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October 25, 2019
Russiagate Probe Has Some Ambiguous News

Here is a news wording that I, as a non-native English speaker, can easily understand.

Justice Dept. Is Said to Open Criminal Inquiry Into Its Own Russia Investigation

Justice Department officials have shifted an administrative review of the Russia investigation closely overseen by Attorney General William P. Barr to a criminal inquiry, according to two people familiar with the matter. The move gives the prosecutor running it, John H. Durham, the power to subpoena for witness testimony and documents, to convene a grand jury and to file criminal charges.

In contrast these formulations in Bezos' blog on the very same issue are confusing me.

Justice Dept. investigation of Russia probe is criminal in nature, person familiar with case says

The federal prosecutor tapped by Attorney General William P. Barr to examine the origins of the FBI’s probe of President Trump’s 2016 campaign is conducting an investigation officials consider criminal in nature, according to a person familiar with the matter.
…
The significance of officials deeming Durham’s probe “criminal” is difficult to determine by itself.
…
It was not immediately clear whether officials’ consideration of his work as criminal represented a shift in the seriousness of his investigation or whether a grand jury had been convened.

Durham's work is considered as criminal? The investigation itself has committed a crime? The attorney is a criminal?

One wonders if this choice of phrasing was intended to be ambiguous.

Anyway.

I for one will cheer when Durham puts handcuffs on John Brennan.

Posted by b on October 25, 2019 at 12:09 UTC | Permalink
Comments

i’ll drink to that, too. we’re not the only ones.

Posted by: alain | Oct 25 2019 12:14 utc | 1

The official GOP talking points are that the Impeachment trial is a Deep State partisan witch hunt, being conducted in private and the equivalent of a coup or an attempt to overturn the 2016 elections. This is just being done to create some image that those talking points are substantiated.

Posted by: ralphieboy | Oct 25 2019 12:15 utc | 2

WaPo text looks un-edited, bad grammar, missing particles, solecisms, tsk.

Posted by: Bemildred | Oct 25 2019 12:40 utc | 3

I will cheer when someone puts handcuffs on John Brennan and will also cheer when Donald J. TRUMP is led away in handcuffs blubbering like a baby like he too deserves!

Posted by: Circe | Oct 25 2019 12:40 utc | 4

why only John Brennan? Comey as well and all those shenanigans!

Posted by: Andrew Weed | Oct 25 2019 12:49 utc | 5

IMO this investigation of the Mueller investigation is one part revenge and the rest is gathering the evidence against Trump in order to bury it ahead of Trumps reelection. The full Mueller report nor the evidence to produce it have been released and with this new investigation controlled by Trumps protector it never will be while Barr and Trump are still in power. The conservative ruling power elite are staging a coup in America in order to establish permanent conservative minority control of the levers of power and they see this as their last best hope of achieving that goal. Buckle up this is going to get ugly as the conservatives are starting to panic.

Posted by: Charles Misfeldt | Oct 25 2019 13:03 utc | 6

Brennan in cuffs will require his partners in crime at the Oval Office meeting of the principles in late 2016 to be led away in handcuffs also. The 2016 Oval Office meeting which launched the FISA court referral will necessarily implicate the POTUS. However, I don’t see these events materializing because compared to the president Trump replaced, Trump has been far less urbane, educated and civil. All we usually ask of presidents is to be cool and sophisticated when ordering the drone murders of our fellow U.S. Citizens, case in point as ordered by Barack Obama with the 8-year old Nasser al Awlaki and her 16-year old brother, Abdulrahman.

Posted by: Rich | Oct 25 2019 13:10 utc | 7

Tax evasion took down gangster Al Capone.
Like Al Capone a lesser charge will have John Brennan viewing the world through iron bars.
For the intelligence community to actively attempt to decide an election and then actively attempt the coup of a President
is damn, damn, damn serious but it pales in comparison to the 9/11 false flag. John Brennan stood at the apex of the 9/11 treachery (interestingly, Robert Mueller was involved too, but his role appears limited to the cover up). It appears John Brennan will get away with 9/11.
But, like Al Capone, John Brennan will live out his life caged up with his own kind.

Posted by: librul | Oct 25 2019 13:20 utc | 8

why only John Brennan? Comey as well and all those shenanigans!
Posted by: Andrew Weed | Oct 25 2019 12:49 utc | 5
Why not the whole shebang?! They all have blood on their hands.

Posted by: Barovsky | Oct 25 2019 13:45 utc | 9

From the early days of Russiagate I expected that the truth would
never come out. (This is the US of A, after all) Democrats would continue to live in their media
shaped delusions. (I am a Green Party voter).
What truth did come out would be shaped by the media to keep the
Democratic voters steadfast in their heartfelt delusions.
Reuters has an article linked from their front page that is
similar in intent to the Bezo-blog that b has pointed out.
I tried to choose a couple of paragraphs from the Reuters article
so that you would get the intent of it, but it is the *whole* thing,
so read it.
**While reading it** try and see the article from the viewpoint
of a brainwashed Democrat. The article was designed to feed
confirmation bias.
Read the whole thing, please.
Here are two unsurprising paragraphs:

Democrats and some former law enforcement officials say Barr is using the Justice Department to chase unsubstantiated conspiracy theories that could benefit the Republican president politically and undermine former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.

Mueller’s investigation found that Moscow interfered in the 2016 election to help Trump, and led to criminal convictions of several former campaign aides. But Mueller concluded that he did not have enough evidence to establish a criminal conspiracy with Russia.

U.S. Justice Department Russia probe review now criminal investigation: source

Posted by: librul | Oct 25 2019 13:47 utc | 10

The wording is on purpose to allow a large segment of their low IQ readers to misunderstand the implications of the new development.

Posted by: GDPBULL | Oct 25 2019 14:12 utc | 11

Well, James Howard Kunstler has been waiting expectantly for a long time for this to begin, and he’s crowing today.
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/the-sound-of-shoes-dropping-in-the-night/
The short of it: They’re now already acting like a bunch of cockroaches scrambling when the light’s turned on, all looking to pin the blame on someone else.
He’d also love to see leading media propagandists charged, something I wholeheartedly agree with. (Though I’d string up all the propagandists for much worse crimes than Russiagate, which like “impeachment” was never anything more than retarded political theater.)

Posted by: Russ | Oct 25 2019 14:48 utc | 12

Only two options here folks: Either the Washington Bezos Post is a) staffed by deliberate liars or it is b) staffed by morons who cannot construct a comprehensible sentence.
Well, there is a third possibility: c) Both of the above.

