Russiagate Is Really Finished
On February 12 we wrote that Russiagate Is Finished. The conclusion was based on an NBC report:
After two years and 200 interviews, the Senate Intelligence Committee is approaching the end of its investigation into the 2016 election, having uncovered no direct evidence of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, according to both Democrats and Republicans on the committee.
...
Democrats and other Trump opponents have long believed that special counsel Robert Mueller and Congressional investigators would unearth new and more explosive evidence of Trump campaign coordination with Russians. Mueller may yet do so, although Justice Department and Congressional sources say they believe that he, too, is close to wrapping up his investigation.
Russiagate conspiracy theorist Marcy Wheeler countered by arguing that a conspiracy had been proven when Trump's former campaign chief Paul Manafort admitted to handing out polling data to some Ukrainian/Russian contact to curry favor with some Russian oligarch he owned money. But Manafort's crimes, which he plead guilty for on September 14 2018, had nothing to do with "Russia" or with Trump and only peripherally with his election campaign:
On Friday, Manafort, who was chairman of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign from June to August 2016, pleaded guilty in federal district court in Washington to two charges of conspiracy against the United States—one involving a lobbying scheme that involved financial crimes and foreign-agent registration violations, and the other involving witness tampering. In the course of his plea, Manafort also admitted guilt on bank-fraud charges on which a federal jury in Virginia hung last month.
Marcy and others held out hope that the Mueller investigation would come up with an indictment that would justify the utter nonsense she and other Russagaters promoted for over two years. Just two week ago former CIA director John Brennan, who likely conspired with British intelligence to frame Trump with the Russia affair, said (vid) that he expected further indictments:
During an appearance on MSNBC on March 5, Brennan predicted that Mueller would issue indictments related to a “criminal conspiracy” involving Trump or his associates’ activities during the 2016 election.
That last hope of the Russiagate dead-enders is now gone:
Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III submitted a long-awaited report to Attorney General William P. Barr on Friday, marking the end of his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible obstruction of justice by President Trump.
...
A senior Justice Department official said the special counsel has not recommended any further indictments — a revelation that buoyed Trump’s supporters, even as other Trump-related investigations continue in other parts of the Justice Department.
...
None of the Americans charged by Mueller are accused of conspiring with Russia to interfere in the election — the central question of Mueller’s work. Instead, they pleaded guilty to various crimes, including lying to the FBI.The investigation ended without charges for a number of key figures who had long been under Mueller’s scrutiny ...
Conclusions from the Mueller report will be released by the Justice Department over the next days.
That the Russiagaters were wrong for falling for the bullshit peddled in the Steele dossier and the "Russian hacking" lies of the snakeoil salesmen Clapper and Brennan was obvious long ago. In June 2017 we pointed to a long Washington Post piece on alleged Russian election hacking and remarked:
Reading that piece it becomes clear (but is never said) that the sole source for that August 2016 Brennan claim of "Russian hacking" is the absurd Steele dossier some ex-MI6 dude created for too much money as opposition research against Trump. The only other "evidence" for "Russian hacking" is the Crowdstrike report on the DNC "hack". Crowdstrike has a Ukrainian nationalist agenda, was hired by the DNC, had to retract other "Russian hacking" claims and no one else was allowed to take a look at the DNC servers. Said differently: The whole "Russian hacking" claims are solely based on "evidence" of two fake reports.
The Steele dossier was fake opposition research peddled by the Clinton campaign, John McCain and a bunch of anti-Trump national security types. The still unproven claim of "Russian hacking" was designed to divert from the fact that Clinton and the DNC colluded to cheat Bernie Sanders out of the nomination. The stupid claim that commercial click-bait from a company in Leningrad was a "Russian influence campaign" was designed to explain Clinton's election loss to the other worst-candidate-ever. The "Russiagate" investigation was designed to prevent Trump from finding better relations with Russia as he had promised during his campaign.
All were somewhat successful because some media and some bloggers were happy to sell such nonsense without putting it into the big picture.
It is high time to start a deep investigation into Brennan, Clapper, Comey and the Clinton campaign and to uncover the conspiracy that led to the Steele dossier, the FBI investigation following from it and all the other bullshit that evolved from that investigation.
As for Marcy Wheeler, Rachel Maddow and other dimwits who peddled the Russiagate nonsense I agree with the advice Catlin Johnstone gives:
Every politician, every media figure, every Twitter pundit and everyone who swallowed this moronic load of bull spunk has officially discredited themselves for life.
...
The people who steered us into two years of Russiavape insanity are the very last people anyone should ever listen to ever again when determining the future direction of our world.
Posted by b on March 23, 2019 at 17:12 UTC | Permalink
« previous pageSpeaking of spelling, why do some people such as Meyssan spell Israël thusly?
Is it the way them folks do it; a slur, or what?
Posted by: Bart Hansen | Mar 24 2019 15:07 utc | 103
mourning dove @100:
If she had planned to lose, she might have had a concession speech ready ...
Clearly, they wanted the result to be a surprise. It's more powerful when the populist hero to "overcome all odds" to win.
Reaction to the result can easily be anticipated and staged.
collapse at that 9/11 ceremony
Except she didn't collapse, she was helped into a van. And she appeared a few hours later, the picture of health, asking what all the fuss was about.
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Mar 24 2019 15:09 utc | 104
So notice the timing of the release of the report that gives Trump bragging rights to 2020. Mueller released the report a mere DAY before the AIPAC CONFERENCE starting today and culminating on Tuesday. Trump's man on Venezuela will be a speaker. Every member thankful for Trump's choseness, including, Chuck Schumer, will be there thanking their masters for the deliverer who is making Israel greater than ever.
Meanwhile, many Democrats starting to see the con on democracy are dropping like flies from the conference.
But alas there are the traitors who will attend and grovel and pander for forgiveness, so one of their own can be chosen when Trump is done with his destruction for Israel.
Yeah, just enough ZIONIST Russian oligarchs helped Trump to make the Russia distraction look legit, but all along Netanyahoo and Israel orchestrated the instalment of Trump behind the scenes, and the Deliverer is delivering big time for IZ.
DC is occupied territory and there is no democracy.
Posted by: Circe | Mar 24 2019 15:27 utc | 105
snake@85
Congress is the gatekeeper to reform, and they have no incentive to improve the system or to actually promote democracy. Congress is a very effective roadblock.
Posted by: mourning dove | Mar 24 2019 15:29 utc | 106
Even though the fact that there is no basis for the claims made by the proponents of "Russiagate" has been exposed to anyone who is paying attention, it will make no difference. The failure to find any evidence to support the claims will be covered over by the use of vague language that will be interpreted by most of the population to prove the opposite. This is a hoax that has served its purpose. Those that used their positions to propagate it will not see their status diminished. They will be enhanced. The truth just doesn't matter.
Six years after the US invaded Iraq, polls established that half the US population believed that weapons of mass destruction had been found. The hoax involving the claims of Kuwaiti babies being thrown out of incubators by murderous Iraqi soldiers was also exposed but not until after it too had accomplished its mission. Gore Vidal had good reason to refer to the US as "The United States of Amnesia."
Posted by: David | Mar 24 2019 15:30 utc | 107
Bart Hansen | 102
"Speaking of spelling, why do some people such as Meyssan spell Israël thusly?
Is it the way them folks do it; a slur, or what?"
Yeah, it's just their way, the French spelling. They need the dots to remind them to pronounce the 'e' separately and to not blend it with the 'a', which otherwise they would, like in the place name 'Caen' e.g.
If you want to dive into the matter: French orthography
Cheers!
Posted by: Scotch Bingeington | Mar 24 2019 15:30 utc | 108
>> People didn't vote for Trump. They voted to sabotage the establishment's game.
The people always vote for the “lesser evil”. That’s typically “the outsider” (relatively speaking).
How’s that turning out for them?
Looks like they’ve been fooled again. They haven’t been aware that the coverage is rigged and hence the primaries are rigged, so thattheir only choices are two fake populists.
For me, 2016 was eye-opening.
As for you?
