British Involvement In "Trump Dossier" Needs Further Investigation
We noted back in July that the only relevant "collusion with the Russians" during the 2016 election cycle was the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton smear campaign against Donald Trump:
Hillary Clinton campaign cut-out hires the (former?) British intelligence agent Steele to pay money to (former?) Russian intelligence agents and high-level Kremlin employees for dirt about Donald Trump. They deliver some fairy tales. The resulting dossier is peddled far and wide throughout Washington DC with the intent of damaging Trump.
There was never evidence that Steele indeed talked to any Russian, or really had contact with his claimed sources. He has been for years persona non grata in Moscow and could not visit the country.
Yesterday, our assertion that Clinton campaign cut-outs paid for the dossier, was finally confirmed: Clinton campaign, DNC paid for research that led to Russia dossier
Marc E. Elias, a lawyer representing the Clinton campaign and the DNC, retained Fusion GPS, a Washington firm, to conduct the research.
..,
After that, Fusion GPS hired dossier author Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer with ties to the FBI and the U.S. intelligence community, according to those people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Told ya so ...
Michael Sussmann, a lawyer from the same firm that hired Fusion GPS on order of Democrats, hired the Crowdstrike cyber-outlet to investigate the leak of DNC emails. Crowdstrike and the DNC denied the FBI access to the relevant servers but asserted that "Russian hacking" was the source of the leak.
The "Trump dossier" was opposition research ordered up and paid for by the Clinton/DNC mafia. Most of its content was obviously fake or patched together from publicly known facts. But it took up to now for U.S. media to point that out. The fake dossier, paid for by the Democrats, was used by the FBI under Obama to get FISA warrants to spy on Republican party operatives.
We noted in January that the dossier was additionally used by the British and American deep state to sabotage Trump's plans for better relations with Russia (see original for source quotes):
The "former" desk officer for Russia in the British MI6 Christopher Steele was the one who prepared the 35 pages of obviously false claims about Russian connections with and kompromat against Trump. There are so many inconsistencies in these pages that anyone knowledgeable about the workings in Moscow could immediately identify it as fake.
...
Steele spread the fakes throughout the press corps in Washington DC but no media published them because these were obviously false accusations.Steele then decided to hand the papers to the FBI and to talk to its agents hoping they would start an official investigation. He cleared his move (or was ordered to proceed?) at the highest level of the British government:
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When Steele's first move with the FBI in October did note deliver the hoped for results an attempt to stove pipe them through Senator John McCain was launched. A "former" British ambassador to Moscow arranged the hand over:
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The MI6 is well known for launching fakes on behalf of the British government.Even the second, more official handover to the FBI still did not result in the hoped for publication of the allegations. But by that time Clinton was widely expect to win the election anyway so no further steps were taken.
After Trump unexpectedly won the election a new effort was launched to publish the smears. The Director of National Intelligence decided (or was ordered to) "brief" the President, the President elect and Congress on the obviously dubious accusations.
It was this decision that made sure that the papers would eventually be published. As the NYT noted:
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Only after Clapper or others leaked to CNN about the briefing of Obama, Trump and Congress, did CNN publish about the 35 pages:
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The attack was a deep state attempt to stage a coup against Trump:
After the election the Democrats stopped paying for new Steele reports. But by then efforts to make the fake Steele reports public and to thereby sabotage Trump policies turned into high gear. McCain had already been involved in distributing the report and it was he or the Brits who who paid for the last fake report Steele delivered:
Let me remind you of the basic facts about the Dossier--It consists of 13 separate reports. The first is dated 20 June 2016. That date is important because it shows that it took a little more than two months [after the Democrats started paying] for Fusion GPS to generate its first report on Trump's alleged Russian activities. If Fusion GPS already had something in the can then I would expect them to have put something out in early May. Eleven more reports were generated between 26 July and 19 October 2016. That tracks with the letter from Perkins Coie that the engagement by the Clinton Campaign ended at the end of October.But there is a big problem and unanswered question--The Dossier includes a final report that is dated 13 December 2016. Who paid for this? Was it John McCain?
The purpose of the final fake report Steele added to the dossier was to provide "evidence" that Trump was involved in the "Russian hacking" of the DNC:
After Donald Trump was elected, Christopher Steele prepared an additional memorandum (dated 13 December 2016) that made the following claims:...
- Michael Cohen[, President Donald Trump's longtime personal lawyer,] held a secret meeting in Prague, Czechoslovakia in August 2016 with Kremlin operatives.
- Cohen, allegedly accompanied by 3 colleagues (Not Further Identified), met with Oleg SOLODUKHIM to discuss on how deniable cash payments were to be made to hackers who had worked in Europe under Kremlin direction against the Clinton campaign and various contingencies for covering up these operations and Moscow's secret liaison with the Trump team more generally.
- In Prague, Cohen agreed (sic) contingency plans for various scenarios to protect the operation, but in particular what was to be done in the event that Hillary Clinton won the Presidency.
- Sergei Ivanov's associate claimed that payments to hackers had been made by both Trump's team and the Kremlin.
Christopher Steele passed a copy of the December memo to a senior UK Government national security official and to Fusion GPS (via encrypted email) with the instruction to give a hard copy to Senator McCain via David Kramer.
Michael Cohen, Trump's lawyer, denies to have been in Prague. The meeting Steele "reported" did not happen. The intent of this December Steele report was to further the meme of "Russian hacking" by providing fake evidence for alleged Trump involvement in it. But the report is false. Trump/Cohen did not hire "Russian hackers". Who's interest was it to plant this meme? Was this a British attempt to divert attention from their own hacking?
The Brits are knee deep involved in the Steele reports. There is the hiring of a (former?) British MI-6 agent to make up the dossier. Who came up with his name? The dossier was first peddled to McCain by a (former?) British ambassador. The British government green-lighted pushing the report to the FBI. It was one of the customers of the last Steele report.
The source said that Mr Steele spoke to officials in London to ask for permission to speak to the FBI, which was duly granted, and that Downing Street was informed.
The last Steele report was not paid for by the DNC. It was delivered to British government and to John McCain. The purpose of this last report was to plant false evidence that Trump paid for "Russian hacking". There is a strong cooperation between U.S. and British intelligence.
Why were the highest levels of the British government involved in the "private investigation" that resulted in the Steele dossier. Did the Brits act on their own initiative or were they cut-outs for U.S. intelligence circles, especially for Obama's consigliere and CIA director John Brennan?
It his time for Congress to dig deeper into the undue British influence in this whole affair.
Posted by b on October 26, 2017 at 7:26 UTC | Permalink
next page »Wake me when someone actually goes to gaol for any of this... yawn...
The protected class has been the protected class for centuries, and shall, without drastic beyond planetary intervention, remain the protected class for centuries more.
Posted by: same as it ever was | Oct 26 2017 7:37 utc | 2
The "special relation" at its best!
Will Trump take it personally and let the Brits down in their latest going solo adventure?
Posted by: Mina | Oct 26 2017 7:43 utc | 3
The "House of the Rotten Children" has been the Command Center Nexus of Power of the Anglo-American Empire all along!
Americans, and most of the rest of the world, for that matter, are under the mistaken impression that following its War of Independence from the British n 1783, the United States of America became a separate country.
Instead, a slight of hand was set up. A central government in Washington DC was set up called the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA -- as legal corporate entity,-- with articles of incorporation inherent in another constitution altogether, called the CONSTITUTION OF UNITED STATES (the original one set up by the founding fathers is called the "Constitution for the United States of America"), under BRITISH MARITIME LAW. Therefore, the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (Capitals -- per legal pro forma all letters of a corporation's name are capitalized in any documentation pertaining to it) is a CORPORATION.
This may defy credulity. I understand. But think on it, what do you think the gold border around the flag signifies?
So if the US is just a corporation and really not a republic/country, you may ask, "Where is the evidence?"
How about the Queen signing off acts of Parliament which apply to the USA? The one below refers to the Queen dictating social security legislation to the IRS.
http://www.legislati...8/contents/made -
The "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" IS a CORPORATION owned by ROYAL and other BRITISH ("The Rotten Children" as I like to call them) INTERESTS.
Posted by: susetta | Oct 26 2017 8:02 utc | 4
Seems HMSS Agent '.007' didn't quite deliver to "Q" this time... sad state of affairs that the former once somewhat 'great' Britain has fallen so low in the IQ stakes that they would even think such contrived rubbish would work. Hubris or desperation? What a laugh! Judging by the MSM emissions I'd suggest we have a whole generation of policy cretins in 'da service'. Pure Putin Envy, I suspect: gone blind with geopolitical onanism.
And, can we now assume, as this DC delicacy boils in the cauldron for a few weeks, that we will soon see Julian Assange make his prison break? He must have enough material in encrypted dead-man locks on the Clinton Gang et al to get a free pass from diplomatic 'jail' AND gift his kind South American hosts some diplomatic credits to cash-in down London Town.