Posted by: William Gruff | Oct 25 2019 15:33 utc | 13

The US is now a country that has a growing cabal of current and past leadership that are criminally complicit in deceiving the American public as is detailed in the Joe Rogan Experience #1368 – Edward Snowden video that is almost 3 hours long….see Petri comment # 67 in Open Thread for link…..this is not Snowden the glitz movie but Snowden the very intelligent and humanistically patriotic person.
The recent phase of deception, according to Snowden has its roots in the 3 letter spy agencies having overstepped constitutional bounds after 9/11. While the deception about monitoring of Americans is criminal, its long term underlying goal is, and has been, to cover up the take over of America by the international cult behind private finance led empire.
In case all missed the slow frog boiling transition, what use to be a country that was established to be by and for the people (E Pluribus Unum) has now been turned into a tool of unilateral financial control of the world that is faltering because China/Russia, et al are not going along with the program.
The ongoing deception house of cards is collapsing as Might-Makes-Right can no longer hold it together. The demise of the private finance/property/inheritance centered social contract of the West is not a straight forward collapse as we are seeing, but collapsing it is.
How so very interesting to watch unfold…..as Snowden would encourage you, each of us has our opportunity to play our part in evolving our society…..play your part without fear like Snowden encourages and has provided such moving example of.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Oct 25 2019 15:36 utc | 14

I find it impossible to get my hopes up that justice will ever be served to anyone in a position of authority or malign influence in this country because they’re all part of the same Kabuki theater designed to keep us divided, confused, and unable to coalesce around a strategy to confront them.
These investigations are always the stalling tactic they use to keep one side hoping for justice while making the opposing side feel that it’s the victim of a witch hunt, and invariable both sides will be disappointed in the results while the power structure will remain intact.
The only time anything resembling “justice” is served is when some low-level persons with enough name recognition to make headlines, i.e. Martha Steward or these celebrity parents who paid to get their kids into college, are sacrificed in order to maintain the illusion of a functioning justice system. In reality the justice system we have is nothing more than another line in the phalanx of defense the ruling elites (see: globalists, capitalists, zionists) have built to protect their corrupt position of power.
Nobody who lies us into wars, orchestrates terrorist attacks (real or synthetic) against us, or smuggles heroin from Afghanistan to a city near you as part of a domestic destabilization campaign will ever get into trouble until we bring that trouble directly to them outside of official channels.

Posted by: information_agent | Oct 25 2019 15:38 utc | 15

Fuzzball @ 6:
To your list of indictments of Mueller you might add his role in the run up to 9/11 and in its (non)investigation; the Whitey Bulger travesty in Boston; Uranium One. I’m sure there’s more. Precisely contrary to the Paladin of integrity portrait of Mueller, the Swamp would have so much on this guy as to make him a safe pair of hands with the Russiagate IO. Who else (unless senile) would want that turkey on their record?

Posted by: Paul Damascene | Oct 25 2019 15:45 utc | 16

Fuzzball @ 6–
And to your list of other perps, we might consider adding:
Cheryl Mills, Clinton counsel
Susan Rice
Samantha Power
Comey the canary
Clinton herself
Glenn Simpson
and Mr. No-Scandal himself, Hoops and change $$ cha-ching.

Posted by: Paul Damascene | Oct 25 2019 15:49 utc | 17

That WashPost article, born to confuse, is bizarre. Good catch.
As for Durham, is it known here that he has a track record of covering up for CIA misdeeds: viz., briefly, torture and destruction of evidence of torture? A pretty odd choice for Trump to have made to uncover the plot against him.

Posted by: David G | Oct 25 2019 15:52 utc | 18

re: the quote from Reuters by librul @12 “…Mueller … did not have enough evidence to establish a criminal conspiracy…”
In other words the Mueller investigation literally was a conspiracy theory.
Any mass media organization that discusses “conspiracy theories” but fails to point out this biggest one of them all is engaged in deliberate deceit.

Posted by: William Gruff | Oct 25 2019 15:52 utc | 19

Here is Sidney Powell, General Michael Flynn’s Attorney on that “Insurance Policy” of Peter Strzok and his lover Lisa Page:
Bombshell Court Filing Shows Michael Flynn FBI Interview Transcript Edited to Incriminate Him

In a seismic legal filing, lawyers for Michael Flynn, Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, have produced evidence they allege points to a “plot to set up an innocent man and create a crime” – conduct “so shocking to the conscience and so inimical to our system” they argue the case against him must be dismissed.
In the document, Flynn’s lead legal representative Sydney Powell contends the very foundation of his prosecution, a 24th January 2017 FBI interview in which the Bureau alleges he lied about speaking with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak in December 2016.[.]
[.]
“I made your edits” to Michael Flynn’s 302—his FBI report from the interview Mueller used to convict him
What edits were made?
Were they a part of their “ insurance policy”
Who knew?
We need answers.[.]

We are going to need a lot of orange suits.

Posted by: Likklemore | Oct 25 2019 16:51 utc | 20

This is a long inteview with Angelo Codevilla, a conservative writer, academic, and card carrying member of the Borg. I first ran into him around the time Russia went in to save Assad, in Asia Times. Some interesting views on the Borg, Russiagate, Snowden, Syria, Kissinger, etc.
The Codevilla Tapes

Posted by: Bemildred | Oct 25 2019 16:52 utc | 21

Once upon a time if a person having a superior position in government or business got caught in an indisgression that impugned his/her honor, the individual would pull their pistol from their desk drawer and solve the problem as that was deemed the right & proper course of action–the honorable thing to do to redeem one’s self. Thus once discovered after his first incident, for example, Bill Clinton would have spared us all much crap by ending his days while Governor of Arkansas; and before him, Nixon; and before him, Ike; and before him, Truman; Boeing’s CEO; etc. Alas, there’s no sense of honor held by those seeking high office or corporate leadership. Perhaps the only such person to ever have publicly expressed any contrition for his position was Andrew Carnegie in his Gospel of Wealth. But Philanthropy cannot ever atone for violation of the public trust. Even gangsters have a Code of Honor, but US politicians and all too many bureaucrats–nah: their code is anything goes in the pursuit of power. IMO, it’s such Moral Bankruptcy that gnaws at most of us barflies regardless of our politics. The Ds are just as guilty as the Rs but none ever go to jail or get impeached, although occasionally one resigns. On more than one occasion, I’ve thought it best just to liquidate the entire governing structure, instruments and denizens of the federal government and begin again from scratch.
It seems fair to observe that the transition from the Depression to the final depravity of WW2 must have collectively damaged/shifted the nation’s moral center, or is that merely wishful thinking in order to deal with the reality that at bottom the USA is a massively immoral construct that must constantly lie to itself lest it wake up to its depravity. How would kids today even sense that? Easy, through the utterly depraved levels of violence present within things deemed games that teach how to dehumanize and kill other humans at a very young age. So, it’s actually very simple: A sick, depraved society produces a sick, depraved government and businesses. One wonders what sort of entity is In God We Trust.

Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 25 2019 16:56 utc | 22

A number of weeks ago I was sent an email by one of my state Senators, Jeff Merkley. I shared that email with fellow barflys as well as my response. Just today I received a “response” to my rant about our failing country and below is that email which I think is indicative of how lost America has become…..this is from what many would consider to be one of the “better/progressive/representative of the people” Senators in the US….sigh
”
Dear James,
Thank you for contacting me to share your views about President Trump and the impeachment inquiry opened in the House of Representatives. I appreciate hearing from you on this serious issue.
I have heard from Oregonians in large numbers expressing their concerns about statements made and actions taken by President Trump. I have also heard from some Oregonians who oppose the impeachment inquiry. I would much prefer that the Senate take up the many House-passed bills to address the real needs of working Oregonians, but I also believe we have a sworn constitutional duty to uphold the rule of law and ensure that federal office-holders are using their powers for the public interest, not their own.
Testimony and accounts from a number of people directly involved in U.S. foreign policy lay out extensive efforts by President Trump and his aides to pressure the Ukrainian government to investigate President Trump’s political opponents and, it appears, to condition U.S. aid on whether Ukraine succumbed to that pressure. The president also publicly called on the governments of both Ukraine and China to investigate his political opponents during a press conference on the White House lawn.
These actions are deeply concerning. The goal of U.S. foreign policy should always be to protect American interests and American security. We cannot sacrifice those core objectives for any individual’s political or personal gain. The Founders were worried about exactly this scenario, of a president corrupting U.S. foreign policy to serve himself, rather than the American public, and explicitly discussed it during the Constitutional Convention as a prime rationale for impeachment.
I also believe that the detailed case laid out by the Special Counsel of obstruction of justice by the President warrants impeachment. Over 1,000 former federal prosecutors of both parties have written to Congress to say that any other individual would be indicted on multiple felony counts based on the evidence compiled by the Special Counsel.
I believe in those words carved above the Supreme Court, “Equal Justice Under Law.” If the Department of Justice will not indict a sitting president then impeachment is the only avenue available to ensure that nobody, not even the president, is above the law.
Impeachment should never be taken lightly, and never be used as a tool of partisan politics. Disliking a president or their policy choices is not grounds for impeachment, but a president corrupting his office and subverting the rule of law is. If the House does take the solemn step of impeaching the President, I will work to ensure that there is a fair trial in the Senate that presents the American people with a complete picture of the evidence and the appropriate context to understand its significance.
I will continue to fight for an America where every individual – no matter how powerful – is held accountable to the law. America’s founders created the impeachment process precisely for that reason.
Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and your engagement in our democracy. I hope you continue to contact me about issues that matter to you.
All my best,
Jeffrey A. Merkley
United States Senator
”
So the kabuki hiding the cult of global private finance empire continues

