Exclusive: Official Washington is abuzz about ex-FBI Director Comey’s testimony and excited about possibly impeaching President Trump, but that misses the underlying story of a “soft coup” by the Intelligence Community, says Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
So what were we watching in ex-FBI Director James Comey’s testimony on Thursday: an upright public servant punished for resisting a power-mad President or a participant in a political scheme to use the law as a way to overturn a U.S. presidential election?
President Donald Trump being sworn in on Jan. 20, 2017. (Screen shot from Whitehouse.gov)
There was a general consensus in the mainstream media that it was the first, that Comey was the noble victim and President Trump the conniving villain. And, surely, Trump could be criticized for his clumsy firing of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and ensuing expression of “hope” to then-FBI Director Comey that Flynn would not be punished further.
But – outside the view of the MSM – there are other troubling aspects of what is now unfolding, including the scene of FBI Director Comey informing President-elect Trump on Jan. 6 about a defamatory annex to an intelligence report detailing unproven but salacious allegations and then seeing those details leaked almost immediately to humiliate Trump in the days before his Inauguration.
In his Thursday testimony, Comey defended his role in alerting Trump to the Intelligence Community’s publication of the allegations, which summarized opposition research done to benefit Hillary Clinton’s campaign and alleging that Trump had hired Russian prostitutes to urinate on him as he lay in a bed once used by President and Mrs. Obama at the five-star Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Moscow – while supposedly secretly videotaped by Russian intelligence.
In the testimony, Comey said that after he and other Obama’s intelligence chiefs briefed the President-elect at Trump Towers on Jan. 6 about their report on alleged Russian interference in the 2016 campaign, “I remained alone with the President-elect to brief him on some personally sensitive aspects of the information assembled during the assessment.
“The I.C. leadership thought it important, for a variety of reasons, to alert the incoming President to the existence of this material, even though it was salacious and unverified. Among those reasons were: (1) we knew the media was about to publicly report the material and we believed the I.C. should not keep knowledge of the material and its imminent release from the President-elect; and (2) to the extent there was some effort to compromise an incoming President, we could blunt any such effort with a defensive briefing.
“The Director of National Intelligence asked that I personally do this portion of the briefing because I was staying in my position and because the material implicated the FBI’s counter-intelligence responsibilities. We also agreed I would do it alone to minimize potential embarrassment to the President-elect.”
Like J. Edgar Hoover
Given the mainstream media’s determined promotion of Russia-gate as a legitimate scandal, the extraordinary nature of this briefing incident has passed largely unnoticed.
FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover
If, however, you substituted FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover for FBI Director Comey, the significance of the I.C.’s gratuitous inclusion of such an unsubstantiated smear might take on a different coloring. It was, after all, the decision to tack this classified annex onto the Jan. 6 report that gave the mainstream media the hook to disseminate the “golden shower” accusation across the country and around the world.
Rather than minimizing “potential embarrassment to the President-elect,” as Comey demurred, the classified annex was guaranteed to maximize Trump’s embarrassment, which it did.
In other words, just as Comey said he inferred an improper or illegal order when Trump expressed “hope” that Flynn’s legal ordeal might end, Trump might well have deduced that Comey’s elevation of the urination story amounted to coercion or blackmail from the Intelligence Community.
Trump, who surely knows the shadier corners of the construction trade, might have heard something like, “Gee, we’d hate for your wife and children (not to mention the rest of the world) to hear this story about prostitutes peeing on you” – and read the warning as a threat.
FBI Director Hoover was a master of just this sort of warning, conveyed as a sincere concern about some politician’s well-being. Trump, who has emphatically denied the salacious accusation, could well have seen Comey sending him a message from the leaders of the powerful Intelligence Community that they were determined to remove Trump or at least politically cripple him.
Just three days earlier, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow that Trump was “being really dumb” by taking on the Intelligence Community because “they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.”
In the five months since the Jan. 6 briefing, Trump has gotten a taste of how accurate Schumer’s observation was. Making sure that the public got to read the “dirty dossier” – compiled by ex-British spy Christopher Steele and financed by some still unknown Clinton supporter – was clearly one of those six ways.
On top of that, Obama’s intelligence chiefs, including Comey, have testified repeatedly before Congress while they or their allies have leaked derogatory information about Trump to The New York Times, The Washington Post and other mainstream news outlets.
The ‘Soft Coup’
In other words, what we may have witnessed in Comey’s ballyhooed testimony on Thursday was just the latest chapter in a “soft coup” to remove Trump – either through a forced resignation or impeachment. The thinking is that Trump is so incompetent that “wise men” must step in to “correct a mistake” made by the U.S. electorate and made possible by the Constitution’s Electoral College system, which enabled Trump to win the presidency despite losing the popular vote,
FBI Director James Comey
But the American people are not supposed to see it that way. After all, the realization that U.S. intelligence chieftains might be conspiring to overturn a constitutional election of a U.S. president could be most upsetting and unsettling, even if one assumes that they are sincerely doing what they think is “best for the country.”
So, this side of the story remains unspoken, a silence made possible by the fact that most of the nation’s top news executives and much of its political elite share the opinion that Trump’s presidency must be ended and a more traditional chief executive installed.
But no one in authority wants to acknowledge that a “soft coup” is in the works because that would make America look like a banana republic to the world. It also could infuriate Trump’s 63 million voters who might take exception to this sort of “deep state” veto of a duly certified election.
So, what that means is that the planned removal of Trump will be a deliberate process cloaked in high-minded legal principles and much talk about the rule of law.
Of course, Trump would not be the only loser in this process. His sinking presidency would drag down many of those around him – and, in the case of Michael Flynn, might well lead to criminal charges.
Indeed, if civil libertarians were not largely committed to the anti-Trump #Resistance, they might pause for a moment and consider the disturbing picture of what was done to retired Lt. Gen. Flynn.
Trapping Flynn
To engineer the ouster of Flynn as Trump’s first National Security Adviser, President Obama’s Justice Department holdovers used the archaic 1799 Logan Act as a predicate to justify an FBI interrogation of Flynn about the details of a phone conversation with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak on Dec. 29, 2016, while Flynn was vacationing in the Dominican Republic.
Green Party leader Jill Stein and retired Lt. General Michael Flynn attending a dinner marking the RT network’s 10-year anniversary in Moscow, December 2015, sitting at the same table as Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Since the FBI agents had a transcript of the intercepted phone call and Flynn was working from memory – possibly a bit hazy from a Pina Colada or two – Flynn was an easy mark for a perjury trap. Leaving out some detail, whether intentionally or not, would open him to an obstruction case – and Comey reportedly has indicated that the ongoing criminal investigation of Flynn indeed relates to whether he withheld information from investigators.
Every American who is concerned about the future political use of the U.S. intelligence agencies’ powerful surveillance tools should have shuddered a bit over what was done to Flynn. But many on the Left so desperately want Trump removed from office that they have joined the Russia-gate stampede as the best way to trample Trump.
So, few tears have been shed for Flynn even as he was ambushed based on transcripts of National Security Agency intercepts, a precedent that could be replicated in many other circumstances against American citizens who get on the Intelligence Community’s “six ways from Sunday” black list.
The use of the Logan Act predicate should have set off other alarm bells. The law, which was enacted during the Alien and Sedition Act period, was meant to stop private citizens from trying to conduct U.S. foreign policy on their own, but its constitutionality was always suspect and it has never led to a prosecution, not one in 218 years.
It was also never intended to apply to incoming foreign policy officials of a new presidential administration after the election, when they are understandably beginning to make contacts with foreign officials. So, for then-acting Attorney General Sally Yates to have dusted it off as a predicate for going after Flynn suggests additional entrapment problems.
True, Flynn may have used poor judgment in how he handled a 2015 paid speaking engagement in Moscow, how he reported on his consulting work for a Dutch company owned by a wealthy Turk with high-level political connections, and what he might have said to Kislyak (although we still don’t know the details of that conversation).
Islamic State Warning
But Flynn also had been an Army lieutenant general who led the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2012 when it produced the U.S. government’s most perceptive critique of President Obama’s proxy war in Syria, even predicting the emergence of an “Islamic state,” a judgment that annoyed other intelligence leaders who were participating in the covert war to overthrow the Syrian government.
Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn speaks at the Defense Intelligence Agency change of directorship at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, July 24, 2012. (DoD photo by Erin A. Kirk-Cuomo)
The DIA report embarrassed the advocates for an escalation of the war in Syria and the ouster of secular President Bashar al-Assad. Journalist Seymour Hersh reported that Flynn’s DIA “had sent a constant stream of classified warnings … about the dire consequences of toppling Assad.” Flynn told Hersh that these reports “got enormous pushback from the Obama administration.”
After being forced out of his DIA job and retiring from the Army in 2014, Flynn went even further in a 2015 interview when he said the intelligence was “very clear” that the Obama administration made a “willful decision” to back these jihadists in league with Middle East allies, a choice that looked particularly stupid when Islamic State militants started beheading American hostages and capturing cities in Iraq, forcing the reintroduction of U.S. military troops.
However, out of a job, Flynn scrambled around for additional income, including signing up with a speakers’ bureau and forming a consulting company, as many other national security veterans have done.
In perhaps Flynn’s most controversial decision, he accepted a speaking fee of about $45,000 to address the tenth anniversary dinner for Russia’s RT network in Moscow, sitting next to President Vladimir Putin for part of the evening. Given the Obama administration’s heightened hostility toward Russia, Flynn’s appearance drew some high-level criticism.
Flynn further antagonized Obama’s team by signing up with the Trump campaign and then joining the “lock her up” chant at the Republican National Convention directed toward Hillary Clinton.
In the wake of Clinton’s shocking defeat and amid the Intelligence Community’s claims about Russian interference in the election, Flynn’s friendly relations with Russian leaders made him an obvious target.
Still, the notion of Obama holdovers taking Flynn out via dubious legal tactics – and their fueling of a McCarthyistic hysteria over Russia – normally might have raised more objections if not for the widespread disdain for Trump, his narcissistic behavior and his offensive policies, such as the “Muslim travel ban.”
However, amid the mainstream media’s increasingly frenzied talk about Trump’s potential impeachment, this other remarkable story – how the U.S. Intelligence Community is moving to reverse the outcome of a presidential election – is getting ignored in plain sight.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).
Thank you. I read your article as a friend sent it to me.
It has made me shake my cemented social media learned reality around. Trump was/is the baddie not helped by his physical appearance nor his narcissism but what your article points out is that we too are manipulated so easily these days. There is the enemy out there for most of us who when vanquished makes us purr with joy.
I hope (just like President Trump said) that this whole soft coup results in a complete lack of confidence in the Criminal Information Agency and the Foolish Bureau of Incompetence by the general public.
The CIA has acted like a non-state terrorist against the world, and once again (just like 1963) is doing it against the United States and the White House. Unfortunately, I can’t blame Brennan for this personally, but he was as corrupt as they come.
The FBI under Mueller and Comey is responsible for failing to do its job of keeping the United States safe. And then they follow up by participating in suggesting the wrong targets. Can you say, “War in Iraq”? Mueller was head of the FBI then, and he was more than minimally responsible for that assessment. Same with “Weapons of Mass Destruction.” And Comey was his lieutenant.
Sounds like a conflict of interest to me. Which is what “collusion” is really all about.
Hope at the Post has a coup idea…
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If you die in DC on TV it will not be in vain. You will have entertained us. Hope’s no lamb and she’s not hiding. Hope’s a lion, so the pussy cat strikes back and we have a lion coup. Some may lie for fun, we are lion only for revenue.
The job is done and I go out
Another boring day
I leave it all behind me now
So many worlds away
I meet my girl, she’s dressed to kill
And all we gonna do
Is walk around to catch the thrill
On streets we call the zoo
We eat the night, we drink the time
Make our dreams come true
And hungry eyes are passing by
On streets we call the zoo
It never ends Hope.
The spiralling cost of the 2014 Winter Olympics in the Black Sea resort illustrates the chaos endemic…the agency has me on the slush coup crew. We’re finding cheaper way to destabilize things with budgets tight. Trump is in a downward spiral and holding out hope for a Putin bounce.The Ray Ban is working the best, which is Hope.
Freezing night an oil lamp burns
The suns fire, will soon return
Broken castles, the flags still flown
Like a living ghost
Code of silence of a dying heart
Don’t know where the end begins and the truth starts
When the hammer falls it falls on you
Use your journalism like a hammer to cripple them because they are wrong. Always Gonzo!
Bannon Silence of the Press operation backfired. Comey is bearing up well. Trump is lawyering up Hope is witching it up on her endless flight with UIA, a government in exile. Jim is no lamb. We’re waiting foe the Silence of the Trumps and Bonnie and Clydin’ it. It’s a hell of a ride until we get read our rights! Expect it to get noisier. Support your local witches and sheriffs in exile.
Comey is a liar and a hypocrite.. I have seen the video of him saying he supports the Constitution before he supports the president.. He had all of the time he was in office to investigate the evidence that Sheriff Joe Arpaio has collected, showing Obama was an illegal president and is not even a citizen of the USA.. There was no investigation of this at all.
The choice in 2016 was between a crook and a crazy, America chose the crazy one. So we need to make the best of it, encourage his good policies, minimize the bad ones and slam the crazy ones like his plutocratic tendencies and burlesque juvenile tweets against anyone who offends him.
we are in real conflict when our news people are not true american.. if wakes like a duck talks like duck it must be a duck..
tell me more and how can the people put a stop to this take over of our land.?
There is no doubt that this soft coup was in the planning stages even prior to the election, when the “Wise Men” realized that Hillary was going down in flames. Her intentions to run in 2020 will evaporate at some point, but for now, she is just a red herring meant to keep the Trump Supporters off balance. Trump supporters, indeed all patriotic Americans, must view all attacks against this President with a huge amount of skepticism. Gee, who is his No. 1 critic in the GOP? Could it be that war hero John McCain? Folks, there is a war for the soul of America going on right now! There is John McCain, George Soros, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and numerous other treasonous big names, and then there are President Trump and his supporters. We must never believe these traitors! Our only hope is President Trump, and pray that he is not too late! MAGA!!!
Time to remove this bookmark. I kept popping over to try and figure out where you folks are coming from. I’ve long suspected Consortium to be a tool of Putin, but so much of the George W Bush reporting seemed to be right on target. But, after 8 years of Obama, and now this “hysteria over Russia” nonsense, I’m now convinced and gone. Makes me question everything I’ve read here and every Robert Parry book I’ve bought.
Fantastic background analysis. Thanks.
