One wonders how John Paul II became Pope after the suspicious death of John Paul I. How did essentially the same conclave that had elected John Paul I then a couple of months later elect the hard line Cold Warrior Wojtyla? Was the NSA monitoring those conclaves?

Posted by: lysias | Oct 6 2019 14:21 utc | 3

@az: If true it certainly would be a major scoop. But as far as i can see, there is only a single leaked Podesta mail linked, and even that does not warrant any definitive conclusion.
One would need to establish much more direct evidence.
Or did i miss some other evidence?

Posted by: DontBelieveEitherPr. | Oct 6 2019 14:28 utc | 5

Posted by: BM | Oct 6 2019 14:13 utc | 2 /cont.
Thinking about it, a US colour change revolution against Pope Francis (as opposed to the corrupt usurper Benedict) does sound eminently plausible: not only that but most likely also a massive Russiagate-like campaign of subterfuge and obstruction to block the reforms he seemed to want when he first became Pope. I was quite hopeful at the time that something would come of it, and he seemed to be sincere, but what has materialised since then? Can’t have the Pope cleaning up paedophilia in positions of power, that is a big no no – that would be ripping out the Deep State’s favoured puppet strings, and cannot be tolerated. Likewise cleaning up the Vatican’s shadowy banking operations is also a big no no. Can’t have one of the most solid and essential pillars of establishment money laundering shaken up, can we? Out of the question.

Posted by: BM | Oct 6 2019 14:53 utc | 7

Re Benedict: This is an excellent example of how ignoring real world context can cause derangement. But, first, Benedict was not a major obstacle to left wing conspiracy. Second, Francis is not some radical agent of influence. Third, US cardinals have influence but the Italian government/Mafia likely have more, and the US does not control the papal elections, which is an implicit premise to any alleged “coup” against Benedict.
Most of all though, no one is thinking seriously until they look for alternative hypotheses. Outside of laboratory experiments with controls, you must infer to the best explanation. One of the most potent problems facing the Church is the publicity and payouts over sexual abuse of altar boys. The Church for institutional self-protection must do something. Being reactionaries, booting out the gay priests is the ticket. The only speculative thing is the premise that Benedict is personally vulnerable on that score, and was pressured into resigning. Any hypothesis about outside political interference aimed at furthering the outsiders’ wicked goals has to have some explanation of why Benedict resigned. They don’t.
There are most certainly real conspiracies. But any theory about a given conspiracy that omits the gain to the conspirators, neglects explaining the mechanisms they use and falsifies the real world context are bad conspiracy theories. Those kind may indeed be neurotic symptoms. But they are often political slander instead.

Posted by: steven t johnson | Oct 6 2019 15:17 utc | 9

Hint:
Religion is poison
Lose the analysis on Catholic perverts—
What the planet needs is a Pope on a rope, for a start.

Posted by: Duncan Idaho | Oct 6 2019 16:05 utc | 11

Whitney Webb’s latest article about Epstein is as engrossing as ever.
I found this among the comments:

The mainstream media also largely ignored the relationship of Seth Rich to Israel . According to a number of investigators Rich was a Mossad operative who had trained with the IDF in Israel “…and the whole thing was set up to tip public favor against the Democrats for a Trump win. Why? Because Trump was Israel’s choice . There was no greater supporter of Israel than Seth Rich . Hillary was only lukewarm to Israel and Israel was not happy with Obama .” Per Geopolitics ” Why Seth Rich’s case is key to #Russiagate Investigation ” .

It’s good to see that others recognize that Seth Rich may not be the victim that is he believed to be. But the comment fails to put Seth Rich into a larger context.
The “DNC Hack” and Trump’s hiring of Manafort were key to Russiagate and the new McCarthyism.
Why was the MAGA candidate hiring someone – for a Presidential race! – that had worked in Ukraine for years (no recent experience in US) and had the stigma of having worked for pro-Russian candidates?
Also: why did the MAGA candidate hire British firm Cambridge Analytica? There are plenty of Americans/American firms that Trump could’ve hired. Initially, it was claimed that Cambridge Analytica had special access to Facebook but we subsequently learned that facebook gave similar access to many other firms.

