Test : Object oriented programmers of all nations : Financial Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : The Most Comprehensive Collection of Editor-related Humor : Programming Language Humor : Goldman Sachs related humor : Greenspan humor : C Humor : Scripting Humor : Real Programmers Humor : Web Humor : GPL-related Humor : OFM Humor : Politically Incorrect Humor : IDS Humor : "Linux Sucks" Humor : Russian Musical Humor : Best Russian Programmer Humor : Microsoft plans to buy Catholic Church : Richard Stallman Related Humor : Admin Humor : Perl-related Humor : Linus Torvalds Related humor : PseudoScience Related Humor : Networking Humor : Shell Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2012 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2013 : Java Humor : Software Engineering Humor : Sun Solaris Related Humor : Education Humor : IBM Humor : Assembler-related Humor : VIM Humor : Computer Viruses Humor : Bright tomorrow is rescheduled to a day after tomorrow : Classic Computer Humor

    The Last but not Least Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt. Ph.D


    Copyright © 1996-2021 by Softpanorama Society. www.softpanorama.org was initially created as a service to the (now defunct) UN Sustainable Development Networking Programme (SDNP) without any remuneration. This document is an industrial compilation designed and created exclusively for educational use and is distributed under the Softpanorama Content License. Original materials copyright belong to respective owners. Quotes are made for educational purposes only in compliance with the fair use doctrine.

    FAIR USE NOTICE This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to advance understanding of computer science, IT technology, economic, scientific, and social issues. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided by section 107 of the US Copyright Law according to which such material can be distributed without profit exclusively for research and educational purposes.

    This is a Spartan WHYFF (We Help You For Free) site written by people for whom English is not a native language. Grammar and spelling errors should be expected. The site contain some broken links as it develops like a living tree...

    You can use PayPal to to buy a cup of coffee for authors of this site

    Disclaimer:

    The statements, views and opinions presented on this web page are those of the author (or referenced source) and are not endorsed by, nor do they necessarily reflect, the opinions of the Softpanorama society. We do not warrant the correctness of the information provided or its fitness for any purpose. The site uses AdSense so you need to be aware of Google privacy policy. You you do not want to be tracked by Google please disable Javascript for this site. This site is perfectly usable without Javascript.

    Last modified: May, 29, 2021