Posted by: oo goo gachoo | Mar 24 2019 15:33 utc | 109
Jackrabbit,
You are clearly very invested in your interpretation and are able to make anything fit. I'm just giving my perspective and opinion. We are both speculating.
Posted by: mourning dove | Mar 24 2019 15:34 utc | 110
And by the way, all the Zionist oligarchs who helped Trump even the Russian ones who were around to provide the Russian distraction hoax have a connection to Netanyahu and dual citizenship American/Israeli, Russian/Israeli. And Mueller gives Trump a ticket to ride into 2020 ONE DAY BEFORE THE AIPAC CELEBRATION.
Just a coincidence, riiiiight? NOT.
Posted by: Circe | Mar 24 2019 15:36 utc | 111
Western mainstream media has become some sort of bizarre stew of Kafka meets Orwell meets theatre of the absurd meets Salvador Dali = whatever the freak the oligarchs are passing off as "reality" at the moment. Maddow might just as well have been reading chicken entrails or tea leaves on her show for the last two + years in an effort to divine "reality." Meanwhile, no one in MSM or the political class bats an eye as "random Guaido" is named the president of Venezuela by the U.S.; said "random Guaido" calls for a U.S. military intervention to violently install him into that position; and MSM and politicians throughout the West celebrate all of this as an example of "supporting democracy" and "human rights." At this point in time the West in general is now completely untethered from events that take place in the actual physical world, you know, where "reality" actually takes place. Russiagate is but one example of this complete and total disconnection from reality.
Posted by: Gary Weglarz | Mar 24 2019 15:37 utc | 112
DontBelieveEitherPropaganda @ 8
By goyim I mean the soulless cattle that hard core Talmudists think we are. Trump is the most pro Zionist president in history and what is worse is he has the evangelicals whispering in his ear that he is Cyrus the great. Great comments on how these criminals have regained power under Trump.
Trump, the great negotiator, forgot to negotiate with the Palestinians over his deal of the century peace plan. It was written by his three hardcore Zionists advisors. The Palestinians will end up with a few refugee camps to manage and the Zionists will get the rest. If they are good little boys and girls they can serve the Zionists in abject slavery as is fitting for the goyim.
Posted by: dltravers | Mar 24 2019 15:40 utc | 113
Oh yeah, and besides the massive coincidence of Mueller handing Trump a ticket to ride straight into the White House in 2020 with bragging rights ONE DAY BEFORE AIPAC'S CELEBRATION THAT STARTS TODAY, watch Trump milk the fact that Democratic hopefuls are dropping like flies from the Conference to underscore how much they hate Joos and Israel and how great he has been for Israel with more gifts to come.
THE BIG FIX IS IN.
Posted by: Circe | Mar 24 2019 15:47 utc | 114
William Gruff @92
The election was decided in 3 mid-western states by just a few thousand votes each.
Hillary knew she might lose those states by thin margins but she didn't go there. And her defeat in those states was the result of her decisions to alienate progressives, blacks, and whites ("deplorables").
Kissinger penned an Op-Ed in August 2014 that called for MAGA ("Henry Kissinger on the Assembly of a New World Order"):
Even as the lessons of challenging decades are examined, the affirmation of America's exceptional nature must be sustained. History offers no respite to countries that set aside their sense of identity in favor of a seemingly less arduous course.The MAGA initiative was taken up by Trump, not Hillary. It is well known that Hillary and McCain is/was close to Kissinger and respected his views (along with many others). It is not difficult to understand that Kissinger-Hillary-McCain and their friends, followers and associates could influence the result of the 2016 US Presidential election.
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Mar 24 2019 15:53 utc | 115
Hillary was a giggling, hideous mass murderer. Boasts in Clinton biography about influencing Bill to bmob radio and tv stations and civilians (not atypical actions btw of any of our war criminal presidents) in downtown Belgrade, Yugoslavia.
More recent history, in a tv interview - hideous laughter recalling the knifing mutilation murder of Kadafi and her role as SOS under the grinning murderer, Oilbomber.
Of course, average US Americans knew or cared little about these events. Wingnuts were lead by MSM to focus on Ben Ghazi and the death of Ambassador Stevens (arms trader to terrists and a CIA regime change operative).
Trump, a crooked mafioso, was not yet a mass murderer. And he promised to drain the swamp.
It was an easy choice for anyone interested in wasting his time voting.
Posted by: fast freddy | Mar 24 2019 15:56 utc | 116
>> Are people daft?
It might be the case that Trump was the foil to Killary. But the reverse might also be true.
People completely overlook the importance of retaining MIC enthusiasm for the CIC. *If* the original plan was to enthrone Killary, I suspect the establishment changed the plan when they saw how unpopular, no, “hated”, she was.
If any of the Deep State Queen’s rage over losing was authentic, it can be explained by her being advised of “a change in plans”. She went from confidently stating early during the primary that “I *will* be the DNC candidate” to “what? we are going to choose *him*?”
Your hypothesis is appealing. But, IMO, JackRabbit’s hypothesis is slightly more so. Clinton was a horrible candidate in 2008 and had even more establishment baggage by 2016. Trump was the relative outsider. Like Reagan. Like Clinton. Like Obama. He’s the rebel. As you and MM said: “a big FU to the establishment”.
Only he isn’t and never was. And he’s served well as a distraction. Not because he’s so entertaining. But because he’s entertaining “enough” for BigLie Media to *claim* “he’s so entertaining that we can’t cover anything else.”
...
We might beating a dead horse now. Also, maybe I’m misunderstanding your points. I suspect we are largely in agreement but arguing vehemently about finer points we can only speculate about anyway. Good day, fellow reader.
Posted by: oo goo gachoo | Mar 24 2019 16:04 utc | 117
Days after, media keep on like nothing happend and Democrats will keep spreading conspiracy theories,
Top GOP Judiciary Committee member: Trump 'proved right' on Mueller probe, as Nadler warns of 'cover-up'
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/top-gop-judiciary-committee-member-trump-proved-right-on-mueller-probe-as-nadler-warns-of-cover-up
How could it be a "cover up" when Mueller simply have no more indictments!?
Posted by: Zanon | Mar 24 2019 16:07 utc | 118
Trump's Trailer Park MAGA Brigade is vindicated! Chest Thumping all over the Facebook. Now Trump and Rubio can proceed to separate them from their Social Security checks and Medicare. They'll be happy to give it up.
Posted by: fast freddy | Mar 24 2019 16:38 utc | 119
Here's another kicker: Bill Barr is working fast and furious over the weekend because he wants the distraction to be the fake report at the height of the AIPAC CONFERENCE CELEBRATION, on Monday and Tuesday, when every Zionist there will be hailing Trump in waves of euphoria!
Barr will ensure the media talk and fake frenzy is about Barr's release of the report and not about this:
HAIL TRUMP! HAIL TRUMP! HAIL TRUMP!
The fix for 2020 is in.
Posted by: Circe | Mar 24 2019 16:39 utc | 120
@ art guerrilla | Mar 24, 2019 8:51:20 AM | 91
“i am not a grammar nazi, valuing substance over style; BUT, at some point the sheer number of careless, lazy, typos, egregious misspellings and such become too much... ”
I agree, and would add weirdly scrambled syntax to your list. It's almost as though we've been invaded, recently, by a gaggle of third graders, who are challenging us to make any headway at all through their deliberately tangled verbal thickets.
Posted by: AntiSpin | Mar 24 2019 16:45 utc | 121
>> [Trump was] “a big FU to the establishment”
You are confusing the voters' perspective with the imperial establishment's perspective. For the voters Trump most certainly was a big FU to the establishment. For the establishment, on the other hand, Trump was introduced and propped up to be a big FU to the voters. Yes, there is an "FU" in both perspectives but the meaning, implication, and direction of the "FU" is entirely different.
Establishment: "Ef you, ignorant voters! You will vote for who we tell you to vote for, or you are getting this ridiculous orange buffoon!"
Voters: "No, ef you. Dump your buffoon on us. We've dealt with worse.
Establishment: "Are you f-ing nuts? This is Trump we're talking about! He's got no clue what's going on! He's just an actor we picked to fill a bit part in The Show! You can't seriously pick him for president!