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Oct 6 2019 16:44 utc | 13

Cars with high tech safety systems don’t do jack

The American Automobile Association (AAA) conducted a series of tests using vehicles with automatic emergency braking and pedestrian detection alerts on a closed course with dummy pedestrians. And what they found was highly upsetting. The vehicles struck the dummy pedestrians that were crossing the road 60 percent of the time — and this was in daylight hours at speeds of 20 mph.
The researchers then swapped the adult dummies with a child-sized version, and the results got much, much worse: a collision occurred 89 percent of the time. Testing at night or at higher speeds also yielded a distressing number of collisions. When encountering an adult pedestrian at night, these supposed high-tech detection systems were “ineffective,” AAA says. None of the cars tested were able to detect an adult pedestrian at night.
…
The researchers tested several other scenarios, including encountering a pedestrian after a right-hand turn and two adults standing alongside the road with their backs to traffic. The latter scenario resulted in a collision 80 percent of the time, while the former yielded a 100 percent collision rate.
Four model year 2019 vehicles were used in AAA’s testing: Chevy Malibu, Honda Accord, Tesla Model 3, and Toyota Camry. Each vehicle was outfitted with sensors and cameras to capture information about vehicle dynamics, position data, and visual notifications from the detection systems.

It is no wonder that Tesla’s “Smart Summon” feature fails miserably:
Tesla Smart Summon Fail 1
Tesla Smart Summon Fail 2
Tesla Smart Summon Fail 3
Tesla Smart Summon Fail 4
Tesla Smart Summon Fail 5
Tesla Smart Summon Fail 6
Tesla Smart Summon Fail 7
Tesla Smart Summon Fail 8
Tesla Smart Summon Fail 9
There are many, many more…

Posted by: c1ue | Oct 6 2019 16:53 utc | 15

c1ue@15 – yes, so lets move ahead with kill systems that use AI to choose targets. Seems reasonable. At least it will generate a lot of good data, right? Whatever one thinks about the Bond films Spectre has some good dialogue about this issue.

Posted by: the pessimist | Oct 6 2019 17:02 utc | 17

to go with AZ @ 1 more on 911
please erase the last comment it did not work.

Posted by: snake | Oct 6 2019 17:13 utc | 19

Impeachment, Brought to You by the CIA – Rob Urie, Counterpunch
Rob Urie makes the case – as I have – that impeachment is meant to help Joe Biden. He does this in the context of establishment Democrats support for the oil & gas industry. And he rightly fingers CIA involvement, pointing out that “meddling” in elections is what they do.
Yet, IMO he fails to really see the duopoly forest for the partisan trees.
It’s noteworthy that Trump kicked off this impeachment mess when he “innocently” spoke to the President of Ukraine. Just as he had “innocently” hired Manafort (who was known for work for pro-Russian Ukrainian political party and candidates) and the British Cambridge Analytica despite Trump’s “America First” orientation. Trump’s hiring of Manafort and his pleas for Russia to “release the emails” helped to fuel Russiagate.
But Trump’s assistance was complemented by MI6’s “Steele dossier” (linked to Skripal kidnapping) and Mossad’s “DNC Hack” courtesy of Seth Rich (shown to be a leak) and Hillary’s strange (for a seasoned campaigner) alienating of key voting groups (blacks, progressives, and white “deplorables”).
The Ukrainegate mess is a nothingburger that only serves to channel media attention such that the race for the Democratic Party primary is short-circuited: all you hear about now is Biden and Trump.

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Oct 6 2019 17:37 utc | 21

Baghdad and Iraq is getting hot again. Looks like a coup was unfolded by firing the top general to lead a military coup supported by the west and now crowd are getting shot by snipers. Same f**king M.O. as Ukraine Maidan square. Of course, funded by the usual suspects. KSA needs a another warning shot across the bow.
And now, the same coup is about to happen here in US. A wounded lion is more dangerous than ever.

Posted by: Uncle Jon | Oct 6 2019 19:35 utc | 23

@Really? 163 (of ‘Superpower Losing Its Status’ blogpost)
Many thanks for the link – will repost below. I’ll always make time to read prof. Stephen Cohen – or watch him effortlessly dismantle shills on networks game enough to have him on. Indeed, a voice of sanity and reason amongst what is now certifiiable delirium. Though, all he is doing once again is repeating the historical timeline that has lead us to the here and now, though this time adding the Biden/Biden Jr framework in as part of that timeline…the Dem elite will have wished they just left it alone. A huge unforced error which Trump will use as a common thread for re-election. A very early Christmas gift that won’t stop giving.
@psychohistorian 161 (of ‘Superpower Losing Its Status’ blogpost)
She some piece of work. Can’t give her a pass. These people really come off as holier than thou, when they should really just be quiet – diplomacy is becoming outlawed. As far as pieces of shit go, give me the obvious piece of shit everyday, over the piece of shit pretending it is French perfume <—- the essence of Trump’s re-election in 2020 (as seen by a foreign spectator) Link to the Stephen Cohen article: http://www.unz.com/scohen/unasked-questions-about-us-ukrainian-relations/

Posted by: MadMax2 | Oct 6 2019 20:14 utc | 25

AZ@1
Pope Benedict XVI was not overthrown, he is still the Pope. Bergoglio is an anti-pope and a usurper, who needs to be removed, as of right now.
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2019-10/new-cardinals-visit-pope-emeritus.html
…just a man doing hi job, O.K.
https://nonvenipacem.com/
..and, you ask for further proof? Check it out! https://youtu.be/myRP0orPcDc , the final proof Benedict is Pope.