We get it. You don’t like the Clintons, so their enemies might be your friends. But Michael Flynn, Jeff Sessions, Jahred Kushner and all the Trumps have been engaged in lying, hateful and criminal acts with great regularity. Trump is unfit to be president clear and simple. Trump and Jahred’s criminal acts, especially financial, are there to found. Furthermore, Trump is unqualified intellectually and emotionally to be president. His failure to fill many important government positions and his energy policies endanger the country. Nothing in this country seems to get done for “good” reasons. It’s just one group of power-brokers against another. So let’s just let this corrupt system rid itself of a dangerous infection before he embroils us in a war, especially a nuclear one. Trump likes to bomb things and he brags about it. As his failures and criminal acts increase, he may feel that he can stop his opponents by starting a war and exercising the increased powers that a war brings. Bring on the “soft coop” let’s return to the normal state of corruption so we can stop looking over the precipice.
The “normal state of corruption” is what got us to the point of “looking over the precipice” in the first place. The two terms of Obama were essentially an extension of the Bush years with tricks. Domestic investments were neglected in favor of continued warmongering, the destruction of Libya and Syria were forwarded as policy, Ukraine was turned into a neo-Nazi vassal, and the Russian Federation was demonized and threatened.
I don’t know what you think is such a great difference between Obama operatives and Trump operatives…it’s all a big failure insofar as the American people and general populations throughout the world are concerned.
In case you didn’t realize…Obomber earned his nickname, and his first choice for Secretary of State was and is an unhinged lunatic when it comes to deception, deceit, and killing people. This is not coming from someone who ever supported a Republican. I have loathed the Republican Party my entire adult life. It’s just relatively recently that I’ve come to realize the Democrats are just the other side of the same filthy coin.
By the way, Obomber bragged about his drone strikes, saying “I’m really good at killing people.”
You think the “Queen of Chaos” would not have had you looking over the precipice? Look at her record as Sec. of State. She equated Putin with Hitler. She never saw a regime change she didn’t like.
Just because we point out the horrors of the Deep State doesn’t mean that we like Trump, we just see the Deep State as the greater evil. Your “normal state of corruption” was leading us straight to nuclear Armageddon.
there’s no soft coup on trump. he’s just an actor in the not so soft coup on the ameriKan people. wake up!
When I see the description of accusations agains Flynn – “Flynn may have used poor judgment in how he handled a 2015 paid speaking engagement in Moscow, how he reported on his consulting work for a Dutch company owned by a wealthy Turk with high-level political connections,” America is a night mare of lies. Hey! There are books on Clinton clans corrupt connections. These include the very unhappy favoring of a Canadian company to buy 20% of US uranium reserves – the company being owned by a Russian! YES – and the deal was enabled by Clinton. Now THEY have the guts to accuse – and the American public have the pain of just watching and swallowing ? Hope not, since their stupidity would have an impact on the whole world!
We have heard the testimony of the former Director of the FBI, James Comey that he spoke to the Senate Intelligence Committee.
We heard Comey say under Oath that he Only took Notes with regards to President Donald Trump, and Not with President Barack Obama, or Hillary Clinton, or the former Attorney General, or any other Corruptocrat, but Comey was Not asked if he took another Types of Notes with his Conversations with Establishment Democrats who are Known as Corruptocrats or with Establishment Republicans and there is another Type of Notes, which would be Banknotes, and sometimes Conversations are Really Orders for Puppets of America’s Shadow Government, and we can see Why that would Not want to be recorded at http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/337240-lewandowski-comeys-a-liar-trying-to-sign-book-deal , and so the Evidence regarding Most of the testimony of Comey or Most his Unprofessional work at the FBI is Unreliable as a source of Facts.
It is by Comey’s Own Admission under Oath that he said that he was Biased in his job, and so this is just Another Reason Why it was Proper to dismiss the former Director of the FBI.
We have seen Further Evidence of why it was Proper that the former Director of the FBI be replaced with someone else.
This was the Admission under Oath of the Clinton and Obama appointee Comey that he arranged for the Leaking of his memo to the Media for the purpose of having a Special Prosecutor nominated by another Clinton and Obama appointee who is the Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe, who appointed a former FBI Director Robert Mueller who the Clinton and Obama Administration asked to stay on as FBI Director for a further 2 years.
Anyone with sufficient experience Knows that if it is an appointee of the Corrupt Clinton and Obama Administration appointee, then it is Corrupt, because Corrupt People Only want other Corrupt People to be their Puppets.
The Comey Memo Alleges that during a conversation between President Donald Trump and the former Director of the FBI took place on 14 January 2017, and we do Not know what was said, and at this time, we do Not know if there was memo is accurate or in context because a Text that is Not in Context is a Pretext.
If the only ‘proof’ that the memo is accurate is the Discredited Comey, then that is Not proof of any type.
We do Not know at this time, and it appears that the Comey memo was written as a Pretext on the Orders from the Shadow Regime to appoint a Corrupt special prosecutor who is a Known Puppet of the Shadow Regime.
This was done by either by Totally Lying, or by taking statements out of Context to create a Pretext to Unnecessarily and Corruptly appoint a Puppet of the Shadow Regime as special prosecutor, because the Shadow Regime has the Dirt on him during his time as Director of the FBI.
After the Senate Intelligence Hearings, where Comey Thoroughly Discredited himself, that Comey while he was yet Director of the FBI, said to a Senate Judiciary Committee under Oath on 3 May 2017, and he said that he had Never experienced any Public Official trying to halt an FBI Investigation, and after he was dismissed from his position, then the Allegations made in his memo mentioned.
I am Not a Lawyer, yet I have read that if the former Director of the FBI had thought that a remark was improper, then he Should have by Law mentioned it to others to take appropriate measures, or he Should have informed President Donald Trump immediately or as soon as practical as to what the proper standards are concerning these matters, because President Donald Trump is Not a Lawyer as is the former Director of the FBI, and we see that the former Director of the FBI failed as to honesty and as to loyalty to the Democratic Institution of America, and this Defect in his character was perceived by others, and may have been the Proper subject of Alleged particulars of the conversation between Comey and the President.
Perhaps Criminal Charges should be considered on the former Director of the FBI, for failing in his Lawful Responsibility, and let a Jury determine if he had Known that the conversation was Confidential, and that it was a Test of honesty and loyalty to America’s Democratic Institutions, and where Comey Obviously acted Deviously and Treasonously, because Comey Should have Informed the President immediately as to what the protocol is in these matters, and we Know that Comey is an appointee of the Corrupt Clinton and Obama Administration, and that conversation was Privileged and Classified and should have been Confidential, and there are Proper channels to bring up matters of Allegeded Inappropriateness with the Department of Justice.
It appears that for as long as Comey could keep his job, then this Memo whether true or false or if it is a variant of what was said, would remain Private, thus making it a Pay to Play scheme.
This is Proof to Many People of another example of the Obstruction of Justice, Perverting the Course of Justice, and of the Obstruction of the Proper Governing of the Country by the former Director of the FBI.
We All Know that the Cover Up by the former Director of the FBI with regards to Hillary Clinton’s Espionage Investigation, is probably his best Known example of the Obstruction of Justice, Perverting the Course of Justice, and the Obstruction of the Proper Governing of the Country.
President Donald Trump spoke of Recordings on Tape, and that can be used to Parse exactly like the word Wiretapping was Parsed, because these days Recording are done electronically, and we Should assume that it is Probable that the former Director of the FBI has made Secret Recordings of the conversations between himself and the President.
The former Director of the FBI will Not go to jail for his Crimes, because the American Shadow Regime will Reward him, if it can be Proven that President Donald Trump lied, and the Sensible thing to do is to be Honest.
We Know that all of the things that were said in such Lengthy conversations Cannot be remembered, and so it is best Not to say anything, except that there was Never any thought of intentionally doing anything improper.
The reason why it is best to say nothing, is Not because there is something to conceal, but because there will be a lot of Lies said on this by the Mainstream Media, and whether those Lies are said intentionally or unintentionally, then the Result is the same, and it will make any findings harder to be understood, because of all of the intentional or unintentional Disinformation by the Puppets of America’s Shadow Regime, and Voters want their Elected Representatives to do some work for the Country, because the Unemployed Need jobs, and the Homeless Need housing, and the Puppets of the American Shadow Regime in the Congress and the Senate and the Puppet Mainstream Media have Enough Money, and yet they want even More Dirty Money by being Better Puppets of the Unelected and Unconstitutional American Shadow Regime.
We Know that General Michael Flynn has Served his Country with Distinction, and that he did Not do anything that was Treasonous like Hillary Clinton did, and the former Director of the FBI and others Covered Up Clinton’s Crimes, while President Barack Obama even Campaigned for Crooked Hillary Clinton.
The Bribed and Corrupt Puppet Mainstream Media is saying that President Donald Trump said the following to the former Director of the FBI with regards to General Michael Flynn: “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. Mr. Trump told Mr. Comey, according to the memo. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”
It appears that there is something odd with this Allegation in that memo, because the FBI had cleared General Michael Flynn of wrongdoing weeks before the Privileged and Classified conversation of 14 February 2017 between Comey and President Donald Trump regarding this matter, but there may be something else to this, or it could be that Comey misunderstood something during that conversation as we Know that he did Not understand some things with regards to the Criminal Investigation of Hillary Clinton at https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbi-reviewed-flynns-calls-with-russian-ambassador-but-found-nothing-illicit/2017/01/23/aa83879a-e1ae-11e6-a547-5fb9411d332c_story.html?utm_term=.962e7a9a9419 .
After hearing that Comey thought that the President was lying to him, then there are People who think that the former Director of the FBI may have Recorded the conversations with President Donald Trump, either with his Mobile Phone, and the FBI Knows how an FBI Agent can have a Secret Concealed listening device, and that recording may be Falsely claimed to have been made by President Donald Trump, and Falsely claimed to have been Leaked to the Internet by President Donald Trump or someone from his Administration, while it may have been Leaked by a Puppet of America’s Shadow Regime to make it appear like Watergate, and this may be a matter of either accepting the word of President Donald Trump or that of the former Director of the FBI, and it would be difficult for President Donald Trump to remember All of that distant conversation, because the President has many More Important things to think of every day, and unless that conversation was Accurately recorded, then it is best to Not comment on it until there is certainty as to what was really said, because writing an account is Not as certain as electronically Recording an account, because subtle word changes can be made with a written account that give an entirely different impression than what actually occurred, and these days even electronic Recordings can be altered as to what was really said, and as to what the real account is, and we may Not be able to know that, and there are People who think that the former Director of the FBI is less honest on these matters than what the President is, and as a Lawyer, the former Director of the FBI Knows how to misleadingly maneuver others into saying some things that they did Not really want to say, or did Not want to say it that way, and which can easily be misrepresented, especially if the written account is a modified version of the original account of what was said, and of how it was said.
The Voters want Congress and the Senate to do some work for the Country, rather than Scheming a Coup on President Donald Trump.
We have seen how Robert Mueller has been appointed to investigate a matter for what there is No evidence after all this time, and that is, if there was any collusion between Candidate Donald Trump and a foreign Country in America’s Election, and it has been said that Mueller is a Puppet of the Shadow Regime, and that he Participated in Covering Up for the American Intelligence Agencies for the President George Bush the second Administration, and he helped create the post 9/11 Surveillance State or SS, and helped facilitate the Iraq War Propaganda Machine, and Mueller is a Very Good Friend of James Comey, and this Alleged wording and Alleged context of the memo may have been created by Comey after he was dismissed, and that it was done under Orders of the Shadow American Regime, to Corruptly appoint Mueller as special prosecutor, and there are Many People who think that Mueller has been Puppetized by the American Shadow Regime.
We Know that the American Shadow Regime and their Puppets including Establishment Republicans and the Establishment Democrats, do Not want Americans to Realise the Obvious, and that it was a former employee of the Democratic National Committee who Leaked those Emails to WikiLeaks, because they want to Corruptly Cling to Power, even though that is Unconstitutional, and in order to continue Exploiting the American People, and to bring Dictatorship to America.
The Democrats think that the easiest way for them to Control the Congress is for President Donald Trump to be Impeached, because they Know that Controlling the Congress is their Slush Fund, and there is an Analyst who said that President Barack Obama Secretly has a few Billion Dollars in Offshore Accounts, and so they managed to have a special prosecutor appointed to artificially manufacture a case for Impeachment for that.
We have heard WikiLeaks imply that Seth Rich was the Leaker of DNC Emails, and we have heard Kim Dotcom and Guccifer the second say that Seth Rich Leaked those DNC Emails that found their way to WikiLeaks at http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/04/wikileaks-bombshell-guccifer-2-0-admits-seth-rich-dnc-leaker/ .
There Could be People who think that if there are Suspected Unpatriotic Civil Servants who cannot be dismissed in the Various Government Departments and Agencies, then New Departments and New Agencies can be created and where the Suspects are left in the Old Departments and Old Agencies, or perhaps they are moved to new premises, where they be asked to write how to make their Department or Agencies better and efficient, and they have to write at least one paragraph a year, and they can repeat what they wrote year after year until they Retire, but they are Not able to Leak Classified Information, and they will have to be paid a Salary to do Nothing of significance or relevance, so that Classified Information is Not Leaked to the Media, but Retirement with a lot of Money from the Government for Retirement may be better than be Suspected of being Unpatriotic, but Only the Unpatriotic will be allowed to Retire.
There are Many Americans who Know that there is Much Evidence that President Donald Trump is the Legitimately Elected President of America.
Dude where can I buy the Cliffs Notes for your polemic?
Good grief, a “soft coup” by the Intelligence Community! So says poor naive naif Robert Parry, all aghast, as if Mr Parry was out of town when Watergate happened, and has no idea who it was who took out Richard Nixon. Well, Nixon needed taking out, and for the same reason Trump does. Both men are (were) thugs with a vicious authoritarian streak that represents a clear and present danger to the American Republic. Also, Trump will in coming months be shown to be what most of us think of as a “traitor.” I’m no fan of our intelligence community. But the enemy of my enemy is my friend. So bring it on! I want to hear the collusion with the Russians that is so clearly at the heart of this scandal. I want to see the money changing hands. I want to see Trump groveling at the feet of two Russian hookers peeing on a bed in Moscow. And I want to see Trump’s face as we see it. Because, let’s be honest, there’s no one alive in the good ol USA today who more richly deserves the fate which is about to befall him, despite the mumblings of the Robert Parry’s and Caitlin Johnstone’s of the world.
Dan-
You are blind to the horrors perpetrated upon us and the rest of the world for the last half century by the oligarchs and their lackeys. Like so many of Hitlery’s fan club, you fail to see the real dangers to our American Republic. Robert Parry is a great investigative journalist, it is you who is “out of town”.
Skip, this is getting into a thicket of weeds. While researching 9/11, I sorted factual material and what made sense from allegations that I had no capacity to substantiate and/or understand. The following is part of the class of “unsubstantiated” material. But after reading Hopsicker’s comment here, I’m not so sure he isn’t cointelpro.
http://citizenspook.blogspot.com/2006/05/daniel-hopsicker-is-government-mole.html
Wow. I thought the guy was just a moron. Thanks for “heads up”.
