@3 b.. thats funny.. putin attacking tesla to build up export sales of lada!! i think he is onto something..

Posted by: james | Nov 23 2019 18:31 utc | 4

Why did America First Trump hire Manafort?
Manafort was managing campaigns of pro-Russian political parties/candidates in Ukraine for 7 years or so before being hired by Trump. My understanding is that Manafort was warned that his work was undermining USA efforts in Ukraine.
Why did America First Trump bring on Flynn?
Flynn was known to be hated by the intelligence community for having told the world that the Obama Administration made a “wilful decision” to support the rise of ISIS.
Why did America First Trump make pleas for Putin to release Hillary’s emails via Wikileaks?
It was already known that some of the emails contained top secret information. AFAIK, USA would consider any publication a crime.
These were set-ups.
<> <> <> <> <> <> <> <>
Why was “independent”, “socialist true believer”, supposed man-of-integrity Sanders sheepdogging for Hillary (“enough with your damn emails”)?
Why did Hillary, a seasoned campaigner with virtually unlimited resources, make so many grievous mistakes in the 2016 election? She snubbed Sanders and his supporters; took the black vote for granted; insulted whites as “deplorables”; chose not to campaign in the THREE STATES that she know would decided the election. Why didn’t she pull out all the stops to win? For her beloved establishment? For her own aspirations as first women President? If she failed because she was “over confident” as some have suggested, then why did she pay for the Steele dossier as “insurance”? There was no need for insurance if she knew she would win and if she were unsure of winning she should have done everything possible to win (as any real candidate would have).
Why did America First Trump use British company Cambridge Analytica? We later learned that facebook provided the same info to dozens of other companies (debunking the initial excuse that Cambridge Analytica had special access to facebook info). Was it because the Russiagate disinfo and CIA election meddling campaign was located in UK?
Why did Trump initiate Ukrainegate by talking about investigating Biden on a diplomatic call? He’s smart enough to know that such political machinations are handled behind the scenes.
This Reality Show Presidency is all about kayfabe as the Deep State restructures to meet the challenge from China and Russia, and seeks to manufacture consent for a war with Iran.
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Nov 23 2019 18:53 utc | 6

@b #3
I really think the twitter account is satire, judging from other tweets and the profile pic.

Posted by: c1ue | Nov 23 2019 19:00 utc | 8

Maybe I should’ve posted my comment @6 on the “Impeachment Circus” thread instead.
It just struck me that neoMcCarthist smearing of Russia (which is ongoing, as proven by b’s post) was made possible via the kayfabe of Russiagate, which had it’s origins in the 2016 election.
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Nov 23 2019 19:14 utc | 10

Fiona Hill is an expert on Russophobic content. Like Condi Rice, a Soviet Scholar, she knows nothing truthful about Russia. Else, why does she lie about Russia?
The think tanks, academia and State Dept. spew out the lies which the Media multiplies. 99% of Russian experts are Russophobes who possess little expertise, some practicing their propaganda for decades. Many of them excrete books on regular schedules.
The first test (since 2014) of any expert’s credentials is his/her position on Crimea. The next test is on Russian aggression.
If anyone suggests Crimea does not belong to Russia (most especially the federal district of Sevastopol), then they are ignorant or lying. You either know that in 1954 Crimea was unconstitutionally given to Ukraine by the Ukrainian Khruschev. It was illegal by USSR law. 2014 corrected that injustice. The experts who profess otherwise are lying.
And if anyone suggests that the Russians are aggressors, they are lying. If Russia was an aggressor in Georgia or Ukraine, neither would have governments that are so anti-Russian or militaries that could form a small parade, much less beg for inclusion in NATO.
Russia reacted to Georgian aggression and mass murder. In Ukraine, the Donbass is a Russian assisted self-defense operation against an ethnic cleansing war. Russia’s participation has been to save 2.5 million Russian-speaking Ukrainians from slaughter (‘filtration’ is the Ukie euphemism for killing the Donbass separatists who refuse Kiev’s nazi regime).
Russian ‘aggression’ is a construct of propaganda. Taken in the context of NATO expansion and encroachment right to the borders of Russia, there is nothing but lies tied to the ‘aggression’ canard.
We have had 28 years of demonization of the Russian Federation. Russophobia is centuries old in some societies. Of late, it focuses on the attempts to separate away from Russia the brother republics of the CIS region of Eurasia. Fed lies, distortion of history, linguistic differences, religious issues and economic disadvantages, a mania against Russia has been cultivated. It all is led by “the experts” like Fiona Hill.
We see the same dynamic used against China with Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia. Propaganda. Lies. Experts who mouth the Sinophobic fabrications are the talking heads on Media and on Congressional sideshows.
Russophobia and Sinophobia are industries now. Fame, publishing riches, TV appearances, YouTube videos abound with the ‘expertise’ of these haters.
Judge the output of these expert operatives. The content is always flawed. The truth is always hidden. But lies fly fast and loose.