Posted by: x | Oct 26 2017 8:15 utc | 5
....and instantly the anti trump msm leak that a person close to Trump have once contacted Wikileaks. Sigh.
The clinton paid for dossier is so implacting, or should be, because the media wont cover it as they should, they will bury it.
The western msm is done, its so corrupt and propgandistic its amazing that not more people take note of this.
Posted by: Anon | Oct 26 2017 8:44 utc | 6
The sad thing is just like you said you brought this up last year. This was being said throughout last year prior to the POTUS election and had all good investigative reporting behind it. Now that the court case comes out the msm along with all their pupp[ets are spouting out this stuff. Everybody with a scintilla of grey matter since mid 2016 new full well that the whole xenophobic narrative was total BS.Just like the Syrian civil war narrative was all BS or Benghazi /Qadaffi slaughtering his people. To this day the sheeple are in this Orwellian stupor. It is dangerous and troubling. We are living like zombies with no critical thinking or capacity to cal out BS and lies . For heavens sake will the people wake up and stop supporting this BS and start voting with our brains. Political system is dead the economy is dead society is sick so we being the 99 percent by shear numbers should be able to demand and garner change.
Posted by: falcemartello | Oct 26 2017 10:25 utc | 7
You ever notice how everybody can deny it all except for the few unfortunate souls who have to go into hiding?
My thought is the intelligence community includes the US, UK and Russia, and that's just a short list. They're all collaborating, and they are the immortal institutions we identify as "corporations" and "think tanks" regulating government. The idea "the people" have influence is absurd until one considers all those institutions consist of communities of people.
In the WaPo link, it was pretty specific. The political lobbies hire law firms to subcontract intelligence in order to maintain "confidentiality agreements". If the confidentiality agreement legitimizes defying the laws and orders of not only the legislative branch, but the collective government, it becomes clear the corporations regulate government, not the other way around.
Posted by: Stryker | Oct 26 2017 11:08 utc | 8
Stryker, you might need to elaborate your claim that Russia is in some way in cahoots with the CIA. I find it preposterous to make that link.
Posted by: Babarian | Oct 26 2017 11:37 utc | 9
What is it about Prague that non-existant meetings are held there:
Michael Cohen[, President Donald Trump's longtime personal lawyer,] held a secret meeting in Prague
Back in 2001:
The alleged Prague connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda came through an alleged meeting between September 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and Iraqi consulate Ahmad Samir al-Ani in April 2001.
Has someone been watching too many "Cold War" spy movies or is the Czech counterintelligence serevice's head stuck so far up Washington's arse they can't see anything. If they'd said it was Prague, OK perhaps it would have had a bit more credibility.
Posted by: Ghostship | Oct 26 2017 11:42 utc | 10
In reply to: Babarian | Oct 26, 2017 7:37:26 AM | 8
First, thanks for the pingback.
If the term "cahoots" fits, I'll wear it. I'm speculating of course, but with some basis as follows.
All the IC (not CIA specific) collectively make no secret about collaboration in reference to anti-terrorist and cybersecurity, so I don't think there's any real need to discuss that aspect of it. Like the hacker.security community, they know each other from a distance, and occasionally there are those unholy alliances.
The deeper conclusion is more intuitive. If it was easy to find the evidence, I'm sure it would already be on the pages here.
Posted by: Stryker | Oct 26 2017 11:45 utc | 11
Russians behind dossier
Anyone else notice that as this story is being reported that Russia (the victim) is being blamed for the Dossier?
In its most blatant form it goes like this ... 'HRC colluded with the Kremlin against Trump'. The way they connect the dots; HRC -> DNC -> Steele -> 'alleged Russian contacts' = Kremlin.
Yikes. I recall reading that Steele's contacts were 'Eastern Europeans', this doesn't rule out Ukrainians. Okay, maybe there really are some Russians looking for a quick buck. The point is that we are not even close to establishing ties to 'the Kremlin' but this doesn't stop MSM commentators from going there, a lot.
Posted by: Christian Chuba | Oct 26 2017 12:00 utc | 12
>>>> susetta | Oct 26, 2017 4:02:26 AM | 3
The order NOT act of parliament can be found here.
It relates to the changes to US AND UK legislation required to implement an inter-government agreement on social security. That it's publicly available on the Internet for anyone to read should suggest to anybody except a moron that there is nothing secret about it.
As a republican, I don't particularly like that the UK is a constitutional monarchy but when I see how shite American presidents are, I'm happy we have the Queen and can't help but think that the United States would be better off as part of the Commonwealth with the Queen as head of state. But she can hardly manage her own dysfunctional family let alone a multi-century long plot to run the United States.....
Posted by: Ghostship | Oct 26 2017 12:38 utc | 13
If you google Britain and Russia you find the whole - recent - campaign. This here is targeted at the labour party.
This government is not spending enough to meet the risks, threats, nor the opportunities identified in its own National Defence and Security Strategy.
Politicians go where the power - the money - is. Clinton/Democrats decided to ride the wave they did not start it. It does get very silly with Boris Johnson as the top clown.
Posted by: somebody | Oct 26 2017 13:48 utc | 14
"If that bastard gets elected. we'll all hang from nooses"...Hildabeast
Who's up for a public hanging?
Posted by: str8arrow62 | Oct 26 2017 14:06 utc | 15
Anyone who threatens to challenge the status quo of the ruling establishment with a move to the left will be discredited, and in the event they can't have their character assassinated, their person will be assassinated instead. See Paul Wellstone, Dr. David Kelly, Pat Tillman, John Lennon, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, JFK, RFK, etc, almost ad infinitum.
When considered in conjunction with the increasing awareness of the close relationship between Western intelligence agencies and terrorism, a big part of why Russia is the bogeyman du juor in both the US and UK is revealed. The continued rapacious plunder of Western societies for the benefit of the few at the expense of the many requires an external threat to justify eternal war, police state tactics such as surveillance and militarization of police forces, the reduction of civil liberties, and expanded austerity measures in the name of "security".
Both Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party and what should have been Bernie Sanders' Democratic Party were threatening to turn back the clock on the Neoliberal/Neoconservative (see: Zionist) strategy of consolidating both capital and power through divisive politics, unfettered predatory capitalism, and war; all enabled by a well-orchestrated campaign of fear, xenophobia, and state-sponsored terror.
Until we root out the Zionist menace from our governments, industries, media, and - in a hat-tip to psychohistorian - our treasuries, we will continue to toil in an artificially divided society wherein we work for the benefit of a self-proclaimed chosen few, all the while being tricked into fighting their wars which are of no benefit to us and then being given the bill for those wars.
Posted by: SlapHappy | Oct 26 2017 14:26 utc | 16
I haven't owned a teevee in years, but I happened to be in a motel room the night that Obama gave his farewell speech a year or so ago.
After the conclusion of the speech, FoxNews thoroughly critiqued the speech. Switching over to CNN, Trump's "fake news" network, the speech wasn't covered at all. Instead they covered the dossier in depth, with several "journalists" droning on and on about all the collusion evidence.
Which just goes to prove that Trump was correct (again). For the Dem lackeys at CNN attacking Trump with false charges was "news," their hero Obama's farewell speech was not.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Oct 26 2017 14:43 utc | 17
@ Captain Cook
I know, which makes me wish we could have a new standard-bearer on the Left, but for the time being he's representing a move towards reducing the concentration of wealth, which is far more than can be said for any other relatively mainstream candidates.
Posted by: SlapHappy | Oct 26 2017 14:51 utc | 19
Posted by: somebody | Oct 26, 2017 9:48:32 AM | 14
The link in that post requires utmost caution, and should not be opened if your mental health can be compromised by an excessive dollop of nonsense. Finding two consecutive sentences with a consistent thread of though is pretty hard. Look at this:
We should consider renewing attempts to expand the UN Security Council to include India, Brazil, Germany and Japan, and to promote the idea of a rapid reaction force under its control, however difficult this might prove to be. Our two new aircraft carriers HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales along with the French carrier in production could play a leading role in a naval version.
So, "we need" to expand UNSC and the navy. What is the connection? New council members do not seem useful for the naval expansion (why do not postulate a Brazilian aircraft carrier?!), and vice versa. And where those aircraft carriers are supposed to go? A new Crimean war? If you seriously want to address threats to democracy and everything we find good and dear, we should target Tuvalu, but for that it suffices to have a ship that has, say, 20 berths for marine infantry, and, most importantly, resolve -- sadly lacking.
This belongs to a genre of political analysis that is boldly nonsensical. Typically, there is a call for clarity followed by mental spaghetti. And/or a call for boldness followed by verbiage that is offensive only in its lack of content. But what makes this article somewhat unique is the sheer number of sentences that come without explanation and go absolutely nowhere. Why suddenly UNSC expansion? What would improve with two new aircraft carriers owned by European powers? The threats that have to be addressed are cyber attacks, Islamic terrorism and Russia undermining the growth of democracy in Ukraine.