The comments sections of real independent investigative journalism websites have become Whac-A-Government-Damage-Control-Mole arcades.
From Hasbara trolls to RussiaGate Truthers to Bellingcat fanboys, the sockpuppet armies are loudly on the march.
Fortunately, Consortium News readers are sharp and readily spot the propaganda games.
First of all, Parry’s writing on this subject isn’t that of a person who is “all aghast”. Nothing he has written here suggests shock or naïveté. He also likely understands Watergate clearly and factually.
Unless and until you can establish (oh, but you are so prescient about the “coming months”) crimes and/or cover ups of crimes by Trump in his capacity as President or candidate for President, there is no comparison to be had with Nixon other than your armchair psychologicalization.
I venture to suggest that the American Republic is well past the “danger” stage in terms of its functionality as an actual republic. And this has nothing to do with Trump’s arrival on the political scene, but is rather due to a number of long-standing trends and current assaults that include a bought and paid for political class and the politicalization of intelligence agencies.
Your comment is disjointed and so to me warrants the term “mumblings” far more so than anything I’ve ever read by Mr. Parry. Let’s be honest.
Daniel Hopsicker – Why do you guys speak like kagebists, think like kagebists, but are ten times more stupid? You speak and think like them, because you know reality is all against you, but you are so f<%&g selfassured that the money and power is with you, that you do not even try to argue – you just mock, in lack of arguments. Folks, communism is over, nazism si over, you are both at a time. Your time is past. GO!
Well said Mr. Hopsicker. I am dropping my financial support of this site due to its flagrant lack of facing the horrible reality of Trump. Bash Clinton and Obama all you want. Trump’s “election” is a terrible disaster for our country and to not recognize this is too big a mistake on Mr. Parry’s part to continue my support of his “journalism”.
Glad to see you go, and hopefully take Hopsicker with you. Your either/or with Trump/Hillary is a very tired argument. The bigger disaster is that the “Intelligence” agencies have been running our foreign policy for the last half century.
You are pretty dumb to be comparing peaches to oranges with such a high degree of certainty. The depth of your intellect, though whatever, is not impressive enough given the idiocy of you predisposition to merit anything but a suggestion that you try a different pizzeria next time. I suggest more roughage. Don’t trust Zagat.anymore. In the future, by God’s design, you may actually encounter one of the score of people who comment on this site who can actually remember 1974 and that Nixon was elected with 60.7% of the vote in 1972 before being run out of office by a cabal between the Press and the Democratic Party. Nixon was one of the greatest Presidents in the history of this nation by the measure of his Administration’s accomplishments and the execution of enlightened policy choices. Whether you agree or not you are still a benefactor of the wise forward looking choices of the Nixon Administration..PS I would relish the opportunity to humiliate you in an extemporaneous debate on the subject of your choice Pro or Con with 15 minutes preparation time in any forum in the English Speaking world. Peace.
Robert, have you written anything on the ownership of MSM? Are MSM outlets owned by arms manufacturers? I’d love to read your take on this
Comey actually admitted that he didn’t want to be seen as acting like J. Edgar Hoover (who often resorted to threatening politicians and Martin Luther King Jr. with sex-related blackmail). Comey explained why his first memo was written on January 6 and why he told Trump the FBI was not investigating Trump personally. When (Obama Admin) CIA Director Brennan, and National Intelligence Director Clapper and himself briefed Trump, and then by previous agreement with Brennan and Clapper, Comey remained alone to tell Trump about the allegations of prostitute sex that the media were about to publish. (Of course this meeting alone with Trump was Comey’s and the other Obama Admin Directors’ plan, not Trump’s.) Here is what Comey testified in response to Senator Collins’ question: “I was speaking to him and briefing him about some salacious and unverified material. It was in a context of that that he had a strong and defensive reaction about that not being true, and my reading of it was, It was important for me to assure him we were not personally investigating him, and so the context then was actually narrower, focused on what I just talked to him about but very important because it was first true and second I was very, very much about being in kind of a — kind of a J. Edgar Hoover type situation. I didn’t want him thinking I was briefing him on this, to sort of hang it over him in some way, I was briefing him on it because we had been told by the media it was about to launch, we don’t want to be keeping that from him, and if there was — he needed to know this was being said. But I was very keen not to leave him with an impression that the bureau was trying to do something to him, and so that’s the context in which I said, sir, we’re not personally investigating you.”
I agree that the lynching of Flynn was pretty bad. It’s amazing to me that the news media and for that matter,the Senate Investigation, does not mention that L. General Flynn was appointed by Obama to head Military Intelligence in this decade. . He was not considered a Russian Agent then, What happened. Group think or Thinkspeak?. A lot of people on both sides of the aisle seem to want Trump gone at any cost. But that the Democrats are applauding Comeyleaks but deriding Wikileaks for exposing corruption at the DNC, well that’s just straight up hypocrisy. . It seems like a willful decision to go along with the soft coup on Trump by many ‘liberal-minded” people . They have to be aware of the implications that Mr. Parry refers to in this article. Maybe not, Maybe people really have gotten stupider. I mean, have you driven on a freeway lately or tried to watch a TV Show. It’s getting worse every day it seems.. My opinion is this attempt at a soft coup isn’t a Sunday Punch it’s more like a drunken attempt to land a straight right hand punch to the jaw of Trump. I don’t think that he’ll just stand there and let it happen.He has lawyers , 63 million votes and a Department of Justice behind him. I think he will survive. Either way this country will be worse of in 4 years. Either way I hope he smarts up and does what he did to Comey to more people in Intelligence– say YOU’RE FIRED.. He has to start throwing m,ore punches, he’s in a brawl.
That is not what Piecznik, an ex-CIA officer, said. He said the Clintons were attempting a coup to get Hillary elected to continue their brand of corrupt power politics, and he was involved with others working to get Trump elected to prevent that. HRC and the DNC did everything they could to make sure Bernie Sanders did not win primaries, and she bought out the superdelegates more than a year in advance. A coup is done against an elected government, not against contending parties.
Shortly before Trump was elected Steve Pieczenik an ex intelligence official and regular guest on Alex Jones went on the show claiming he and others in the intel community were orchestrating events (in his words “A SOFT COUP”) to make sure Trump wins the election. This article cries about Comey and the intel community orchestrating a coup AGAINST Trump but says nothing about what Trump and his people may have orchestrated AGAINST the UNITED STATES and it’s PEOPLE. Why don’t you go talk to Steve Pieczenik and ask him what he meant when he said itel was orchestrating a SOFT COUP in Trump’s favor to help him win the election? Then tell us all about it in an article.
do you really think anyone is ever an ex-intelligence officer?? or an ex-cia operative?? sorry, it doesn’t work that way. once you’re in you’re in for life. ask anderson cooper and obamarama. pieczenik is just a shill for the ptb as jones is controlled opposition…WAKE UP!
I suspect the Clinton cabal behind this, as Comey is corrupt and thick with the Clintons, covered up the Rose Law firm’s shenanigans, the Marc Rich pardon, the Clinton Foundation’s connections to the drug cartel money laundering bank HSBC where he was on the Board of Directors. DC, to use mike k’s term, is a “nest of vipers”, operated mainly by corrupt crony capitalism. The Clintons know the connections, Trump does not. They know how to operate behind the scenes and use the rhetoric to fool the followers. The ongoing soap opera guarantees that the power structure prevails and nothing gets done for the people, many of whom are truly desperate.
As several people here said, the intent has been to dismantle the New Deal since FDR’s signature was dry on it. Corporate capitalists can’t stand anything getting in their way. I believe, as backwardsevolution says, that Trump did (does?) want to bring business back to the country, but certainly did not understand what he would be up against with the entrenched deep state. And he made a terrible blunder by folding neocon deep state military generals Mattis and McMaster into his administration, plus getting hooked by Goldman Sachs. I also don’t think the nuclear button issue, as Bill Bodden said and quoted Counterpunch Andrew Levine, is the threat from Trump being inferred. Trump may be brash, but he isn’t stupid. I actually think Hillary Clinton would be more likely to use the hot nuclear button, that’s my opinion. And, no, I’m no Trump supporter, but the Democrat forces trying to oust him are creating a dangerous situation in demonizing Russia, which ought to be a US partner to defeat ISIS, which is a creation of the US in the first place from the brutal destruction of the Middle East. We can all be appreciative that Vladimir Putin is an intelligent, sane, patient leader of Russia, a lot more than we can say for leaders of the USG in many years.
And, lastly, while this pile of manure steams, the world goes on, and the US stands to lose by its continual bully militaristic posture, while China has become the world’s economic powerhouse and other nations are aligning with it. Its AIIB, Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, powering the New Silk Road Project, has even been joined by Israel! Russia is a vital partner of China in the project. The US debt is almost $20tn, US has wasted trillions to kill and maim millions and produce untold refugees and piles of rubble in the Middle East and Africa. The world has certainly taken note of that. Meanwhile, Americans are glued to the telescreen of “1984” to watch this absurdity? It’s all “identity politics” in the United States of Amnesia, as the late Gore Vidal liked to call it. If Hillary Clinton had been elected, I do believe the Republicans would be attempting to impeach her right now.
Hi Jessica K-
I agree with your entire comment except the last sentence. I think the Republicans would have sandbagged any attempt by Hillary to pursue any part of her domestic agenda they didn’t like, but they’re mostly all aboard on the train to Armageddon that Hillary would have conducted.
As usual, the CIA commercials were more entertaining than the Super Bowl of Politics. My favorite was the one with the drone and frogs.
The Dems are merely trying to do to Trump what they did to R M NIxon, who’d just won a landslide victory over the risible George McGovern, the Dems’ Peacenik Surrender Monkey. Trump prevented the rightful coronation of Hillary the Hideous, which the Democrats saw as their just and proper due. Should these now aging Sixties former student radicals actually succeed they’ll preside over the dissolution of the nation – we’re not about to let these infantile and sulky little brats take away what we lawfully won. And we dreadful right-wing types have all the (Heh, heh!) guns in the country.
THE THING ABOUT SHUMER ON MADDOWS SHOW STATING THAT TRUMP WAS BEING REALLY DUMB ON TAKING ON THE INTEL COMM.IS A FACT AND NOT AS SOME TRUMP SUPPORTERS CLAIMED WAS A THREAT.PEOPLE ARE REALLY IGNORANT WHEN SOMETHING AS IMPORTANT AND OBVIOUS AS THIS IS ,TO HAVE THE STUPID OPEN THEIR YAPS AND MAKE RIDICULOUS STATEMENTS ,THINKING THEY ARE DEFENDING THEIR SAVIOR .HOW MORONIC IS THAT??
The problem is the sedition act. If it is applied to these “intelligence” people they all go to jail.
Donald Trump is a business man not a politician. He is lamb waiting to be impeached. And that is only because he opens his mouth when he should keep it shut.
What he does have is a certain amount of manipulative business sense. And this government needs an overhaul.
It is being run by a bunch of politicians that do not want to do any actual work.
They are in good company. The lawyer class of people seldom want to work for their money. Thus you have built into the law any number of scams that produce money without work for this class of people.
I believe this is what they are taught.
The bureaus are full of such people.
Even our doctors pick up income by looking at a chart in a hospital. Which is part of the problem.
Our banks charge $30 if you make a book keeping mistake. They did not earn any of that money.
We also have the socialist class. They want to allow people to live without earning a dime. They want a lot of things.
The law is against the moral and ethical people that work, marry, and have kids.
Know your enemy better than yourself.
This is the people against Donald Trump and their true colors are in public view.
These are crooked people who have learned to use the law of the land to their advantage to steal whatever they can.
Of course, they are against Donald Trump and everything he stands for. Which is making government leaner and doing away with a whole lot of their advantages.
The truly sad part of the the current rampage of Russo-phobia is that in every conflict in the last 10 years that I am aware of, Russia holds the moral high ground.
Did not Obama’s minions encourage, finance, and plan the overthrow of a democratically elected government in Ukraine?
And did those same minions really expect Russia to surrender it’s only warm water port in Crimea? Would we surrender even one of ours to a government that had illegally overthrown the previously democratically elected one?
How can we criticize Russia for interfering in our election, for which there is no evidence whatsoever, when interfering in elections, and even violently reversing them, is precisely the fundamental function of the CIA?
In Syria, the Russians are doing exactly what our illustriously leaders said they wanted done regarding ISIS et al. Instead, our sociopaths in charge are attempting to overthrow the government of a sovereign nation in order to steal land rights for an oil pipeline to please the Saudis.
The government is not your friend.
Depending on how far this soft coup goes, ***jury nullification*** , if it can be applied, might be the only thing to save Trump, and America.
Another perceptive commentary, thank you Mr. Perry. This is why I support Consortium News.
Very interesting reporting. It definitely ties together events in chronological order. As we know, Obama was complicit in getting the ball in motion before leaving office by giving the okay for intell agencies to share raw/unsubstantiated intell data up & down the intell good chain. Most likely with the intent to either damage the new president or take him down depending upon how the MSM would run with it. Well we know how that turned out! The supposed liberal Dems are playing a role reversal with the Republican’ts by embracing the NSA, CIA, & FBI who have a long history of covert/overt activity to bring foreign govts down. Excellent article. Thank you.
Parry, you have totally gone off the deep end on this whole thing! I really will carefully scrutinize your political analysis from now on – you sound like a bitter man with an axe to grind I submit that it would be better to get rid of Trump as soon as possible, even if some short term damage is done to our supposed rules of Democracy. This man and his cronies are so destructive, the things they are doing each day will reverberate negatively for years, even decades. Yes, of course being saddled with Pence would be terrible for in some cases other reasons, but that’s no excuse for tolerating Trump. Of course we have to be clear eyed about the fact that Impeachment and Trump’s departure is probably impossible, given the make up of Congress – unless NEW facts about and actions taken by Trump arise, but your far-fetched screed about Comey being part of some carefully organized nefarious conspiracy by the intelligence community is waay overboard. The man is a tyrant in waiting; ignorant, sick, malicious and extremely volatile.
“even if some short term damage is done to our supposed rules of Democracy.” Sounds like you believe in only following the rules when it suits you. The end justifies the means, eh? Good formula for tyranny.
” you sound like a bitter man with an axe to grind” You should look in the mirror when you say that, it sounds like you are talking about yourself.
The Russia-gate “investigation” is turning into an investigation of an alleged Trump administration cover-up of a “crime” that never happened.