Posted by: Red Ryder | Nov 23 2019 19:53 utc | 12

A bit of much needed parody:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaWeYqotUJs&list=PLYx4pXgdCwm4blkJrS5SnFCiGFnV1mByc&index=2
one of many by the same, if one keeps looking.

Posted by: RJPJR | Nov 23 2019 20:39 utc | 14

@12 Well said Red Ryder..

Posted by: @Lozion | Nov 23 2019 20:45 utc | 16

RJPJR @14
Excellent!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Nov 23 2019 21:20 utc | 18

No matter how often I’m brought to consider this, it still seems striking that 2 years and $40 million in US law fare waged by the Special Prosecutor is not enough to see Fiona Hill laughed out of chambers at her RussiaRussia harangue, whereas the NYT is able to establish an equivalent lack of foundation to the Ukraine meddling thesis in a thrice, notwithstanding rather substantial counter-evidence long in the public domain. Indeed the Grey Lady does not even try to debunk these claims, allowing herself instead to refer to them debunked. If you say so, apparently, or if you and your cohort say so often enough.
For any progressives still gaslighted by this, I invite you to consider a similar full-court legal, media, IC / Deep State campaign featuring most of the same actors, engaging next in the hobbling or destruction of a Bernie Sanders presidency.

Posted by: Paul Damascene | Nov 23 2019 21:25 utc | 20

Jackrabbit @ 6 and Antoinetta III @19:
Or the Steele Dossier was intended so much insurance as a cudgel to beat the fallen Donald, post-election loser, while he was down. This was the man whose most stirring electoral refrain was “lock her up.” She and her masters would have had every reason to want to grind him into the dirt after beating him.

Posted by: Paul | Nov 23 2019 21:40 utc | 22

Sorry, oldhippie, Pipes wasn’t and is not a laughingstock in academia. He merely should have been. His son Daniel is doing the same in middle east studies and he’s not a laughingstock either. It is hard to underestimate how little effect adhering to the basic scholarly standards can have in keeping out motivated reasoning, double standards, agendas, political servitude, etc. It is quite likely that Pipes has a better reputation than Stephen Cohen, J. Arch Getty or Sheila FitzPatrick. He certainly has a better reputation than a Mark Tauger.

Posted by: steven t johnson | Nov 23 2019 22:04 utc | 24

Paul @ 22, wrote: “She [Harridan Hillary] and her masters would have had every reason to want to grind him [Tweetie Bird] into the dirt after beating him.”
I agree, but there was also the need to demonize Russia and V.V.Putin to lay the ground for the war against Russia. The campaign against Trump began in January 2016, launched by Brennan and the CIA, whose strumpet H.H. had been since back in Arkansas.
Already in July 2016, she was openly campaigning against V.V.P. There was ONE ( 1! ) foreign policy plank in her platform, and it was the no-fly zone over Syria. General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, testified before the United States Congress in mid-September 2016, on which occasion he was asked about the no-fly zone. He responded, promptly and unequivocally, that it would mean war with Russia.
If war with Russia had not been the objective, the Great Grey Whore would have used its position in New York to investigate Tweetie Bird and publish to the world, indeed, hammer to the world, the long grotesque story of his attempt to make a career in real estate, and the fraud he engaged in from the start. His string of bankruptcies was the most spectacular in the history of American business enterprise (this from somebody who has studied United States economic and financial history) instead of letting him constantly blather on about what a great businessman he was etc.
His father had him on the payroll when he was two, to the tune of $200,000, in order to pass wealth on to him without paying the very high gift tax. By the time his father died, he had made over to Tweetie Bird something in the neighborhood of $420 million. And Tweetie Bird squandered it all, plus the fabulous real-estate empire that his father had left him — all gone…
In 2002, Tweetie Bird was over $3 billion (yes, BILLION) in debt to 72 banks in New York and no New York bank would give him a credit line, which he desperately needed to keep up his incessant refrain that money is no object for Donald Trump. So, he turned to the Russian oligarchs for whom he had been laundering money to generate cash flow. They gave him a credit line through the Cypriot banks that they controlled, and now they own him. They are his Russian connection, not V.V.P., who has been fighting the oligarchs since he first took office — look at what V.V.P. did to Michail Khodokovski: ten years in the gulag (he’s now living in Switzerland reduced to scraping by on the ten or so billion that he had squirreled away in Swiss banks).
Tweetie Bird owns NOTHING. Everything is in the name of the Trump Organization, to protect it from confiscation when the reckoning comes. And, since the T.O. publishes NOTHING about its affairs, it’s reasonable to assume that he is in debt to his Cypriot banks, probably to the tune of five or six billion at this point, and that they hold liens on every piece of property he claims as his own.
Tweetie Bird is all about Tweetie Bird, exclusively. His pitch for détente with Russia was a classic case of doing the right thing for the wrong reason, to wit he intended to lift the sanctions if V.V.P. would round up the oligarchs who have Tweetie Bird over the barrel and pack them off to the gulag. However, in August 2017, Congress pulled the rung out from under him by reinforcing the sanctions and thus removing them from executive order purview and placing them under Congressional authority.