Voters: "We're not the ones who left us with this choice, you did. Deal with it.
Establishment: "Aargh! Why aren't you voters behaving yourselves?!?! It must be the Russians' fault! We don't know how they made you misbehave but it must be them! There is no other explanation!
Voters: "You go ahead and keep telling yourself that.
Posted by: William Gruff | Mar 24 2019 16:50 utc | 122
Gruff: it was all set up for Hillary, but voters thumbed their nose at the establishment.
LOL.
Did you see my comment @114?
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Mar 24 2019 16:57 utc | 123
>> You are confusing the voters' perspective with the imperial establishment's perspective.
Did it seem that way? I don’t think I am.
Anyway, I doubt your hypothesis the establishment disapproves of Trump as CIC. They control the polling before the election and the actual election. Weeks before the vote, everyone thought Killary was going to win. If TPTB really wanted to enthrone her, they would’ve done so and everyone would’ve believed that’s who won the vote legitimately. Trump winning despite all expectations? That “surprised” everyone.
Either you believe:
(a) the establishment doesn’t control the vote and thus couldn’t stop voters from surprising everyone (including themselves) and *not* elect the candidate you’re so sure the establishment wanted
or
(b) the establishment is quite happy with Trump and might’ve wanted him all along.
Posted by: oo goo gachoo | Mar 24 2019 17:06 utc | 124
I've found an interesting opinion piece via the xymphora site.
The Zionist Smear Campaign Against Bernie Sanders Is Just Beginning
Since I haven't had Truthout on my "good guys" list for quite a while, I'm not sure what to make of them publishing this sort of article. After listing the multitude of problems Trump has, it reviews the current Democratic candidates.
Yet many of the centrist, neoliberal Democratic contenders are struggling to muster a real threat. Considering the current top six candidates: Sen. Kamala Harris has a dire history as a prosecutor; former Vice President Joe Biden (undeclared) has an abysmal track record of racism, warmongering and disregard for student debtors; Sen. Elizabeth Warren has yet to inspire mass support with her reforms and is plagued by controversies over her past declarations of Native American identity; Sen. Cory Booker has close ties to Silicon Valley, Wall Street and the pharmaceutical industry; and Rep. Beto O’Rourke is described by many critics as much ado about no change.Unfortunately Sanders will probably be a great President for the apartheid Jewish state, but he certainly will not be a fantastic one as Trump has turned into. The Truthout author believes the AIPAC hatchets will be sharpened for Sanders.
Lots more interesting stuff at the xymphora site today. Samples:
link "It's official: Russiagate is this generation's WMD" (Taibbi). Summary of media train wrecks.Unfortunately the site probably isn't safe for work, for the boss might not like links to The Daily Stormer and similar stuff. And jobs these days aren't things to be casually messed with...link Tweet (WellTraveled Fox) (the sad fact remains that Trump's candidacy was run as a Clintonista stalking horse to wreck the Republican nomination process, and then serve as a push-over on the road to the Killary Koronation)
Posted by: Zachary Smith | Mar 24 2019 17:10 utc | 125
@122WG
Never mind all that. Trump is the Zionists FU to American democracy. Everyone tune out the report distraction and stream the AIPAC HAIL TRUMP! ceremony, perfectly timed with Mueller's gift to Trump that he'll milk until 2020's now certain victory.
The fix is in.
Posted by: Circe | Mar 24 2019 17:23 utc | 126
@JR #103 & #114
Nonsense. The imperial establishment is tricky, but not so much that they can fool major actors in their schemes into thinking their goals are the opposite of what they are actually shooting for. This is just more of your attributing god-like qualities to the imperial establishment, trying to paint them as omnipotent and omniscient. The imperial establishment are most definitely not omniscient. On the contrary, they are stupid. They just think that they are smart, thanks to the Dunning-Kruger effect and their being surrounded by many people even dumber than themselves.
Clinton blew off taking the election seriously due to nothing more than hubris. The same hubris, by the way, that afflicts the imperial establishment and blinds them. Hubris is a textbook symptom of late-stage empire, and the American empire has it in spades. This also happens to be why the establishment is surrounded by people dumber than themselves, or people who are afraid to contradict them. That too is a trait of late-stage empire.
Nobody in the establishment, including Trump and Clinton, thought there was ANY chance that Trump could win. Once the Sanders uprising was contained they thought it would be smooth sailing, so why bother with campaigning? Clinton knew that her opponent in the general election had already agreed to throw the fight, so why would she need to put in any effort? It's not like Trump was really trying either. He was just having fun being as offensive as possible. No provisions were made for a Trump victory, not only in the Trump and Clinton campaigns, but also in the Operation Mockingbird mass media. They didn't even have graphics prepared ahead of time other than ones that showed a Clinton victory. Their prearranged news stories and narratives were all predicated on a Clinton win.
So you think that the CIA, who cannot arrange a believable false flag without the corporate mass media doing most of the heavy lifting in the psych war, you believe that CIA is going to arrange a sham election with a surprise ending that even the corporate mass media is left in the dark about? Utter nonsense!
Posted by: William Gruff | Mar 24 2019 17:24 utc | 127
>> it was all set up for Hillary, but voters thumbed their nose at the establishment.
Precisely. And the establishment's hubris and massively oversized opinions of their own intelligence and cluefullness left them incapable of accepting that their control over the electorate was anything less than absolute. This is what led them to assume that some other force (the Russians, obviously) was using the establishment's own techniques for manufacturing megatrends against the establishment. That's hogwash, of course, but part of why they in the establishment took Russiagate seriously.
Posted by: William Gruff | Mar 24 2019 17:32 utc | 128
Gruff: Sanders uprising
LOL.
Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders: Sheepdogging for Hillary and the Democrats in 2016
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Mar 24 2019 17:37 utc | 129
@ William Gruff #127
I agree with most of what you say here, but it can't be denied the Deep State and AIPAC and the apartheid Jewish state have made a teriffic rebound with their success in turning Trump into a robotic floormat for themselves.
In that regard, I've no reason to move away from the theory there is some potent blackmail involved. Obviously there is more to it than that - his being schmoozed as a leader on the level of Alexander the Great or King David as well as his self-centered gullible nature didn't hurt a bit with his "capture".
Posted by: Zachary Smith | Mar 24 2019 17:37 utc | 130
>> If TPTB really wanted to enthrone her, they would’ve done so...
Do you not see how you are trying to portray the establishment as omnipotent? Does the third option of the establishment's control over voters not being absolute not occur to you?
Sure, the establishment dislikes Trump being president less than they would dislike someone such as Jill Stein being president, but that is not the point. The establishment's biggest concern is not that Trump is president in and of itself, but rather that the election did not go as they planned. This gives them the feeling that they are losing control.
Posted by: William Gruff | Mar 24 2019 17:38 utc | 131
William Guff@127
Completely agree, you said that much better than I could have, thank you.
Posted by: mourning dove | Mar 24 2019 17:38 utc | 132
Re Grammar, spelling policing -
Some of us are using small screens without proper keyboards which makes commenting tedious. Most of us are doing the best we can, I think, and such concerns seem to me to reek of a type of intellectual elitism that is a much bigger impediment to rational conversation than spelling or grammatical errors.
Posted by: mourning dove | Mar 24 2019 17:42 utc | 133
Gruff: The imperial establishment are most definitely not omniscient. On the contrary, they are stupid.
They are stupid in some ways and smart in others.
The stupidity of not bringing Russia "on side" while helping China to grow is part of my thesis. Kissinger calls it a "crisis" (in one interview, a "grave crisis"). I think Hillary and McCain and most of the establishment agree.
The US establishment wanted a nationalist to counter the challenge from Russia+China. Israel/neocons wanted a stronger USA will the will to fight after the lost war in Syria.
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Mar 24 2019 17:48 utc | 134
Time to update the term "Conspiracy Theorist" to "Corporate News Theorist".
Posted by: librul | Mar 24 2019 17:48 utc | 135
“Omnipotent”? No. Controlling election outcomes? Yes. It’s probably one of the easier items now, thanks to going digital.