Posted by: Taffyboy | Oct 6 2019 22:27 utc | 27

In the “good old days” having 46K US auto workers on strike for 3 weeks would be top billing in the press non-stop given the primary and secondary economic hit to the US
But today in the US it is just 2nd rate weekly news compared to the daily Civilization war machinations by failing empire around the world and the impeachment smokescreen at home
And then there are those economic fundamentals propping up Mr. Market to make it look like all is well at home…./snark
I am sorry for the killings by my country (US) to keep the cult of global private finance in control…we are not all humanitarian cretins.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Oct 6 2019 22:53 utc | 29

@30 Psychohistorian
No you are not all cretins. One of the great tragedies of the last 30 years is that what really made America great has been buried under the banal predictability of its corporatist oligarchy. I for one still see your country as the land of Hemingway, Pollock, Fredric Jameson, The Doors, Elvis, jazz, extraordinary cinema (once…), vital intellectual and artistic energies, the land Tocqueville admired, the land of Steinbeck, tragic in its folly, heroic in its youth, Europe’s puritan cousin, the scars of the Civil War (which have yet to heal properly), its once mighty democratic universities of the mid-West, the brilliant satire and comedy, the New Deal, its local generous salt-of-the-earth communities, its physical beauty. As an Australian who has lived there on occasion I’ll always remember what a deep thinker the USA can be, not always triumphal capitalist, blinker-protestant, dully conservative, but sometimes a place of great humanism and inspiring vision. I think all of us want that USA rather than the corrupt beltway opportunist Rep-Dem cabal-led parody it has become.

Posted by: Patroklos | Oct 6 2019 23:33 utc | 31

The one thing I’d love Hunter and Joe Biden to account for is the logistics of how he got that board position. Was there a job ad in papers or online and he figured he’d send an application? Was there an international search for the best and brightest? Did the rest of the board get a bunch of phone books from the US and randomly opened a page and it was Hunter Biden?
If the Bidens are insisting this wasn’t corruption, then Hunter wasn’t hired because of who his father was, then how in the hell does a Ukraine energy company hire a random drug addict from America? I’d like them to explain that process in detail.

Posted by: Soft Asylum | Oct 7 2019 0:16 utc | 33

to MadMax2 # 27. Thank you. Yes, the Greta displays are inutile and infantile. Thank you for ref to Boyan Slat. Very very interesting and promising. There are some people working on carbon recapture. A couple are Tim Flannery and a yaley called Hawken, who both propose using seaweeds to recapture carbon. Unlike Boyan Slat, I am not aware of any active projects at the moment, which is a shame. There is another fellow – to be formal, scientist, who thinks that simply planting trees could make a huge difference. I misplaced his research papers. I’ll be back with that.
On the very very negative side, is the problem of glyphosate. Of course there are many researchers in this area. I have been following Rosemary Mason lately. There are so many horrible toxins. Sulfoxaflor, legal in EU. Toxic to bees. Chlorpyrifos, banned in EU, legal in US. Made by your friends at Dow Chemical. According to one researcher, “there is no safe dose.” So the question is: how can these chemicals be neutralized or removed? Of course the ultimate tragedy is that most people don’t know and don’t care to know.
Sorry, I don’t give links…. afraid of the link-nazis. DuckDuckGo knows… cheers