Posted by: rjp | Nov 23 2019 22:25 utc | 26

Jackrabbit @ 6

My understanding is that Manafort was warned that his work was undermining USA efforts in Ukraine.

So what? Maybe Trump wanted to undermine the Washington Borg’s efforts in Ukraine as they were counter to his principle foreign policy – cordial relations with Russia. Since Trump was very clear about this policy all through the election, he has every right to implement that policy regardless of what anyone opposed to him might think or try to do. It’s one of the basic concepts of a democratic system (yeah, I am aware that the U.S. is a republic not a democracy, etc.) that the successful candidate should be able to implement any legal policy that was part of his manifesto.
As for Trump asking the Russians to look for Hillary Clinton’s e-mails, it was a joke. Added to which it was a reference to the 30,000 “personal” e-mails that that idiot, Hillary Clinton, had managed to mislay and not the DNC and Podesta e-mails that were leaked by some unknown party to Wikileaks.

Posted by: Ghost Ship | Nov 23 2019 22:48 utc | 28

I have been watching the Trump impeachment hearings farce on television over the past weeks and have heard enough BS by the so-called witnesses to fertilize the Sinai Desert. The real reason behind the hearings is not ‘quid pro quo,’ but ‘cui bono’ (who benefits). The parade of over-the-hill Cold War warriors has reinforced my belief that the impeachment hearings are essentially an attempt by the old Cold War guard to retain their privileges and positions of power in Washington. As for Ms. Fiona Hill, she is a prime example of the old dictum that states, “A Brit with an upper class accent reading the phone book sounds smarter to most Americans, than Abe Lincoln reading the Gettysburg Address.

Posted by: GeorgeV | Nov 23 2019 23:43 utc | 30

More 007 stuff on this Ukrainegate imbroglio:
Giuliani plays down Parnas link and repeats ‘insurance’ claim: Soviet-born go-betweens ‘weren’t James Bond’

Posted by: vk | Nov 24 2019 0:48 utc | 32

I have no argument with constitutional executive powers. I do have many arguments against Unitary Executive Theory. You can campaign on a policy and implement it once elected, but you can’t use executive power with corrupt intent and claim immunity.

Posted by: Idland | Nov 24 2019 2:52 utc | 34

The degree of dishonesty and blatant manipulation by the MSM has reached ridiculous levels. MSM journalists are not journalists, they are lying, evil peddlers of propaganda shilling for the military industrial complex; they are as blood-stained as the psychopathic elite that they so faithfully serve…they should be held responsible for their lies, up to and including prosecution for war crimes:
https://richardhennerley.com/2018/11/01/are-msm-journalists-war-criminals/

Posted by: Richard | Nov 24 2019 8:11 utc | 36

Really @ 33 Thanks for the reference to the Der Spiegel article questioning Magnitsky. Hij is absolutely ground zero of the whole Russia paranoia and Ukraine obsession. The US has lost all perspective: an insignificant place like Ukraine dominates its national and foreign policies while its own people have to pay the price.

Posted by: Quentin | Nov 24 2019 10:09 utc | 38

OT
The beggars and the saw-prince
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/8/356493/World/Region/US-and-France-vie-to-bolster-Gulf-security-at-Mana.aspx

Posted by: Mina | Nov 24 2019 10:59 utc | 40

Hillary Clinton: “We better get to the White House if most of us do not want to end up at the lamp posts”. O America, if you knew what these people are doing to the Americans—– after they got rid of president Kennedy.

Posted by: nietzsche1510 | Nov 24 2019 11:12 utc | 42

Ghost Ship #28
Thank you Ghost Ship, a timely reminder.
It is important to remember that Hillary Clinton as Sec of State transacted her entire computer communications operation on an unsecured server in a closet at her home. It was shared with the Clinton Foundation. It was never secured or in any way made available to the US Government IT security team.
Likewise she used unsecured phones.
That is what the problem was as that server would have been accessed by a number of state actors who would suspect some benefit might come their way if they peeked. A cinch for any state actor let alone a clever hacker.
Hillary Clinton is guilty of the single extreme national security breach in US history. And they are killing Assange to cover for her criminal treachery.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Nov 24 2019 11:58 utc | 44