You have to be slightly (but not greatly) naive to read about all they do abroad and domestically and then to conclude they don’t control election outcomes here, starting with the media (controlled by 6 corps) and ending with electronic tallying.
Conflating that with “omnipotence” is sophistry — beneath you.
Posted by: oo goo gachoo | Mar 24 2019 17:48 utc | 136
@Jackrabbit's LOLing:
You are exposing a very simplistic worldview. Even the imperial establishment looks at things with deeper insight than what you are showing here.
Yes, Sanders was sheepdogging. The movement that buoyed Sanders is not Sanders, though. The movement, as societal movements in late-stage capitalism often do, developed a life of its own beyond Sanders. That movement was an uprising. That movement had to be contained. Containing a mass movement isn't so simple as the figurehead of the movement just saying "Hey everybody! Go home!
You are insisting upon viewing historical processes as being all about individuals and personalities when it is more about movements and power arrangements in society.
Posted by: William Gruff | Mar 24 2019 17:49 utc | 137
IMO, it's time to stop reanalyzing 2016 as it's impossible to prove the various hypotheses that have been floated ever since 9 Nov, aside from the fact that Russiagate was a massive hoax and absolute miscarriage of justice and Pelosi refuses to do her duty and allow Impeachment proceedings to commence against Trump, Pence, Pompeo, Bolton, and other top administration officials. We now need to focus on the dynamic being formed for 2020. And that means looking closely at what Bernie's saying.
Bernie's in California again drawing overflow crowds as he begins his campaign. The linked article highlighted the following:
"'As president of the United States, I will not have kind words to say about authoritarian leaders around the world who espouse bigotry and hatred,' Sanders told the crowd. 'Together we will make the United States the leader in the world in the fight for democracy and human rights.'" [My Emphasis]
Now where and from whom have we heard those highlighted phrases before? How much do they really differ from Trump, Clinton, Obama, or Bush's rhetoric or from any Cold War-era president's? Seems like the same crap used to justify the attack on Serbia; R2Ping Libya; and to assault Syria with a "moderate" terrorist army; and the constant demonization of Iran. And you can be certain those ideals will be tempered--obfuscated--by the drive for Medicare For All, raising minimum wage to $15, and the Green New Deal.
So far, the only declared candidate to specifically renounce and pledge to end the Outlaw US Empire's attempt to control the world is Tulsi Gabbard, which is why the media's been very negative toward her while being upbeat about Biden, Beto, and Harris. IMO, the only way to prevent Sanders from becoming the D Party 2020 POTUS nominee is to have him RFKed--that is if the Deep State doesn't think it can control him on Imperial Policy. But at the moment, he appears to be sending them the right message.
Posted by: karlof1 | Mar 24 2019 17:50 utc | 138
William Gruff says:
It's not like Trump was really trying either. He was just having fun being as offensive as possible
yeah, in front of some of the largest and most enthusiastic crowds of Americans that any presidential candidate has ever seen.
Posted by: john | Mar 24 2019 17:51 utc | 139
@Zachary Smith #130
I don't know how much blackmail it would take to get Trump to go along with AIPAC and the deep state. I'm guessing all they would need to do to get his cooperation is simply ask.
Posted by: William Gruff | Mar 24 2019 17:57 utc | 141
>> "You have to be... naive to read about all they do abroad and domestically and then to conclude they don’t control election outcomes here"
And yet the imperial establishment loses elections abroad. They couldn't beat Maduro in a "fair" (the empire's idea of fair) fight. They cannot beat Daniel Ortega in a fair fight. They couldn't get a pro-US stooge into Kiev in a fair fight. They lost the fight in Mexico, fercryin`outloud. Mexico! That's the CIA's playground, and they lost it. The imperial establishment cannot even get someone into the running in Russia who can pull more than one or two percent of the electorate.
Yes, they control elections, but that control is not absolute.
Posted by: William Gruff | Mar 24 2019 18:05 utc | 142
mourning dove | Mar 24, 2019 1:42:45 PM | 133
Point taken – and I can sympathize. That having been said, there is a small number here who seem deliberately to be posting gibberish. The difference between what you've described, and what I'm pointing out, is fairly easy to see.
Posted by: AntiSpin | Mar 24 2019 18:06 utc | 143
karlof1
So, this time it will be different and we'll finally get to kick that ball and have a real democracy in the US? Seems like so much wishful thinking.
Posted by: mourning dove | Mar 24 2019 18:10 utc | 144
@141 WG
Trump is already doing their bidding. What are you talking about? Trump was Chosen by Zionists. Mueller timed his gift to Trump a day before the AIPAC CELEBRATION starts. Trump has bragging rights care of Mueller III. The deep state and Zionists are in lock step, one and the same. Trump will sign away the Golan Heights to Netanyahoo personally while he's in town for the Convention. It's a quid pro quo you helped me win I'll help you deal. The subversion of American democracy CELEBRATION starts at AIPAC today. Mueller's gift was released to Trump yesterday. It's all well coordinated and precisely timed.
Tomorrow Trump will be hailed as the champion of Zionism, the chosen to rule 4 more years. There is no democracy--HAIL TRUMP!
Posted by: Circe | Mar 24 2019 18:14 utc | 145
Antispin
I scanned through this thread looking for gibberish but I'm not seeing it. The elitism that I mentioned seems to be an ever present thing though.
Posted by: mourning dove | Mar 24 2019 18:22 utc | 146
Replying to john @139:
Yes, Trump drew some huge crowds, and he likely thinks it was his personality that everyone was attracted to. Of course he is just as clueless and delusional as the brain-scrambled latte-liberals who think the big draw was racism (same cluelessness and delusion as those who think Brexit and the Yellow Vests are about racism).
You know what else draws big and enthusiastically cheering crowds? Pro wrestling. In Kiev the establishment's agitators were able to get crowds chanting and jumping in unison over the idea of stabbing Russians, so I think it might be wise to consider separating the energy exhibited by a crowd from the propaganda that is fed to the crowd while it is energized. To be certain the individuals from that crowd will go home associating the energy that they experienced in the crowd with the propaganda or entertainment that they were fed, but in reality the energy originates from the crowd itself and not the performers. This is basic crowd psychology.
In the case of Trump's crowds I believe the excitement was largely related to imagining the loud orange sabot on the stage jamming the gears of the establishment and triggering meltdowns among the delusional across the nation. And Trump delivered, even if that was never his intention.
Posted by: William Gruff | Mar 24 2019 18:59 utc | 147
Gruff:
You are insisting upon viewing historical processes as being all about individuals and personalities when it is more about movements and power arrangements in society.
This is rich coming from a guy who says the election was fixed for Hillary. But that it was fixed for Trump is just a bridge too far? LOL.
Again, see my comment @115.
And Sanders "Movement" died on the vine when he refused to lead it (not surprisingly, since he's an establishment tool).
<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
Here's some individuals engaging in historical processes. LOL. Why does the Lindsey-Humma embrace cause Kelly and Mattis such consternation? Why is Lindsey Graham so embarrassed by it? Because the public is not supposed to know how chummy the political elite are among themselves? Well, within weeks of this interaction, both Mattis and Kelly were out of the Administration. Mattis because he opposed Trump's fake "pull out" from Syria, and Kelly ... just because.
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Mar 24 2019 19:09 utc | 148
>> "...that it was fixed for Trump is just a bridge too far?
Nope. That it was fixed for Trump (the general elections and not the primaries) simply doesn't fit with the evidence and the behaviors of the principals. Your pointing out the chumminess of the actors in the political drama when they are backstage doesn't change things and is orthogonal to the point.
Trump winning was a massive screw-up of the establishment's plans and the panic they went into over that is what resulted in the Russiagate stupidity.
Posted by: William Gruff | Mar 24 2019 19:25 utc | 149
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-israel-golan-idUSKCN1R50JX
So Trump is set to put Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights in writing on Monday just in time for the AIPAC EXTRAVAGANZA celebrating the anoinment of Trump for four more years with the opportune release of the Mueller Report that gives Trump bragging rights to ensure his victory in 2020. Yes sir, the Mueller gift, the AIPAC CELEBRATION, and the transfer of the Golan to Israel all happening together, all precisely timed for Israel's benefit.