Posted by: psychohistorian | Oct 25 2019 17:09 utc | 23

@25–
“Equal Justice Under Law” Why wasn’t that applied to Obama and Clinton since Merkley was Senator then? What about Pelosi for not doing her duty to impeach George W Bush? And as we all know, the list could go on and on. As I wrote above @24, Immorality rules the roost. There’re an average of 135 suicides daily within the USA, but none of them are politicos. IMO, they need to do their part too and not leave it up to veterans.

Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 25 2019 17:53 utc | 24

@psychohistorian. 25
Senator Merkley’s letter, although sounding nice and righteous, fails to address the selectivity in “Equal justice under law” that plagues this judicial system, hence rendering it useless. If there was equality in justice, they should go back to the crimes of Reagan, the Bushes, the Clintons and Obama before they get to Trump. By the way, Trump is guilty of many crimes and I’m not discounting them, worst of all posing as a president.
The exhibit below is just a sample of how the deep state is working feverishly to get their agenda back on tack. John Bolton who is the embodiment of the rot and filth that that exist in American politics is now throwing more fuel into this fire.
Goes to show that there is no line between the democrats and republicans. These animals are all woven from the same cloth.
https://sputniknews.com/us/201910251077151859-fired-trump-advisor-boltons-lawyers-in-touch-with-democrats-impeachment-probe–report/

Posted by: Alpi | Oct 25 2019 18:05 utc | 25

Obama will get away – no one wants to prosecute a black president. But by 2035 he will be known as the president with the worst reputation in history.

Posted by: Michael Droy | Oct 25 2019 18:08 utc | 26

Brennan knows where all the bodys are buried, much as I’d like to see him behind bars,
Its about as likely as me keeping Unicorns in my back paddock.
Sorry, the game is delay, delay and delay.
Its a threat and warning from Trump, but a bluff, because it simply will not happen.

Posted by: winston2 | Oct 25 2019 18:13 utc | 27

@Bemildred #23
Second the reference.
And I add this snippet: bold is David Samuels, not bold is Angelo Codevilla

There was one quote, I forget who it came from, but it came out of an interaction of one of the reasonably high-up war planners in the Defense Department and a journalist for, I think it was, The Atlantic. And the quote was that power creates its own reality. So it doesn’t matter what we say, because even if it’s not true now, by the time we’re finished we will make it true. And therefore there is no real difference between statements that are true or false, as long as we make them.
Do you have the sense that a similar attempt to manufacture reality was at play in what at this point are the still-unknown interactions between the CIA, the FBI, and the Obama White House with regard to the surveillance of Donald Trump’s associates, and the attempt to suggest some vast Putin-Trump conspiracy to game American elections, and whatnot?
I don’t think that it went that far. Or I should say, I don’t think the people involved thought about it that deeply.
I would agree.
I think what you had was a small pooling of resources to tweak the news cycle with regard to the hacking of the Democratic National Committee, which then turned into something very major.
After the election.
After the election. It was, like Watergate, a minor attempt to gain marginal advantage. Which then, unintended by the people involved at the time, became something very big, which escaped everyone’s control.
I believe that there are a whole bunch of people in Washington right now who are quaking in their boots because the House Intelligence Committee has shaken loose some of the documents involved. Because in the long run there are no secrets in Washington. And one can then wonder about the quality of the people who imagined that the things they did could remain secret.
It really was a marvel. The idea was that if we all say it together long enough and we shout it loud so nothing else can be heard, then it will become the effective truth, Machiavelli’s verita effettuale. But I mean, there is a limit to this. I have some close personal friends who are more on the left, and I said to them: OK. Where’s the evidence? Who did what when to whom? Where are the quids and where are the quos? What’s going on here? And all they could say is, “Well, the investigation is going on.”
What is not clear is just how much of the reality will come into the public’s consciousness.
Whose fault is this?
The fault here is not of Democrats on the left. The fault here is of Donald Trump and his friends who have refused to enforce the most basic laws here. The most obvious one is Section 798, (18 U.S. Code), the simple comment statute. Now anybody in the intelligence business knows that this is the live wire of security law. It is a strict liability statute. It states that any revelation, regardless of circumstance or intent, any revelation period, of anything having to do with U.S. communications intelligence is punishable by the 10 and 10. Ten years in the slammer, and $10,000 fine. Per count.
Now the folks who went to The Washington Post and The New York Times in November and December of 2016 and peddled this story of the intelligence community’s conclusion that Trump and the Trump campaign had colluded with Russia, these people ipso facto violated §798.
Considering these matters are highly classified, and that the number of the people involved is necessarily very small, identifying them is child’s play. But no effort to do that has been made.

Posted by: c1ue | Oct 25 2019 18:32 utc | 28

@ Posted by: Michael Droy | Oct 25 2019 18:08 utc | 28
I doubt it (the second part) — are you familiar with the depth of delusion of his supporters? It’s all about perception; they never noticed the underlying reality of his tenure, so why would they start? They’ll be more than happy to attribute it all to Agent Orange or whoever becomes their subsequent bête noire/obsessive hate figure.

Posted by: AshenLight | Oct 25 2019 18:34 utc | 29

I just hope its not:
Bombshell: criminal investigation
Its the Tipping Point
The Walls are Closing In
The Beginning of the End
….
I hope they get a Comey or a Clapper and not just give us a Strozk.

Posted by: jonny law | Oct 25 2019 18:45 utc | 30

>Why not the whole shebang?! They all have blood on their hands.
>Posted by: Barovsky | Oct 25 2019 13:45 utc | 11
Because there would be no one left to give orders to the peons! How would we know what to do without self-important Dear Leaders incorrectly telling us how to do our jobs, like at Boeing?
Yes they all have blood on their hands. The motto “We must all hang together or we shall surely all hang separately” comes to mind, except that there is no honor among these thieves. Instead the DC Dunces have formed a circular firing squad, and everyone is waiting to see who will shoot first.

Posted by: Trailer Trash | Oct 25 2019 19:16 utc | 31

Here’s a report saying the slogan to be used in protests this weekend against Trump is “Nobody is Above the Law.” Unfortunately, that’s one of the biggest of all BigLies. If that were true, then we wouldn’t be having this Impeachment free-for-all at all because Trump and all his predecessors would already be in jail along with most of Congress, numerous bureaucrats and businesspeople. It’s a crying shame I’m barred from commenting at the website I cited, but that’s because I called out the crimes of Obama and Clinton, et al–talk about double standards and total lack of credibility. If I were to attend one of the protests, I’d carry a placard calling out the BigLie. If any barflies do, I hope they’ll carry a similar placard as the wholesale lack of applying the law is at the root of our collective corruption problem.

Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 25 2019 19:25 utc | 32

The Jeff Bozo Propaganda Rag article was written by one Matt Zapotosky who covers Justice Dept issues for the newspaper’s national security team. He has a Bachelor of Journalism degree from Ohio University.
Does this background seem to MoA barflies to be a bit odd? Shouldn’t writers specialising in Justice Dept issues have some understanding of the legal system and its operations, to the extent of having law degrees themselves? Does the national security team at WaPo not smell as if it’s stacked to the rafters with intel agents telling people what to write?
One wonders also what Journalism students are taught at universities in Western countries these days.

Posted by: Jen | Oct 25 2019 19:43 utc | 33

How is it that Trump demonstrators, whether for him or against him, are unable to notice the Empire’s world-wide killing machine that never sleeps? Huge crowds around the world shouted “Hands Off Iraq” before the 2003 invasion. What happened to them? Did they all get too old and sick to do anything anymore?

Posted by: Trailer Trash | Oct 25 2019 19:43 utc | 34

Administrative investigation: purely internal, with only disciplinary consequences.
Criminal investigation: involves law violation and law enforcing institutions, have criminal consequences.

Posted by: vk | Oct 25 2019 19:52 utc | 35

I used to know a journalism professor. He said most of his students were preparing for a corporate career in public relations. Not many were interested in learning how to reveal the crimes of the empire.
It was similar with a labor law class I audited a long time ago. I was the only labor-oriented student. The rest were headed for “human resources management” or to be corporate anti-labor lawyers.

Posted by: Trailer Trash | Oct 25 2019 19:54 utc | 36

karlof1 #34
Common dreams = common delusions
My placard might be “jail Clinton and Biden”
Sure there are many on the list, but those two are my strategic choice.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Oct 25 2019 20:15 utc | 37

thanks b… it is hard to see this getting traction if the msm is unwilling to address the news in an unbiased manner, or leaves out critical information on what is taking place inside the political system of the usa and the role that the cia-fbi has played in creating the mueller investigation… thus the question of just who is Joseph Mifsud, remains off the radar of most, in spite of how important this question about who he is in all of this… disobedient media was asking this same question back in an article from april 4 2018 – All Russiagate Roads Lead To London As Evidence Emerges Of Joseph Mifsud’s Links To UK Intelligence
i just can’t see the msm cooperating here and that means trumps pushback on all this is going to be hard to get traction unless something changes.. it will be framed as ‘trump trying to evade the impeachment process on him’…
so just where is joseph mifsud and what role has he played in all this? the dem crowd claim he is russian intel! who is he and what agencies was he connected to? he played George Papadopoulos like a fiddle.. what agency was he working for? we need to know the answer to this to get some traction here..

Posted by: james | Oct 25 2019 20:25 utc | 38

It is all following the predictions of the mysterious Q-anon, who has not been heard from since the message board 8 Chan was taken off-line in the wake of mass shootings and the MSM claiming right-wing white supremacists etc used 8 Chan for manifestos of their sick views (despite using FaceBook, Twitter, general internet etc as well).
There were – in the 3570 ‘Q drops’ (posts) from 29 Oct 2017 to 2 Aug 2019 – many indications that Q was a group of US military intelligence agents who had close access to the Trump administration and were using 8 Chan as a back channel communication to the public to circumvent the MSM. At least that is the narrative and it is worth doing your own research to see what you think.
Q predicted a week or so before it happened that mass shootings would be used for that purpose to silence this back channel – but that the ‘plan’ would still go ahead – involving Barr, Durham and Horowitz to take down the ‘deep state’, starting by exposing and prosecuting the ‘Russiagate’ fake conspiracy as the planned coup of the DNC-Clinton campaign-FBI-CIA-elements within UK&Australia-CNN-MSNBC-NYT-WaPo etc.
That ‘plan’ seems to be now unfolding – right according to plan.
But maybe just a crazy coincidence…

Posted by: PJB | Oct 25 2019 20:25 utc | 39

@16 psychohistorian
The eternal powers available inside a constant state of emergency. Bush enabled Obama enabled Trump. Especially via the post 9-11 editions of the sure-to-be-passed NDAA, signed into the next year, l sometimes on the eves of midnight before the turn of the new year.
Have listened to half the Rogan-Snowden podcast so far. It’s the stuff we all know is happening, but the fine detail of how we got here are just so compelling.
If Google knows what you had for breakfast then ‘In Don We Trust’

Posted by: MadMax2 | Oct 25 2019 20:32 utc | 40

: karlof1 | Oct 25 2019 16:56 utc | 24
re …One wonders what sort of entity is In God We Trust.
There was an explanation that fit/s the observed scene quite closely and even yields/ed some prescient results. When I 1st heard it, my pause-button locked:
“God has an infinite sense of humor”.

Posted by: chu teh | Oct 25 2019 20:49 utc | 41

This is smoke and mirrors to take the heat off Trump after Juliani’s “drug deal” didn’t deliver. They have tried this before with Rosenstein and couldn’t even get an indictment out of the grand jury. A judge just ordered the elease of the Muller evidence that Barr has been deperatly trying to hide. If it shows that Barr was hiding it to protect the Trump clan the gig is up on this whole tin foil hat cult Briebart and Fox have been manufacturing.

Posted by: BraveNewWorld | Oct 25 2019 20:52 utc | 42

the latest from larry johnson at sst..
Barr Changes the Dynamic, The Threat of Obstruction of Justice

Posted by: james | Oct 25 2019 20:52 utc | 43

@karlof1 (26) If Pelosi had tried to impeach GW Bush, presumably for starting a war against Iraq on false pretenses, the process would have severely damaged members of the Democratic caucus, all but one of whom were complicit in approving that war. They did not formally authorize or declare war, but they most definitely supported it. It’s the same with Russiagate and involves some of the same characters. The last thing they want is to have their own complicity in a deep state/Clinton plot exposed.

Posted by: Rob | Oct 25 2019 20:53 utc | 44

james
Johnson had mentioned this being in the works some time ago. Looks like a section of the swamp will be drained in a ig way – perhaps leaving Trumping a very powerful position for his next term… which may not be a good thing.

Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Oct 25 2019 20:58 utc | 45

james just read your post @41
Looks like Trump’s opponents will be trying to use the media against him and the investigation.
Although they have the media onside, if the investigation is above board then the Trump faction will have the military. It was a fairly major conspiracy to prent Trump gaining office and then trying to remove him from office that also involved foreign powers. If it comes under subversion or something like that,then I take it the military may be able to act to enforce the investigation findings.
Will be interesting.

Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Oct 25 2019 21:16 utc | 46

Ukrainegate involves much more egregious crimes than Russiagate.
How exactly have we come to this? It is now an “abuse of power”
to investigate corruption. There is nothing suspicious whatsoever
about the timing of Trump’s request to Zelensky. He had to wait till
a more favorable administration came to power in Ukraine to make the
request and Biden had already announced his candidacy by then. Poroshenko
has been accused of accepting a 100 million dollar bribe to terminate the
investigation of Burisma and Hunter Biden. What is Burisma anyway? Has
it ever produced a single cu. ft. of gas or a single barrel of oil? Or
was it a front for money laundering and all the rest of the stories about it
are a crock of shit? Where does it get all the cash to throw at sleazy
politicians and their creepy relatives? The federal government is a vast
criminal conspiracy desperately trying to cover ut its crimes. Ukraine
is a monumental crime scene. The entire country should be cordoned off with
police tape. Under the Obama administration, a Walpurgisnacht of demonically
possessed democrats and some republicans,descended upon Ukraine in a satanic
orgy of rape, looting, pillage and corruption.