George @30
A minor point, true enough, but Fiona Hill does most definitely *not* have an “”upper class English” accent. (As a former Brit of English and working class origin, that is as apparent as could be.) Her accent is a much softened after many years away from her working class family origins in North-Eastern England – specifically, County Durham, and as many years trying to rid herself of those working class origins, taints there remains the local lilt to her diction.
Regarding her rank, stinking Russophobia – I would suggest that its origins were *not* from her background (her father was a coal miner) but rather from the fact that she spent her late teens and early adulthood under the Thatcher the Snatcher government and its deliberate ending of public ownership of basic services as it installed TINA – pure rapacious, plundering, mammon and moloch worshipping corporate-capitalism allied to imperialism.
Add to these likely background effects, the desire among some of those of working class origins who, on achieving a tertiary education have every intention of eschewing and disparaging their backgrounds and adopting wholeheartedly the worldview of the ruling elites. Not at all unusual, certainly in the UK.
Definitely totally distorted. Inaccurate (I doubt that she has ever spent much, if any, time in Russia with ordinary, working class Russians – ho no, too far down the ladder) and extremely partisan. Another Dem shill?
An aside: my late husband’s friends are all highly educated and all (the American ones, anyway) glued to the impeachment hearings and gung-ho for them…. Education isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, clearly. (And For the record – I am very much anti-both parties.)

Posted by: AnneR | Nov 24 2019 12:08 utc | 46

In reply to Karlof1 – absolutely agree about the abilities of V. Putin and his team. If ONLY we had any government (had any akin to them over the past decades) as able, sensible, concerned about their country as Putin and his team clearly are, we’d be a peaceful, non-terroristic, economically more equal place. I would also include with V. Putin and his team, Xi and his government and the Iranian elected government – and Khamenei. Our lot are squealing, uneducated (in the true sense of the term) greedy, amoral children by comparison

Posted by: AnneR | Nov 24 2019 12:19 utc | 48

@ Posted by: AnneR | Nov 24 2019 12:08 utc | 46
There’s a movie called “Billy Elliot”, which takes place in the 1980s UK, that tells this story: the boy had a miner father and a miner older brother, with high class consciousness — there’s even a scene where they fight over one of the members who violated the strike and went to work.
But none of that matters of little Billy, as he wants to be a ballet dancer. The riot police, the strikes, all of that appears just as a background, the landscape, over which he and his best friend talk about wanting to do ballet.
The figure of Billy Elliot represents the transition in the UK from an industrial economy to a services one, and the transition of a social-democratic UK to a neoliberal UK.

Posted by: vk | Nov 24 2019 12:57 utc | 50

AnneR @ 46 wrote: “Education isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, clearly.”
Like with food, deprivation is bad, but content, the manner of serving etc. can have a variety of effects. Here we have an example of a narrower phenomenon, meritocracy. Somewhere I read that the imperial government of China had European guest and advisors who informed their host about certain advances in Europe like clock construction and improved cartography, but who also brought back information about the Chinese method of selecting officials on the basis of examinations. Initially, the English adopted civil service selected by examinations to rule India, and that worked so well that the system was extended for the government of England as well. Like in China, the key was to learn the wisdom of the classics. Of course, Confucius was replaced with Plato, Horace etc. Back in China, Confucius seems to be replaced by the study of the History of Chinese Communist Party — obligatory regardless of the major.
However, what is outright sinister is the coupling of “narrative building” performed for intelligence/national security apparatus in USA and UK with academia. “Properly thinking” luminaries from top institutions of learning were recruited for the purpose, with Fiona Hill mentor being prime example. From what I understand, Richard Pipes left the position of the head of Russian and Slavic Studies at Harvard to be CIA consultant where he lead Team B to assess the intentions and capabilities of USSR. Unlike more realistic team A, Team B strongly exaggerated both sinister plans of USSR, basically suggesting that without heeding the constraints of MAD, they will attempt to subjugate the West, and the capabilities. Almost hiilariously, his team postulated that the symptoms of economic stagnation in USSR were faked to lull the West into complaisance. Recommendations of Team B were enthusiastically adopted by Reagan administration to justify acceleration of defense spending. Check “Team B” in Wikipedia. “I would say that all of it was fantasy. … if you go through most of Team B’s specific allegations about weapons systems, and you just examine them one by one, they were all wrong.” Needless to say, the theory of faked economic decline was absurd.
Lamentably, Pipes did not abandoned his teaching duties, and while he toiled as the head of Team B he was mentoring Ph. D. students including Fiona Hill.