Mr. Parry correctly notes that President Trump was presented with a “J. Edgar Hoover moment” blackmail attempt by James Comey on Jan. 6. However, when the President refused to be intimidated, the Steele dossier was then leaked to the media the following day.It cannot be overstressed that the real reason for the coup is, as Mr.Parry has consistently documented, Trump’s desire for improved relations with Russia. This was again made clear by James Clapper who, in Australia on June 7, likened Trump’s plan for peace with Russia to a threat to US national security. It was the intelligence trio of Clapper, Comey (who went into his own anti-Russian tirade in the hearing), and CIA’s Brennan, along with President Obama. Hillary Clinton, and British intelligence, who planned a collision course with Russia which was derailed by the surprise victory of President Trump. Yet through it all, and under intense attack,Trump has kept his promise for improved relations with both Russia and China, and remains open to collaboration against terrorism and on economic development.
Link for above post:
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=232117
“Were Trump’s conversations uncomfortable for Comey? Yep.
Why?
Because Comey had, for quite some time, been failing to do his ****ing job.
When those conversations failed to produce corrective action on Comey’s part, what would you expect to be next?
In Trump’s position you can’t threaten to fire someone if they don’t cut the crap, because that might be construed as obstruction.
But you sure as hell can demand honest loyalty and if you don’t immediately see corrective action in the form of receiving it, you can then fire the person involved, which is exactly what happened.
That would be nice and neat, with the entire sordid episode being able to be tossed into the bin, but for what happened in the hearing.
You see, Comey admitted to not one but two incidents that are at least grounds for instant firing and, I suspect, constitute stand-alone felonies.
First was the “leaking” of material to his “buddy” who then made sure they were published in the press. I remind you that at minimum this breached Comey’s duty to the FBI and his oath of office. But worse, if there was any classified material involved in those “leaks” he also broke the law — period, full-stop.
Second, and at least as serious if not more-so, was that he admitted to interference in the Hillary email investigation by Lynch — and did nothing about it.
I’ve seen arguments that Trump should “let it go” now that (1) Comey confirmed he wasn’t under investigation and (2) that there was no “interference” by Trump. To that I respond with an emphatic NO.
Both of these incidents need to be run into the ground and the chips allowed to fall wherever they may. From what I heard yesterday there appear to be multiple serious felonies involved here both by Comey and a host of other people, including Lynch. For the AG to actively interfere in a criminal investigation is about as serious as it gets in terms of corruption and that must not be allowed to stand.
Our nation is literally crumbling around us because of the lack of the rule of law when it comes to wealthy and powerful people. You get ****ed up the *ss daily by this in the medical field, when it comes to so-called “social media” where you are bought and sold without your knowledge, through the so-called “education” system (especially “higher” education) and more. Nowhere is this more corrosive than at the highest levels of the Federal Government and when the AG of the United States attempts to rig an election by interfering with an investigation that should have, and would have, forced Hillary to withdraw a year or more prior to the election you have a serious problem.
That was a blatant and outrageous attempt to coronate someone. It failed, but those who tried it, including Comey and Lynch, need to rot in ****ing prison. Until and unless that investigation happens, in the open, and is run into the ground there is exactly no reason for you to show any respect to the law, to the cops, to the FBI, to the government, to anyone who claims “authority.” The law either applies to everyone and is enforced evenly against all or it deserves no deference or respect by anyone.”
It’s a matter of optics, so I don’t think anything will come of this, which I’ve said before. Here’s my take. It won’t earn me any fans. Regardless of what anybody thinks of “climate change”, I watched that Rose Garden speech. Trump was “Presidential”. He’s not – as some have insinuated – “illiterate”. Anyone who has done any public speaking knows damn well he can at least “play the part”, and it ain’t easy. Agree or not, the delivery was brilliant. Somebody will claim the credit belongs to his ventriloquist. That could be argued in circles forever; it’s an argument nobody wins. Hillary is a crook, no matter how you slice it. The Obama administration tried to influence the election. In my gut, I’d say the accusations of bigotry would be much more appropriately leveled against Comey than Sessions. But Comey has been politically cautious. A “real” investigation would put four black faces in the dock: Mills, Rice, Lynch and Obama. That’s what Comey had in mind with his leak and his testimony. That would be his “dream come true”. It ain’t gonna happen. It’s a matter of optics. I don’t agree with many of Trump’s recent decisions. If he could have stuck with his inauguration speech objectives, he might have been the greatest US President since JFK. A big “if”. He’s the legitimately elected President. The efforts to subvert his Presidency thus far have been scurrilous and treasonous. It’s about time to move on. Hillary was not and never will be “Presidential” material. Nothing will change that.
“The efforts to subvert his Presidency thus far have been scurrilous and treasonous.”
That is the crux of the matter, plain and simple.
Yeah, the Donald should have eliminated the intelligence agencies totally on day one. Just fired the whole lot of them. And he should have had his own security detail pre-picked to back him up. If he had made his case directly to the American people as to how these agencies have subverted our democracy since the assassination of JFK, I think he could have sold it. As good as his inaugural address was, he needed to have immediate follow through. He should have spent his time between the election and Jan 20th planning a pre-emptive strike on the intelligence agencies. Of course if word had gotten out, they would have killed him before he was sworn in, but that was his only good chance to drain the swamp and make America great again. They’ve got the upper hand on him now.
Don’t t understand why you go to such lengths to support such scum bags as Trump and his crew who fed the Russians places to hack for evidence which would justify locking Hillary up pronto.
If you’ve got evidence to substantiate your accusations, please provide it. Absolutely no one has so far. Unfounded assertions, no matter the source, are NOT evidence. And, please, don’t go using the “security” dodge. Absolutely anything, including mass murder, can be justified by invoking the words “classified” or “security.”
Meant Podesta.
Been a long day with the UK election surprises.
Easy to say since the Seth Rich murder fell out of the news.
When it comes to figuring out foul conspiracies, Joe, nothing is easy or safe, as i have determined, fortunately, on many occasions.
I respect you Mr Ford, but to defend Hillary by using the Russians as the hacker is really getting old. In fact I’m surprised to see you latching on this charge. I wouldn’t doubt that the Russians did some spying, but so are many other nations guilty of this kind of accusation. I just feel that since the Democrates need someone to blame for the Wikileaks which exposed Hillary’s sabotaging of the Sanders campaign, then why isn’t the mysterious murder of Seth Rich on the table for investigation? In fact there is probably more reason to suspect that Seth Rich fed Wikileaks the information they used, as opposed to the Russians doing it. Unless you received a phone call from Donna Brazile what’s holding you back from wanting to see what was behind the Rich murder?
President Donald Trump is the legitimately elected president of the United States. Those who state otherwise are lying. They are corrupt scheming sore losers of as fair an election as we are likely to have. If Trump can be legitimately impeached on real grounds, that might be a good thing, although a thorough look at Pence as president is not reassuring. But to allow a cabal of militarists, corporatists, political operatives, intelligence agencies and corrupt lying main stream media to illegally upset a valid election would signal the final demise of any idea of democracy in the US.
Apparently those folks are so blinded by their hatred of Trump, or maybe their adoration of Hillary, or maybe they are simply so invested in their own power as insiders which they do not reveal, that they are either willing to sacrifice what’s left of the “democracy” charade or just don’t see the ramifications of overthrowing the legitimately-elected leader under the constitution. Is it surprising that so many seem oblivious to the inevitable blowback from our Deep State, intelligence agencies and media stooges effecting regime changes at will around the globe when they are willing to accept the same thing happening here, now, supposedly under our own constitution? You don’t have to like Trump to defend the constitution under which he was elected against the conspiracy of arrogant insiders who would yet again unilaterally wipe their asses with that document. If they don’t like Trump’s proffered policies, let them oppose them case by case in the congress as outlined in the constitution not through a coup, however hard or soft.
Realist & mike K many things of late stump the average mind towards explaining why our country is so divided. Realist I get it all the time when defending the Constitution of how I am a Trump supporter, and you know I’m not. We Americans have succumbed to becoming elementary, like in 5th grade elementary, with our professing our knowledge of politics, and current events. There are no polite discussions any more, as that has been replaced with arguing on Facebook until the rooster crows at dawn. You are either with us or against us, there is no more middle ground. I thank our media for this sad turn of our political culture, as well as I blame our media for many other things.
The people who criticize Robert Parry are selective in their criticism of him when often Parry points out the many wrong things that Trump does, and has done. Parry with this article is explaining a process. This process is going no where, because it has no where to go. The Russians didn’t throw the election in Donald Trump’s favor….Hillary did!
Yes, what Joe and Realist and mike said.
Can any of the other slime bags in Washington stand up to close scrutiny? Flynn is small potatoes when it comes to evil SB’s in DC.
Those who want to pillory Flynn have no standing whatever to pretend superiority or probity. A nation of vipers is what we have, and getting rid of Trump will not change that. Would you prefer the slimy liar Obama, or the evil minded violence of Hillary? They are the ones behind this concocted witch hunt in progress. Are you a fan of a McCarthy style coup? Maybe the final demise of what is left of American democracy is OK as a price to eliminate Trump?
Caitlin Johnstone makes an interesting point as to “foreign influence”. She thinks all of Congress and the Judges should be investigated along with the President for ANY foreign influence. Since Israel owns virtually all of Congress, and some are even dual citizens, the investigators would have a field day. I think the proper term for the current state of affairs is “selective prosecution.”
Exactly. Highly “selective prosecution”. Investigators of foreign influence could have a field day indeed.
Good god – Robert is getting more and more bizarre. Black helicopters anyone?
“coercion or blackmail from the Intelligence Community.”
How is that possible when the IC also knew that everything Comey was telling T was going to be soon publicly reported my MSM?
Kinda like trying to blackmail a gay person who has already been outed huh?
Gen Flynn – you mean the guy who lied about his security clearance check, lied about his discussions with Kislyak (which truly would make him and T vulnerable to blackmail), who was an agent for our “ally” Turkey while ALSO acting as T’s top Nat Security advisor? Just who was Flynn working for, Turkey or USA?
As Glenn Greenwald pointed out better than I – yes the IC may have leaked info about Flynn, or Trump. BUT:
“What matters is not the motive of the leaker but the effects of the leak. Any leak that results in the exposure of high-level wrongdoing — as this one did — should be praised, not scorned and punished.”
That is exactly what whistle blowers do, and are needed. Thank god for them.
Robert then further makes an excuse about Flynn when he describes the Obama team as antagonized about the ‘chanting lock her up’. Again let me have someone with more weight than I remark.
General McCaffrey sums Flynn up best – after 1st supporting his nomination for NSAdviser – he then reconsidered after Flynn’s ‘lock her up chanting and tweeting about Hilary and pizzagate. He calls Flynn bordering on demented.
Yes – Trump’s Nat Sec Adviser borders on DEMENTED.
But yet somehow Robert feels so sorry for this insane man?
So yes I am all for a soft, hard, fast, slow, any kind, of coup. When you have a mentally unstable, documented pathological liar, completely unqualified and incompetent grifter, convicted fraudster, racist and misogynist, in charge of our country than a coup would and should be the morally correct action.
Your idea of what is moral needs some deeper consideration. Is it moral to impeach a legally elected president on the basis of a lot of false charges? Your contempt for Trump seems to say anything goes. Why not just call for his assassination, and be done with it?
mike k – exactly.
Who is being impeached? Who is being assassinated?
Are the charges false? Say you? Everything you write is an assumption, or twisting my comment.
I would ask you the same question about your views of morality. It is not my opinion that T is totally immoral – it is the documented record.
A documented liar about everything all the time, a documented fraud for $25M, a documented racist by the Justice Dept: and his own words and deeds ( top 2 political advisers are white supremacists, his AG is also a white supremacist whose whole legal and political career is based on rolling back civil rights laws), a documented misogynist, a documented and open adulterer with 5 children from 3 different wives who is now the darling of evangelicals.
I could go on but will leave it there.
Actually it is Trump – not I – who has contempt for everything (including minorities, women, other countries, laws, science, knowledge), and anybody who does not help enrich himself. And a belief that anything goes. You twist.
Now that he was voted into power – we should just accept defacto racism and misogyny as basic American culture?
That seems to be the consensus of Robert and most commenters here. Just ignore who he is. I merely am pointing out the hypocrisy of such.
As Comey pointed out in his testimony – after his very 1st meeting with Trump he knew to take meticulous notes based on
” the nature of the person. I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting”.
I too am also pointing out the nature of Trump – this immoral person.
You see the Wizard of Oz, I see a racist, misogynist, con artist, and incompetent pathological liar behind the curtain.
Maybe T will ask Stephen Douglas to help him out – you know since he is ‘doing such a good job”.
PS: I take note you do not comment of Flynn – the man who ‘borders on demented”, or what is says about the man who hired him. McCaffery was actually being gentle on Flynn.
Sir,
You say I have contempt for T. True – I concede. But not for him, or his name, but for anyone who behaves and lives like T.
I have contempt for anyone who calls women fat pigs, too ugly to vote for, likes to grab them by the p—-, brags about b—- and what he can do to them. Who denigrates women. Yes I have contempt.
I have contempt for anyone who calls a person Pocahontas, who en-flames and demonizes any group or minority; who is charged by the Justice Dept with racial discrimination, who hires as consultants white supremacists, who does not object when followers wave the Confederate flag. Yes I have contempt.
I have contempt for anyone who does not pay his debts, who uses bankruptcy repeatedly to default and cheat other people and companies out of there hard earned sweat and products. Yes I have contempt.
I have contempt for anyone who defrauds thousands of people out of millions of dollars to solely enrich himself at their expense. Yes I have contempt.
I have contempt for anyone who lies, who pathologically lies on a daily basis, whose whole political career was launched and bought a massive following on a lie that our previous President was not born in this country. Yes I have contempt.
I also have contempt for anyone having done and said such things, knowingly done so, regardless of being called out or caught, refuses to ever ever ever say they are sorry or offer any apologies or amends. Yes I have contempt.
Note that I have not referenced his knowledge, or complete lack of, basic facts; or how our political and constitutional system works. I have not referenced any disagreement with political views on any subject be it healthcare, taxes, helping the poor and underprivileged vs the richest, foreign policy or domestic. I have not referenced anything regarding his Presidency.
I only referenced his low character as a human being, his complete lack of ethics and moral sense, his inability to see the world as anything but a place to enrich himself at the expense of others. His constant harming and demeaning others. And I also noted that my contempt applies to not just him but to anyone at all like minded.
Also lastly note everything I wrote about T was in fact based on his actions and words.
But my contempt is not the point. As we know T’s behavior is his life – it is who he is and always has been.
I had contempt for T long before he started his run for Prez.
The real point is, how can Robert, commenters on this site, or anyone in anyway defend such degenerate behavior. By any person at any time. Is it somehow someway all politics?
If what Trump has done and said does not scream out as indefensible then what does? Is having a racist and misogynist as President simply ok for everyone?
According to what I have read on this site it would appear so. How pathetic and sad.