Posted by: evilempire | Oct 25 2019 21:43 utc | 47

This is apropos.
And makes my day.
“At some point the lawyers for the media companies will wake up and realize that spreading lies on behalf of people facing criminal charges could expose them to obstruction charges as well.”
Quote is from linked article at
@Posted by: james | Oct 25 2019 20:52 utc | 46
Thanks for the link, james

Posted by: librul | Oct 25 2019 21:44 utc | 48

PJB #42
Thank you, that sounds valid to me. Links would be helpful. I usually have limited connections to those sources as I am not a fan. I do like the intrepid musings of amazing polly when she is outing the maxwell/epstein team and their captured media.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Oct 25 2019 21:46 utc | 49

The use of ‘ambiguity’ is criminal. Can someone tell me what’s going on.
Democrats PR provider gets an A for this one.

Posted by: Joetv | Oct 25 2019 22:02 utc | 50

chu the @44–
Thanks for your reply! Wasn’t that a George Carlin quip or perhaps from Cache-22?
Rob @47–
Thanks for your reply! As you’ll know if you’ve read enough of my writings here, I hold both Ds & Rs in contempt and judge them unfit to govern as most are guilty of one or more crimes, and at the very least of subverting the Constitution they swore to uphold and defend. On the current Syria thread, I wrote why that’s so here.
evilempire @50–
“The federal government is a vast criminal conspiracy desperately trying to cover ut[sic] its crimes.”
That’s an excellent summation of its behavior since 1945. I’d go back further in time, but I haven’t found enough evidence to prove a bi-partisan criminal conspiracy prior to then, although the collusion between FDR and Wendell Willkie in 1940 merits further investigation.

Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 25 2019 22:15 utc | 51

Brennan, Comey, Clapper, Clinton, Obama? It is pretty crazy. Clinton should just be locked up for her own good. LOL

Posted by: goldhoarder | Oct 25 2019 22:15 utc | 52

gold hoarder @ 55,
Agree “it is pretty crazy”. What’s more crazy is if you read through the sometimes riddle like nature of ‘Q’ – it is all predicted in detail: http://www.qmap.pub
Two sides of the Deep State at civil war – nationalist-industrial/military/DIA (with Fox News and some alt-media) versus globalist-financial-industrial/CIA/FBI (with most MSM).

Posted by: PJB | Oct 25 2019 22:42 utc | 53

ia @ 17 said; “The only time anything resembling “justice” is served is when some low-level persons with enough name recognition to make headlines, i.e. Martha Steward or these celebrity parents who paid to get their kids into college, are sacrificed in order to maintain the illusion of a functioning justice system. In reality the justice system we have is nothing more than another line in the phalanx of defense the ruling elites (see: globalists, capitalists, zionists) have built to protect their corrupt position of power.”
Agreed, just more Kabuki..

Posted by: ben | Oct 25 2019 23:06 utc | 54

While we here on B’s set are following his He done it, no she did it, sure enough they did it script. the drivers behind the the political actors are the corporate sponsors. How about lets discussing them?
I want to know more about Burisma Holdings in the Ukraine,
who are the oil companies in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen, Gaze, and Lebanon Egypt etc. ?
It is interesting to study drug trafficking in Afghanistan.
The politicians are corporate driven yet no one is working that angle. Politicians are immune, but private corporate persons are not. Lets look at wall street how do they play in this..

Posted by: snake | Oct 25 2019 23:10 utc | 55

And so Moon of Alabama finally you have uncovered the trolls. Finally you have exposed Jack and Donkey. It took a long while. All that time the doubts were sown but we were never taken in. I would speculate that they sent money… B. has to survive.

Posted by: Lochearn | Oct 25 2019 23:11 utc | 56

P.S. Anything touched by AG Barr should be investigated. He as a sordid history.
https://www.nationalmemo.com/bill-barrs-remarkable-history-of-scandalous-cover-up/?cn-

Posted by: ben | Oct 25 2019 23:13 utc | 57

And so Moon of Alabama finally you have uncovered the trolls. Finally you have exposed Jack and Donkey…” Lochearn@59
Any references? I do hope that you are right. Last week I described them as the Mutt ‘n’ Jeff of trolling on this site.

Posted by: bevin | Oct 25 2019 23:19 utc | 58

@ 61 bevin
Let me say that I consider you to be one of the brightest, most original commenters out there.
I think it was karlof1, another outstanding member of this forum, that raised doubts about the Rabbit which coincided with my own thinking.

Posted by: Lochearn | Oct 25 2019 23:29 utc | 59

@48/49 peter au… interesting speculation.. will wait and see what comes of all this..
@ 60 ben… would you say the same of mueller who was head of the fbi at the time of 9-11? what does he know and when did he know it? lots of hidden bodies in both these peoples pasts… maybe one’s actions can even out the others here?

Posted by: james | Oct 26 2019 0:20 utc | 60

to Rob #47 – and you all. I believe that Pelosi’s husband works high up in the MIC. Just as Teresa May’s hubby did. The May family picked up a little extra coin on the bombing of Syria re the “poisoned spies.” Just so, Feinstein’s hubby is a RE dealer/developer in SanFran. When the US Post Office got knee capped who do you suppose bought up the prime lovely
old Post office? It’s all pretty sick – and has been going on for decades. Term limits and public campaign financing is the
only solution. Never happen, but “never say never.”

Posted by: Miss Lacy | Oct 26 2019 0:22 utc | 61

@51 librul.. that is a good quote you grabbed their… we’ll see what comes of all this..

Posted by: james | Oct 26 2019 0:28 utc | 62

The Plundering of Ukraine by Corrupt American Democrats
A talk with Oleg Tsarev reveals the alleged identity of the “Trump/Ukraine Whistleblower”
Here

Posted by: Bemildred | Oct 26 2019 0:36 utc | 63

Ukraine played a part in Russiagate so I guess, due to the timing, this is the appropriate thread.
https://sputniknews.com/world/201910261077153626-trump-terminates-suspension-of-duty-free-trade-with-ukraine—white-house/
“I have determined that Ukraine has made progress in providing adequate and effective protection of intellectual property rights. Accordingly, it is appropriate to terminate the suspension of the duty-free treatment,” Trump said in a proclamation on Friday.”

Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Oct 26 2019 0:48 utc | 64

RE: Alpi #25
I suspect that John Bolton is in fact the mastermind behind this fake “whistleblower” stunt. it’s the sort of action Bolton would do as the master bureaucrat, spread false rumors of what the call between Trump and Zelensky contained among his subordinates and Neocon fellow travellers to feed into the narrative of a corrupt deal with Zelensky to derail Trumps plans in Ukraine and Russia and feed the Democrats impeachment push. Trump declassifying the transcript of the conversation probably caught him by surprise and threw a wrench into his plans since Trump has refused to declassify documents in the past and the State Department probably would have argued that Trump not declassify the conversation.