The author also mentions his childhood in Nigerian countryside together with the British need to prevent any single power dominating over continental Europe. The latter would suggest the need to reduce American influence, the former ????
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Oct 26 2017 14:56 utc | 20
C. Steele. Guardian, Jan 2017:
When the agency //MI6// was plunged into panic over the poisoning of its agent Alexander Litvinenko in 2006, the then chief, Sir John Scarlett, needed a trusted senior officer to plot a way through the minefield ahead – so he turned to Steele. It was Steele, sources say, who correctly and quickly realised that Litvinenko’s death was a Russian state “hit”. ..... ;)
Steele quit MI6 (wiki) in 2009 and tried to monetize his ‘knowledge’ and ‘subservience’ in private cos., > hack to the highest bidder type.
The relations between Fusion GPS and Orbis https://orbisbi.com - see the symbolic images (Steele a co-founder) remain murky imho but there you go, such private cos. can make money off paying hubris-deluded clients who require! this or that.
Reading a large part of the Podesta e-mails showed how completely terminally incompetent and out of touch the whole Dem. apparatus is. One usually likes to think that crooks and Mafia types are wily beasts who figure the angles and have several pots boiling and are good at juggling different scenarios and disculpating themselves. Your dem leader can be dumb as a brick, corrupt to the bone, a high-level sadist, all no problem - even adulation awaits.
Posted by: Noirette | Oct 26 2017 15:24 utc | 21
The media have to keep running Russia stories--so much so that it seems they ultimately come round to the point where they're biting the hand that fed them.
Posted by: WorldBLee | Oct 26 2017 15:40 utc | 22
@22 From KGB agent to new-Stalin to Tsar. The man is unstoppable. We definitely need more aircraft carriers.
Posted by: dh | Oct 26 2017 16:03 utc | 23
Posted by: dh | Oct 26 2017 16:04 utc | 24
Twitter just banned RT and Sputnik from having ads!
Freedom of speech folks, its not worth anything these days. Twitter is nothing but a deep state empire tool.
Posted by: Anon | Oct 26 2017 16:05 utc | 25
susetta - to be clear, is "House of the Rotten Children" a reference to the House of Rothschild or, as you wrote, just a general reference to "British interests"? To be clear on my part, my opinion is that all major turmoil, wars and financial crises lead to the Rothchilds.
Posted by: Ian | Oct 26 2017 16:28 utc | 26
Anon @25--
And there's absolutely zero evidence for them to use as a basis for the bans.
Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 26 2017 16:28 utc | 27
@27 karlof1.. but the optics look good for the continued smear of russia... man, this endless msm story gets very boring.. all it tells me is how decrepit the western msm is at this point groveling in the ditch 24/7...
Posted by: james | Oct 26 2017 17:06 utc | 28
Movie Producers are fighting to get another blockbuster "based a true story"
Who will publish the script first of " A Kink in Moscow"? the UK or the USA?
Posted by: Virgile | Oct 26 2017 17:36 utc | 29
karlof1
"And there's absolutely zero evidence for them to use as a basis for the bans."
Indeed, will Twitter now ban western msm on their respective reporting of Russia? No of course not, what a friggin joke. In fact its not a joke its pretty damn scary this censorship and masshysteria against Russia and these days clearly tells us
who spread propaganda in our soceity and who enable it (Twitter). Its nothing but a tool of CIA/FBI now. No doubt about that.
Sick McCarthyism is alive 2017, who would have thought? Apparently the western establishment thought that he was more than right.
Posted by: Anon | Oct 26 2017 17:52 utc | 30
>>>> Ian | Oct 26, 2017 12:28:48 PM | 26
To be clear on my part, my opinion is that all major turmoil, wars and financial crises lead to the Rothchilds.
Do you do PR for Goldman Sachs or JP Morgan? I only ask 'cos Rothschilds ain't what they used to be by a few million miles and if anyone is responsible for all major turmoil, wars and financial crises, it's Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan. Stop with the dumb conspiracy theories, there is enough real shit in the world to be bothered about for many, many lifetimes.
Posted by: Ghostship | Oct 26 2017 17:54 utc | 31
Posted by: dh | Oct 26, 2017 12:03:41 PM | 23
We definitely need more aircraft carriers.
If you're a Brit and you're referring to the Royal Navy then that statement needs some editing:
We definitely need some fucking aircraft... and a couple more oilers.
Let's hope the aircraft can outfight MiG-21s.
Posted by: Ghostship | Oct 26 2017 18:01 utc | 32
@susetta | Oct 26, 2017 4:02:26 AM | 4
“The "House of the Rotten Children" has been the Command Center Nexus of Power of the Anglo-American Empire all along!”
As I will explain below with a few examples, this is provably complete nonsense, and you should be ashamed for spouting such ignorant, hateful, racist trash. If the UK rules the USA, explain the following:
1) In 1948, three years after the end of the Second World War, the UK was effectively bankrupt as a result of the conflict. Major manufacturing cities had been devastated by German bombing (to the extent that London, Liverpool and other cities contained stretches of blitz-flattened wasteland until the late 1970s: that’s how long it took to finally rebuild over all of the bombed-out areas). By 1948, most of the once-massive British Empire was already lost, and the UK was in debt to the USA not only for aid provided by the US during the war itself (everything from bullets to food) but for post-war loans required to keep the British people from starving.
The American government made the UK pay back every cent of the money loaned, with interest. For example, it was not until 2006 that one loan – the Anglo-American loan – was finally paid off. That’s sixty years of debt bondage. Now, susetta, explain how the UK, which you claim was running the show, wasn’t simply given all of the military and financial aid for free, as the US gives free aid to Israel. For decades the USA has provided (when counted in modern dollar amounts) anything from hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars of weapons and financial grants to Israel, totally free, while simultaneously demanding that the UK repay every last cent that it was loaned because of the World War Two. Can you explain that, Susetta? It does not look to me like the UK was the ‘boss’ in that relationship.
2) During the Suez Crisis, President Eisenhower was so angry at the British for their attempted invasion of Egypt (together with French and Israeli assistnce) that he threatened to bankrupt the UK, which was dependent upon US financial markets. The UK immediately — and I mean immediately — withdrew from Egypt, suffering a major military and diplomatic humiliation. The UK Prime Minister, Eden, resigned in disgrace. Does that sound like the UK calls the shots, susetta?
3) The UK is part of the Five Eyes spying network. This is led by the US, with Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK playing a subservient and unequal role. The entire post-war surveillance set-up was dominated by the USA: they set the rules, and laid down the law. To this day, the USA provides the vast majority of the money and technologies used by the Five Eyes to spye on their own captive populations. GCHQ is a very, very junior partner to the NSA, and frankly adopts the attitude of “When America says ‘jump’, we say ‘how high’.” By way of contrast, the NSA shares all – and I mean ALL – of the Five Eyes data with Israel, without any constraints - something it does NOT do for the UK. In fact, the NSA paid for, and built, the receiving station (downlink) inside Israel that the Israelis use to receive unfiltered, uncensored Five Eyes data. Does that sound like the UK is the senior partner, susetta?
4) The UK is party to a deeply unequal extradition treaty with the USA, in which British citizens can be extradited to the USA without the need to go through normal UK legal procedures such as demonstrating a public interest or giving even the slightest hint of the evidence gainst the extradited UK citizens. American citizens are subject to no such extradition threat to the UK, because they cannot be extradited without demonstrating an outline case, and public interest, in a US court. Does that sound like the UK is in charge, susetta? Sounds like a subservient relationship to me.
5) American DHS/immigration agents are soon to appear in British airports, fully armed, and subject to US laws and diplomatic immunity – NOT UK laws. UK immigration and law enforcement agents will have no such role in the USA. Does that sound like the UK is in charge, susetta? Sounds like subservience to me.
6) For years, the single biggest source of funding and backing for Irish terrorist groups such as the IRA was the USA. The UK lost more than 1,000 citizens to such terror groups, and the IRA came close to killing two Prime Ministers (Margaret Thatcher in the Brighton Bombing, and John Major in a mortar attack on 10 Downing Street). Yet, the US government repeatedly refused to make it illegal to raise money for such organizations as the IRA within the USA, despite repeated please by the UK government. Does that sound like the UK is in charge, susetta?
I could provide many such points, susetta, but by now I hope that you have become aware of your ignorance and racism.
Posted by: 777 | Oct 26 2017 18:10 utc | 33
@30 anon.. fully agree.. twitter is nothing more then a tool of the cia/fbi - deep state at this point.. same deal facebook and google.. pathetic...