It is not Trump or his behavior that is being defended. The problem is with all this “Russia subverted our election” nonsense, and more particularly, with the politicized role of the intelligence agencies. It is the Constitution and the proper use of the rule of law that is being defended.
You, nor I, have any knowledge either way on whether Russia interfered. Calling it nonsense is nonsense on your part. Whether T and associates colluded is also unknown.
You are defending T without any knowledge. Blind seig heil allegiance to a man. Not the Constitution.
Many sources in our Intelligence Comm have claimed there was interference, but we will not know either way until it is investigated.
That, Sir, is defending the Constitution. Due process.
The premise that Russia would never try interfere, or influence our open elections, seems patently uneducated, unversed in history, and absurd.
According to Robert, commenters and you – No country on this planet ever tries to interfere in other countries elections. Or does that just apply to good ole Mother Russia?
PS: I have a bridge I would like to sell to everyone of you true believers.
You continue to conflate criticism of a sorry excuse for an investigation or “process” with some kind of blanket defense of Trump, his policies and behavior. Apples and oranges.
The idea that I possess a “blind allegiance” to Trump is absurd. I voted for Stein because it is the policies and attitudes expressed in her campaign that I favor. I do not favor increasing Pentagon budgets, more tax cuts for wealthy individuals, more corporate welfare, shaking hands with Bibi the Butcher and dancing with the Saudis. But all that and much more is beside the point.
To call what is already a protracted circus of innuendo about Trump as a Putin puppet and Russian interference “nonsense” is not the same thing as premising that “Russia would never interfere”. As just one example, the Wikileaks release of the much-ignored DNC e-mails was what, nearly a year ago. I am not going to rehash the reasons why blaming that release on Russia makes no sense.
Yes, there is a plethora of well-documented history of state-sponsored interference in the electoral processes of other countries. And “interference” goes way beyond the matter of elections. You might guess at some of the culprits and examples.
The word “due” in “due process” is all-important.
Agreed
Of course, the independent investigative journalists and readers at Consortium News have extensively discussed the narcissistic behavior and offensive policies of Trump.
True to the infamous nom de plume, the deliberately oblivious “ADL” spews more and more bizarre defamatory nonsense.
True believers like “ADL” certainly are busy ‘splainin’ these days
https://www.adl.org/education/resources/glossary-terms/six-day-war
Consortium News contributors and readers are familiar with the pathetic Hasbara troll efforts to smear the site.
Whereas I agree with much of Mr Parry’s assessment of the ongoing soft coup in the United States, trying to defend a low-life like Lt. Gen. Flynn doesn’t do his case much good, if anyone cares to take a brief look at the military snoop’s cushy career.
Nevertheless, Comey is definitely deeply involved in the Deep State. But this endless circling in a mire is destined to go nowhere but down if there are no answers to what must be done. Though I hate to say it, I don’t think the Washington Post or the New York Times are going to change their spots from reading Mr Parry’s excellent articles, as I believe they know he’s preaching to the converted. In order to make changes we have to reach beyond our captive audiences, as we might as well just talk to the bathroom mirror as just talk to them.
We could take a leaf from Jeremy Corbyn’s book who, despite his loss, is the real winner of yesterday’s UK general election, simply through capturing the hearts and souls of the young, and showing what can be done.
Point of fact, correcting the obfuscation by Parry. The “opposition research done to benefit HRC’s campaign” was opposition research done by Chistopher Steele, MI6, paid for by Trump’s Republican opponents during the primaries. After Trump won the primary, THEN it was picked up by HRC campaign. What is wrong with Parry?. Has been a hero to me, but is becoming loose with the facts to meet his anti IC agenda.
David – in previous articles Robert Parry HAS mentioned Christopher Steele’s connection with the Republicans before he was picked up and used by the Hillary Clinton campaign. Christopher Steele = “Have gun, will travel”. The Deep State (BOTH parties) use people like Christopher Steele to trump up charges on whoever they’re trying to get rid of at the moment.
I think if Robert Parry mentioned absolutely everything in every article, we’d be reading until Christmas.
Whenever I see the name Christopher Steele, the first thing that comes to my mind, because of what I’ve learned here, is, oh, yeah, the man who plays both sides. Don’t worry, David, we all know.
Was it not ironic that James Comey would label any direct talk to MSM surrounding his house as “feeding seagulls at the beach”, while simultaneously leaking private notes to some “seagull” at New York Times!
Donald Trump’s presidency, no matter how unpopular people may think he is, is revealing the volume of deceit and hypocrisy through which the powerless are governed. All one needs to do is to observe and cogitate!
NIXON: When you get in to see these people [at the CIA], say, “Look, the problem is that this will open the whole, the whole Bay of Pigs thing, and the President just feels that…” ah, I mean, without going into the details of, of lying to them to the extent to say that there is no involvement. But, you can say, “This is sort of a comedy of errors, bizarre…” without getting into it, “…the President’s belief is that this is going to open the whole Bay of Pigs thing up again. And, ah because ah these people are playing for, for keeps and that they should call the FBI in and we feel that, that we wish for the country, don’t go any further into this case, period!” –Nixon White House tape, 23 June, 1972, (instructions by Nixon to his Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman on what to tell CIA Director Richard Helms)
What’s different about Nixon’s request to obstruct justice in 1972 vs. Trump’s request to Comey to obstruct justice? I submit that Trump wont be under the same pressure to resign that Nixon was, because there is no “Bay of Pigs thing” that might come out in impeachment hearings. It was Republican Senator Buckley (a CIA asset) and Republican Senator Goldwater who told Nixon not to fight impeachment and that it was time for Nixon to resign. These two powerful senators were likely privy to what was meant by “the whole Bay of Pigs thing.”
And what was Nixon referring to by the code words, “the whole Bay of Pigs thing”? In his memoir, “The Ends of Power”, Nixon’s Chief of Staff H.R Haldeman speculates as to what Nixon meant:
“It seems that in all of those Nixon references to the Bay of Pigs, he was actually referring to the Kennedy assassination.”
Never thought I would see Robert Parry minimize #Russiagate to the point where Donald Trump becomes the innocent victim of the Bad American Government.
Reading this makes me wonder how we’ve gone from exposing the CIA under Reagan w Ollie North and Bud McFarland peddling cocaine for arms and cutting back door deals w the Iranians via Israel (arms for hostages) while William Casey launched his dirty war against Nicaragua to acting as if poor Donald Trump and his decade’s long dependence on Russian money and the shadiest of business practices w American mobsters during his failed casino days is not the same corrupt scoundrel now occupying the White House.
Parry dismisses any 9-11 Truth theories as conspiracy garbage, but now he has penned a long series of articles claiming the greatest conspiracy against poor victim Trump in the history of the Republic.
Must be hard times raising funds? Or is this Parry’s New Normal in the age of Twitter Trump and Don the Con never met a lie he couldn’t sleep with?
I’m not sure which is more shocking, Trump being President despite his embrace of Putin and scary clown intellectuals like Bannon and Stephen Miller with Putin Pal Tillerson at State or Robert Parry peddling poor Flynn narratives to create the narrative of Don the Con being surrounded by Good Patriots under assault from Bad Government actors like Comey and who? His stooges Coats and Rodgers? Sessions? Yes, next Parry will write about the persecution of another Victim, AG Jeff Bigotry is Cool Sessions.
Stay tuned!
Thank you for speaking up.
Kevin, I had an email chat with Parry years ago about 911, that stunned and disappointed me. I had been giving the Consortium small cash gifts because I believed in him. But he was so ignorant of the 911 inconsistencies, (worse incurious about it,never read David Ray Griffin) that it I could not reconcile it with his hard hitting writing about Jim Webb, Iran-Contra, etc. Now this placating of natural born fascist Trump, just blows my mind.
Totally agree. It is hard to read, or even reconcile this nonsense.
Yes to somehow someway make T and his swampy associates as victims is beyond bizarre.
Thanks for your totally wrong contribution. We need that stuff to keep in touch with those who disagree with what is done on this site.
Conspiracy theory peddlers “Keven Kresse”, “David” and “ADL” are flogging a peculiar gutter variety smear that Parry is some sort of Trump apologist.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
And, needless to say, Parry is perfectly entitled to focus his attention on issues other than 911.
Propaganda attacks and smear campaigns are the Old Normal for actual independent investigative journalists.
Those who prefer “RussiaGate Truther” screeds are well serviced by The New York Times, Bellingcat, and their “First Draft” coalition propaganda partners.
Let’s just get right down to the “real nitty gritty” here, Trump’s foreign policy is opposed to the City of London’s ongoing strategy. That is, London wants to continue destabilizing the entire middle east by using the Muslim brotherhood (in Egypt) to perpetuate Sunni/Shia Islam frictions-whenever and where ever they can. The House of Saud has waved good bye to the brotherhood, and replaced it with a one hundred and twenty billion dollar armaments deal with the US, thus ensuring the survival of it’s monarchy and leadership position within the GCC.
SOFT COUP is the new mantra of the enlightened world citizen. FDR, JFK, Democrats, and now President Donald Trump, a Republican, fall victim to the Intel Community lies, smears. I did not vote for Trump but support a few of his sensible ideas–such as partnership with Russia in preparing for the perhaps total loss of food supply caused by India and China’s exponential population growth; global warming-causal of massive population migrations, to name a few of the dangers. Closer examination of the Intel reports describe the greater part of it color coded in reference to unverified sources and analysts reporting. US Intel works on behalf of the 1% who are slowly turning up the heat underneath the pot of water containing the world population. Slow heating to a boil before we know what is happening to us. And yes, a “Soft Coup” on our elected President.
The Umbrella Lady – that’s it in a nutshell. Good comments.
American-style Regime Change comes home to roost! As for the consequences…think of where it’s been a “successful” US intervention in the past & the resulting chaos, dictatorships, totalitarian religious regimes, etc: the US overthrow of democratically elected Presidents of Iran 1953, Guatemala 1954, Chile 1973 then more recently, the removal of the “evil leaders” of Iraq & Libya plus the ongoing attempt in Syria with the resulting terrorism and flood of desperate refugees destabilizing Europe…as I see in this miserable Lisbon neighborhood with its do-it-yourself homeless shelter of filthy blankets & quilts draped over a railing plus hungry, unemployed Africans hanging about…while those from Nepal & Pakistan who are lucky enough to have tiny apartment roofs over their heads or manage hole-in-the-wall markets, eye me with disdain as if to say: “what are you doing in Our Neighborhood”…to the sounds of construction & sight of cranes slowly gentrifying it to attract more travelers like me to newly restored “vacation rentals” but lacking website photos of the neighborhood. So as I read my nytimes edition while traveling around Italy & Portugal, these seaside countries who’ve been hardest hit by the “exceptional”, “indispensable” US leadership of The Free World & its Military Interventions & Regime Change agenda…I’m reflecting on our history and projecting the future for America…as our chickens bearing toxic eggs…come home to roost. And while the nytimes soap opera plays out day-by-day, I’m wondering whether whether our Plutocracy has yet written a script for the last act…after they’ve dumped Trump: the Triumphant Installation of their first choice, Lady Hillary Macbeth in the White House after all?
The interesting thing about the USA is that it is suppose to be created and empowered in accord with a document called the US Constitution; just like the pre-revolution British corporations (government type corporations designed to establish and maintain colonies) used to be. There are no provisions in the seven constitutional articles that mention or empower either the media or the IC. IF Trump is in charge of all Article ii employees, then that includes everyone in the IC, and Trump should assign each and every salaried member of that community to North Eastern Alaska, to monitor Caribou heart beats; surely at least one Caribou has violated some law, but surely if the bright IC folks can not find a violation they can fabricate one, because without a violation of some kind being leaked to the globally controlled, media operating in America, tyranny would not be served. It woould seem that without salaried IC members; contractors would directly serve at the pleasure of the elected US President. The problem here is non- elected bureaucrats and the very contractors such bureaucrats expect to be employed by, after the government pensions of the bureaucrats are in place, are acting as as if the bureaucrats and contractors have the constitutional authority to arrange a regime change.. I can find no constitutional power that allows congress to enforce summons or subpoenas issued to or against Article II employees or contractors and no authority for Art II employees or contractors to engage in overriding public election mandates by arranging regime changes? Please set me straight; where am I wrong ?
The spooks seem to be doubling down on trying to “control the narrative.” RUSSIA=BAD; contact with Ruskies, also BAD. I don’t think they give a s**t which “useful idiot” occupies the oval office.
Some quote about “when the american people believe all our lies…” Has backfired, instead the people just think you’re liars and would just as soon not have to listen to it. That is, the american people (as the result of the spooks disinfo) don’t believe anything the intelligence community has to say officially. Oh yeah, if we can find a disgruntled one to whisper with in a seedy bar–perhaps he might relay what he knows as “the truth.”
Like an “all in” bluff, now comes forward a leaker-immaculate to determine once and for all the power to control the story. Her name: “Reality Winner.” I couldn’t make this stuff up; if I did no one would believe me. Reminds me of “W” on the flight deck with the banner “Mission Accomplished.”
So the “intelligence community” (oxymoron much?) have declared themselves winners of “Reality.” Ach, it pains me to have to put that in quotations. Okay. I yield “reality” to the liars…I will go over here and enjoy actuality.
In the meantime, the precariat learns to self-govern. So anarchy might not be so painful…
Do laugh and love.
A “soft coup” is a logical explanation for what is happening. Comey looks and speaks like a Boy Scout but has a foxy vindictive streak in his personality. Trump is a hump and runs with a dangerous crowd of wealthy elitists and their hired rabble, but he was legitimately elected because the people rejected they notorious Clintons and Obama’s pussyfooting.
In principle, the Trump government would offer lots of easy targets for the opposition – the planned deterioration of healthcare coverage, increased military spending, decreased social benefits, leaving the Paris treaty, and much more. Of course, there can be different opinions as to these topics, but certainly, the opposition would have a lot of legitimate issues for criticising Trump, the cabinet, and the Republican majority in Congress, and it seems likely that at least with some of these issues, it could gain the support of many independent voters.
However, the main course of attack Democrats have chosen should, in my view, unequivocally be condemned. For partisan reasons, Democrats have chosen to create a scandal out of normal diplomatic contacts. Using the Logan act against Flynn is absurd not only because it is very old and has never been used in practice, but, above all, because it is completely odd to apply a law that forbids private citizens from conducting foreign policy to the situation during a transition when contacts are established in order to prepare for taking over the government. Whether it is about Flynn or about Kushner, it is rather absurd to pretend that they wanted to conduct their own private foreign policy for the last days of December 2016 and the first days of January 2017 rather than prepare for taking over government after January 20.