American democracy is non-existant.
ZIONIST CHANT AT AIPAC: HAIL TRUMP!
Posted by: Circe | Mar 24 2019 19:56 utc | 150
mourning dove @144--
No, that wasn't my implication whatsoever. We cannot undo the past; all we can try to do is affect the future in some manner, hopefully to the positive. That was the gist of my comment; no more, no less. There'll be an effort to continue the Russiavape narrative regardless the evidence just as before as the actual evidence provided by the metadata was dismissed because it's the unassailable answer to the--contrived--issue: Insurance designed to control Trump should he win. And he's been controlled for the most part, although the unforeseen consequence was the continuing rise of an all-encompassing Populist Movement that's getting close to being out-of-control, which is a good thing.
Posted by: karlof1 | Mar 24 2019 20:03 utc | 151
The establishment (CFR) wanted Hillary to win. MSM helped Trump win the Republican primaries so that Hillary could easily defeat such an obviously unlikeable (in their minds) candidate. Who influenced Trump to run?
At the same time, Hillary took control of the DNC and cheated Bernie out of the nomination. Bernie didn't protest much because he is a sheepdog (whether he understands that or not). Hillary's greatest weakness, as we know from the emails, was her role in the Uranium One deal. Her campaign decided to project this on the opponent and ordered some Russia-Trump dirt, which was provided in the form of the Steele Dossier (likely connected to Skripal). Then the hack/leak happened, which made Clinton so repulsive to democratic and independent voters that they would prefer to vote Trump or stay home. Who did the hack/leak?
In panic, Obama pulled the strings for the fraudulent dossier to be accepted by the surveillance court and for the investigation of Hillary for her private email server to be dropped or minimized. As the narcissist Hillary subconsciously realized she might actually lose to Trump, her health faltered and she made some obvious mistakes. Then, one week before the election, Comey announced that charges could be brought against Hillary. Has everybody already forgotten about that? That announcement had, in my opinion, the decisive influence on the outcome of the election. Who told Comey to do that?
One possible theory is that it was Israel-firsters all along, acting against the desires of the establishment. Adelson could be influencing Trump to run — either directly, or through Trump's sons, or through Kushner. This would be explained to the establishment as a "Pied Piper" strategy to help Hillary win. So everybody (perhaps, including Trump himself) thought he was a puppet opponent for Hillary, while Adelson and other Israel-firsters actually intended him to win. The hack/leak, in this theory, would be done by Israeli operatives with Russian fingerprints embedded to blame Russia. This would be especially easy to do if the crime was to be investigated by the criminals themselves. Crowdstrike, with its Russophobic Russian Jewish founder Dmitri Alperovitch, fitted the bill perfectly. Thus, in this theory, it was Crowdstrike that, under the cover of providing protection to the DNC servers, actually stole the files and gave them to Wikileaks. The reason the Russians were chosen as the fall guys was that they were already demonized in the West because of Crimea/Donbass and to take revenge on them for ruining Israel's plans in Syria. If the murder of Seth Rich was indeed politically motivated, then he was murdered not because he leaked the files, but because he accidentally discovered Crowdstrike's true role and was about to go public. Finally, Comey's hand was forced by either a very large bribe or some serious blackmail. Adelson and other Israel-firsters, when challenged on the failure of the "Pied Piper" strategy, would explain that Trump went rogue and was helped by the Russians.
Note that, in this theory, both the establishment and the American people have been duped.
Posted by: S | Mar 24 2019 20:04 utc | 152
Correction: both the establishment and the American people who voted for Trump have been duped.
Posted by: S | Mar 24 2019 20:11 utc | 153
Gruff: massive screw-up of the establishment's plans
Please explain just how their plans have been screwed up. How has Trump failed to deliver for them?
And why, exactly, has he brought friends and associates of his supposed enemies into his Administration?
VP Pence: buddy of McCainBolton: neocons were 'Never Trump', remember?
Wm Barr: close with Mueller (who, in turn, is close to Comey)
Gina Haspel: Brennan's gal at CIA
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Mar 24 2019 20:16 utc | 154
S @152
Please read my comment @115.
Hillary could have won. She choose not to.
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Mar 24 2019 20:20 utc | 155
S @152--
The metadata proves it was a leak not a hack and has since it became available. Note that not one person connected with the metadata's analysis or with the leak's delivery to Wikileaks was called to testify before Mueller's Inquisition. The twin facts of metadata and delivery of leak to Wikileaks disproves the entire Russiavape hypothesis. And they will continue to disprove any attempt to prove something else.
Posted by: karlof1 | Mar 24 2019 21:17 utc | 156
@JR #154:
Straw man, Jack, that's a straw man. You are either stupid for real or are faking it very convincingly. Who said Trump's enemies were the deep state? Who has made that claim, other than yourself of course and maybe some QAnon fanatics?
You, Jackrabbit, are doing precisely what I predicted that you would do back in post #93: "Now Jackrabbit will suggest that I (and perhaps Ken from above as well) [am] claiming that Trump is some outsider who deliberately upset the imperial establishment's carefully laid plans."
You are either dense and with a tragically short attention span or you really are a tool of the establishment astroturfing about how infallible the establishment is. Which is it?
Posted by: William Gruff | Mar 24 2019 21:28 utc | 157
The only U.S. establishment is the one owned bought and paid for by Zionist billionaires and tomorrow's AIPAC Convention will provide proof of that as 2/3rds of U.S. government, and top Trump Administration officials parade in front of the podium to express their love and fealty for Zionism. Meanwhile Trump will be signing over sovereignty of Syrian territory to Israel in the presence of Netanyahoo. The AIPAC CELEBRATION will honour Trump's unquestionable service to Zionism that owns the Washington establishment. This event more than any other in Washington exposes the swamp scum of Wasington that Trump was Chosen to lead. Trump has surrounded himself with Zionist Neocon scum and is delivering more for Israel than the three previous Presidents put together. Further proof that Trump is establishment and Zionist co-opted is that he was protected all this time from blunders of his own making by Zionist Deputy Rosenstein, followed by former Bush appointed Attorney general, William Barr, uber establishment prosecutor, and Robert Mueller who has given Trump bragging rights to take him right back to the White House in 2020. Trump was always a bought and paid for Zionist Neocon and every day that passes he and his entourage prove this. Trump is a fake populist a Zionist-owned charlatan who fooled average dumb ignoramus Americans while he's delivering for the top tier, the 1% billionares and of course for the foreign country that occupies Wasington, Israel. Trump couldn't be more establisment, more swamp corrupt and more fake if he tried. There is no democracy in the U.S. Trump is being hailed as the best Zionist Neocon investment ever.
Posted by: Circe | Mar 24 2019 23:40 utc | 158
>> tool of the establishment astroturfing about how infallible the establishment is.
I suspect the establishment prefers voters believe TPTB can’t and don’t control the final election outcome (as though the vote-tabulation process is any more “pure” than anything else under their control). That keeps hope in the system alive.
>> Who said Trump's enemies were the deep state? Who has made that claim, other than yourself of course
I’ve never seen JR make this claim. Which post# did I miss?
>> Trump winning was a massive screwup of the establishment’s plans
Oh, dear! Now who is the astroturfing establishment tool?!! Makes me wonder if there’s a reason you’re selling the “hope” I referred to a few sentences ago.
Again: No one would’ve batted an eye if it were announced “Killary won” the night and morning after. You either believe the primary-fixing, market-rigging, false-flagging, round-the-world régime-changing establishment can’t and doesn’t manage their own internal affairs through the point of tabulating votes OR you conclude they at some point decided Trump was the better figurehead for the next few years.
Posted by: oo goo gachoo | Mar 24 2019 23:58 utc | 159
Posted by: Yonatan | Mar 24, 2019 8:45:09 AM | 91
Thank you Yonathan, the pictures were interesting.
Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Mar 25 2019 4:10 utc | 160
@oo goo gachoo #159: Or maybe there are factions within the establishment. Maybe it’s not monolithic. Maybe large swathes of the establishment were not “in” on the Israel-firsters’ plan to elect a faux populist President who would carry out an extreme pro-Israel-expansionism policy. Maybe it’s the USS Liberty all over again: “Yes, Israel has meddled in our elections to elect Trump. But they are our allies, so let’s blame it all on Russia.”