Posted by: james | Oct 26 2017 18:15 utc | 34
When a Big Lie is exposed, or simply goes flat like an automobile tire with multiple pinhole-prick slow leaks, the Big Liars have a damage control strategy: Go Bigger!
This may be a semantic quibble, but to me even blithely characterizing the Steele dossier as "opposition research" is a mendacious euphemism.
There's a well-known, and perhaps apocryphal, story that Lyndon Johnson once directed his aides to spread the rumor that his opponent in a Texas election enjoyed physical relations with barnyard animals. When his staffers allegedly objected that this assertion could never be proved, Johnson supposedly replied "I know that. I just want to hear him deny it."
By present-day standards, LBJ's ploy would be characterized as perfectly legitimate "opposition research".
Judging from preliminary indications, the deluded or desperate anti-Trump resistance and Democratic Party Establishment may double down and, incredibly, "own" the scurrilous smear. Not just by dignifying the dirty trick as "normal", i.e. nominally routine, "ethical" opposition research, but by implying that the fabrications it contains are indeed a "smoking gun" that ought to be sufficient to fatally undermine Trump's presidency after all.
As I've been remarking more and more lately, a literary committee composed of Jonathan Swift, Lewis Carroll, Mark Twain, Joseph Heller, Mikhail Bulgakov, and Kurt Vonnegut couldn't create a more surrealistic and bizarre political landscape.
Posted by: Ort | Oct 26 2017 18:24 utc | 35
@Christian Chuba #12
"Eastern Europeans" -> think Ukraine, or more specifically the SBU (Ukraine CIA). The link with McCain and the Democratic party becomes more clear then (Nuland).
Posted by: c1ue | Oct 26 2017 18:34 utc | 36
to Ghostship: Have a read "Web of Debt" by Ellen Hodgson Brown and "Beyond Banksters" by Joyce Helson. The references they provide will get you started. Another excellent reference is "Secrets of the Federal Reserve" by Eustace Mullins.
When you start researching the issue of the crippling financial debts that characterize western countries then it comes evident the primary cause is a predatory private banking system. Private money manufactures financial crises and wars to coerce governments to impose local and foreign policies that promote only the interests of private money and which only has destructive and negative consequences for the 99%. You may not like it hear it and but all money leads to the House of Rothschild and it's net worth reported to be several hundred TRILLION!
Posted by: Ian | Oct 26 2017 18:39 utc | 37
@same as it ever was #2
An undeniable truth. But what do we know about those?
The so called "Democratic Party" is the equivalent of the grand old NSDAP. As with the original, its followers are as die hard Fascists, as were the good Germans looking the other way when the truth became obvious.
While I don't believe it will go on for centuries, the callousness and gullibility of the American people makes them perfect Fascists.
Sieg Heil is the only greeting missing when addressing The Führer. Well, actually the person's soaking wet dream has always been to be the first Führerin of all times. Thatcher sucked at it, so the position is still vacant.
The question is, when will we hear the equivalent of "Sieg Heil meine Führerin"?
Posted by: nottheonly1 | Oct 26 2017 19:15 utc | 38
I recall the strenuous effort put forth to sell the "Magic Bullet" verdict of the Warren Commission, which allows me to repeat what Russia's Foreign Ministry said about the USA's trustworthiness: "They lie without shame," lying that began in earnest in 1945, escalating ever since. http://www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/-/asset_publisher/cKNonkJE02Bw/content/id/2920164
Given what Congress just approved of, the mid-term elections ought to be very entertaining, https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/10/26/216-gop-house-members-just-voted-destroy-safety-net-and-deliver-trillion-dollar-tax
Trump declares opioid epidemic a National Emergency. Guess he needs to sanction the CIA's opium growing project in Afghanistan along with that organization's top officers. After all, that's what he did to Venezuela for far lesser offences.
Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 26 2017 19:24 utc | 39
Also funny how quickly western msm buried this:
Ukraine’s collusion with Hillary Clinton to meddle in US elections
http://theduran.com/ukraines-collusion-with-hillary-clinton-to-meddle-in-us-elections-now-exposed/
Posted by: Anon | Oct 26 2017 19:40 utc | 40
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Oct 26, 2017 10:56:33 AM | 20
Of course. I suppose it is empire phantom pain. Which presumably is what Brexit was about.
Posted by: somebody | Oct 26 2017 20:25 utc | 41
What's Russia doing with all this crazy stuff? It's making a big joke of it.
If you haven't seen it, take a look at A bird's view of the Vineyard and especially The Saker's article Re-visiting Russian counter-propaganda methods. excerpts:
By now, you must have heard about the CNN report about how the evil Russkies used Pokemon to destabilize and subvert the USA. If not, here it is: . .(video)In Russia this report was in instant mega-success: the video was translated and rebroadcasted on every single TV channel. Margarita Simonian, the brilliant director of Russia Today, was asked during a live show “be truthful and confess – what is your relationship with Pokemon, do they work for you?” to which she replied “I feed them” – the audience burst in laughter.
The Russian Pokemon was just the latest in a long series of absolutely insane, terminally paranoid and rabidly russophobic reports released by the western Ziomedia, all of which were instantly translated into Russian and rebroadcasted by the Russian media.
One of the techniques regularly used on Russian talkshows is to show a short report about the latest crazy nonsense coming out of the United States or Europe and then ask a pro-US guests to react to it. The “liberals” (in the Russian political meaning of this word, that is a hopelessly naïve pro-western person who loves to trash everything Russian and who hates Putin and those who support him) are intensely embarrassed and usually either simply admit that this is crazy nonsense or try to find some crazy nonsense in the Russian media (and there is plenty of that too) to show that “we are just as bad”. Needless to say, no matter what escape route is chosen, the “liberal” ends up looking like a total idiot or a traitor.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Oct 26 2017 20:33 utc | 42
@41 There may be some in the UK who yearn for the days of empire. I think most would just settle for some kind of guaranteed nationality.
Posted by: dh | Oct 26 2017 20:47 utc | 43
I'll try this again w/o link
--from The Saker:
Re-visiting Russian counter-propaganda methods
What I propose to do today is to share with you a few recent examples of what Russian households are regularly exposed to.
By now, you must have heard about the CNN report about how the evil Russkies used Pokemon to destabilize and subvert the USA. If not, here it is: (video)
In Russia this report was in instant mega-success: the video was translated and rebroadcasted on every single TV channel. Margarita Simonian, the brilliant director of Russia Today, was asked during a live show “be truthful and confess – what is your relationship with Pokemon, do they work for you?” to which she replied “I feed them” – the audience burst in laughter.The Russian Pokemon was just the latest in a long series of absolutely insane, terminally paranoid and rabidly russophobic reports released by the western Ziomedia, all of which were instantly translated into Russian and rebroadcasted by the Russian media.
One of the techniques regularly used on Russian talkshows is to show a short report about the latest crazy nonsense coming out of the United States or Europe and then ask a pro-US guests to react to it. The “liberals” (in the Russian political meaning of this word, that is a hopelessly naïve pro-western person who loves to trash everything Russian and who hates Putin and those who support him) are intensely embarrassed and usually either simply admit that this is crazy nonsense or try to find some crazy nonsense in the Russian media (and there is plenty of that too) to show that “we are just as bad”. Needless to say, no matter what escape route is chosen, the “liberal” ends up looking like a total idiot or a traitor.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Oct 26 2017 21:31 utc | 44
Posted by: dh | Oct 26, 2017 4:47:35 PM | 42
Guaranteed nationality doesn't already exist? One of the most annoying features of those nation states that were foolish enough to accept 'migrants' from england -"don't call me a migrant, I'm an expat" which is what these parasites usually claim, is that englander immigrants refuse to accept their new nationality. For example in Australia where most european migrants were only too happy to take up Australian citizenship after they realised the lucky country was indeed lucky, except for brit passport holders especially englanders who continued to abuse a loophole that had been placed in Australian immigration law at the turn of last century which gave brits 'permanent residence status' without having to become Australians. Like brexit - another example of brits trying to have their cake and eat it. The issue became so bad with migrants then preferring their own countrymen ahead of other 'new' Australians during recruitment, therefore dominating higher education, telecommunications and sectors of the public service that the Oz government decided to resolve it another way.
An amendment was made to the Public Service Act which demanded that only Australian citizens could be permanently appointed to public service positions including independent entities such as Telecom was at the time.
Since that point those who make decisions about Australia and its future are those committed to the country, whereas in Aotearoa where as a young fella I found my co-workers were typically former assistant postmasters of some hick burg in Tanganyika pre decolonisation, no such change was made. Consequently elements of higher education, the public sector and telecommunications are dominated by 'expats' who continue to make bloody stupid short term decisions that look good for a quarter or two before collapsing under the weight of their idiocy, by which time the arsehole who made the call has collected his/her payout and pissed off back to where they came from.