Attempting to create a scandal out of contacts with ambassadors and foreign governments is utterly dangerous and irresponsible. For international security, it is crucial that there is communication between all important governments, and in situations of crises, it could be very dangerous if they cannot talk with each other because that would lead to leaks and scandals in the press. It is also highly inconsistent. It is very unlikely that the Trump team is the only one that had contact with foreign representatives during the transition period, and Russia certainly was not the only country they had contact with.
The way the scandal with Flynn was manufactured was particularly abhorrent. He was called during his holidays, the call was tapped, and Flynn was condemned because his report from memory did not exactly correspond to what the secret services had intercepted. The exact content of the conversation is not known to the public, but it does not seem that there was anything illegitimate, the only charge is that Flynn’s recollection did not exactly match what the secret services had intercepted. That is the way police states use repression against their citizens, things like that could happen in the former Soviet Union, but methods like this should be off limits in democratic countries. There are good reasons why the results of tapping calls are not allowed to be released except under very restrictive circumstances.
Flynn may have violated some other rules in connection with lobbying for Turkey, but the pretext for going against him based on his contact with the Russian ambassador – something that was certainly within his duties and the duties of an ambassador during the transition period – should be completely unacceptable to anyone who cares about the rule of law. It becomes even more absurd when the president who witnessed this witchhunt on flimsy pretexts is allegedly not even allowed to utter support for Flynn and any words of support are interpreted as “obstruction of justice”.
It should not surprise anyone that Comey, who possibly committed criminal acts by leaking secret documents and who attempted to intimidate Trump with a dossier that lacked credibility, was sacked.
Of course, it would be understandable that many politicians would want to resist the government based on issues like its economic and ecological policies, and I personally think such resistance would deserve support. However, I think it is also crucial to recognize that the forces that want to criminalize normal contacts with other countries and topple an elected president with selective leaks from secret services are much more sinister and anti-democratic than Trump.
Yes.
But the American people are not supposed to see it that way. After all, the realization that U.S. intelligence chieftains might be conspiring to overturn a constitutional election of a U.S. president could be most upsetting and unsettling,
So they did bump off JFK, after all.
There is a constitutional method for removing a president. It is every bit as constitutional as the election. Trump walked right into an obstruction of justice charge. No one forced him to interfere. If he had stayed out of it, Comey would have had nothing to say to congress. We can’t have a president acting in this fashon whether he was lured into it or not. Trump doesn’t get a pass on his own actions because Russia-gate is bullshit. The FBI should have been investigating him for violations of the Emoluments Clause from the very beginning. If they had done what they should have I do not believe he would have acted any differently. This is his fault. He is not a child. He is supposed to be President. He should be held accountable for his actual crimes which include obstruction of justice.
ALL of this is made possible by the extermination of the free press and its replacement with a bunch of cloned corporate media propagandists. Hardly anyone in the American public hears or reads these truths, except from a handful of award-winning journalists who have been blackballed for their truth-telling and are now making a last stand on the internet, which, by the way, the tyrants have already passed legislation to hamstring– you remember, the bill to kill “fake news” which was hurriedly passed and signed around last Xmas. It was signed by that lying traitor who never kept a promise in his worthless life, Barack Obama. You know, that connard (pardon my French) who has set up a virtual government-in-exile only blocks from the White House, from which Comey undoubtedly still takes his marching orders.
You don’t have to like or support Trump or his policies to recognise what is right and what is wrong under the constitution and what is going down is totally wrong and will ossify America as a tyranny for generations to come. I think famed lawyer Alan Dershowitz has been a dirtbag most of his career for the scum he has successfully defended in court, but he rightfully says that Trump (and his incoming administration, including Flynn) broke no laws under our constitution. I’ll take truth wherever I can find it, even if it has to come from the Devil himself. I’d say this is a witch hunt, but the hunters have already identified their alleged witch and are merely building the pyre around his stake with these “hearings.”
This collusion between both the Democrats and the Republicans to overthrow Trump very conspicuously shows that the notion of a contested “democracy” between competing ideologies has been nothing more than a charade. The first outsider to ever defeat both parties is immediately targeted for a far reaching insurrection with no dissension allowed whatsoever, not even by a few dissidents in the media. If the world survives and if America ever evolves back into a constitutional republic with a free and objective media some day, it should prove very interesting to read the chapters on this era when freedom, democracy, truth and justice were actually lost and the excuse given was to “save them.”
Good one. As usual, Realist.
With all this “Russian collusion” nonsense going on, does anybody believe that Bernie could have survived being painted by the “socialist” brush? Suddenly, all the people who used to be FDR democrats are defending right wing Stasi tactics – people like Chuck Schumer. So.. where are all the “Social Justice Warriors” now that a new “gender identity” has emerged? Yep, it’s OK to check a septic tank with a dipstick. It’s OK to lick an ice-cream cone so it doesn’t dribble on the carpet. But darn it, don’t even think about writing your name in the new fallen snow!
It’s high time bed-wetters gott equal rights. Why should they be denied equal protection under the law? [SARCASM ALERT]. Now that Chuck Schumer and Rachel Maddow have validated the new Enabling Act, it won’t be long before Alex Jones and Jerome Corsi are accepted as centrist democrats. Stephan Molyneaux and Lionel Nation have nearly succeeded in convincing their followers that Hitler was a leftist, JFK was assassinated because of Bobby Kennedy, and all of our financial woes are due to New Deal Economics. Granting Comey a soapbox proves that J. Edgar Hoover was a fine American. His lifestyle choices had nothing to do with his abusive practices. He realized that “straight people” needed to “feel the burn” in order to promote gender equality. Whenever he wore a dress, that was merely to demonstrate solidarity with kilt-wearing bagpipers. Oh, come on now. Bagpipers, teabaggers…what’s the difference?
But on a serious note, this whole smorgasbord of American hypocrisy has convinced me of one, maybe two things. Trump will not be impeached. Thanks to Comey, Schumer, Rachel Maddow and Cenk Uygar, he might even get two terms. In the long run, that’s a good thing. Americans will need to get screwed really, really good before they realize what both parties want. Both parties are working toward a project to dismantle FDR’s new deal. They want your retirement money. They want to foreclose on your mortgage, no matter how much equity you have in it. They want your kids to be too dumb to draw parallels between Robber Barons and Neoliberals. And, you know what? They’re succeeding. If your daughter turns to prostitution in order to pay massive education debts – a WELL DOCUMENTED scenario, by the way – don’t say nobody warned you. After all, prostitutes have feelings too. But they should have to pay for their own birth control. It’s only fair…isn’t it?
That’s as surreal as dialogue from a William Burrough’s novel… and a lot closer to the truth than anything coming out of the mouths of the legion of assholes you mentioned. Now you’ve got me wondering whether some time in the last few years I’ve jumped the track into some parallel universe where all the former sober truthtellers have either decided to become sadistic liars or have lost their ever-loving minds.
“Americans will need to get screwed really, really good before they realize what both parties want.”
Not long after a certain “terrific” book was published, loser Bernie got schooled in “The Art of the Deal”
https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/21/bernie-out-of-the-closet-sanders-longstanding-deal-with-the-democrats/
Trump, Clinton, Sanders: Americans will get screwed really, really bad before they realize what the military industrial complex wants from both parties.
It’s death by a thousand cuts with reporters all over the place sticking him with forks. It’s salad days again and just in time for the heat. Put baloney on your Trump salads and plenty of leeks. Use your journalism like a hammer to cripple politicians who are wrong and usually an enemy. The Farm is going to be happy with more leeks.
It is possible to hold a faith with enough confidence to believe that what should be rendered to God does not need to be decided and collected by Caesar.
343 U.S. 324-325
That’s easy compared with the impossible which we’re cooking up. Keep you coup green and make it pay while they lose. They’re big. You are small. They are slow, you are fast. They are angry, you are bloody merry hell.
It has been said that government of nation state, as compared to chiefdom witch doctor ruled clans, and all was fine until the Greeks invented politics, with the money changers financing all the participants , where the hell can mixing them all together go except as a cluster fn mess.
Then throw in Democracy of 50 +1 where the village idiot can decide who rules, and he knows that a damn huge part of the other 40% of populace that votes are fn dumber than even he is, and he and they fit into the grooves set into life by the few, money changers and politicos.
Capitalism is but exchange of goods for goods or services rendered or in exchange of some intrinsic valued material as a mode of exchange; in reality sociAlism is but a form of capitalism whereby the same exchanges take place , neither one are supposed to be governing/rulership bodies
After Comey testified in front of the Senate Intelligence Hearing Senators Burr and Warner held a news briefing taking no questions. Both senators stressed the importance of the hearings were really to expose to the American public the Russian election interference that occurs within in our domestic political,processes. It’s now a done deal that the Russians are interfering in our elections. This now affirmative theme that Russia is a threat to our American way of life, is right back where it was back in 1947. So now that we are great again, could we stop all this silliness and start working on America’s real problems?
Comey didn’t do much more than pave away towards where this all ends up to where it is as a he said he said story to promote cable news commercial profit time on. Seriously, this is all made for tv. When was the last time you remember cable news reporting any news? It’s just not cable news, it’s late night tv shows with negative funny Trump monologues which leaves you with a humorous buffoonish caricature of our biggly President. Overtime Trump looks as though he is doing a bad impression of himself. Better to leave that to Alec Baldwin, or that other guy on Comedy Central.
Remember the name of this hearing where Comey testified is, ‘Russia & 2016 Election Investigations’. So Comey without a smoking gun towards implicating Trump into the investigation with his testimony, will that mean that the heavy lifting will be up to Robert Mueller….as the world turns. Wow, what a ‘Soap Opera’.
It’s the great salad coup.
My life and work have been far from free of blemish, and so I think it would be unpardonable for a biographer not to dish up the dirt.
“A Conversation with William Styron”, Humanities (May/June 1997).
With my training, I dish salad not dirt. I can put you under dirt or burn you. GOT LEEKS? Make Russian dressing great again. The danger level is about to go up.
During James Comey’s testimony, Trump had this to say at a conference he was attending:
“And as you know, we are under siege. You understand that. But we will come out bigger and better and stronger than ever. You watch. You fought hard for me, and now I’m fighting hard for all of you. I have one goal as President: to fight for American people and to fight for America, and America First.”
Notice the words: siege, fight. Trump is crass, he does not have the gift of the gab, he is not slick and polished like a poisoned red apple, but I do believe he is trying to drain the swamp. Can anyone say there isn’t one big stinking swamp that needs cleaning up, starting with the Clinton Foundation?
When you are fighting for your life, you say and do things you might otherwise not say or do. This is a fight. Up until now I think Trump has bent over backwards trying to appease the Deep State. I think those days have just ended. He has finally realized that they ARE out of get him, no matter what he does.
It is possible to hold a faith with enough confidence to believe that what should be rendered to God does not need to be decided and collected by Caesar.
343 U.S. 324-325
Trump should have a salad named for him. The salad days are back for the press. Put Russian dressing on it. Lots of leeks.
These are the best of times, they are the only times we have. Always start with a bigger pot than you think you will need. Keep the kids fed.
Pablo Diablo you are correct. Citizens United vs. FEC and McCutcheon vs. FEC which were Supreme Court decisions which were vastly under-reported by the main stream press because they saw a gravy train of money flowing their way if they fell silent on the SCOTUS decisions which effectively would sell our democracy to the highest bidder for the advertising dollars they sought are among the true influencers of the election. Comey’s reopening of the investigation into the Hillary Clinton email “scandal” a scant week before the National Presidential Election was flagged by DOJ as obvious election tampering is another influencer of the election. But he is now on the witness stand telling everyone he is a victim of obstruction of justice as he valiantly tried to shift blame from himself onto the Russians. It is absurd. The whole Russia thing is absurd.
Comey and the media want to escape blame by inventing a Russian Boogeyman with scant evidence for Russian election tampering as a back door escape route for Comey and the media by assigning blame on a foreign power (Russia).
The main stream media are the puppet masters pulling all of the strings here. They committed the crime of elevating Trump with three billion dollars in free advertising to recieve an actual three billion dollars in republican Super PAC advertising. Now they have elevated James Comey as the fired government employee who will reliably testify that the Russians rigged election of Trump and how Trump’s election is is somehow the fault of a foreign enemy (The Russians) when Comey’s actions in reopening the closed investigation into Hillary Clintons emails as directed by James Comey was the real reason that Clinton lost and Trump won in the end days of the campaign.
The gravitas and pomp and circumstance and the parade of Comey as the victim of Trump’s supposed obstruction of justice is a giant smoke screen designed to cover their (the media’s) asses about how they secretly extorted billions of dollars from the republicans and their Super PACs for their monetary gain.
Now they want to reverse the election tampering and extortion they did with the invention of a foreign enemy we are all familiar with to cast as a scapegoat for the election results that they alone are responsible for along with fired federal officials like James Comey
Yet it will be difficult to recast the election results as nothing more than profiteering by the media since they control the microphone and can tell us anything they want to tell us even if that means they will redirect their own complicity in rigging the election by blaming and fingering some foreign power.
Consortium News has been a candle in the wind for journalistic integrity and has dutifully chronichled the media spin machine blaming the Russians as the root cause for the election as fake news.
Donald Trump has also characterised the blame on Russia as fake news and has called the media an eneny of the American People. He is correct. There is a giant conspiracy in the media to blind us to the Supreme Court decisions which have ushered in the age of dark money in politics wherein the media is the final beneficiary of the dark money. They own the microphone and megaphones and can convinve a majority that whatever they say is right.
They are laughing all the way to the bank as they clean up on billions of election campaign dollars which resulted in the election of Donald Trump and now have arranged a grand inquisition wherin they aim to obfuscate their role in all of it and blame the Russians for the result.
The Comey testimony with all the attention of the media is just a ruse to shift attention away from their own complicity in the election results. James Comey obviously had more to do with election tampering than the Russians did but with the political and media circus pounding away with propaganda that it was the Russians, they probably will win the hearts and minds of Americans that they had nothing to do with the election and it is all the fault of a foreign enemy.
It is not the fault of a foreign enemy. The enemy is right here at home. The enemy has played the Supreme Court, public opinion and government as easy tools to get what they want. What they want is money. Lots of money.
The fact that there is absolutely zero coverage of Comey’s reopening of the Hillary Clinton email investigation as a more plausible explanation for the election results is proof that we are all being fooled by the press. Comey was warned by DOJ that his actions would likely violate election laws prohibiting federal agencies from engaging in acts that might influence a national election yet he did it anyway.
Now, all history is ignored and an artificial enemy is created to explain the sabotage that occurred right here at home.
“In his Thursday testimony, Comey defended his role in alerting Trump to the Intelligence Community’s publication of the allegations, which summarized opposition research done to benefit Hillary Clinton’s campaign and alleging that Trump had hired Russian prostitutes to urinate on him as he lay in a bed once used by President and Mrs. Obama at the five-star Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Moscow – while supposedly secretly videotaped by Russian intelligence.