Posted by: S | Mar 25 2019 8:58 utc | 161
@karlof1 #156: The theory I proposed does not depend on the data breach being a hack. That’s why I wrote “hack/leak”. Again, how convenient is it that Crowdstrike was contracted to protect DNC servers, and then — boom! — the DNC data gets stolen. If you read their interviews, they say they were observing intruders for a month. Why? Why didn’t they immediately disconnect the DNC network? The whole “messing around the network” activity could have been carried out by Crowdstrike themselves, maybe even by their allies in Russia. While the actual files could have been copied to a USB thumbstick by Crowdstrike employees working at the DNC, then given to Wikileaks through intermediaries. Perhaps they gave it to “someone”, that “someone” gave it to Craig Murray, who gave it to Wikileaks.
Posted by: S | Mar 25 2019 9:15 utc | 162
@ S 161
That’s possible. If Trump ever does more than just talk about “lock her up” or (just now) prosecuting people who started this nonsense, it’d support your and Gruff’s hypotheses.
Posted by: oo goo gachoo | Mar 25 2019 9:19 utc | 163
@oo goo gachoo: But Israel-firsters do not want to prosecute Hillary. There want to keep a delicate balance. If the Russiagate narrative becomes too strong, then Trump may be impeached and they would lose their agent. If, on the other hand, the Russiagate narrative becomes too weak, then people will start talking, and it will become obvious that the manipulation was done by Israel, not Russia. They want to keep Russia-Trump collusion investigations and anti-Russia hysteria going to mask their own involvement, but no real action taken against Trump. Similarly, they want Trump to talk about “crooked Hillary” to placate his base, but no real action taken against the Dems/media, otherwise they will start talking about Israel’s role.
Posted by: S | Mar 25 2019 10:11 utc | 164
Zerohedge lists the next steps:
This is all falling completely in line with what ‘Q’ - who purportedly is US military Intel who back Trump - has been saying for the past 18 months and follows a predictive time schedule laid out a few weeks ago. Time to take the ‘Q anon conspiracy’ seriously. After all, the MSM pushed their Russiagate conspiracy narrative just as hard as they criticise the Q counter-narrative.
See www.qmap.pub or the YouTube channel X22 Report or IPOT
Posted by: PJB | Mar 25 2019 10:22 utc | 165
"Q" is not an US mil. intel source.
Is a Unit-8200 israeli cyber/espionage/agitation/propaganda operation. It leaks internal US mil and White House stuff occasionaly mixed with propaganda as it also served possibly like a public "numbers station" issuing coded msgs to across the border listeners disguised through search engines analytics algorithms to difuse footprint signature and run alongside pro Trump agit.prop in social media.
Posted by: Logic gate | Mar 25 2019 10:54 utc | 166
S @161:
Or maybe there are factions within the establishment. Maybe it’s not monolithic ...
Maybe, maybe ... but the truth is that on certain issues they are monolithic. Example: the duopoly (both Democrats and Republicans) support a strong military, Zionism, and oligarchical capitalism.
This is why the understanding that Hillary threw the election is so important. She didn't do it because she didn't want it, she did it to serve the interests of the AZ Empire as determined by a Deep State consensus. The AZ Empire's NWO faces a "grave crisis" due to the challenge from the Russia-China alliance.
What has developed in the West is a 'managed democracy' that has the trappings of democracy but isn't. It is controlled via a money-centered political system and powerful people who are dedicated to serving the Empire (like Bushes, Clintons, McCain, Kissinger, Brennan, Mueller, etc.).
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Mar 25 2019 14:42 utc | 167
Russiagate: Pat Lang describes the views of most Americans that are not suffering TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome), and it gets it all wrong:
1. Trump and his people did not conspire with the Russian government to fix the outcome of the 2016 election.
That doesn't mean there was no conspiracy - just that there was no conspiracy with Russia.
> The "Russian oligarchs" linked to Trump are Jewish and much more connected to Israel than Russia;> CIA/MI6 played a role: CIA uses British firms for US-domestic ops
America First Trump didn't need to hire British firm Cambridge Analytica; Steele is British/MI6; via the Integrity Initiative we learned that there was likely a British agent in the Sanders campaign.> Hillary threw the election to Trump; and Trump furthered the suspicions of his Russian connections by: hiring Manafort, calling on Russia to release Hillary's emails, etc.
3. IMO a great opportunity has been lost for improving relations with the Russian thermonuclear power... the Russiagate hoax blocked any possibility for improvement.
Wrong!
Trump played 'good cop' to the Deep State's 'bad cop'. That culminated with Trump's secret one-on-one meeting with Putin in June 2018 (The Helsinki Summit).
US-Russian relations haven't improved simply due to AZ Empire/Deep State demands that are unacceptable to Russia.
Hillary would've had no chance of making a pitch to Russia. Putin knows exactly what the Clintons are all about.
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Mar 25 2019 15:21 utc | 168
Matt Taibbi's article is a very good and detailed summary of all the Russiagate BS, including how the stories began and how they were eventually debunked but not reported. At the very end of the article he states that he accepted that the DNC servers were hacked by Russia, but he makes a few comments that show he now has some doubts. He will be all the way there when he realizes it is ALL lies, even the Russian 'interference', of which there was none, none at all.
Posted by: SteveK9 | Mar 25 2019 15:32 utc | 169
The Putin/Russia accusations by Hillary started quite a bit before the 2016 election. Check the dates---
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=hillary+says+putin+another+hitler
Posted by: arby | Mar 25 2019 16:31 utc | 170
>> "You either believe blah blah blah...."
Nope, Alter-voice-of-Jackrabbit, I believe that the imperial establishment that you worship tries to control elections but that they are incompetent and delusional and frequently screw up.
As for Jackrabbit's alter voice defending Jackrabbit and demanding where he said this or that, first point out where I made the claims that Jackrabbit knowingly and deliberately (and falsely) stated that I made. First answer directly to Jackrabbit's straw man claims and then I will consider taking your request seriously.
Posted by: William Gruff | Mar 25 2019 17:10 utc | 171
Jackrabbits alter voice stated: "That’s possible. If Trump ever does more than just talk about “lock her up” or (just now) prosecuting people who started this nonsense, it’d support your and Gruff’s hypotheses."
False.
Trump pushing for prosecution of the Clintons, Clapper, et al would invalidate my claim.
You are asserting the same straw man argument that Jackrabbit is. Odd that you two speak with one voice, is it not?
Point out where I have claimed that Trump and the imperial establishment are not one and the same thing.
For the slow learners or dishonest I will repeat from comment #93: "No, Trump is not the establishment outsider who upset the empire's plans despite how much Jackrabbit will disingenuously assert that is what my point is. "
Posted by: William Gruff | Mar 25 2019 17:19 utc | 172
Gruff: Alter-voice-of-Jackrabbit
Berating commenters doesn't improve your argument, which AFAICT consists of the following points:
1) The election was fixed for Hillary to win - including Trump as foil;2) Hillary's hubris and establishment stupidity upset the plan.
How many different ways can we say that this argument is flawed?
Your chief support for this argument is that the establishment screws up. A lot. This is far from sufficient to prove your point. The establishment also gets a lot right. And when they do, they don't crow about it, like: "hey look how we got this over on the dumbass people that we rule!! LOL. Aren't we fantastic?!"
Just ask the Yellow Vest protesters.
Furthermore, "Hillary's hubris" seems like quite a stretch, as I have explained (several times):
1) Hillary didn't need to collude against Sanders;2) Hillary wouldn't have alienated important constituencies if she really wanted to win, and she would've campaigned in the three mid-western states that she knew would decide the election (along with her running mate who has mid-western roots);
3) Hillary was HIGHLY MOTIVATED to get it right because it's her life-long dream to be the first woman president and the entire establishment was (supposedly) looking to her to defeat Trump.
Finally, you don't seem too upset that the election was fixed (as it seemed to be for Hillary). But you very much want to dismiss any speculation that the fix was for Trump - and it worked.