Posted by: Miss Lacy | Oct 7 2019 0:50 utc | 35

I apologize for the length of this comment but think it is worth it.
It consists of an email I received today from my “progressive” Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley about the impeachment proceedings followed by my response to him
Jeff Merkley email
”
Dear James,
I’m sure you’ve been hearing a lot about impeachment lately — on the news, online, and maybe from your own friends and family.
As impeachment proceedings begin in the U.S. Congress, I wanted you to also hear directly from me as your representative in the United States Senate.
Impeachment is a grave step. It should never be used over political or policy differences, no matter how strong those disagreements may be. It must be reserved for the most weighty situations in which there is substantial evidence of serious lawbreaking or fundamental abuse of power.
Unfortunately, we are now at a moment where there is substantial evidence of both.
The presidency comes with awesome powers, and our Constitution and our entire system of government is designed to ensure that those powers are constrained by the rule of law.
There is substantial evidence that President Trump has violated those boundaries.
The Mueller report lays out extensive evidence of criminal wrongdoing by President Trump in four cases of obstruction of justice, including one case of witness tampering. More than one thousand former federal prosecutors have written to Congress stating that any ordinary American committing these acts would be indicted for felony crimes.
And now we are presented with substantial evidence that President Trump used his office to solicit the foreign government of Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. If true, this is an enormous abuse of power.
Our founders were deeply afraid of an imperial presidency where the President would begin to act outside the law. They guarded against that by giving the House of Representatives the power of impeachment, which is equivalent to an indictment, and the Senate the power to hold a trial following impeachment. Conviction requires a supermajority of two-thirds of the Senators. This guarantees that a conviction must have bi-partisan support.
As I ponder this moment, I keep thinking about the enormous responsibility Congress has to hold the President accountable to the rule of law. It is a responsibility that must be exercised without partisan taint. We must strive for a standard that would be applied equally regardless if a President is in one’s own party or in the opposing party.
I encourage all Oregonians to be engaged as we wrestle with the process before us. Read the key sections of the Mueller Report. Examine the whistleblower letter and the testimony it leads to. And feel free to share your thoughts by calling or writing my office.
While the House proceeds with the impeachment inquiry, I hope the Senate will turn to the many issues we face. Good legislation is awaiting action in the Senate on healthcare, housing, education, infrastructure, jobs, equality of opportunity, and carbon pollution. We would do the nation a real service to engage in debating and voting on the bills that address these issues.
If the House does act on impeachment and there is a Senate trial, I pledge as a Senate juror to work to ensure that the rules established for the trial ensure that the Senate and the American people get a complete picture of the evidence and the appropriate context to understand its significance. Moreover, I pledge to weigh that evidence carefully and conscientiously.
This will be a test of the rule of law and our system of government, and whether and how we rise to the occasion will have impacts on American government far into the future.
Impeachment is a step Congress should resolve to take only as a last resort, but we must be equally resolved to safeguard the principle that, in America, nobody is above the law.
All my best,
Jeff
”
My response
”
Senator,
Humanity is currently engaged in a Civilization war and the core of that war is about public/private finance, not about democracy and freedom. The US is the current ugly face of the international cabal of empire that has controlled the events of the Western world for centuries. That cabal has bought and is directing many US politicians at your level but I do not consider you one of them and continue to hope I never do. The actions of our country around the world to support global private finance is sickening. It is clear to me that the international empire is behind the protests in HK and in Iraq as it continues to try and take down the Syrian government. I am no fan of Liberace grifter Trump but I also believe that Hillary “We came, we saw, he died” Clinton is a war criminal, as well as many others.
I believe that “public finance” China and its allies will win this Civilization war the world is in because they have the moral high ground. In the mean time Americans are continually brainwashed with the memes fed to them on todays Plato’s Cave displays such that the 46K auto workers on strike for the past 3 weeks get only weekly summaries and the seminal public banking legislation passed and signed into law in California (the 5th largest economy in the world) gets absolutely no coverage in the MSM.
I consider the mud slinging impeachment proceedings to be another distraction from the core issues that Americans face as our country is gutted by the financialization by global private finance. I encourage you to stand up for the masses in this Civilization war that humanity is engaged in and not the cult of global private finance causing all this murder and mayhem, please and thank you. And while you are at it, how about returning the Motto of the United States back to the sentiments of the Founding Fathers, E Pluribus Unum.
With Respect for your efforts,
James
”

Posted by: psychohistorian | Oct 7 2019 1:59 utc | 37

@38 psycho
Thx for sharing the letter from our senator who I voted for years ago but wouldn’t again.
You left out an important matter of fact in your response: history remembers those who stand up for what is right, because they can see what’s coming down the pike whereas others can not. History will not remember Merkley, because he has done nothing to differentiate himself from all his cohorts that mark themselves with (D).
And I laughed when he did exploratory pressers to gauge his presidential chances. I remember his campaign advertisement: playing ping pong in his garage, poorly, with his son. It was endearing. Now it seems the cold touch of partisan politics has doomed him in my mind to play along with the game in the misguided hope of executive power he does not deserve.

Posted by: Nemesiscalling | Oct 7 2019 2:30 utc | 39

Senator, do you believe that the American people have a right to know what the Vice President and his son were doing in Ukraine which appears wrong and might have been illegal? And if not, why not? Wouldn’t any effort to block such information be an obstruction of justice of the type you accuse Trump of?

Posted by: Don Bacon | Oct 7 2019 3:01 utc | 41

@ 42: No doubt DB, but, since they both work for the same people, nothing will happen to either one..

Posted by: ben | Oct 7 2019 3:12 utc | 43

I was watching a program on YouTube yesterday and one of those annoying adds popped up. The add requested me to support the protesters in HC. I have never seen an add of this nature before. Usually the adds are related to healthcare. The funny thing was I was watching Seventeen Moments of Spring, a Soviet TV spy drama produced in 1973 about a soviet spy working in Nazi German intelligence set in the spring of 1945. Somebody is pushing this agenda pretty hard I think. Anybody else run across something similar?