In the testimony, Comey said that after he and other Obama’s intelligence chiefs briefed the President-elect at Trump Towers on Jan. 6 about their report on alleged Russian interference in the 2016 campaign, “I remained alone with the President-elect to brief him on some personally sensitive aspects of the information assembled during the assessment.
“The I.C. leadership thought it important, for a variety of reasons, to alert the incoming President to the existence of this material, even though it was salacious and unverified. Among those reasons were: (1) we knew the media was about to publicly report the material and we believed the I.C. should not keep knowledge of the material and its imminent release from the President-elect; and (2) to the extent there was some effort to compromise an incoming President, we could blunt any such effort with a defensive briefing.
“The Director of National Intelligence asked that I personally do this portion of the briefing because I was staying in my position and because the material implicated the FBI’s counter-intelligence responsibilities. We also agreed I would do it alone to minimize potential embarrassment to the President-elect.”
So if the FBI knew this info dump was coming, as Mr. Comey said in his testimony today, and he shouldn’t have gone to Mr. Trump to warn him? I’m more than a bit confused by Mr. Parry’s theory that it was a “J. Edgar Hoover” type of maneuver.
Be that as it may, the “President” wanted something in return, which Mr. Comey knew it was improper to give. It no doubt works in the “shadier sides of the construction industry.”
I’ve always of thought of Donald as an ironic truth teller who mixes in many fragments of truth that no one talks about along with his lies. I wonder about the truth of the statement “(Comey) is a real nut job” and whether Comey was making a real threat to Donald behind the scenes. Did Trump get out-gangstered?
We’ll probably never know, but Mr. Perry seems to suggest that’s the case.
I have big hopes for all of this noise. Obama milked birth certificate issue. Trump milking this. They demand special council. They bring in non hack, sec 2 allows him to go after everything related. That’s politicized Intel agencies, 4th amendment abuses, Chicago school of political thought, etc…he takes care of cleaning up the mess the last 29 years have brought. Meanwhile trump plays the fool, but in the back office , minimizes damage and makes prudent policy. MSM can’t stay focused more than 4 hours. The 2 to 3 people (not the in-law) in the real inner circle (the ones that you can trust with a secret) are about 50 moves ahead. That’s good…. It’ll be fascinating if it all plays out, like I envision. It’ll be one of greatest political court intrigue stories ever….
Add to your fine description the ‘script writers’ who craft together the news releases which we will see, to hide what you described.
Thanks, Mr. Parry. You said it!
Btw, I wrote Dennis Morrisseau, who made the request above. Hope you will, too.
And Dennis has written me back! He has a really good idea about how to drain the (Congress) swamp.
Hey everybody, listen up! Write him.
President Trump’s lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, said after the James Comey hearing that it was James Comey who leaked his notes to the press. James Comey said he did this in response to a tweet from President Trump, yet Marc Kasowitz pointed out that the New York Times had already published the notes the day BEFORE President Trump’s tweet. James Comey lied.
Marc Kasowitz said that what was established today were three facts: President Trump was not being investigated with regards to collusion with Russia, President Trump did not try to influence James Comey re the Michael Flynn investigation, and James Comey released his notes to the press because he wanted a special prosecutor appointed. In other words, he did this vindictively, to hurt Trump.
James Comey is a lying, scheming manipulator. He, along with Loretta Lynch AND the Clintons, should be in jail. Let’s bring on the investigations into these evil people. It’s coming.
Here’s the press conference of President Trump’s lawyer, Marc Kasowitz.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G8wJfjIvRg
“New York Times had already published the notes the day BEFORE President Trump’s tweet. James Comey lied”
Absolutely not true. T’s lawyer got it completely wrong.
5/9 Trump fires Comey
5/11 NYT runs story on T asking for loyalty
5/12 T tweets about tapes
5/16 NYT runs article based on Comey notes from his friend
This stuff is easy to check ya know.
ADL – Nope.
“The public record reveals that the New York Times was quoting from these memos the day before the referenced tweet, which belies Mr. Comey’s excuse,” the statement from Kasowitz said.
Though Comey claimed he didn’t orchestrate the leak until May 16, four days after Trump’s May 12 tweet, a New York Times article from May 11 appears to track closely with the memo’s contents.
There are in fact striking similarities between that pre-tweet article and Comey’s written testimony, suggesting the memo’s contents may have been leaked — by somebody — before Trump vented on Twitter. […]
The Comey memos are never explicitly mentioned in the May 11 New York Times story; however, details that appeared to have been written in the memos were. Not until a May 16 story, which Comey indicated Thursday was the first story his friend leaked at his request, was there a public mention of the Comey memos.
During his Thursday testimony, Comey said the only people he told about his recollections of the Trump encounters were the “deputy director, my chief of staff, general counsel, deputy director’s chief counsel and then, more often than not, the number three person at the FBI, the associate deputy director. And quite often, head of the national security branch.”
Given the timeline and Comey’s own testimony, it would appear there are two scenarios for how the information got out in the May 11 piece.
Trump’s lawyer seems to argue that despite his testimony, Comey made his move even before Trump tweeted about tapes.
The other scenario is one of the top FBI officials referenced by Comey first leaked confidential conversations between the president and his then-FBI director.
The identity of The New York Times’ source for the May 11 article remained unclear on Friday and Columbia University Law Professor Dan Richman, who said he was Comey’s “friend” who leaked the contents of his memos in subsequent stories, declined to answer further questions.”
I’m sure he declined to comment. Something spurred Trump’s tweet; it didn’t come out of the blue. Try and try again to bring this guy down, and they just can’t seem to be able to. Oh, well, Comey at least got brought down.
One of the big problems in this bizarre debacle is that there are no good guys to hope for to become winners. Most likely, if we can’t project a winner then we can presume a loser – the American people.
Really, this is just Kabuki theater for the real issues are economic and military. Capitalism is failing all over the world, not one country where the filthy system resides is doing well. They are declining.
Politics is simply a reflection of the arterial financial decay of the US. That Caligulas and internecine wars would emerge at the moment late stage capitalism seems to be in its terminal state should be no surprise. All the carreerists like Comey et.al. emerge from the muck when times get tough. And they lie, play both ends against the middle pose for cameras, etc.
I have no doubts that Cointelpro 2 is being played out. Little has changed since J.Edgar Hoover and what has changed is for the worst.
The FBI is much like the Stassi.
The reason there are no good guys to root for is because this is not about guys and dolls: it is about a failing economic system called capitalism and imperialism and what happens when the Empire, encrusted as it is, turns sour.
Exactly. Good one Danny.
Agreed, well said.
So, Republican James Comey, who publicly accuses President Trump of being what we all know he is, a liar, is involved in a “soft coup” against the President. There is a reason Republican Chris Christie warned President Trump that if he were President, he would never let Gen. Flynn “in the White House.” There is a reason that in mid 2016, 150 Republican foreign policy and defense experts wrote an open letter urging voters not to vote for Donald Trump. There is a reason President George H. W., Bush and his National Security Advisor, General Brent Scowcroft publicly said they were voting for Hillary Clinton. There is a reason Administration officials have to constantly publicly disavow the Presidents comments on NATO, Qatar, and climate change.
That reason is the President is unfit for the office. He is such an emotionally needy narcissist that he divulges Israeli intelligence on ISIS to Russians in the Oval office and discloses the location of our nuclear submarines to the President of the Philippines for the sole purpose of impressing them. To him, the Constitution is an unnecessary constraint on “getting things done.” But the things he wants to do change on a whim, often opposite of what he thought only a couple of months ago. He can change his mind by the end of a sentence and many of his sentences are unintelligible.
All of his current problems are self inflicted. God help us if there is a crisis from without. He is mentally unwell and that puts the nation in peril.
The ‘need’ as you state was to assure the neo cons kept power and now we see they have.
You are so right. This site has so many Russian troll bots on it that sensible voices like yours will,sadly, be drowned out. But thanks for your effort
David… I think you’re confusing things. Neocons hate Russia. If they thought Trump would guarantee Russian influence in our affairs, they would have fought tooth and nail against him (which they did in their switch from Republican to Democrat to support Hillary). However, ‘them’s that has, gets’, and the neocons got what they wanted after all in a Trump who reneged on his “get along with Russia” talk as soon as it was politically expedient.
In mid 2016, when compared against his enemies, The Donald looked like a Godsend for the American people.
I think the country would be a good deal worse off with Clinton selling data to Pakistani intelligence, as the Democrats have been doing for 12 years; (seen Awan brothers working for Wasserman Schultz.) When all the deep state lines up behind the CIA candidate (and hey! she´s a woman!), you better set a 180 degree course correction. Perhaps both candidates are flawed, narcissistic, too old. Still, I wish our President well. The citizens want corruption exposed, may he set some real inquiries in place. Seth Rich was involved in exposing illegal activities by DNC to rig elections, he was going to testify, then he gets assassinated. We need a real investigation into the Clinton Foundation, not the mess Comey enacted, breaking all rules of investigation, handing out immunities, destroying evidence. The NSA, and at least 5 foreign governments have Ms Clinton´s indiscreet emails, lets at least release the metadata.
Ed,
Everything you say here is correct. However, the voters in this country made a mistake (two mistakes actually), and now we need to live with these mistakes and make the best of it. When you make a mistake generally it is more expedient to see things through and try to make things work out in spite of the mistake than to radically change directions. For one thing you learn more by dealing with the problems arising from the mistake than you learn from not having to deal with these problems. Also having to deal with problems teaches you in great detail why the original decision was a mistake and tends to prevent you from making the same mistake in the future. You actually UNDERSTAND why the mistake was a mistake. Finally correcting a mistake by making a radical course correction can cause all kinds of unanticipated blowback and fail to teach you why the original decision was a mistake, what to do to keep on rolling if you make a similar but different mistake in the future, or even how to recognize and thereby avoid making a similar mistake in the future. By way of example the people of Egypt voted in Muslim Brotherhood Islamist after the Arab Spring. When that proved to be a mistake they supported a military coup to overthrow their elected president rather than waiting for his term to expire and voting him out. That proved to be an even bigger mistake and Egypt is back in the same pickle they were in before the Arab Spring. I think we are in analogous but much less severe circumstances in the US. Robert Parry and many of the VIPS people like Ray McGovern seem to feel the same way. I think you should read their writing and think seriously about what they have to say about this issue.
“Every American who is concerned about the future political use of the U.S. intelligence agencies’ powerful surveillance tools should have shuddered a bit over what was done to Flynn. But many on the Left so desperately want Trump removed from office that they have joined the Russia-gate stampede as the best way to trample Trump.”
It is not the ‘left’ that is pushing the Russia narrative it is the corporate demos. There is no left in America. Few speak of social class and most about politics without tying it to economics.
No, it is the in-denial liberals, led by randy and psychotic Clinton who are pushing the Russian line.
The Logan Act and its use is abhorrent. That it should be on the books is also horrific.
I agree with Parry, the deep state wants Trump out and it is probably true they never wanted him in. Trump said he would sacrifice the Empire for the country, a dubious claim at best, coming from an international financier — while Clinton said she would dump the country for the Empire.
the country is now simply a proxy state for corporate power.
It does have the smell of something less than palatable if not spoiled. I can’t recall an example of the media walking in such lock step agreement like being marched by a drill instructor. That makes me nervous as hell. It feels like there is one voice, which shouldn’t be the case in our “pure capitalist system” that is so efficient and number one. Where is the much vaunted competition that leads to all this world beating performance? It really bugs me that no one is asking questions, that without divulging the smoking gun, there are conclusions reached which amount to regime change less than a year after an outsider won the blue ribbon at the fair. WTF?
I agree that he’s not a good fit, he’s a 74 year old man that has heard yes sir all his life and now he’s in an environment that requires actual engagement and thinking about other people and how his choices affect them. That can not be an easy transition for a child of privilege who has had someone doing all the unpleasant things for him that most of us grow up with. He is not used to not getting his way and from all appearances, he doesn’t react well when he doesn’t, another uncomfortable fact about the man with his finger on the nuclear trigger. All of this makes me wish he had lost. Plus the fact that I voted against him.
At this late date in my life I haven’t forgotten I don’t always get my way, but my Democratic friends seem to be having a Trump-like reaction to his win and their queen’s demise to someone everyone thought she would beat hands down. It is hard to lose when you are the overwhelming favorite. When the “pussy grabbing” tape came out Hillary started measuring for new drapes when she should have been working harder in the states she needed to win, where Trump pretty much doubled down and spent his time. The emails of the summer, Wasserman-schultz being exposed and then publicly embraced by her highness was the final straw for me. I suspect that millions of others made the same choice and exercised it on their ballot unlike me. I voted against the great Orange because he scared me. Obviously I was in a minority there. Trump won fair and square. If Trump got some juicy stuff from some Russians with computer skills it wouldn’t surprise me for a minute because one other thing I don’t like about Trump is I think he’s cheap.
He would jump at free dirt instead of paying the millions to do “opposition research”, a euphemism for spying and going through someone’s garbage to gather salacious information that would hurt them at the ballot box. That is the ugly side of modern elections they don’t advertise. It is why we end up with eunuchs like Ted Cruz as presidential candidates instead of real men or women who have led real lives. And when I say real, I don’t mean macho or promiscuous, I refer to the vast majority of Americans that grow up and go to college and do stupid things while they progress to adulthood. Normal life experiences that include stupid mistakes that are all too human. When you allow that to prevent public service, you get Ted Cruz, who was hated not just by Democrats but most Republicans. I’d rather have Mike Flynn for president than Hillary. He at least stood for something, albeit something I totally disagree with. Hillary stood for Wall Street and changing nothing that would improve other peoples lives unless they had a womb. She gave us mass incarceration and “no more welfare as we know it”, a polite way to say we’ll help a little and then tough shit. That’s why she lost.
The Intelligence services have been silent with the exception of a select few political appointees who have been sharing classified information that makes Trump and his associates look bad, not guilty of anything. If that is a soft coup it sucks. It is disloyal and I believe makes them unreliable and no longer worthy of our confidence to do the nation’s business. I think they are more dangerous than Trump because they are treating voters like they live in South America and they chose the wrong president according to the CIA and big business. Not what I describe as patriots as much as self serving bureaucrats who fear for their futures. They need to go whether Trump stays or not. I wouldn’t blame him if he resigned but he doesn’t impress me that way. We’ll see. In the meantime we need to make some changes in the Intelligence services, now.
Here is a link to an article discussing the ‘leaked memo’ from the perspective of it
potentially being government property (written on an FBI computer while author was
‘on the job’). Comey’s argument that it was ok to leak because by then he was a
‘private citizen’ seems to set a very poor precedent for other intelligence personnel.
https://jonathanturley.org/2017/06/08/did-comey-violate-laws-in-leaking-memo/
He also testified that the first memo was actually classified. And he testified that he brought the second memo to the leadership team due to an “investigative interest”. At that point it’s definitely not personal anymore.