So go ahead and amuse us with your berating. LOL.
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Mar 25 2019 18:17 utc | 173
It's clear that JR is not married because he will never let an argument go, always has to get the last word in (no matter how many times he has to repeat the same thing), and always has to be right.
Posted by: Happily Married | Mar 25 2019 18:29 utc | 174
>>
"1) The election was fixed for Hillary to win - including Trump as foil;2) Hillary's hubris and establishment stupidity upset the plan."
Look at that! Jackrabbit inches closer to comprehension! Still no apology for the deliberate straw man argument so he will have to wait for an apology on being "berated"
Try the following to get even closer:
"1) The election was fixed for Hillary to win - including Trump as foil;2) Hillary's hubris and delusion and establishment hubris and stupidity upset the plan."
The fact is, though, that Clinton's intentions and motivations were largely irrelevant in 2016. She left the details in the hands of the supposed professionals. The establishment professionals just continued (from 2008) to badly misread the mood of the masses.
I will repeat for those slow to process: The imperial establishment (which includes Trump and Clinton and Bolton and Kissinger and so on) believed their plan to be foolproof. They had the "liberal" corporate mass media pulling for Clinton while Trump, pretending to be far to the right of the bulk of the electorate, pushed that electorate towards Clinton. Between these two top-level forces acting on the masses, what could go wrong?
Of course there were other forces that the establishment had in play to reinforce the desired results. The corporate mass media, particularly its entertainment wing, has been building up a narrative of historic neoliberal transformation of society for years now, attempting to build belief in it "being the time" for successive select minority groups. Clinton was supposed to take the presidency in 2008, Obama in 2016, and an as yet unspecified LGBTQIAPK individual was planned to "come out" for 2024. Obama's victory in 2008 upset the establishment's plan's somewhat, but not too badly... they recovered quickly. The establishment should have seen the writing on the wall then, but hubris and stupidity blinded them.
Hollywood productions have been structured to synergize with both Obama's ("First Black President!") and Clinton's ("First Woman President!") elections. Even the sexual assault and MeToo fad were prearranged to suggest the emergence of a new neoliberal/faux-progressive world order that was to coincide with a female president and help to distract from real leftist issues for at least another half decade and keep the focus off of economic demands. This was to dovetail with the humiliating defeat of "the deplorables" and "white supremecist fascists" personified by Trump's electoral defeat, reinforcing the self-censorship qualities of political correctness and identity politics that are so useful for chilling discussion outside of establishment sanctioned narratives.
Trump's victory exploded all of that, even though many of the separate parts of the plan continued to haltingly lurch forward (some of those sub-plans took years to set up and cannot be called off at the drop of a hat - Hollywood blockbusters take years to produce, for instance). It doesn't matter that it was unintentional. The establishment had been counting on this chilling effect of massively reinforced identity politics and political correctness to help tame social media, making the entire social realm of the Internet over into "safe spaces" where anything other than discussion of things like cat memes is verboten, but with that plan shattered they had to move quickly towards outright censorship. That "Plan B" has been far from ideal but it is holding for the time being.
There is no way that the imperial establishment intentionally sabotaged its own tools used to get the masses to self-censor and forcing themselves to go with overt censorship. Trump's defeat was supposed to nail shut the coffin for the anti-political-correctness crowd. To do that he had to be raised up as the anti-PC champion. Likewise to hand a big victory to the neoliberal identity politics efforts Trump was elevated to be the anti-IP champion. When Trump was handed a humiliating defeat then the PC and IP efforts whould have received a huge boost. Why would the imperial establishment have destroyed their own psych weapons by giving the victory to Trump? Trump's victory has set them back years, if not decades in this regard. Trump's defeat was supposed to close the Overton Window. Now it has been blown wide open. That's hardly something that the imperial establishment has wanted.
Posted by: William Gruff | Mar 25 2019 20:00 utc | 176
Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi, that was the chant for years, while the Repubs were out of power.
Now, the chant has become; Mueller, Mueller, Mueller, and will be, for the next year and a half.
Guess you might say, "what goes around, comes around", but meanwhile, all the oxygen is sucked from the needed debate over the important issues that working Americans want to have discussed.
Which, IMO, is the real point. So, don't look for any real issues to be broached and discussed in the upcoming political season.
At least on MS corporate media TV, where most U$Aens get their "news"..
Posted by: ben | Mar 25 2019 20:28 utc | 177
Jackrabbit @18
It occurred to me as I read your latest iteration of the Grand Electoral Conspiracy that the Deep State went very deep indeed to induce the hapless populace to elect a repugnant nationalist, when they could have simply groomed a charismatic nationalist who did not need a repulsive witch as a counterfoil in order to get elected and whip the nation into a patriotic frenzy. But then it came to me - we being mere playthings of the Gods - that the whole Trump vs Hilary thing was staged for the purposes of settling a bet between the top oligarchs, who, being bored with their vast wealth and virtual 100% control of events, have nothing better to do to entertain themselves. The winner gets Venezuela. It's all falling into place....
Posted by: Activist Potato | Mar 25 2019 22:38 utc | 178
Gruff
1) I reject your strawman accusation.
2) I don't buy your narrative. Maybe some will. But I've become cynical due to the heavy propaganda and psyop bullshit and the managed democracy that pervades our politics. So your Democracy works!! messaging is neither comforting nor convincing.
3) Repeating: Yes, the establishment did screw up: They allowed Russia and China to come together. Kissinger sounded the alarm in his WSJ Op-Ed of August 2014. The establishment (to their credit) adjusted accordingly.
This is where your narrative fails. Because it was TRUMP, not Hillary(!), that took up the MAGA cause that Kissinger had called for. Hillary has great respect for Kissinger, as did McCain. These are the leaders of the US political and FP establishment.
With this backdrop/context, the strange goings-on of the 2016 Presidential election and Trump's 2 years in office becomes understandable:
> Trump's romp through the Republican primaries as the ONLY populist (out of 19 contenders). Trump's media attention doesn't explain why the other 18 seasoned political candidates didn't adjust to Trump's success or complain loudly about the media.> Hillary's alienating important voter groups and not campaigning in key states;
> Trump placing friends and associates of this (supposed) enemies into his Administration: Pence, Bolton, Barr, Haspel, etc.
We can even question Trump's hiring of Manafort, urging Russia to release Hillary's emails, and praising Wikileaks. Were these playing along? Why would 'America First' Trump hire Ukrainian Manafort and British Cambridge Analytical except to further Russiagate suspicions and allow for CIA/MI6 meddling?
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Mar 26 2019 1:48 utc | 179
Activist Potato @178: they could have simply groomed a charismatic nationalist
Please see my comment @179.
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Mar 26 2019 1:49 utc | 180
@JR #179
Your insistence that I was claiming Trump to be an establishment outsider and genuine challenger for the presidency is a straw man argument that I accurately predicted you would make back in post #93. Furthermore you keep redirecting the charge of establishment mistakes to "They allowed Russia and China to come together", which is an odd "mistake" to fixate on out of the thousands the imperial establishment has been making.
Trump's campaign MAGA mantra involved pulling America back from foreign entanglements. This much-vaunted isolationism was intended to be another target of Trump's planned defeat, providing cover for Clinton's aggressive foreign policy. With isolationism firmly defeated in the election, the corporate mass media would have crowed that there was a "mandate" for Clinton's air campaign against Syria. THAT is what Kissinger wanted, not MAGA isolationism.
You continue to have difficulty with the idea that Trump was deliberately running as a foil... as the villain in The Show.
What happens to the claims of the villain when he is shot down in flames? Trump's praise for Wikileaks then become a stain instead of benefit. After defeat the implications that the Russians might have Clinton's emails get reduced to conspiracy theory and are resoundingly ridiculed in the corporate mass media. Had Trump lost, everything he had touched during the election would have been subjected to the reverse Midas Touch effect, giving the mass media the means to attack those things. Of course the corporate mass media tried to go ahead with those plans anyway, but with Trump the victor they got far less traction than they would had Clinton won.