Posted by: Kadath | Oct 26 2019 0:48 utc | 65

@Psychohistorian #16, you wrote
“The US is now a country that has a growing cabal of current and past leadership that are criminally complicit in deceiving the American public”
Obama legalized deceiving the American public in his 2012 NDAA, when “Constitutional Law Professor” Obama repealed the Smith-Mundt Act, the propaganda ban that had been in effect since around 1948. He literally legalized lying to us. Bet you never heard of it. Reporter Michael Hastings blew the whistle on this and we all know what happened to him. https://www.businessinsider.com/ndaa-legalizes-propaganda-2012-5

Posted by: Willow | Oct 26 2019 1:15 utc | 66

And this all will be heard and judged by Judge Emmet Sullivan, who has asked Flynn several times to consider retracting his guilty plea because the judge smelled a rat:
A Cautionary Tale: The Ted Stevens Prosecution
From Washington Lawyer, October 2009
By Anna Stolley Persky
April 7, 2009,

Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia unleashed his fury before a packed courtroom. For 14 minutes, he scolded. He chastised. He fumed. “In nearly 25 years on the bench,” he said, “I’ve never seen anything approaching the mishandling and misconduct that I’ve seen in this case.”
It was the culmination of a disastrous prosecution: the public corruption case against former U.S. Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK).
Stevens was convicted in October 2008 of violating federal ethics laws by failing to report thousands of dollars in gifts he received from friends. But a team of prosecutors from the U.S. Department of Justice is accused of failing to hand over key exculpatory evidence and knowingly presenting false evidence to the jury.
The Stevens case is a cautionary tale. It reminds lawyers and nonlawyers alike of the power and failures of our legal system and those who have sworn to uphold the rule of law. At the center of the story are real people: an old and powerful politician, a crack defense team, determined prosecutors, and their supervisors.
“This is a fascinating case study for all lawyers,” says criminal defense lawyer Stanley M. Brand, a partner at Brand Law Group, P.C. “In these high-stakes cases, both sides can get pretty aggressive and push the envelope. It’s great to be aggressive—it’s great to push, but this case reminds people that they have to observe the limits and the rules.”
For months Judge Sullivan had warned U.S. prosecutors about their repeated failure to turn over evidence. Then, after the jury convicted Stevens, the Justice Department discovered previously unrevealed evidence. Meanwhile, a prosecution witness and an agent from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) came forward alleging prosecutorial misconduct. Finally, newly appointed U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced that he had had enough and recommended that the seven-count conviction against the former Alaska senator be dismissed.
On April 7, Judge Sullivan did just that. But he was far from done.
In an extraordinarily rare move, he ordered an inquiry into the prosecutors’ handling of the case. Judge Sullivan insisted that the misconduct allegations were “too serious and too numerous” to be left to an internal Justice Department investigation. He appointed Washington lawyer Henry F. Schuelke III of Janis, Schuelke & Wechsler to investigate whether members of the trial team should be prosecuted for criminal contempt.

Posted by: pogohere | Oct 26 2019 1:25 utc | 67

Starting w/evilempires comment, which is Wow. Then Miss Lacy, maybe goldherder too but not sure, to Kadath and then Willow and pogohere I’m not sure I’m at b’s site. Great comments. But certainly not the norm. Things that makes one go hhhhhmmmmmmmmmmm…welcome, btw.

Posted by: h | Oct 26 2019 2:00 utc | 68

Bemildred
This article seems to contradict many of the points in the link you posted.

Posted by: evilempire | Oct 26 2019 3:14 utc | 69

psychohistorian | Oct 25 2019 17:09 utc | 25:
Canned response. I doubt the Senator wrote that. Hell, I doubt the Senator read your letter.

Posted by: Ian2 | Oct 26 2019 3:22 utc | 70

Richard #10
“Doing very nicely, thank you. $400, 000 a time for speeches to those nice chaps from Wall Street and a $65 million dollar advance for his biography ”
And spent $14 mill for a house on Martha’s Vineyard.
Who ponied up for that, I wonder.
Obamas go home!!!

Posted by: Really?? | Oct 26 2019 3:32 utc | 71

evilempire @72:
“This article seems to contradict many of the points in the link you posted.”
No doubt, and it’s from 2014. I’ve read half-a-dozen versions of Biden in Ukraine, all of them different. That one is all one guy talking, so not much as evidence of anything. But interesting. Another one had Kolomoisky as the master hand behind the Burisma deception, and the nominal boss as cutout for him. The guy I posted doesn’t mention that. They all seem to agree it’s about gas though. I notice that 2014 piece you posted says Kerry was involved too, but he would be being SoS.
It stinks any way you slice it. The main thing I take from it at the moment is the big explosion it caused when Trump went after it is indicative of it’s political importance. A weapon in the war in DC. Poor Zelenski, he is caught in the middle. A comedian.
Did you have a point of view about it, or just sussing out mine?
The War in Washington seems to be heating up.

Posted by: Bemildred | Oct 26 2019 3:52 utc | 72

Fellow barflies, please stop disrespecting other well-behaved patrons whose opinions you find unappealing.
If you don’t like certain commenters’ opinions, check the author before reading each comment.
Some here previously complained about JR being “one note”. Well, arguably, we can characterize psycho and circe similarly. But, they each speak up to remind us of their fairly unique (at least one this board) perceptions and how new events relate to their mental model of how things work. I find each of their viewpoints interesting and plausible, as well as yours — except when you’re making unjustified negative personal remarks.

Posted by: oglalla | Oct 26 2019 4:05 utc | 73

My opinion right now is that the article you linked may be major
disinformation. Zlochevsky wasn’t even the owner of burisma in 2012.
The article at nakedcapitalism and even b have reported that the owners
were Kolomoiski and perhaps Pinchuk.

Posted by: evilempire | Oct 26 2019 4:22 utc | 74

evilempire @77: Yes, Naked Capitalism is pretty scrupulous. I tend to think it’s Kolomoiski too, thanks for sharing you view and the link. I was wondering what people here would think about it.

Posted by: Bemildred | Oct 26 2019 4:28 utc | 75

evilempire @77: You think Shamir is disinfo? I’ve not been impressed in the past, but he seemed more a crank.

Posted by: Bemildred | Oct 26 2019 4:31 utc | 76

breaking news interruption please excuse.
Middle East Military footprint size increasing Something up? Trump et al. to stay in Syria and take on Turkey, defend the oil and deal with the Russians? ..Iran getting nervous.. backdoor flight Israel (Netanyohu?) to Saudi flight a clue ?
Will the real fat woman please sing.?

Posted by: snake | Oct 26 2019 4:43 utc | 77

snake
There has been a steady US build up for some time now. A few here, a few there, but numbers constantly increasing.

Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Oct 26 2019 5:13 utc | 78

I had a comment spiked at Consortium News on Max Blumenthal’s article on Ukraine/Burisma a couple of weeks back. I thought it was common knowledge that Kolomoiski was the true owner of Burisma, and remarked it was strange not to see his name mentioned in the article or comments. I speculated that the same oligarch that owns Burisma seems to also ‘own’ Zelensky (I think Kolomoiski owned the TV station that catapulted Zelensky into the public consciousness and funded his campaign). You would think one of his advisors would have been smart enough to warn DJT about this before his infamous phone call.

Posted by: Paora | Oct 26 2019 9:08 utc | 79

When people start fantasizing about John Brennan being locked up, then the fantasy extends (as it logically must) to the other criminals (like Comey, Clapper, Mueller, Clintons, Obama, Bush, etc). Barr will also be putting the handcuffs on Giuliani and on his own wrists. Yeah, like that’s going to happen! This is all just a recycle of the ‘drain the swamp’ delusion.
Barr is a known deep state fixer. Epstein was the perfect opportunity to drain the swamp but Barr ‘fixed’ it – Barr’s insincere, by-the-numbers statement on Epstein’s ‘suicide’ frames the incident as one of detainee neglect rather than the complete destruction of a criminal case; a bizarre dissociation from someone who should have been a the cusp of ‘draining the swamp’ and just seen their ‘case’ blown apart. Instead of Barr pursuing the ‘truth’ about Epstein it’s getting hard to even remember who Epstein was just a little over 2 months since his ‘suicide’ (it feels like it was 20 years ago).