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Nov 24 2019 13:35 utc | 52

*The legalistic assholes who want to deny majority rule under shelter of the Electoral College on the fraudulent grounds that a technicality matters more really are against majority rule. Of course they also pretend that impeachment reverses elections. The cherry on top of this turd sundae? They would reject the 26th Amendment, which would have been invoked against Reagan as well as Trump (and possibly his original, Nixon, as well.) Pence is not even man enough to do his duty. by: steven t johnson @ 17 <=you might also be interested to know that these same types want to take control of all of the resources, all of the departments, all of the labor, and all of whatever else that exist in America so the USA can use them to conduct continuous war and manage the grey zone.. read on.. The white paper "Russian Strategic Intentions"[https://cryptome.org/2019/07/Pentagon-Russia.pdf%5D, caste its analysis of the future in terms of “competition and conflict” and presents, in its preface, a long list of those associated to the claim that the USA should use “all of its instruments of state power” in a comprehensive fashion, to manage grey area warfare, to promote elite interest in far away places, and to impose aggression (in environment, in economic activity, with influence campaigns, with paramilitary assault, with cyber intrusion, and with political warfare) as a defense to Russian grey zone global activities. What bull shit! no wonder Americans cannot understand Article II Presidents or the USA endangering Americans and their quality of life because the USA is involved in bombing, destructing and aggressing activities. The groups that wrote this report have decided they should decide for the American public, what the USA policy should be? I wonder what Americans would say about that?
Is it true that “Americans need go no further than think tanks and intelligence services supporting USA aggression in foreign lands, to find their enemies and to discover the cause of why their lot has been reduced to forth world peon status? Who in America allowed groups of the type that wrote this paper to decide, or even to think about deciding, for Americans what the USA should be doing? Why is not “war for ever, even when there is no war” the narrative debated by USA politicians competing to govern America? Governed Americans and governed Russians should build a stadium, outfit the personnel in Russian and USA governments, their think tanks and their intelligence services with uniforms, lock the two opposed teams in the stadium, and sell the TV rights to pay off the national debt of all of the nations of the world as these two teams as they fight it out to the last man, woman and paper tiger warrior.
Consider this fascinating assumption or projection => “Russia believes..there is no unacceptable or illegitimate form of deterrence, compellence, or escalation management(Goure).. [<= I cannot find in real life the continuum of conflict this group talks about?]. Like Russia’s perception of its competition with the USA, its perception of conflict is dichotomous: one is either at war or not at war." I had no idea Russia could believe anything? Apparently think tanks supporting the USA; think Russia can think, and have concluded, as a result of their thoughts, that war exist, even when: there is no war? My USA cat jumped over the starry moon, while his Russian cow chased earthly rats? The so-called Russian grand (balance of powers) strategy vs whole of USA government liberal order management of the international grey zone => compels and escalates the USA, sez the report, to maintain a continuous state of war?
.. “Countering Russian provocations [<=competition maybe, but not provocation?] requires all instruments of USA national power, they say?" <=note: as long as not on American soil who cares?

Posted by: snake | Nov 24 2019 13:58 utc | 54

Well, snake, the thalassocratic rule of the Anglosaxon diaspora into forward operating base (former republic) USA has evidently failed, and “they” now follow not the republic’s laws, but the ukase of Imperial method. They have no other methods.
This was also the reason for England to start WW1. German industry and Ruski resources would (will/is/has) integrate(d) Heartland and create(d) a tellurocratic reality those Fine fella’s down at the shop cannot abide.
Think of this as a loose connecting rod in a chevy motor…you know what’s going to happen, but it’s the only way to go…so you pretend it’s ok…
All war is based on Deception.

Posted by: Walter | Nov 24 2019 14:19 utc | 56

If US intelligence agencies are asserting that Ukraine meddling in the US election was a Russian operation, when in fact Ukraine did indeed heavily meddle in the elections, isn’t that treason by the US intelligence agency officials concerned?

Posted by: BM | Nov 24 2019 14:31 utc | 58

@54
“The legalistic assholes who want to deny majority rule under shelter of the Electoral College on the fraudulent grounds that a technicality matters more really are against majority rule.”
You seem to advocating the concept of mob rule. Do you understand that a popular opinion is not necessarily a correct opinion?

Posted by: Ant. | Nov 24 2019 14:59 utc | 60

Quentin 38
What does “Hij” mean?
Regarding Nekrasov/Film/MSM: Precisely.
I did watch that film when it was linked at an article about the whole affair at the Unz Review (now I think the Bitchute link is once again neutered). Before seeing this article I was virtually ignorant of the Magnitisky affair, scumbag Browder, and the putative affair’s influence on American policy. Here is the UNz Review article, by Israel Shamir:
http://www.unz.com/ishamir/the-good-fortune-of-mr-browder/?highlight=Browder
(sorry if not doing link properly)
It’s a long story, which Shamir tells pretty clearly.
Kurz um, the American public was denied the chance to evaluate Browder’s claims themselves by viewing the film. Truly, censorship at its most naked.
Bidder may be jumping on a bandwagon (and, I don’t know what he actually writes!!) but Der Spiegel is 150% MSM, toeing the American line in most respects. So I do think even this headline is worth noting.
However, I have read a large portion of the Telepolis article and it should be read by anyone interested in Browder/Magnitsky. It is really a case study of an incredibly successful disinformation campaign. Which are only possible with active and passive collusion of many state and nonstate actors and of course the MSM media.
(Also, it looks as though Telepolis has been following this story in other articles that call out news organizations and EU entities for their complicity in pushing Browder’s narrative and ignoring many counter-signs. Including canceling and otherwise burying Nekrasov’s excellent film.)
Actually, the larger topic in light of the Russiagate and impeachment circuses being “clash of the titans’ disinformation campaigns.”
Here is Google translation of the Telepolis article headlined “Browder and the Magnitsky Narrative: End of a Disinformation Campaign?” by Florian Roetzer and dated today (again, apologies if I am violating a protocol):
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=https://www.heise.de/tp/features/Browder-und-das-Magnitski-Narrativ-Ende-einer-Desinformationskampagne-4595245.html&prev=search

Posted by: Really?? | Nov 24 2019 16:08 utc | 62

V. Putin said that the Earth revolves around the Sun, but… American journalists, of course, are aware that this statement is unfounded, and, of course, is Russian disinformation. Because V. Putin said this.