If englanders didn't believe in their awful little englander way of thinking, that they had such a form of guaranteed nationality, why the fuck don't they take up citizenship of the nation they claim they intend to spend the rest of their lives in?
Posted by: Debsisdead | Oct 26 2017 21:35 utc | 45
@44
Similarly, in Canada a permanent resident is not a Canadian citizen.
Posted by: spudski | Oct 26 2017 21:45 utc | 46
42
British nationality is very much guaranteed. Even if they decide for dual citizenship.
Posted by: somebody | Oct 26 2017 22:00 utc | 47
@44 Personally I would hate to be a Pom in Oz.
But regarding nationality in the UK as currently defined. I was in the UK for a few months last year and I got the impression that the British are confused. Perhaps all Europeans feel the same. Nationalism is seen as antiquated. People are scared to even discuss it for fear of being called Nazis.
Posted by: dh | Oct 26 2017 22:02 utc | 48
@46 I'm glad to hear that. Britons will be relieved to know that their national identities are guaranteed. Some may ask who is actually making the guarantee but I'm sure that will be resolved in Brussels. As I mention in #44 my impression is that Britons currently aren't sure what the word means.
Posted by: dh | Oct 26 2017 22:07 utc | 49
48 That confusion is as old as the British empire.
Until 1949, nearly everyone with a close connection to the United Kingdom was called a ‘British subject’.All citizens of Commonwealth countries were British subjects until January 1983.
Since 1983, very few people have qualified as British subjects.
Posted by: somebody | Oct 26 2017 22:16 utc | 50
@49 The Commonwealth is certainly a factor. But I think the current confusion, as reflected in Brexit, is more a question of being either British or European or both.
Posted by: dh | Oct 26 2017 22:34 utc | 51
Why did Clapper and Brennan peddle so hard the Russians colluded with Trump meme? Why did they fear Trump so much?
The FISA warrant to intercept Trump campaign officials was issued on the basis of the fake Steele dossier smear. And then Susan Rice used her position to unmask all the participants in those intercepts.
Yes, the big question why did the top officials in the intelligence agencies in the US and UK try so hard to take down Trump?
Posted by: ab initio | Oct 26 2017 23:46 utc | 52
as far as i've been able to tell, no one has linked to this TRNN interview w/ marcy wheeler, a.k.a. "emptywheel" on the subject. if the transcript was close to correct, her rant was totally illogical, even w/ aaron maté pushing back pretty hard.
'Democrats Funded the Steele Dossier that Fueled Russiagate'; After months of obfuscation, the Washington Post reveals that the Clinton campaign and the DNC funded the infamous Steele dossier at the heart of Russiagate. Empty Wheel's Marcy Wheeler and TRNN's Aaron Mate discuss
http://therealnews.com/t2/story:20304:Democrats-Funded-the-Steele-Dossier-that-Fueled-Russiagate
while understanding that TRNN is a 'progressive' (whatever that means any more: librul?) site in general, at least the comments below reflected how anti-roosian, anti-putin emptywheel is. and illogical.
Posted by: wendy davis | Oct 27 2017 0:04 utc | 53
In reply to ab initio | Oct 26, 2017 7:46:15 PM | 51
I think it's because Donald Trump fired them. Nothing like dropping a deuce in the room on the way out.
"...why did the top officials in the intelligence agencies in the US and UK try so hard to take down Trump?"
Russia too I say. It may not have been a take down so much as an (failed)attempt to become his handlers. The "dossier" became useless once it was opened to the public. Who are Donald Trump's handlers? Do we have a puppet, or do we have a puppeteer in Donald Trump?
Posted by: Stryker | Oct 27 2017 0:29 utc | 54
Oh boy, the superfluous BS continues(yawn), meanwhile, the rape and plundering of the workers wealth continues here in the U$A.
Posted by: ben | Oct 27 2017 0:30 utc | 55
ab initio | Oct 26, 2017 7:46:15 PM | 51
IMO, the cash flow to MIC on both sides of the Atlantic. No bogeyman, no wars, no new toys and no treats. War is a money racket.
Trump campaigned on America First; rebuild factories and infrastructure, less foreign wars, detente with Russia. These promises were taken seriously and Russiagate was unwrapped.
See how quickly, after his taking the oath of office, he fell in line with the junta? Really, do you think he selected his cabinet people?
A day of reckoning abides HRC, CF, Mueller, Clapper, Brennan and cohorts. When you dig a hole for your enemy make sure you also dig one for yourself.
In 2010, Uranium One was labelled a conspiracy theory.
Interesting times ahead.
Now WSJ, Wapo, are all over it.
At least NYT wrote on the deal and money flow in April 2015 noting HRC's wish to be president, Very detailed article but who would believe?
Read up on details: timelines, the Canadian connection and the money flow..
NYT:Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation Amid Russian Uranium Deal
Posted by: likklemore | Oct 27 2017 0:33 utc | 56
Apologies for OT, but a case in point about my 54 post..
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-arbitration-rule-senate-20171024-story.html
Posted by: ben | Oct 27 2017 0:44 utc | 57
>>>> Ian | Oct 26, 2017 2:39:36 PM | 37
Have a read "Web of Debt" by Ellen Hodgson Brown and "Beyond Banksters" by Joyce Helson. The references they provide will get you started. Another excellent reference is "Secrets of the Federal Reserve" by Eustace Mullins.
I don't need to as I previously worked for a number of financial institutions in the City of London and I'm well aware of all the shit that banks and bankers get up to.
You may not like it hear it and but all money leads to the House of Rothschild and it's net worth reported to be several hundred TRILLION!
Go on believing that crap if you want to but I'd be interested to know exactly what you mean by the "House of Rothschild" other than a 1934 film. Also exactly who is reporting that it's worth several hundred trillion although I notice you don't say what currency their fortune is in but if it's Zimbabwean dollars that'd mean they're worth less than five dollars bearing in mind that all Zimbabweans were almost certainly undecillionaires back in 2009.
Posted by: Ghostship | Oct 27 2017 0:46 utc | 58
ab initio | Oct 26, 2017 7:46:15 PM | 51 "Yes, the big question why did the top officials in the intelligence agencies in the US and UK try so hard to take down Trump?"
I take it to mean Trump was a threat to the establishment, or at least a majority of the establishment that controls MSM and CIA (then again it is more likely the CIA control the establiushment and media). The threat has now passed and the Trump Putin meme is being wound back. A few scapegoats from the swamp may lose their heads but thats about it.
Tillerson now treading the straight and narrow and fully on board for regime change ...
No role for Assad in Syria's future: Tillerson
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-tillerson/no-role-for-assad-in-syrias-
future-tillerson-idUSKBN1CV2GY
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Oct 27 2017 0:52 utc | 59
Since by all indications it took Romans a coupla centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire to accept they were no longer top dog, eg the so-called 'dark ages' when the rule of roman law disintegrated took a few hundred years to really kick off, we shouldn't be surprised that many englanders struggle to accept their role of just being another beta in the pack. However what interests me more is the group so well described by recently dubbed Aotearoan deputy PM Winston Peters, as 'waka jumpers'. (a waka being the te reo name for a canoe).
Peters coined the term back in 1999 when the coalition government between the conservative National Party and the Peters' formed New Zealand First Party, broke down and the government lacked the numbers to guarantee supply etc. Some NZF MP's jumped ship over to the Natz ignoring the policies under which the public gave them their electoral mandate.
Instead they took up bullshit cabinet positions which gave them increased salaries, all sorts of travel perks for them and their families as well as the title 'Right Honourable' etc. Needless to say there was no power attached to these new roles - nobody is gonna trust a traitor - apart from which the Natz Party would have been deep in the doo-doo if they gave actual power to outsiders while so many hacks 'n whores queued up dutifully in the National Party waiting for their turn at copping a decent earner. That government limped along for about 18 months before Helen Clark's Labour mob arseholed them.
Now the term waka jumpers shouldn't just be hung around the necks of the obvious target, politicians - not when there are low lifes such as Rupert Murdoch, who swap nationalities about as often as some change their underwear.
Murdoch kicked off existence as an australian then became an englander when he wanted to dominate english TV and print media - that got him through quite a few british parliamentary inquiries into media ownership. By the time he was ready to set up Fox and still enjoy his print media ownership in amerika, Murdoch became an amerikan citizens. That didn't affect his brit holdings cos once his buyouts had been approved there was no mechanism for taking ownership back again.
The amerikan citizenship wasn't intended to be permanent, I have no doubt his marriage to a NewsCorp executive based in Hongkong who 'just by chance' had PRC citizenship was the beginning of a switch to a Chinese passport for old Rupe. However it rapidly became obvious that such a move would cost fox big with its looney toons audience, so instead he set about solving the expansion into China another way.
Murdoch got Star TV, plus China based web portals up and running without having to swap nationality again - presumably by way of the 'three B's - bullying, blackmailing and bribing.