Posted by: ADKC | Oct 26 2019 9:17 utc | 80

Defeating ISIS. Syria psyops
https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2019/10/25/syria-gave-psyops
“Psychological operations forces have been under pressure from the Pentagon to step up their influencing missions, the results of which could be seen in Syria, the commander of U.S. Army Special Operations Command said last week.
The command oversees PSYOPS and civil affairs soldiers, which helped to disperse messages and establish governance in areas liberated from the Islamic State group over the past few years.”
“Requests for products are often built by the Military Information Support Task Force-Central at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. The small team there can sketch, print and record products, often using U.S. Air Force assets to airdrop leaflets, as well as use electronic warfare aircraft to relay airborne radio and television broadcasts.”

Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Oct 26 2019 10:30 utc | 81

Murkin lawyers often say things such as “Jones is a criminal lawyer”.
It’s funny. Also ambiguous. Also simply sloppy syntax.
Nevertheless in the example b provides it may well be bald truth, eg both lawyers may be criminal and also their endeavors.
A sloppy double entrendre is, in this example, a real possibility.
I can name a few criminals who are also lawyers, and ought to be disbarred. Obama, for one…

Posted by: Walter | Oct 26 2019 10:59 utc | 82

Posted by: james | Oct 25 2019 20:25 utc | 41

… thus the question of just who is Joseph Mifsud, remains off the radar of most, in spite of how important this question about who he is in all of this… disobedient media was asking this same question back in an article from april 4 2018 – All Russiagate Roads Lead To London As Evidence Emerges Of Joseph Mifsud’s Links To UK Intelligence

I have assembled a large collection of sources on the unravelling of the Russiagate hoax. The article by Elizabeth Vos is included.

Posted by: Petri Krohn | Oct 26 2019 11:15 utc | 83

ADKC #83
I surmise that Strzok and Page are likely to be sent down, McCabe perhaps. But no one in the aristocracy. Clapper and Brennan will be humiliated and ridiculed. There are others in DoJ that may go down over the Flynn witchunt. Misleading the fisa court could be a big problem though and yet to be tested. I hope they all face a firing squad especially the scumbags that set up the DNC computer hack hoax. What about the Awan family spy ring? No prosecution there I see.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Oct 26 2019 11:16 utc | 84

Like some have said, its bad american english grammar that is being used by someone to give it sensationalism and dumb it down for the general public.
It also is an angle used to make a criminal inquiry as not a necessary matter.. because the matter is insignificant..
Someone who is used to writing propaganda wrote this. You take a simple matter and make it complex to hide things in it and insinuate an outcome you desire.
“The significance of officials deeming Durham’s probe “criminal” is difficult to determine by itself.”
clearly is meant as to why do this because its a waste of time.. We dont know.. Even though it is clear in the original text that this is now being looked at as a criminal matter..
The ambiguousness of it is, we dont want this but you are forcing it on us anyway.. But from a legal perspective they have not lied.. Because the meaning is the same with some added words..
Thanks for the example.. just shows how we have to be very careful in how we read things.

Posted by: Igor Bundy | Oct 26 2019 11:21 utc | 85

nobody will get handcuffed nor molested: hard to find a more deep stater than Barr. he will “fix” it all in the name of National Unity.

Posted by: nietzsche1510 | Oct 26 2019 11:22 utc | 86

Bernie represents no danger to the Dems: he never intended to be President. his job is to herd the radical Left, the so-called Progressives to eventually vote for the pick of the Judeo-Zionist hidden heads of the System. he will be remembered in History as the Electoral Side-Kick.

Posted by: nietzsche1510 | Oct 26 2019 11:32 utc | 87

1. What is either of equal if not greater importance is the so-called “storming” of the SCIF
by Republican legislators, on a deeper level, this has a lot of significance.
2. Politics, derived from the Greek word “polis” is the art of governance or human inter-relations
which presuppose peace. The opposite of peace is war, and politics necessitates the absence of war.
War is when all attempts at peaceful “political” (governmental, legal, inter-communal etc) resolution
of social/national conflict have been exhausted.
3. The law is there to ensure peace and the peaceful resolution of conflict. Lawmakers are not supposed
to be *lawbreakers*, which is what those Republicans who stormed the SCIF are according to Democrat narratives (though this is contested by the Republicans who say that even Republican congressmen nominally part of various committees in the SCIF were in fact denied access to key information).
For the supposedly, “highest” and “best” in the land who formulate and uphold the law and not break it
to do something as dramatic as this could be dismissed as a one off event and just part of the theatre of
life in Washington D.C.
4. I would submit it that it should be taken more seriously.
a: It’s set amongst a wider background of huge polarization in society which has involved violence, in fact one of the Republican legislators who walked in to the SCIF, Steve Scalise, was a victim of that violence in 2017 when a leftist gunman tried to murder him.
I am not referring primarily to that incident but violent acts mainly by leftists against Trump supporters
e.g. beating up of people wearing MAGA hats etc.
b: Then there is the political civil war which B’s article is about and which the ‘storming’ of the SCIF is a sub-event, a sub-component of a greater whole.
5. If we extend ‘violence’ to including not just physical contact but shouting, not something which I agree with (i.e. definining it as violence, as it in some ways lessens the severity of real actual physical violence) though I would call it ‘aggressive’ behaviour, then there are reports of shouting between one or two Democrat and Republican senators during the storming of the SCIF.
If this is an aberration, if this is just an extreme from which everyone will retreat from and not to be repeated, fine.
If this becomes repeated and the highest political and governmental body in the land becomes characterized with latent aggression and conflict, it’s very worrying.
6. What will happen?
No one knows.
a: I think the Democrats will continue to implode, and there’s even talk of Gabbard forming a new party, though it could take away a lot of Republican votes.
b: I think the ideological gap between the Republicans and Democrats will continue especially since both have two very resolute ideological core constitutiences, who may not be the majority of their members but are the staunchest and exert huge influence.
i: The evangelical/Christian voter base of the GOP who will not compromise their beliefs.
ii: The ‘woke’, neo-left, SJW college-based who in some ways have their own “religion” in the form of neo-left SJW identity politics.
These two are not reconcilable ideologically and one will have to give, ultimately I think the Christian-conservative one will prevail in the long term, but I would not discount some sort of internal conflict involving violence in the future, it might be called a “civil war”, but I don’t think it will be on a mass scale, more like a “revolution”, and not on a mass scale either but involving right-wing elements taking power and banning the left through armed seizure of power or suspension of normal politics.
Let’s see what happens.

Posted by: Muslim_Dude | Oct 26 2019 11:39 utc | 88

Igor Bundy @88
Indeed, it is the readers’ fault for misinterpreting the Washington Bezos Post article to assume that it is the investigation itself that is illegal. After all, by now readers should know that everything published by the Bezos Blog is deliberate disinformation.
But it is a good example of how the corporate mass media manufactures narratives that suggest the precise opposite of reality while technically skirting libel and false reporting. Every reference to criminality in the article suggests (due supposedly to “sloppy grammar” from people whose primary functions as employees are supposedly to write clearly and precisely) that it is the investigation itself that is violating the law. If this were taken to court the entire chain of writers and editors that the story was processed through would simply claim “Derp! I is stoopid! My bad! I is not good at words `n stuff!” The case would then be dismissed because in the US incompetence and stupidity are protected characteristics like ethnicity, religion, and quality of personal hygiene. As for Bezos himself, he can claim “I am doing my part to help the disadvantaged by providing meaningful employment for the intellectually disabled. I would never hire one of these imbeciles to box up products at one of my distribution centers, but how much harm can they do mashing keys on a computer keyboard in a cubicle in DC?” And he would be lauded as a hero.
So it is true that at the end of the day it is the readers’ fault for being deceived. It is no different than someone trusting the words of the used car dealer or the snake oil salesman. Caveat emptor is the rule in capitalism and whatever the capitalists can get away with is considered fair. If the fact that it is intended to deceive is not at the forefront of the readers’ mind when they consume capitalist mass media then the readers themselves are responsible for being suckers and fools. But then it is precisely because of this that the public needs to discuss the issue that b raised at the top of this thread.