Posted by: Tom | Oct 7 2019 3:25 utc | 45

MSM is reporting the White House has green-lit Turkey’s invasion of Syria, here

Posted by: Patroklos | Oct 7 2019 4:51 utc | 47

@ Jackrabbit | Oct 6 2019 16:44 utc | 13

It’s good to see that others recognize that Seth Rich may not be the victim that is he believed to be. But the comment fails to put Seth Rich into a larger context.

And despite the use of double quotation marks, the comment also fails to cite any sources.
To be sure, I have heard this theory before, and it does make a certain amount of sense. I’d just be reluctant to accept it without some proof, being as how there’s so much disinformation out there–and at least some of that disinfo comes from Team Hillary. (David Brock, anyone?)

Posted by: Seamus Padraig | Oct 7 2019 6:56 utc | 49

Surprize, Surprize, Surprize the US has sold out the Kurds, again (what is this, the 4th time now – who could have seen this coming). So now Turkey is invading Syria and the Kurds will have to crawl back to the Syrian government and beg them to ask the Turks not to massacre them. Once again the Kurds have shown that they will not lean from experience and have been led down the garden path by the US only to be abandoned at the worst possible moment because the US decided there was more geo-political benefit to leaving the Kurds high and dry in order to make nice to Turkey.

Posted by: Kadath | Oct 7 2019 10:48 utc | 51

Randy Wray is an excellent MMT economist. Here he gives some recent observations on the subject as well as a brief outline of some of its history.
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2019/10/mmt-report-from-the-front.html#more-11585
“”The way forward. The global challenges we face will push MMT forward. While climate change is the most obvious challenge, it is linked to rising inequality, marginalization of displaced workers, ruthless austerity policy, growing waves of refugees, and the take-over of national governments by neoliberals and even fascists. Our “progressive” friends will push for market-friendly solutions: taxes on financial transactions, taxes on pollution, taxes on rich folks to pay for goodies. None of those helps. We have to return to the WWII mobilization to see how to tackle the current challenges—so MMT will eventually win out. It is all about resource mobilization, not finance. And we must include all the necessary social programs in the Green New Deal: jobs for all, healthcare for all, food for all, shelter for all, education for all, decent retirement for all. Bernie, AOC, and Naomi Klein recognize the scope of the challenges. The climate crisis cannot be resolved without taking on the social crisis—the financialization of the economy, the financialization of housing, food, healthcare, education, the electoral process; the entire society.
We probably are not the first intelligent life form to go through this. Any advanced alien species on other planets that survived 10,000 years of civilization have already successfully navigated a crisis similar to the one we face. They discovered fossil fuels and smoked their planet. Their financial sector took over the economy and produced intolerable inequality. But they greened the economy, overthrew their Wall Street, and took back their societies and economies and put them to work for the benefit of their species. Otherwise, they would not have survived.
We can take comfort and inspiration from that. We might just survive, too.””

Posted by: financial matters | Oct 7 2019 12:48 utc | 53

I think that the most interesting gift Trump gave Erdogan is the following (from here):

The United States Government has pressed France, Germany, and other European nations, from which many captured ISIS fighters came, to take them back, but they did not want them and refused. The United States will not hold them for what could be many years and great cost to the United States taxpayer. Turkey will now be responsible for all ISIS fighters in the area captured ove the past two years in the wake of the defeat of the territorial “Caliphate” by the United States.

I expect Turkey doing some hard core blackmailing on the EU, in the near future.

Posted by: Erlindur | Oct 7 2019 14:01 utc | 55

@56. Trump will probably just move a few troops around …..not really a withdrawal. It’s all about controlling Syrian oilfields and keeping pressure on Assad,.

Posted by: dh | Oct 7 2019 14:15 utc | 57

@32 Patroklos
I meant to say “Thank You” yesterday for your memoir. I had truly forgotten. That’s how I used to think of the US. I’m sure many did, within the country and around the world.
We see now that it always had its bad side, from its very beginning. But the culture as a whole didn’t know that, and reflected the exuberant creativity and humanity you recall. It showed so much promise.
I don’t know what the ordinary people of the US think today, if there is even a mainstream that can be observed and assessed – this was always a tricky thing to get right, often requiring wise vision rather than measuring sticks. But no one anymore speaks of the American Dream – no one, anywhere, ever – or any of the greatness you allude to.
The hardliners are still as hard, and as absurdly inaccurate, as they ever were in their exceptionalist view. But the middle of the road seems very muted.

Posted by: Grieved | Oct 7 2019 14:31 utc | 59

Snipers now active in Iraq firing into crowds. Another Western false flag?