Posted by: alaff | Nov 24 2019 16:26 utc | 64

America is an insane asylum that masquerades as the “world’s leading democracy.”
This country is truly unhinged and lives in its own Orwellian reality. The Ukraine/impeachment issue is only symptomatic of this broader pathology.
For the USA, it doesn’t make a difference what actual reality is. What matters is that America defines what counts as reality itself–not matter how ludicrous or fake it is.
As a former high-level Bush Regime openly admitted in an interview with journalist Ron Suskind:
“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
This American mentality is most evident in the USA’s sociocidal wars of aggression around the world and the lies that America peddles to pimp for its wars–as well as its political balkanization, regime change, or destabilization campaigns that it dresses up as”pro-Democracy”(TM) movements:
Mythical Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq
The fake War on Terrorism
The bogus War on Drugs
Humanitarian Intervention, or the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine
Freedom and Democracy
All-American Lies….
Americans truly are the people of the Big Lie.
There should be a Cordon Sanitaire placed around the United States (and its crime partners/allies) to prevent this American plague from infecting the rest of the word.

Posted by: AK74 | Nov 24 2019 17:11 utc | 66

Jackrabbit 6
“took the black vote for granted”
So very true. Team HRC must have thought they could flip states like Pennsylvania by taking the cities just like BHO did. Instead the states “deplorables” were dismissed. BHO did the same but he had the cities in his pocket. But in today’s PC hypocrisy, you can’t point to race as being a major factor.

Posted by: Curtis | Nov 24 2019 17:20 utc | 68

psychohistorian 7
These NGOs and other organizations have an added influence on our politics. For some reason the MSM doesn’t mention them much. It’s like the White Helmets. Search for their history at YouTube and you get the official obfuscation. But toss in Purpose and AVAAZ and you find more.

Posted by: Curtis | Nov 24 2019 17:23 utc | 70

Here’s another bull’s eye observation: it’s more efficient and cunning to manipulate through social media tech-savvy means and other localized machinations the really susceptible, dumb, but important groups in swing states made powerful by the Electoral College than to tackle the opinion of the urban majority with a few critical articles and the appearance of a pay-off ledger. Besides, the entirety of Europe was critical of candidate Trump. The criticism of Trump was not specfic to Ukraine alone. So either the meddling was based on a vast conspiracy of criticism or it was based on a campaign of targeted populist propaganda directed at the right and working class together with a perfectly-timed leak that the DNC was sabotaging Sanders cleverly meant to turn part of the left base against the Dem Party. I say the latter.
Now don’t try to convince me that Ukraine would meddle to turn the left base of the Democratic side against Hillary when Ukraine preferred her. That logic just don’t fly.
The question to ask is. Who had the unlimited financial resources, political connections and tech savvy to pull the meddling off? I’ll give you some clues: it’s the usual suspect, starts with Z and it’s mostly based in Israel, the U.S. AND in the Russian oligarchy.
Trump is the Chosen Zionist President and there’s nothing more to look at here. The Ukraine and Russia factors are superfluous and moot to that over-arching FACT.

Posted by: Circe | Nov 24 2019 17:47 utc | 72

@uncle tungsten | Nov 24 2019 11:58 utc | 44 (the email affair and server)
Assume that the Bruce-Partington Submarine plans (Y’all know yer Holmes?) are under control of Billary Jones, a senior official in an Imperial State. Billary needs money and has guilty secrets. He’s being blackmailed by Oberstein, a spy.
Jones then accidentally leaves the plans where Oberstein sees and photographs them.
Hi there Stevie…conflict is debilitating, eh? Find the Franklin quote yet? He was there, and you? But I assume you haven’t even realized it wuz Bennie F. Best o’ luck.
(apologies to Conan Doyle)

Posted by: Walter | Nov 24 2019 17:52 utc | 74

Oh, and one more salient, obvious fact in the form of a question: Why would the biggest and worst Neocon, Zionist shill in Congress, Lindsey Graham risk his dignity to such an extreme to rescue Trump’s ass if Trump were not the Chosen Zionist President??? … I’m waiting…10, 9, 8…
Lindsey is the barometer of who and what Zionists want and because they want Trump over Biden, Lindsey is now at war with his former Dem friend. Lindsey’s a loyal subject of Zionism that butters his bread and that’s why he’ll do anything to protect Trump.