That allowed him to give the Chinese missus the flick, so then he decided to do some PR damage limitation in england & amerika by hooking up with Jaggers seconds, the Anglo Amerikan Jerry Hall.
Many waka jumpers don't have to swap passports they follow the money eschewing any regard for their compatriots in the process, and are the biggest obstacle to the notion of one world that there is.
I reckon there would be nothing better than getting rid of borders and the associated tyranny over individuals, except there are just too many arsehats out there who would twist everything up, squirm thru loopholes and screw the rest of us over, so before that happens more power must be devolved downwards and equality of education, opportunity etc must be much more robustly organised. Then it makes sense, but any shift before that point and the usual arseholes are gonna pull their usual strokes.
In this case most brits would be appalled that their establishment got so heavily involved in another nation's electoral process, but no one asked them. Typically just as happens in amerika, the call to take a side was made by a self-interested shadow state which has entirely too much, too poorly defined power.
Issues of nationalism should be put to one side where that is possible, while all of us ordinary human beings work together to flush the parasites outta their hidey holes.
Posted by: Debsisdead | Oct 27 2017 1:09 utc | 60
@ Debsisdead who wrote:
Issues of nationalism should be put to one side where that is possible, while all of us ordinary human beings work together to flush the parasites outta their hidey holes.
I agree! The cry for nationalism is a cry for further control by playing countries off each other.....divide and conquer.
I would hope we can evolve to working terms for anthropological groupings of our species that transcends nationalism but can be agreed upon as representing cultural significance and cohesive regional identity.
Or maybe Trump will evolve the world to be a proper empire with galactic uniforms and badges and stuff for all the MIC....to fit with the game show meme....
Posted by: psychohistorian | Oct 27 2017 1:37 utc | 61
Interesting thread. Rich with turmoil. But very real, I think, and exploring ground that is not that firm.
We know the Brits have been the "Step'n Fetchit" guy for the US spooks for a long time. We gather that several decades ago, Langley used to be impressed by the English insouciance, until the moles that tore holes in the UK fabric - Burgess, MacLean, Blunt etc. - destroyed that old colonial myth of "effortless superiority", and revealed the worst quality of all, incompetence.
The secret world has always shielded incompetence. The Wilderness of Mirrors is the only place where you can generate the myth of quality through withholding the facts of your actions. One suspects that the CIA is saturated with incompetence. Part of the reason that it hated to see it in the Brits.
But the SAS could do things for the CIA that didn't need to get reported to the legislatures of either country. So Britain could do a few hit jobs and earn a few points, a few shekels. And MI6 must surely have been yearning to crawl back under the US intel umbrella for a long, long time, until it regained trust somehow - probably from actions of unspeakable subservience. So it's apparent that the relationship - at this point in history - between the two spook enterprises is master and servant, US > UK.
A Le Carre fan could tell you all this, and plenty of analyses in the public sphere could confirm it. So, in sum, there's absolutely no mystery why, or in what hierarchy of relationship, the UK spooks would work for the US spooks.
The dossier is a US fabrication, merely using the lackeys du jour. All useful analysis will flow from this.
Posted by: Grieved | Oct 27 2017 1:44 utc | 62
@ wd 52
while understanding that TRNN is a 'progressive' (whatever that means any more: librul?) site in general, at least the comments below reflected how anti-roosian, anti-putin emptywheel is. and illogical.
I agree. I used to blog on EW until Marcy went bonkers.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Oct 27 2017 3:01 utc | 63
@60 psycho
This take is on nationalism is especially curious coming from you psycho. Playing country against country? I don't even know where to begin. I suppose many of the old-left who post here have it hardwired in their brain as to what crypto-danger nationalism poses. Some rosy-glassed vision of countries coexisting with permanent peace and no conflicts on borders. Total horseshit. There is no need for diplomacy or statesmen in an empire of ruthless force. But there is a need when nations are not organized in bullying packs when negotiating billateral deals. What is nationalism to you? Is it too much a stretch to say that it is merely looking out for your own? WTF is wrong with that? Putin has said the same about protecting his own, yet he euphemizes this movement and calls it "patriotism," and broadly condemns nationalism. Again...horseshit. Ok, let's stick with the EU. Let's stick with the US spearheading NATO ad infinitum. Or we can kick out the oligarchs who don't have America's interest at heart. This means zionists, neocons, and neoliberals, meanwhile keeping constitutionalists. At least restore an elite who love their people and are once again beholden to them. Ergo, stronger control of capitalism Via the destruction of no-border globalism. Nationalism sounds pretty sweet to me, just like it did to the Iranians and Venezuelans when they nationalized. (I realize that the US would never socialize their oil industries, but I am broadly alluding to certain drastic steps that would benefit the existing people of a nation; in the US case, this means reforming to a more isolationist and billateral stance. A collapsing economy would provide the impetus for a great reorganization scheme for the US economy or at least drastically reducing funding for the world police. I believe that once the dominos start to fall, this national outcry over misallocated treasures will reach a fever-pitch and there is where we can make some history.)
For god sakes, we are not in the Weimar Republic. Fears of some kind American-Nazi project is just goddamn ludicrous.
Posted by: NemesisCalling | Oct 27 2017 3:51 utc | 64
@62 don bacon.. what happened at emptywheel anyway? i remember you from there way back when.. i didn't follow it closely.. i recently accused marcy of being anti-russian too..
Posted by: james | Oct 27 2017 3:55 utc | 65
Re emptywheel. The Russia dunnit meme is bringing many closet russiaphobes and undercover neo-cons out of the woodwork.
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Oct 27 2017 4:25 utc | 66
Grieved 61 ".. merely using the lackeys du jour. All useful analysis will flow from this."
Spot on. Anything else is merely polishing the paintwork and pumping up the tyres on a car with a broken engine and driveline.
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Oct 27 2017 4:35 utc | 67
@ James
I don't remember, it just changed. I shouldn't have said she went bonkers but I didn't understand it. I had a lot of regard for Marcy, she is a very smart person who does her research, but she went off on a tangent when Trump happened. I thought she would understand why that happened but like others she blames Trump, Russians etc. and not the situation that spawned Trump.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Oct 27 2017 4:37 utc | 68
I would agree with Nemesis calling@63. Nationalism sounds sweet to me also, having tried to follow what is happening in New Zealand with respect to the newly formed coalition there. That tiny nation has been neoconned so severely that standards of living have plummeted. I guess nationalism to me means sovereignty.
Also thanks to Grieved and debsisdead, plus of course n for hosting a thought provoking and very interesting discussion.
Posted by: Juliania | Oct 27 2017 5:32 utc | 69
Sorry, I meant to honor b,(my phone thought otherwise.)
Posted by: Juliania | Oct 27 2017 5:34 utc | 70
Juliania | Oct 27, 2017 1:32:10 AM | 68
Nationalism vs soveriegnty? Since WWII nationalism is associated with nazi-ism and agression. There is now no word to describe nationalism without agression. Soveriegnty does not cover it.
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Oct 27 2017 5:51 utc | 71
Posted by: dh | Oct 26, 2017 6:34:10 PM | 51
As I said, phantom empire pains. If Brexiteers think that they can return to the British empire with the terms of empire they are delusional.
maybe India on the other hand
Of course the plan is to create a tax haven parking money from all over the world. Even that is doubtful without access to EU financial markets.
And of course, to make Britain great again, you need more military spending to fight evil Russia. British welfare state - which is bad already - will go down from here.
Posted by: somebody | Oct 27 2017 10:14 utc | 72
@72 You seem to think Brexit is about empire or 'making Britain great again'. Perhaps it is for some but that's not my impression. I see it as mainly about overcrowding and competition for resources in a small country.
Posted by: dh | Oct 27 2017 12:48 utc | 73
@73 Plus a few cultural factors we aren't allowed to talk about.
Posted by: dh | Oct 27 2017 13:19 utc | 74
@20 Brazil, India and Japan all have had or have aircraft carriers in their fleets. The last Brazilian one was decommissioned earlier this year. Japan pretends its aircraft carriers are destroyers.
Posted by: Paul Cockshott | Oct 27 2017 14:37 utc | 75
74
The "cultural factors" would be poor Eastern Europeans looking for work and camping in London streets.
Otherwise "cultural factors" are never involved when people own money, eg Russian oligarchs, Saudis or Qataris.
EU neglect of social standards is a scandal.
Britain overcrowded? Lots of places in Europe are a a citiscape - Britain may no longer be Europe but the only crowded place there is the London area and the "competition for resources" there is between global rich and global poor.
Posted by: somebody | Oct 27 2017 14:51 utc | 76
@76 Thank you for the politically correct version. Unfortunately it will have no effect on people who see the UK getting swamped with refugees. You would be further ahead with economic arguments. Who will do the menial work, empty the bedpans etc. Go for their pocket books.