Posted by: lysias | Oct 7 2019 14:36 utc | 61

And now the the shake-up in Syria.
An ZH posting that 2nd whistle-blower is likely Bolton.
As I’ve heard that Churchill said of Americans:
They will do the right thing, after exhausting all other options.

Posted by: jared | Oct 7 2019 14:51 utc | 63

This is a general request to commenters since I value the degree of insight you have.
There are a number of concepts that are very difficult to grasp: banking, layers and layers of intelligence operations, etc. How about designing a few explanations that drill into the core of a concept? for example: “money laundering for dummies” or, more politely “for most of us” using lots of graphics and ven diagram’type visuals that explain the core concept. Judging by many comments I think therer are an unusual number of people on this site who understand more about, say, money laundering, than I. It would really help me if you could help me learn some of those concepts.

Posted by: miguel jose | Oct 7 2019 15:14 utc | 65

“There was no legal precedent in international law for Britain to seize the Iranian tanker near Gibraltar earlier this year. In fact, by international law that act was literally piracy.” William Gruff @57
The same might be said of the absolutely amazing breach of international and national law in the arrest and detention of Huawei’s Meng Wangzhou
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/10/07/hsbc-
never-left-dope-trade-nor-crown-why-hsbc-is-no-victim-
institution-huawei-case/
Significantly both of these cases involved US Satellites-or are they?-just as earlier breaches of law “rendition’, torture, jailing without trial dragged in other countries as accomplices in and apologists for the dismantling of the UN Charter and Geneva Conventions.
In the end what we are left with is the doctrine that the bully prevails. In this case in which the bully, is neither particularly well armed nor capable of imposing his will on anyone but his ‘allies, in part because ‘Defense’ is largely an excuse for issuing fat contracts to cronies, there is bound to be a reckoning. And it will take place in the short run.

Posted by: bevin | Oct 7 2019 15:34 utc | 67

The result of Judicial Watch’s FOIA lawsuit is a trove related to the beginnings of Russiagate revealing collusion between actors allied with the Current Oligarchy bordering on treason. Yes, there most certainly was a conspiracy as the documents reveal, with Mueller being seen as the right man to deliver the goods. And there’s more to come from additional FOIA requests and suits. As I said earlier, Trump has the ultimate weapon of being capable of declassifying a huge cache of internal correspondence deemed secret only due to its sensitive political nature, not having a thing to do with national defense. IMO, Trump would be wise to request a Special Prosecutor to investigate Biden and Clinton as there’s a landfill’s worth of garbage already available in the public realm to put both away for the rest of their lives.

Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 7 2019 16:30 utc | 69

“The UK has had PM’s that were Sikh, Buddist, other…”
Names, please?

Posted by: bevin | Oct 7 2019 16:59 utc | 71

Tesla Smart Summons accidents – setting up for legal precedent setting:
Class actions? Direct suits against Tesla?
Class action suits seem unlikely given the fanatical Tesla owner set. Lawsuits from insurance companies, however…

Posted by: c1ue | Oct 7 2019 17:48 utc | 73

I don’t know about anybody else here, but when a U.S. Senator sends out a form letter to a constituent they shouldn’t be telling big fat lies. There is no serious impeachment inquiry going on? You want to know the tell?
pogohere @33 pointed it out for any who read it –

The U.S. Constitution gives the House the sole power to impeach a federal official. Individual House members can introduce impeachment resolutions like ordinary bills, or the House could initiate impeachment proceedings by passing a resolution authorizing an inquiry.
The House Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over impeachment proceedings, decides whether to pursue articles of impeachment against the accused official and can hold hearings to review the accusations. If the committee votes to approve articles of impeachment, the formal charges move to the full House for consideration.

Now ask yourself what committee Schiff oversees? Then ask yourself, why would his committee be running the inquiry. The answer has a lot to do with closed doors and the public’s right to know.

Posted by: h | Oct 7 2019 18:19 utc | 75

b4real @ 77
Apologies for bad grammar and typo’s. I neglected to proofread. Hope you get the gist.
b4real

Posted by: b4real | Oct 7 2019 23:03 utc | 77

interesting speculation… Arab Paper: Al-Fagham Killed by MbS for Relaying Yemen War Intel to Saudi King