Posted by: William Gruff | Oct 26 2019 12:16 utc | 89

ADKC says:
(it feels like it was 20 years ago)
generation z will rue the day that John Brennan was sanctioned(by arch droog Obama) to do god’s work. the disposition matrix, in all of its psychopathy, is pretty much his baby, and yeah, it couldn’t have been spawned by a more infected mind.
U.S. officials have described the Disposition Matrix as legally and morally sound, and The Washington Post has written that “internal doubts about the effectiveness of the drone campaign are almost nonexistent” (Wiki)
well, in god we trust, n’est-ce pas?

Posted by: john | Oct 26 2019 12:27 utc | 90

Great, telling point by Willow 69 that shores up all of the revealing “USA Decline-to-Collapse” truths in this thread. And that Mr. Trump has never thrown this out, and restored the Smith Mundt Act, this makes him complicit in “all of the above Evil”…no?

Posted by: ERing46Z | Oct 26 2019 12:41 utc | 91

re: kill lists “disposition matrix” noted by john @93
I was surprised by this graph of Presidential murders in Yemen in the Wikipedia article. Obama murdered (supposedly only) 96 people in 2016 with his kill lists while Trump is only responsible for 10 in 2017. Considering how evil the corporate mass media has cast Trump to be I would have expected him to have expanded the Presidential killing spree, but he has cut it to its lowest level in years.
Well, that’s just 2017. No numbers are provided for 2018 or this year. I am sure Trump must have gotten his exceptionalist American mojo on and ramped up the extrajudicial slaughter to truly epic levels by now, right? I mean, what kind or real American wouldn’t take full advantage of point-click-kill if they had that power, right? Right?

Posted by: William Gruff | Oct 26 2019 12:57 utc | 92

ERing46Z @94
I am getting sick of having to defend Trump (I didn’t vote for him or even go to any of his campaign events), but do these posters know anything about how government works in the US?
Trump cannot restore the Smith-Mundt Act. Congress has to do that. In case the poster hasn’t noticed Congress has been busy with pointless conspiracy theories lately and doesn’t have the time (or inclination) to protect the American public from real deceitful mass media, only the imaginary Russian kind on Facebook.

Posted by: William Gruff | Oct 26 2019 13:10 utc | 93

James @ 46 above mentioned it. Perhaps the barflies are tired of visiting the Colonel. A better and more complete link is here, including the court filing
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/10/25/stunning-potentially-game-changing-court-filing-by-flynn-defense-lawyer-sidney-powell/
Sorry that it goes to that rightwing site, this is huge news. Short version is the entire prosecution of Michael Flynn is based on the FBI doing a re-write of their interviews with Flynn. They created an offense out of whole cloth. And left a trail of memos for their editorial work. Left a trail of memos for the conspiracy to railroad him. So far as I can tell this is simply being swept under the rug and being ignored by all media. Some conservatives seem to believe Judge Sullivan is going to come through and lower the boom on this outright tyrannical prosecution. Remains to be seen. Still, the evidence is there in court that the crime never existed, was created by editorial process.

Posted by: oldhippie | Oct 26 2019 13:25 utc | 94

Good stuff. As someone who hopes Tulsi Gabbard will be the Democratic Presidential candidate, so no admirer of Trump, this much is sure – if, having lost an election because you’re so despised you can’t beat Trump (whom Hillary Clinton backed for Republican candidate assuming that she could) you’re then going to blame it on a conspiracy theory which accuses the President of treason, then you’d better be damned sure you’re right, because if you’re not, and their own investigation failed to support their claims, then that President has every right to come after what he is entitled to consider a treasonous plot to frame him, and to investigate its provenance. That isn’t “retaliatory”, it’s the appropriate legal response to what has clearly been a fabrication, which the moribund wing controlling the DNC decided was a better way to attack Trump than opposing his policies, most of which are identical to their own.
Let’s hope CNN and MSNBC get investigated, and those allegedly responsible for running a pack of lies do some serious time inside, along with Brennan and Clapper and Comey It’s about time someone – even if it’s Trump – reminded the msm that reporting news isn’t supposed to be a circus, and calling your President a Russian agent and a traitor, a claim your own investigation fails to corroborate, actually has consequences. I have no desire to defend Trump personally, but this shower of indescribably incompetent, lying, dishonest and dimwitted degenerates, summed up by everything Hillary Clinton represents, have done even worse damage to politics in the US. Hope Rachel Maddow gets indicted along with her. I also hope the investigation takes a long hard look at the role that the UK’s intelligence services may have played in this, and the attempt to frame a connection between Trump, Manafort, the Russians, and Assange, which is another obvious fabrication. And I wonder if we’ll get to learn from Assange, in all this, just who leaked the DNC servers.

Posted by: Forthestate | Oct 26 2019 13:39 utc | 95

They couldn’t allow Flynn to stay on as National Security Advisor. His opposition to the Syria wsr was well known.

Posted by: lysias | Oct 26 2019 13:58 utc | 96

@ nietzsche1510 | Oct 26 2019 11:32 utc | 90
“he (Bernie) will be remembered in History as the Electoral Side-Kick”
I say sheep dog.

Posted by: Nathan Mulcahy | Oct 26 2019 13:58 utc | 97

William Gruff says:
I mean, what kind or real American wouldn’t take full advantage of point-click-kill if they had that power, right?
this kind of absolute power defines absolute tyranny, and this IS US policy, as written, as applied.

Posted by: john | Oct 26 2019 14:02 utc | 98

bevin, lochearn,
I always suspected JR of being a troll for Trump but otherwise he is an immensely entertaining conspiratard who never fails to conjure up something in light of current events. He is correct in a general way that the true conspiracy involves Trump, Putin, Netanyahu, et al as a mask covering the ongoing rape of the 99% by the 1% worldwide. Something that magnificent commenters on this site, including both yourselves, have missed badly wide of the mark.
This is an egregious error by so-called class conscious thinkers.
Anyone who thinks paid trolls haunt this site have rather too grand an opinion of the commenters (themselves) whose punditry and predictions more often then not are simply wrong when viewed objectively in time and inspired by the handful or Russian propagandists they follow religiously and who have been pointedly misinformed.
What’s crazy is the amount of far right blather infesting this site. But this makes sense because Russia is an arch conservative political apparatus from which so many here gain their “information.”
And yes, I donate to b. His voice is an important one although he too has blind spots in his vision, especially when it comes to US politics for which he clearly has no feel. Including in this essay. Barr and Trump are simply pulling yet another con job to distract from Trump’s very real impeachment inquiry woes. Will he be convicted? Probably not as long as the GOP continue to trend fascist. Keep an eye on the public opinion polls for the real damage.
This con won’t work. The orange snow jobber has no clothes. In this instance, the federal bureaucracy opposing him should be viewed as a sane, rational reaction to Trump’s every attempt to shred the Constitution and set up similarly authoritarian pseudo democracy as his buddy Vlad.
Does this mean I support the US system? Hardly except in this narrow goal.
Bernie or Bust. And even in bust the dial gets pulled left for the next generation, a counterpoint finally to the GOP pulling the dial to the right during the prior three generations.
And to which so many here sadly (or comically depending on your viewpoint) have fallen prey.

Posted by: donleytale | Oct 26 2019 14:42 utc | 99

Russiagate was sane and rational?

Posted by: lysias | Oct 26 2019 14:57 utc | 100

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