And what do contact with neo-Nazis in Ukraine and Cambridge Analytica have to do with Russia? Exposing these issues did more damage to the establishment than any benefit you seem to think they accrued from it. Instead it forced the CIA/MI6 to take defensive measures rather than enabling them to extend their influence. Do you imagine they would have gone forward with the bungled Skripal affair if their hand had not been forced? These organizations are supposed to operate below the radar, not be the topics of social media discussions. Trump's win exposed them far more than they considered acceptable.
Posted by: William Gruff | Mar 26 2019 10:59 utc | 181
Gruff: Trump's campaign MAGA mantra ... THAT is what Kissinger wanted, not MAGA isolationism.
Trump is not an isolationist. Hasn't he proven that by now? But the pretense that he was isolationist was used to pretend that he had peaceful intentions. It was a core anti-establishment that fit with his populism but Trump and Obama are faux populists. A real populist can't be elected in USA.
Similarly, Obama - another faux populist was portrayed as a man of peace. But it is the Deep State that calls the tune and Obama danced to it in Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Afghanistan, etc. He even boasted of his drone-targeting abilities.
<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
Cambridge Analytica is another example of British involvement. CIA uses MI6 for US-domestic ops.
Manafort as campaign manager furthered the "Russian influence" suspicions.
Among other things, CIA/MI6 wanted to shutdown Wikileaks/Assange. They did that by leaking DNC emails to Wikileaks while blaming a Russian 'hack'. Wikileaks publication of the emails was then portrayed as Wikileaks "acting as the agent of a foreign power".
Once again, it's strange that "America First" Trump hired foreign firms/people for key roles. We have come to learn that Facebook provided similar access to many firms (including many American firms).
<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
I never claimed that Trump is an establishment outsider. You have mistakenly read that into something I wrote. I think it's clear that my thesis requires Trump to be a duplicitous insider (like Obama). And Trump's bringing friends of his supposed enemies into his Administration is just more proof of that.
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Mar 26 2019 11:29 utc | 182
@JR #182 sez: "A real populist can't be elected in USA"
Correct! A real populist would never be allowed in the White House.
Of course I am not saying Trump was a real populist. I never have said such a thing. Trump just played a populist on TV. On stage too, but that is the same thing for a Reality TV star. The point of that being when Clinton was installed in the White House populism itself was to be cast as the loser by the corporate mass media due to being associated with Trump. This was intended to take the wind out of the sails of populist movements in general, like the one that Sanders rode on. Trump winning, on the other hand, has emboldened populist movements worldwide. Boosting populist movements across the empire is the opposite of what the imperial establishment was trying to accomplish, therefore Trump's victory was not what the establishment intended.
Yes, Guccifer 2.0 is a CIA cutout. Everyone here knows that. We all also know that there were two tranches of emails provided to Wikileaks: the innocuous ones from the CIA (Guccifer 2.0) and the more damaging ones most likely provided by Seth Rich, all of which were copied locally at DNC headquarters to USB drives. None of this has anything whatsoever to do with Trump or Russians. It never did, so you bringing it up in this discussion makes no sense.
As for Manafort, he wasn't a go-between for Trump and Putin. The "suspicion" that he was such a link was fabricated from whole cloth. There is nothing that would have prevented Mueller and the corporate mass media from manufacturing the same "suspicions" about anyone who happened to be Trump's campaign manager. Since there was nothing there to begin with, the same nothingburger could have been cooked up against literally anyone, even Mueller himself. All it would require is for the authoritative-sounding talking heads in the corporate mass media to chant it in unison. That said, how is it that you perceive this to be proof that the establishment intended a Trump victory? The anti-Russia hysteria has been demonstrated to be baseless, so if the imperial establishment wants to whip that hysteria up they've already shown they don't need any target with contacts to people with Slavic sounding names. Indeed, none of what you posted is any sort of evidence that the establishment intended Trump to win, only that Trump was included to a degree in the establishment plans.
Posted by: William Gruff | Mar 26 2019 20:03 utc | 183
JR @#182 sez: "Trump is not an isolationist."
Of course not! Again, Trump just played an isolationist on TV. He is an actor in The Show.
It is weird that you cannot grasp how this works. A victorious election campaign will energize the masses around the issues championed in that campaign, while a failed election campaign will choke those issues that were campaigned on. That's why Trump was supposed to lose. What makes you think the imperial establishment would want to actually encourage things like isolationism and populism?
Posted by: William Gruff | Mar 26 2019 20:14 utc | 184
Here's why the the end of the collusion story story doesn't stop the overall momentum. You could think right, once people know the collusion story was hot air then they will start doubting the rest. And there will be some effect. My estimate is that it's not that strong. Watch this documentary. It's long but it is an excercise in observing how persuasive it is and to understand the narrative being imprinted upon us : https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/12/opinion/russia-meddling-disinformation-fake-news-elections.html or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR_6dibpDfo . It's an excellent narrative and it's published at the authoritative NYTimes. It doesn't depend on Trump, he only gets the role of the useful idiot. And it's all about the information war with Russia.
Given that momentum I can only see Trump going on board as well(and his actions already were on board).
I have heard of some of the people on it. Experts on the foreground: Ed Lucas encountered in the documents of the Integrity Initiative. Clint Watts I know form the Hamilton64 Dashboard. John Sipher : always there promoting 'the right people'. Never heard of Claire Wardle or Adam Ellick.
Posted by: Tuyzentfloot | Mar 26 2019 21:58 utc | 185
GRuff: It is weird that you cannot grasp how this works.
It's weird how you keep obfuscating the issue.
I have said this numerous times now:
Kissinger called for MAGA in August 2014 in response to the Russia-Chinese challenge.Trump (not Hillary!) was the MAGA candidate.
Trump won because the Deep State wanted a nationalist. A nationalist does several important things for the Deep State: promotes patriotism and the will-to-fight, acts as a 'good cop' in negotiations with Putin, etc.
Hillary had too much baggage for these things but she made the perfect establishment foil to elect whomever the Deep State wanted.
Interestingly enough, Trump is a long-time friend of the Clintons, while VP Pence is a long-time friend of McCain. And Gina Haspel is an acolyte of Brennan, and Wm Barr is a long-time friend of Mueller, etc. And the necons are also well represented (Bolton, Abrams, and others). So the gangs all here - with nationalist Trump as the figurehead.
If they had wanted Hillary to win, she would have. Hillary is a team player so she helped Trump to win and helped the Deep State to promote McCarthyism.
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Mar 26 2019 22:12 utc | 186
The desinformation do not stop!
Just watched Maddow and Scarborough respond to the Mueller news. I have no words. They're basically ignoring what just happened and doubling down like they did nothing wrong. No accountability for the media, WMDs all over again.
If Barr's summary of the report was incorrect (no more indictments, no recommendation of impeachment, no evidence of collusion), mueller or his team 100% would've spoken to the media to correct Barr, they didn't. C'mon dude think about this stuff. It's really basic.https://twitter.com/KyleKulinski/status/1111081789932687360
Posted by: CISS | Mar 28 2019 8:46 utc | 187
The comments to this entry are closed.
Ben@68 - I think you've misjudged her character, she's a diva. If she had planned to lose, she might have had a concession speech ready but she couldn't even face her supporters. John Podesta had to do that for her.
Jackrabbit -
@69 Thanks for setting me straight on that one. Here I was thinking that electors can vote however they want. Turns out that if they do, they are labeled "faithless" and suffer no penalty. And since it's only been that one time that they've changed the results of an election, it doesn't really count, right? I'm sure that the election in question was immediately invalidated and the faithless electors punished. Or not?
@70 GS already responded to this but I was going by her collapse at that 9/11 ceremony and that weird seizure caught on video.
@73 Well, if her pantsuits don't inspire the troops, case closed. Cozying up to all those neocons was such a waste of time when she should have been focused on her wardrobe.
Zachary Smith and Ghost Ship - there were things in the campaign that seemed coordinated to me. Like when Trump called her a "nasty" woman and then Boom! the Clinton camp rolled out their "nasty" campaign, complete with Madonna offering fellatio for votes. Can't imagine how that didn't cinch her the election.
Posted by: mourning dove | Mar 24 2019 14:58 utc | 101