Posted by: james | Oct 8 2019 3:09 utc | 79

Posted by: vk | Oct 7 2019 15:23 utc | 67
There is a lot Marxist theory does not explain. It would be surprising if a 19th century guy could forsee everything .Especially as he could not foresee his own influence – which was immense.
1. Keynes fixed capitalism by inventing “state investment” It works, see China. State investment depends on politics, therefore crisis.
2. Financial crisis caused by fraud has no role in Marxist theory.
2. Consumption does have a huge role, as a lot of people (most people in Western states) are beyond the restrictions of having to spend all their earnings to be able to live (at least if you live in a country with a decent healthcare system). If these people decide to stop buying, that’s it. An immense amount of advertising is needed to get people to buy useless stuff. This is not the world Marx lived in.
3, People’s life style, demographics, age, have a huge role ie are the scales of a society tipped towards consumption or unemployment. Marx has no theory re workers especially skilled work becoming scarce, which is the present point of development in a lot of states. A lot of states depend on immigration.
4. Marx has no theory for countries being able to defend their resources. His theory applies to 19th century imperialism and colonialism ie endless resources for a small group.
5. On the Marxist scale – Manchester capitalism – most states today are close to socialism ie people’s life is free from economic necessities – humans just have not come to an agreement what they want from life. There have been some recent political experiments with Manchester capitalism they won’t survive.

Posted by: somebody | Oct 8 2019 10:20 utc | 81

This hasn’t been discussed much lately: Thousands of Indigenous Reach Quito, President Moves Seat of Gov’t to Guayaquil
The fanbois for the Evil Empire like to crow about how the governments of countries with leftist movements are being taken over by the Empire’s lawfare and other shady shenanigans. In their Risk board game style super simplified understanding of geopolitics, the Empire fanbois view this as decisive victory for the Empire.
I have tried pointing out that the Empire installing servile tools at the top of various state institutions in its imperial outlands does not lock those states into the Empire’s orbit. The objective conditions in those states that led their populations leftward remain unchanged, so the leftward tendencies in those states remain. To keep those states in its sphere is a constant battle for the Empire, but the imperial attention span is not so good as it used to be.
The Empire thought installing the traitor Lenin Moreno in power Ecuador through subterfuge was clever, but Moreno is in trouble.

Posted by: William Gruff | Oct 8 2019 11:10 utc | 83

For the first time on record, the 400 wealthiest Americans last year paid a lower total tax rate — spanning federal, state and local taxes — than any other income group:
The Rich Really Do Pay Lower Taxes Than You
[source: Michael Roberts’ Facebook]

Posted by: vk | Oct 8 2019 14:42 utc | 85

The Rich Really Do Pay Lower Taxes Than You
Posted by: vk | Oct 8 2019 14:42 utc | 87
All the descendents of the Mayflower pay virtually no taxes anyway; the entire tax system is devised for elaborate avoidance schemes. They spend far more on their tax avoidance lawyers than they pay in taxes. One of them once told me he paid about $100 per year in taxes.

Posted by: BM | Oct 8 2019 15:19 utc | 87

I can’t recall if I’ve provided the link to this short book/long essay by Hudson, THE LOST TRADITION OF BIBLICAL DEBT CANCELLATIONS in PDF format and 87 pages in total length. It’s truly fascinating and informs us that the longstanding enemy of all but their own class is what I call The Moneypower, and which psychohistorian terms private finance. The roots of it all and how it was circumvented for centuries is well documented. But what’s most impressive to me are the efforts taken to bake ongoing reform (if reform’s the correct term) into religion and the customary law based upon it. Seldom can one get a scholarly work of this sort for free. Please take advantage and share how to obtain it with your own circles. IMO, all barflies would agree that the more people who learn about the history of the forces that oppress, cause wars and other sufferings while eating their free lunch the better.

Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 8 2019 20:10 utc | 89

B, I just noticed the front page Banner re: Serena Shim Award Laureate for Uncompromised Journalism. Fair dues, well done. A champion effort everyday and so well deserved… it’s why we’re here.
Anyways, a fellow Serena Shim Laureate in Jimmy Dore was a guest on The Hill. Some classic Dore in there. A true progressive.
Jimmy Dore Rips Democrats On Impeachment (10mins)
https://youtu.be/fa0kDY4VE9c