Posted by: Circe | Nov 24 2019 18:14 utc | 76

I hear crickets in response to my question @76. I’ll take that as a sign that you agree Trump is Chosen by Zionists from day one and for 4 more years.
You just can’t deny the whole truth. To do so is a fool’s errand.

Posted by: Circe | Nov 24 2019 19:09 utc | 78

Really @75

“What is going on at the mirror (Spiegel)? Since the well-established narrative has been cultivated about the mean Russians since the founding and has been shown to 100% transatlantic loyalty, now suddenly something like that. Is this just an accidental slip of reason or is there more behind it?”

Something to do with gas? Going east?

Posted by: pogohere | Nov 24 2019 20:12 utc | 80

@ Erelis | Nov 24 2019 19:32 utc | 79 There was once a defrocked Jesuit (with tenure at a major university) who taught sodomy to the choir and rhetoric to his friends and those whom he thought might be. He also favored snow… But…as you say, the original Latin and Greek. A good man, but a pervert, and not a pederast. I liked the guy, and he knew his subject, ah, the academic subject, to near perfection. He wrote speeches on the side for major political figures, for cash. Thus in part did my own inability to suspend disbelief become cemented. For money? Good thing they caught him…oh yeah, his popness also runs a cash an’ carry, don’t he? Well, somebody said… (Like Martin Luther?)
Anyway the reason to study rhetoric is that it shall be used against you. Knowing the Science and Art is your only safe defense, your only warning of true intent by rhetorical analysis and logical deduction matching real events and actions. Without Rhetoric you are a chump, a mark, a fool, and like sheep. Ewe! (haha) With it you can form reasoned ideas about the future intention of any speaker. This may be useful.

Posted by: Walter | Nov 24 2019 20:29 utc | 82

Cynthia Chung invaded my brain and wrote the short essay that’s been on the tip of my tongue for some months now, “On Churchill’s ‘Sinews of Peace'”. Within its body is linked two extremely important items, the first being Elliott Roosevelt’s book about his father Franklin As He Saw It (available limited preview at link), and the second being an excerpt from that book of paramount importance.
The more well known name of Churchill’s “Sinews of Peace” speech is “The Iron Curtain Speech” given at Fulton, Missouri on 5 March 1946, not quite 11 months after FDR’s passing. Here is the opening appetizer from that speech Chung bases the rest of her essay upon:
“This threatening message was not only meant for the Soviets, but was also directed to the Americans and in between the lines Churchill stated ‘Things are going to be very different from now on. Your dead president cannot protect you any longer.’ Some may be surprised to hear such an aside comment, more likened to the outer ruminations of Shakespeare’s Iago.” [My Emphasis]
Things did immediately become different. I consistently point out that the Evil Outlaw US Empire immediately began violating the UN Charter and thus its own Constitution and Law of the Land upon its coming into force; however, what I’ve neglected to point out until now is that the UK also began violating it just as immediately as did France, although neither has anything similar to the US Constitution’s Supremacy Clause that might be used to curb illegal behavior. I often point to historical What Ifs? as in this case regarding the coup made against Henry Wallace, FDR, and the wholesale overturning of the reasons given for waging the war and winning the peace. Ms. Chung does an excellent job of highlighting what those were, how they were smashed, and why. I really can’t stress the great importance of her essay enough; its educational importance is second to none! Read it, save it, make sure its read by your entire family, take it to your kid’s teachers, share it with everyone you know and those you don’t. The only people I can conceive of who wouldn’t want to know its contents are racists/imperialists–dare I say fascists–like Churchill. Three generations of people were subjected to a geopolitical power play that never should have occurred–the deaths, destruction, and wasted opportunities likely total in the Quadrillions of Dollars. I must admit some admiration for Chung’s an optimist as she clearly shows in her conclusion; my adding it here in no way diminishes her essay’s power and importance:
“The intended policies by Franklin D. Roosevelt for the post war world are still waiting to be implemented today.
“So what can we the people do about this? We can wake up to the fact that this has occurred and recognise that the mainstream presentation of world dichotomy today is just continuing this sickly narrative. That Russia and China are not some monstrous race and that we should weigh what is currently being offered as an olive branch with great and serious reflection. That is namely the Eurasian Economic Union and the New Silk Road which also applies immensely to the US.
“Let us not continue to remain shackled in despair and inaction but rather realise that there is a great opportunity still for the Century of the Common Man.”

Posted by: karlof1 | Nov 24 2019 21:44 utc | 84

Walter confirms being a liar when paragraphs of argument are miscalled “inter alia,” then ignored. The snide insult by the way functions as a fallacious ad hominem, doubly confirms thatif Walter knows rhetoric, then Walter is doubly a liar. Last and least citing a 1906 volume of American Historical Review to someone who doesn’t have university library access is a snob’s rudeness. I’m defeated by the puzzle of what Walter thinks Walter has to be snobby about. A collection of American Historical Review isn’t exactly nothing, but to get snobby over it? Really?