Posted by: dh | Oct 27 2017 15:04 utc | 77
@77 If that doesn't work you can always call them racists and bigots.
Posted by: dh | Oct 27 2017 15:27 utc | 78
First thing likely to be in those Fusion GPS bank accounts are records of payments by Soros-owned entities. I doubt that the Rothchild's themselves would have anything directly traced back to them. But the fact remains that the boys at FGPS worked for Rothchild owned companies for years.
The political nature of their smear-job company and their background of Rothchild influence leads one on a short trip to politahack, George Soros.
But they can't touch Soros' Quantum group as it is offshore with no Americans sitting on the board.
Not happy that Hillary lost to the Trump card.
Posted by: GPS_Soros | Oct 27 2017 16:24 utc | 79
So Hitlary still "book touring" in the UK, i.e. escaping the judicial branch in the US...
There are some interesting news regarding the LV shooting, e.g. regarding Campos in Mexico...
Also - was Las Vegas flooded at the time of the shooting by the British G4S PMC?
Interesting company G4S and the Privatisation of British Police
Posted by: PeacefulProsperity | Oct 27 2017 16:40 utc | 80
78
It is just not fact. Britain has perfect control of its borders, it is an island.
Refugees got stuck at Calais.
The people British Londoners are competing with for jobs are Polish. And yes, that might be a reason to vote for Brexit. But there is hardly any racism involved. And London did not vote for Brexit.
And - as the BBC in the above link puts it - areas where most people "identify as English" voted Brexit - ie the areas with the fewest immigrants.
Posted by: somebody | Oct 27 2017 16:42 utc | 81
Did somebody make a statement connecting Fusion GPS & George Soros?. Ta da! Now that was easy.
Posted by: Ta Da! | Oct 27 2017 16:45 utc | 82
@81 It's true Britain has less to worry about from illegal immigration than other countries....Greece and Italy for example but there are other ways to get in.... student visas, asylum seekers, people smugglers, arranged marriages, relatives and dependents etc.
As the referendum shows people want more control over immigration and a less dictatorial policy from Brussels. They also want to know how jihadis get in.
I don't think Eastern Europeans are resented (unless they get too addicted to welfare) as much as rich Russians, Saudis etc..who can buy their way in. The only people who like them are real estate agents, car dealers, casino owners and of course bankers. Kick them out however and you get a major problem in the property market. Property values are keeping things going at the moment.
Posted by: dh | Oct 27 2017 17:13 utc | 83
So where did HRC stories disappear?Goddamn.Nationalism is my honor.
Posted by: dahoit | Oct 27 2017 17:30 utc | 84
somebody
And - as the BBC in the above link puts it - areas where most people "identify as English" voted Brexit - ie the areas with the fewest immigrants.
What does that matter? Its about the economy stupid, just like Trump election.
People like you still whine years after Brexit and Trump that the people voted for those events some kind of neo-nazi-racists. Get a grip please.
Posted by: Anon | Oct 27 2017 17:41 utc | 85
83
but there are other ways to get in.... student visas, asylum seekers, people smugglers, arranged marriages, relatives and dependents etc.
If Britain wants to stop that they might as well leave the global economy. Good luck.
As the referendum shows people want more control over immigration and a less dictatorial policy from Brussels.
By dictatorial you mean setting standards for imports? Britain can always stop exporting. Fighting tax evasion? Yep, the fallback plan is a tax haven. Who profits from that?
They also want to know how jihadis get in.
They should ask MI6. People in Libya and Syria want to know how Jihadis got political asylum in Britain only to return to fight.
People in Turkey want to know how Gülenists thrived in Britain. People in Pakistan are confused about British support for Deobandis.
Basically, people are lied to.
This here is the BBCs take of the reasons for Brexit.
2 The assertion that leaving the EU would free up £350m a week extra to spend on the NHS is the kind of political slogan that campaigns dream of: striking, easy to understand and attractive to voters of different ages and political persuasions ...3 If they didn't quite bet the farm on the issue of immigration, Leave played what they knew was their trump card often and they played it successfully.
The issue fed into wider questions of national and cultural identity, which suited Leave's message - particularly to lower income voters.
The result suggested that concerns about levels of migration into the UK over the past 10 years, their impact on society, and what might happen in the next 20 years were more widely felt and ran even deeper than people had suspected.
Posted by: somebody | Oct 27 2017 17:50 utc | 86
To sum up I'd say Brexit is more an issue of cultural identity and sovereignty than economics ( notice how I avoid the word nationality.) Either way your earlier points about empire and 'making Britain great again' are way off base.
That BBC link is actually refreshingly objective.
Posted by: dh | Oct 27 2017 18:07 utc | 87
87
National Health Service would be economic?
And this here is Boris Johnson "pro leave"
If the “Leave” side wins, it will indeed be necessary to negotiate a large number of trade deals at great speed. But why should that be impossible? We have become so used to Nanny in Brussels that we have become infantilised, incapable of imagining an independent future. We used to run the biggest empire the world has ever seen, and with a much smaller domestic population and a relatively tiny Civil Service. Are we really unable to do trade deals? We will have at least two years in which the existing treaties will be in force. ... Whatever happens, Britain needs to be supportive of its friends and allies – but on the lines originally proposed by Winston Churchill: interested, associated, but not absorbed; with Europe – but not comprised. We have spent 500 years trying to stop continental European powers uniting against us. There is no reason (if everyone is sensible) why that should happen now, and every reason for friendliness.
well well ....
This here is Boris Johnson in a Myanmar temple quoting Kipling.
You think there is a reason they appoint this clown foreign minister?
Posted by: somebody | Oct 27 2017 19:11 utc | 88
add to 88
This here is Nafeez Ahmed on British Jihadis.
When Masood Azhar decided to pop up in Britain in 1993, it was at the behest of British security services. But you wouldn’t know that from reading Bowen’s BBC story.It’s widely assumed, even by those who should know better, that Western patronage of Islamist mujahideen ended decisively with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In reality, US and British intelligence agencies continued to see potential utility for bin Laden’s Islamist brigades in the post-Cold War period to continue rolling back Russian and Chinese geopolitical influence.
That appears to have been one reason the US and British governments used Azhar’s HuM to recruit British Muslims into the unfolding war in Bosnia.
According to 26-year intelligence veteran, the late B. Raman, head of the counter-terrorism division of India’s external intelligence agency, the Research & Analysis Wing (RAW), which he co-founded:
“The radicalisation of Britain’s Muslim youth of Pakistani origin began in the mid-1990s with the full knowledge and complicity of British and US intelligence agencies… In the mid-1990s, the Pakistan-based jihadi group Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM — previously known as the Harkat-ul-Ansar, HuA) sent a contingent to help Bosnian Muslims in their fight against the Serbs. They were sent by the government of Benazir Bhutto at the request of the Bill Clinton administration.”
Raman had firsthand access to Indian intelligence on these matters, having retired in 1994 from his post as Additional Secretary in the Indian government’s Cabinet Secretariat, where he was in charge of counter-terrorism.
This contingent of about 200 British Muslims of mostly Pakistani origin, reported Raman, “was raised and trained by Lieutenant General (retired) Hamid Gul, former director general of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), who himself used to visit Bosnia.”
They “received training in the camps of the HuA [Masood Azhar’s Harkat ul-Mujahideen], and joined the HuA in Bosnia with the blessings of London and Washington. Among them was Omar Sheikh, who went on to mastermind the murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002… Thus began the radicalisation process of Muslim youth of Pakistani origin in western Europe.”
Posted by: somebody | Oct 27 2017 19:28 utc | 89
dh - 87
re: identities.
Which of course is in turn based on the economy, why would any brit' protest immigration if immigration was positively impacting the economy, welfare, society and so forth? It doesnt and thats why people voted pro Brexit.
Posted by: Anon | Oct 27 2017 19:42 utc | 90
@88 Trust me on this....Boris Johnson is a freak. Most Brits I know think Empire is a joke. But they are clinging to a residual sense of national identity.
Posted by: dh | Oct 27 2017 20:15 utc | 91
Jesus Christ US are insane:
RT@ BREAKING: Senate demands Twitter disclose WikiLeaks direct messages
So pathetic that Twitter have proved to be past days I wouldnt be surprised if they do it!
Posted by: Anon | Oct 27 2017 20:21 utc | 92
90 - You don't fight neoliberalism by fighting immigration. Britain has become deindustrialised beyond repair.
Re 89 Nafeed Ahmed, MI6 grooming British Jihadis - it is a small world
As part of his ‘cover’, Aimen Dean played the role of a radical preacher, encouraging British Muslims to join al-Qaeda’s jihad, and elaborating theological justifications for al-Qaeda’s terrorist activity.“You had to play along with them obviously?” asked the BBC’s Peter Marshall.