Posted by: MadMax2 | Oct 8 2019 21:26 utc | 91

spudski @91–
Thanks for your reply! There’s so much archived at Hudson’s website that I haven’t read!! I was searching for info on the 1914 banking crisis, 1914 also being the year the Fed was birthed. In the process, I came across a 4-year-old paper of his, “How the U.S. Treasury avoided Chronic Deflation by Relinquishing Monetary Control to Wall Street” wherein he prefaces:
“The Eurozone today is going into the same deflationary situation that the U.S. did under Jackson’s destruction of the Second Bank, and the post-Civil War budget surpluses that deflated the economy. But whereas the Fed’s creation was designed to inflate the U.S. economy, Europe’s European Central Bank is designed to deflate it — in the interest of commercial banks in both cases.”
Woah!!!! And there’s more to be gleaned from the sources he cites, particularly GE Griffin’s 1994 The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve and the associated 1930 work by Warburg. We also learn more about the 1907 banking crisis that’s briefly discussed in US history texts:
“In the wake of America’s 1907 financial panic, the Aldrich-Vreeland Act of 1908 created a ‘National Monetary Commission … to inquire into and report to Congress at the earliest date practicable, what changes are necessary or desirable in the monetary system of the United States or in the laws relating to banking and currency …'[1] The Commission’s thirty-five monographs provided an exhaustive study of central banking structures and commercial banking policies, laying the groundwork for what in 1913 became the Federal Reserve Act.
“Money and banking textbooks typically portray the Act as modernizing the financial system “to correct certain serious shortcomings in the National Bank Act: to provide an elastic currency, efficient clearing, centralized reserves, readily available credit for banks, and unified control of the banking system.”[2] But David Kinley’s 1910 report (Kinley 1910) shows that the National Banking System had neither responsibility nor ability to steer the nation’s monetary course. Prior to 1913 the Treasury performed these functions, including open market bond purchases to provide the banking system with liquidity. It would be more accurate to view the Federal Reserve as shifting to Wall Street the financial power hitherto concentrated in the hands of the Treasury Secretary in Washington.”
Hudson cites Kinley’s report numerous times which IMO makes it a must read to understand the underlying context. Fortunately, it’s available online here at what’s one of the best archival sites I’ve discovered.
The extremely unfortunate amount of illiteracy regarding financial systems and their history that’s rife amongst the global public is one reason why we’re in our current predicament, and it’s not like the books haven’t been written and the entire affair’s hidden. Rather, it’s people don’t realize the importance of it all because it’s not at all stressed during K-12 education–the actions of the past are seldom connected to current issues affecting everyone, including students: Making the connections makes the past relevant and subsequently important to understand. And everything about the Fed and how the Moneypower rules the Outlaw US Empire and much of the world is rather important, IMO.
Thanks again spudski! Now you have even more to read!

Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 8 2019 21:56 utc | 93

@karlof1 re: economic literacy
The neolibs have all but banished all heterodox economic thought from university faculties in the west. There is only room for their gospel. The nature of the market does not work so rigidly however… systems should be flexible enough to reflect the flexibility inside human nature itself, so contrary thought should be appreciated overall. I think Russia and China have done well here, understanding the beast better than the bloated beast itself… little wonder Hudson is such a favourite guest in the latter.
As we await the inevitable crisis around the corner, one might come to believe these crisis are manufactured. How can one be so cocksure, yet so doomed to repeat the same failures…? QE5 to the rescue…!

Posted by: MadMax2 | Oct 8 2019 22:22 utc | 95

dennis @93–
Thanks for your reply! Yes, that’s an essential work I also found and posted to the bar earlier this year.
IMO, what would be helpful is a cinematic novel telling the tale of the Moneypower’s rise and efforts over the centuries to keep its boot on the neck of the commonfolk. Tolkien’s The Hobbit attempts to provide that but shrouds the tale such that the main point is most difficult to see. Lucas’s Star Wars tells the tale of Empire but leaves out the economic aspects until the first prequel where it gets a brief and veiled airing. Herbert’s Dune is too metaphoric. And the evil in Harry Potter has no relation to money whatsoever. The first Wall Street was excellent, as was Bulworth. The 1960s Spaghetti Westerns were very revealing metaphorically, but all too many missed their meaning and moral. IMO, most cinema since 2000 isn’t worth the money and time to watch, but I know I’m very much in the minority. Why a movie? It has the potential to reach many more than any book and leave a greater lasting impression if done correctly.

Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 8 2019 23:04 utc | 97

Cultural Imperialism–Basketball in China and the tweet by Huston Rocket owner Daryl Morey.
There may be a few other Basketball Joneses here besides myself, and its become an important international sport. Morey displayed massive ignorance and zero foresight when he sent the following tweet:
“Fight for Freedom, Stand with Hong Kong.”
The following Global Times items IMO are measured and balanced, “US political correctness kills NBA’s market in China”, “NBA responds to Rockets GM Morey’s Hong Kong tweet”, “Chinese stars quit NBA event as Rockets’ tweet incident ferments”, and “More partners cancel cooperation with NBA”. Compounding the problem are Outlaw US Empire-based writers who don’t have the correct context either as in this example:
“It was a small gesture of support for the protesters fighting China’s incursion into the semi-autonomous region.”
They’re terrorists, not protesters as all sorts of evidence proves, and China hasn’t made any “incursion” into HK whatsoever, rendering the writer just as mistaken as the NBA exec he’s criticizing. But to be fair, he’s not the only one, which is a measure of the propaganda’s success in the matter.

Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 8 2019 23:34 utc | 99