Posted by: steven t johnson | Nov 25 2019 3:31 utc | 86

: steven t johnson | Nov 25 2019 3:31 utc | 86
False a-priori assumptions defeat the reason. Walter does not have access to a university library. He has a library. I am sorry for you, since you evidently don’t like the way things are. It’s a pity. Best of luck. Perhaps another venue might improve your condition.

Posted by: Walter | Nov 25 2019 8:47 utc | 88

Posted by: karlof1 | Nov 24 2019 21:44 utc | 84
I strongly agree with you that Cynthia Chung’s article is of the utmost importance. The second of the subsequent links citing Elliot Roosevelt’s book is also outstanding (I couldn’t get anything out of the first, though). From the citation:

“There can be no tampering with the Empire’s economic agreements.”
“They’re artificial …”
“They’re the foundation of our greatness.”
“The peace,” said Father firmly, “cannot include any continued despotism. The structure of the peace demands and will get equality of peoples. Equality of peoples involves the utmost freedom of competitive trade. . .”

What an astonishing quip about despotism! No doubt FDR paid for it with his life, though.
Astonishing to contrast those sentiments with the diametric opposite that has come out of the USA ever since the death of FDR.

Posted by: BM | Nov 25 2019 12:14 utc | 90

Posted by: Really?? | Nov 24 2019 2:26 utc | 33
Speaking of the fake news from Russia . . .
Spiegelonline has as story questioning the Browder version of the death (and role) of poor old Sergei Magnitsky:
https://www.spiegel.de/plus/russland-der-fall-magnitski-story-ohne-held-a-00000000-0002-0001-0000-000167093479
Unfortunately the Spiegel story is behind a paywall. Perhaps someone here has a sub.
[…]the German weekly Der Spiegel has decided to take a closer look at Browder’s story about Magnitsky. And the paper found out that the narrative doesn’t quite flow as smoothly as Western politicians and the MSM would like it to.
https://www.rt.com/news/474230-spiegel-magnitsky-browder-fraudster-west/

Posted by: Mao | Nov 25 2019 13:43 utc | 92

About the “Iron Curtain” as a concept and a reality.
First,the term is directly from German and German Law. In German of course it’s Eisnerer Vorhang (though my German spelling, and my German, is very poor) Specifically it refers to a requirement to protect the audience at theaters from fire, of which there were many terrible examples. Thus we have a term from theater. It’s a theatrical term.
It does not protect the stage, it protects the audience.
Secondly the Soviets did not lower the curtain, but responded to what they observed – the rehabilitation of nazis, the calls by the ASE (anglosaxonempier) and RFE and so on for revolt, the failure of promises, Truman’s threats to nuke the Red Army then in Persia, later the NATO treaty…and the history goes on…and of course the Reds had their own agents too, and turned some of Gehlen’s spies.
Then we have the Berlin Crises 1 and 2… So who created the imaginary curtain…well, we know, a corrupt and criminal agent, Dear Winnie.
One may see this imaginary vorhang as protecting the people of the west from what an elite cabal considered dangerous ideas and dangerous facts. In reality it prevented the people of the west from making peace with the Soviet States by preventing the circumstances whereby those subject peoples of the west might elect leaders like Wallace…
The iron curtain may be seen as not a Soviet project, but an ASE project which protected a corrupt criminal class in the west.
Walls have two sides. Churchill’s target was his audience, not the Reds.
Evidently the Russians have analyzed that process and understand it. So now we have RT (it has been said (Lavell) that US persons at Dept o’ State and elsewhere are prohibited by watching RT) and of course many other sources of generally accurate stuff (they do avoid 911, mostly).
In crude language usa to “rf” a thing is to ruin it.
I laugh every time I see the Russian Federation “RF” term used, ’cause those roooskiz r rfing Clappers “tapestry” of lies.

Posted by: Walter | Nov 25 2019 14:08 utc | 94

A very good & concise article from B, thank You. But the German zweitütichkeit dous not carry well over into the flat eintüdigkeit of presend´t-tay u. of S. set discourse. Micht it well be that the times of Marck Twain have passed all the U.S. by?

Posted by: Ts’yew T’aw-Loh | Nov 25 2019 17:52 utc | 96

karlof1 #84
Thank you for those references surrounding the century for the common man.
Those two references filled in an historical nuance missing in my journey. Fascism always lived within. No wonder Christopher Steel wags the Clinton and media dog.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Nov 25 2019 20:01 utc | 98

Ak 74 comment 66…
As a former high-level Bush Regime openly admitted in an interview with journalist Ron Suskind:
“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
Donald Rumsfeld said that. Ty

Posted by: Zico the Musketeer | Nov 28 2019 21:46 utc | 100