“Of course. I was still preaching, I was still stating how committed I am to the cause,” replied Dean.
“That must be tricky, though, because in some ways because you’re there preaching, you’re again giving theological justification for some of the bad things that you know that they’re up to,” noted Marshall.
Dean explained: “Yes, but at the end of the day if you want to catch rats, you have to go into the sewage system basically and get dirty yourself.”
...
Dean is managing director of Five Dimensions Consultants, a security contractor based in the United Arab Emirates.
Over the last few years, Aimen Dean’s firm has been a ‘gold sponsor’ of conferences organised by HJS’ risk analysis arm, Strategic Analysis (SA). As I exposed in a Guardian investigation in 2014, the latter is basically about serving the needs of Western corporate oil and gas interests in the Middle East.
That year, Aimen Dean was one of the opening speakers of a HJS conference he had co-sponsored at the Chartered Insurance Institute about ‘Political Risk and Business Interruption Exposures: Mitigating the Risk Post-“Arab Spring.”’ Joining his panel were former MI6 chief (2004–2009) Sir John Scarlett; Sir William Patey, who had served as UK ambassador to Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Iraq; HJS associate director Douglas Murray; and Telegraph defence editor, Con Coughlin.
...
Coughlin is also a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute, a rightwing think-tank in New York that, according to the Center for American Progress, is part of a “networked group of misinformation experts” that “peddle hate and fear of Muslims and Islam”, funded by philanthropist Nina Rosenwald.
Nina Rosenwald - The sugar mama of anti-Muslim hate
Nina Rosenwald - Fake News in support of AFD by the Gatestone Institute
Posted by: somebody | Oct 27 2017 20:32 utc | 93
@93 How to you manage to keep coming up with these pointless links?
Posted by: dh | Oct 27 2017 20:36 utc | 94
94 - not really pointless - it is a small world indeed
Rebekkah Mercer joins board of Gatestone institute
The great British Brexit robbery - how our democracy was hijacked
“The connectivity that is the heart of globalisation can be exploited by states with hostile intent to further their aims.[…] The risks at stake are profound and represent a fundamental threat to our sovereignty.” Alex Younger, head of MI6, December, 2016...“That was before we became this dark, dystopian data company that gave the world Trump,” a former Cambridge Analytica employee who I’ll call Paul tells me. “It was back when we were still just a psychological warfare firm.”
Was that really what you called it, I ask him. Psychological warfare? “Totally. That’s what it is. Psyops. Psychological operations – the same methods the military use to effect mass sentiment change. It’s what they mean by winning ‘hearts and minds’. We were just doing it to win elections in the kind of developing countries that don’t have many rules.”
Why would anyone want to intern with a psychological warfare firm, I ask him. And he looks at me like I am mad. “It was like working for MI6. Only it’s MI6 for hire. It was very posh, very English, run by an old Etonian and you got to do some really cool things. Fly all over the world. You were working with the president of Kenya or Ghana or wherever. It’s not like election campaigns in the west. You got to do all sorts of crazy shit.”
So it is not Russia doing this vile stuff, after all?
Posted by: somebody | Oct 27 2017 21:35 utc | 95
add to 95
From the quoted Guardian link
SCL/Cambridge Analytica was not some startup created by a couple of guys with a Mac PowerBook. It’s effectively part of the British defence establishment. And, now, too, the American defence establishment. An ex-commanding officer of the US Marine Corps operations centre, Chris Naler, has recently joined Iota Global, a partner of the SCL group.This is not just a story about social psychology and data analytics. It has to be understood in terms of a military contractor using military strategies on a civilian population. Us. David Miller, a professor of sociology at Bath University and an authority in psyops and propaganda, says it is “an extraordinary scandal that this should be anywhere near a democracy. It should be clear to voters where information is coming from, and if it’s not transparent or open where it’s coming from, it raises the question of whether we are actually living in a democracy or not.”
Posted by: somebody | Oct 27 2017 21:48 utc | 96
I suppose the point of all that is to show that people were tricked into voting Leave. They must feel sooooo embarassed.
Posted by: dh | Oct 27 2017 21:53 utc | 97
97
People in Britain are obviously split on it in half. If the referendum was repeated the outcome might be different. And this might be reversed again by a third referendum depending on circumstance (and the succesful viciousness of campaigns).
Basically, David Cameron landed Britain and the Conservative Party in a corner. The EU has no incentive to make it easy for BREXIT quite the contrary.
It would have been better for Theresa May to acknowledge the problem and find common ground. She was tempted instead to consolidate her power by elections thinking Corbyn was easy to beat. May was a bad candidate but it is also possible that Cambridge Analytica was warned off from this election.
You can test what the internet assumes of your personality, here
Posted by: somebody | Oct 27 2017 23:21 utc | 98
91
Most Brits I know think Empire is a joke. But they are clinging to a residual sense of national identity.
This here is the view from India.
The debate over the impact of the British Empire more widely has gained increasing prominence in the past year, with the focus on Brexit and Britain’s desire to expand beyond the European Union, with some harking back to the days of it being a great trading nation, and the Empire. ... “The UK is one of the few countries in the EU that does not need to bury its 20th century history,” declared Liam Fox, a prominent campaigner for Brexit, several months before he became Britain’s Secretary of State for International Trade last year. A 2016 poll found that just 21 per cent of people in Britain regretted it’s colonial history. However, others have endorsed the views of critics such as Shashi Tharoor, who caught much media and public attention earlier this year during his book tour for Inglorious Empire (published in India as An Era of Darkness), which is deeply critical of the impact of British rule on India. He accused Britain of historical amnesia. With the 100th anniversary of Jallianwala Bagh in 2019, and the latest parliamentary campaign, the debate is likely to intensify further.
Posted by: somebody | Oct 27 2017 23:58 utc | 99
Many englanders are becoming more accepting of the leave campaign because they believe the final settlement will be reached by Mr Corbyn and if not the settlement, at least the implementation of that, but what if they are being played?
On a personal level I reckon it would be great for the world if Corbyn were elected anywhere, but england will do, Corbyn has never been a fan of the EU because he understands that the more centralised decisionmaking becomes the easier it is for the elite to corrupt the process. If only the mob in Brussels need to be blackmailed, bullied or bribed that is a whole lot less hassle than 28 individual gangs of careerist trough guzzlers, so without sufficient checks and balances the EU is always gonna be slanted towards straight out neoliberalism - except when the hard line conservatives have the numbers. There simply isn't a good way to effectively protect ordinary citizens; the eu is bad but it could be worse.
A worse configuration would be england leaving the EU with the tories or some sort of ersatz lefty neoliberal gang holding these so-called Henry VIII powers which grants the executive the ability to permanently alter all facets of england law, its constitutions and its citizen protections without reference to parliament and without any recourse to euro-courts.
Englanders will be truly fucked for a very long time if that happens.
Right now Corbyn is copping a mob of pressure from the neolib elements in his party and the media to halt brexit, but since blind freddy can see that would be electoral suicide (leave/remain) doesn't follow party lines, he's gonna do no such thing, but one does hafta question the motive of those labour careerists who are demanding it since they have sufficient nous to comprehend that pushing for a referendum would guarantee Labour stay outta government for at least another decade.
The usual rationale given is that the neo-libs are so determined to get rid of Mr Corbyn & advance their own careers, they are happy to shoot themselves in the foot, but that is just too simplistic a motive for such desperate trough guzzlers, this mob of neolibs arseholes want england to be reduced to 3rd world status for 95% of citizens, because they believe they can claw their way into the other 5%.
If Mr Corbyn were in my country busy attempting to set things up better for normal humans I wouldn't be hangin' round blogs bitching, I would be pushing for proper non-governmental non-law enforcement protection for him, including the ancient art of food tasting, body guards, tech heads well versed in contemporary intrusion techniques, because as the next election gets closer, the greedies are gonna sweat more and more until Mr Corbyn is 'taken out of the picture'.
I expect all the usual responses from the needy ersatz left that Mr Corbyn isn't real he's a tory conspiracy, but being as nice as I can, sometimes people are what they are.
Right now there is about an 80% certainly brexit will happen the real question is gonna be whether it is implemented in the interests of everyone, or it will be just another path to refeudalise britain. That latter seemed almost certain until the last election, now it appears that it may be possible to 'buy back the farm'. Whichever version does get up things are gonna be tough for at least a couple of decades; post euro war Britain's 1950's, 60's & 70's will seem mild by comparison.
Posted by: Debsisdead | Oct 28 2017 1:20 utc | 100
The comments to this entry are closed.
What I want to know is why the Washington Post has switched sides and is publishing something approaching the truth. Do they know a whole lot more malfeasance by the Clintons is about to be uncovered and are doing their best to protect their "journalistic" "reputation?"
Posted by: johnf | Oct 26 2017 7:36 utc | 1