Trust me, she wouldn’t have done much for those of us with a womb, either. After all, how many millions got thrown under the bus by Bill’s “welfare reform,” and her cheering him on? The women in this country who need help aren’t interested in breaking glass ceilings. They’re interested in keeping the leaky ones that are all they can afford over their and their families’ heads. Ditto for “choice.” These are not the things that keep them awake at night, and the tunnel vision of the Democrats who think they’ll get those votes just by repeating the terrorist buzzwords is why they’ve become irrelevant.
Your analysis could go further, it is not a ‘soft’ it’s HARDCORE. My prediction Trump survives, and so no war, then a democrat President and then it’s light ‘s out Washington as they come enmeshed in their soil and so that push a ‘so called’ adversary too far. KARBOOM
I was waiting for Robert Parry to clear the air and, of course, he did in his usual intelligent analysis.
As I watched the hearing today, the idea that came through loud and clear was “Russia is our enemy and must remain our enemy and no one will change that. Period.” Though the questions appeared to pertain to what Comey had already given us the day before, it was really to drive home the evilness of Russia, plus the added joy of getting rid of Trump. The war profiteers will have it no other way. The pushing into the public’s mind that Russia messed with “our democracy” was done so as to make that idea accepted without question. It’s a given with no room for disagreement.
I was bemused by John McCain’s question which was the only interesting one to me, one that I could have answered for Comey. McCain: “Why did you stop the investigation into Hilary Clinton when you are carrying on this one?” Comey: “Because we all knew she would be president, and you don’t cross that woman because she will destroy you. Frankly, I wanted to keep my job.” Couldn’t believe it would be McCain (who lost his miniature mind some time ago, IMHO; he called Trump, “President Comey.”), who pressed Comey on something the man did not have a pat answer for.
By Comey’s account, the FBI is an honorable organization and he himself the most innocent of men by belonging to this virtuous time-honored organization. Since he was under oath, perhaps he should have been asked questions about all the undertakings the FBI has done to discredit truth-tellers, infiltrate their groups, lock them up and ruin their lives.
Here is a link to an ‘alternate facts version’ of the famous Hospital Stand Off which put Comey in the national spotlight :
http://thefederalist.com/2017/05/17/former-attorney-general-on-comeys-integrity-jims-loyalty-was-more-to-chuck-schumer/#disqus_thread
I am not a Trump fan, but have to agree with him that Comey is a ‘showboater’. For example, the line during testimony
today about how he had to cancel his date with his wife, where he stated that ‘I love spending time with my wife’.
That premeditated line was no doubt ‘casually’ tossed in as a non-too-subtle dig at the Donald. . .
My personal opinion is that Comey is setting the stage for his 2020 Presidential run. Please, somebody tell me I am wrong !
Sadly, I had the same thought. And if he manages to get Trump out, it’s a given the Democrats will light those cigars in their back room and make sure he’s nominated.
I am quite addicted to reading comments on articles from across the political spectrum,
sort of as a way to get an idea of what people are thinking. There have been more than a few comments stating that Comey would make a ‘great’ President.
Apparently his “Boy Scout” (Eagle Rank) demeanor has a lot of people fooled.
A Comey Presidency would be the return of the Clinton-Bush cabal. On steroids.
I love your Romanesco avatar.
Decentralization is the key to fixing our biggest problems. Get rid of D.C. and give powers back to states.
“Because we all knew she would be president, and you don’t cross that woman because she will destroy you. Frankly, I wanted to keep my job.”
So the next questions should be: What exactly, in your honorable estimation, is your job? Does it have anything to do with law enforcement? Do you think of Clinton as being above the law?
Do we really want a President Pence (a war monger hiding behind “Christian values”) who can be controlled by the military/intelligence/corporate complex. Or do we want a dumb-ass dictator who thinks he can just issue orders, without realizing we have a Congress, laws, budgets, and 50 states? Guess who I would take? CITIZENS UNITED backfired on the elite. A passionate rich guy can’t be controlled by the very people who thought they could buy/control him. A black comedy except for the tragic consequences.
WAKE UP AMERICA. We are in a steep decline.
Neither of them have the power. The power resides within the corporations and the deep state and as the Rothchilds have said: it doesn’t matter who is in political power. the banks and the military protection racket with the enabling device we call corporate media control the whole ball of marbles.
Putin said something similar…that it doesn’t matter who the US president is, things just go on the same. He didn’t interfere with our election but as he pointed out, the US interferes in all the elections in the world. If they don’t like who’s elected, they will take him/her our or pull a coup or war. WE are the rouge state.
Do we really want a President Pence (a war monger hiding behind “Christian values”) who can be controlled by the military/intelligence/corporate complex. Or do we want a dumb-ass dictator who thinks he can just issue orders, without realizing we have a Congress, laws, budgets, and 50 states?
As bad as he believed a President Pence might be, Andrew Levine over at CounterPunch made a case for getting rid of Trump – he wouldn’t have access to the nuclear button.
The Democrats are a sorry lot, but the threats of a continuing Trump presidency or one under Mike Pence might be lessened if they can come up with majorities in Congress in 2018. Nothing to cheer, but maybe a mild sigh of relief.
I think that is missing the point of Parry’s article. The bigger issue is how our country is being ruined by deep state tactics. How dangerous that is to all of us and to the rights we have enjoyed in the past.
Bill – a mild sigh of relief if the Democrats came up with majorities? Really? What’s the difference? Trump wants to secure the borders. Here’s what Bill Clinton said in his 1995 State of the Union address re illegal immigration:
“All Americans, not only in the states most heavily affected, but in every place in this country, are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country. The jobs they hold might otherwise be held by citizens or legal immigrants. The public service they use impose burdens on our taxpayers. That’s why our administration has moved aggressively to secure our borders more by hiring a record number of new border guards, by deporting twice as many criminal aliens as ever before, by cracking down on illegal hiring, by barring welfare benefits to illegal aliens.
In the budget I will present to you we will try to do more to speed the deportation of illegal aliens who are arrested for crimes, to better identify illegal aliens in the workplace as recommended by the commission headed by former Congresswoman Barbara Jordan.
We are a nation of immigrants. But we are also a nation of laws. It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws we have seen in recent years, and we must do more to stop it.”
Bill Clinton says it, and he gets a standing ovation. Trump says it and he gets calls for his impeachment.
Sure, the pussy hats and the Berkeley rioters would like Trump gone, along with George Soros, the military, arms dealers, weapons manufacturers, the intelligence agencies, the media, the Democrats, Israel, Wall Street, the big banks, multinational corporations, the healthcare industry, illegal immigrants, and all those in favor of open borders and globalization.
Is that what you’re wanting to get back to? Because, to me, that doesn’t sound like a good trade.
You have named the immovable obstacle that stands in the way of our becoming a successful, sane, democratically governed Nation (I would throw in Republicans along with Democrats, as many were ready to jump ship and back Hillary over Trump). Bill Clinton was impeached and sand-bagged. Bill Clinton came into office claiming that we needed a new financial architecture. That was his 3rd rail upon which he self-destructed, they just used the Monica thing to hide the real reason for wrestling him to the ground and mak him give up. Hillary got knee-capped by Comey because Bill would be a heavy-duty back door agent of influence (the REAL power behind the Hillary throne whom the Establishment still doesn’t trust to “stay on course”). Trump thought NATO was obsolete, that we should work with Russia and China. That was his political “3rd rail” for which he is now going to be impeached and sand-bagged. That is how I read these events. We have lost our government to Deep State operatives working strictly on behalf of the ruling elite of The Establishment, and We The People are just supposed to shut the eff up about it and follow their misdirection of our attention, away from these events.
Brad – well put. Yes, it appears that if you do not do as you’re told, if you deviate at all from the Deep State’s script, you are, as you say, knee-capped. Of course, it’s all done under the guise that the President has done something terribly wrong, evidence is trumped up against them by TPTB and the media, and the public think that justice has prevailed.
Bill Clinton probably squirmed too much (and he got punched down), Bush went along and did what he was told, Obama threw his hands up in the air, acquiesced and went golfing, and Trump is putting up a fight.
I say we’ve got to go with the person who is at least going to put up a fight. Trump is trying to do this. At least he’s trying. So far he’s given in to them on a few things (like bombing Syria and Afghanistan), but it will be interesting to see if he continues giving in. I don’t see him doing this.
I think we’re in for a dog fight. Obama, thinking of his upcoming speeches and future money stream, is trashing Trump. The media are portraying Bush in a good light, painting a portrait of a true patriot.
Let’s just see if Trump rolls over here, if they can take him down. They’ve got to do it without the public knowing what they’re doing.
IF the American people back Trump up, there is a good chance that he could drain the swamp. I think Trump had planned to do this, but they hamstrung him with this Russia nonsense, making it hard for him to move.
It appears they have nothing on Trump re Russia, so this should give Trump strength. The time is now to turn the tables and go on the offensive. Drain the swamp.
backwards: Surely you can do better than quote Bill Clinton considered by many to have been one of our sleaziest presidents who signed into law the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act that repealed Glass-Steagall that led to the financial crisis of 2008. Among other sins he maintained the sanctions on Iraq that cost an estimated half million Iraqi children their lives. The first wicked witch of Foggy Bottom opined “We thought it was worth it.” “We” would have included her boss, Slick Willie.
Clinton’s criticism of illegal immigration cites only one aspect of immigration. It is valid but we also need to recognize the immigrants who are refugees from lands destroyed in part by U.S. activities.
As for Trump vs. Pence, I submitted a link to Andrew Levine’s article because it made an interesting point. My own position on this issue is that it is like a choice between syphilis and AIDS.
Bill’s “change in the financial architecture” was supposed to be about reinstituting the Bretton Woods fixed-exchange rates. He also freed LaRouche from prison, where Bush the Elder and Zbig put him, on trumped up charges (using Ed Muellar for the hit job, BTW). Bill apparently was told “not only are you NOT going to reintroduce fixed exchange rates, you ARE GOING TO sign the repeal Glass-Steagall act…or else”. The “or else” happened and Bill cried “uncle. I’m your boy now”. He has since admitted the repeal thing was his biggest mistake in his life.
Bill Bodden – “…it is like a choice between syphilis and AIDS.”
I can see the syphilis (she is home licking her wounds), but where is the AIDS? Trump wants to stop wars, but they’re not going to let him because people keep trying to portray him as some form of AIDS. With all due respect, I see you do this on a daily basis.
And if Trump was able to function (without shysters like Chuckie Schumer and McCain fighting him) and was able to stop the wars, then there wouldn’t be any refugees, would there? They’d be safe at home.
No more wars, soldiers could be brought home while they’ve still got limbs, and the money could be spent on infrastructure.
And if Trump was able to function and secure the borders and stop illegal immigration, then we wouldn’t be talking about that either, would we?
And if Trump was able to function and stop the sanctuary city nonsense, then the illegals who are criminals could be sent back home, the jails could be emptied out, and the burden on the taxpayers would be lessened.
If Trump was able to function and rewrite NAFTA in order that Mexico didn’t keep getting screwed by the U.S. as far as their agriculture was concerned, then the illegals wouldn’t bother coming, would they? They’d be back on their farms again and enjoying their families.
And if Trump was able to function and stop globalization, he could bring manufacturing jobs back home, jobs that were only offshored in order to get cheap labor. The deplorables might have jobs again.
And if Trump was able to function, there would be no lobbying by former government officials for five years after leaving office. Let these guys join the deplorables and see how successful they are at getting a real job.
And if Trump was able to function, he just might get rid of the monopolies surrounding healthcare, greatly decreasing healthcare costs, actually making it affordable for average families. The media monopoly is another problem that he could solve. The laws are on the books already; they’re just not being enforced.
If Trump was able to function, maybe we’d see an end to the power of Israel and their bribing lobbies. Maybe he could actually get the money out of government. No more money for Israel; let them fight their own battles.
If Trump was able to function and actually cut back on NATO, then maybe Russia wouldn’t be surrounded by military bases and we wouldn’t be under the threat of nuclear war.
If Trump was able to function and could actually stop the funding and arming of ISIS by the U.S. government and their friends, the Saudis and the rest of the puppet countries, then ISIS would be no more. If they don’t get funded, they eventually get hungry and join the human race again.
So, no, I don’t see a comparison between syphilis and AIDS. A better comparison is a choice between a syphilis-stricken world and a doctor who thinks he has a cure, who actually wants to fight the people who are causing the syphilis in the first place.
If that’s AIDS, then bring it on!
backwards: You have apparently bought into Trump’s promises and claims of what he wants to do. That all sounds nice, but so far his record of accomplishments are a great cause for concern. He was all for the Trumpcare plan to replace Obamacare that would have made health care in the U.S. much worse. Rejection of the Paris accords on climate change? 70-some percent of the American people oppose him on that. One the environment there are the Dakota Access Pipeline and Keystone that he approved.
Bill – and you apparently want Trump gone. That is evident in every post you make, except you come at it in a sideways fashion.
So far his record of accomplishments is of great concern? Well, duh, when has he not been under 24/7 assault? Hard to get much done when you’re being eviscerated and under threat of impeachment, isn’t it? Of course, if he just went along with syphilis, then the Deep State would back off him. But since he’s not, they’re twisting the knife in further, aren’t they? Oh, well, at least Comey is gone. One down, hundreds more to go.
But I agree, there are a lot of people who are happy with the syphilis-like conditions. They’re sitting pretty, benefiting off of the syphilis, and they don’t want to see a change.
Rejection of the Paris climate change accords? What exactly did they do? Oh, yeah, they did nothing to stop China and India from continuing on polluting. 25% of all air pollution in San Francisco is coming from China. So the accord would have curtailed some countries while giving carte blanche to others? Sounds like President Trump was smart in saying, “Call me when you want to get serious.” If the 70% of American people who oppose President Trump’s decision were given the facts, if the media stopped lying to them and told them the truth, then I doubt very much whether they’d still be opposing him. The pollution has just been moved offshore to Asia, just like their jobs.
Obamacare only worked because Obama was (apparently against the law) stealing money from other programs. Healthcare is broken; Trump is going to let it twist. Out of the rubble something good might come, but only if people let it fail. The monopolies need to be broken up. It won’t work until they are gone.
Illegal immigration is a case of supply and demand. IF more people are needed in the future, they can immigrate legally.
I don’t see a big difference between Bill Clinton and Obama. One was an unpolished bad apple; the other was polished. Both bad men who were only out for themselves. Look at Obama go now! Raking in them dollars from his speeches and books. Go, Obama. Milking it for all it’s worth!
The only – ONLY – person who has stepped forward and at least attempted to fight the Deep State has been Trump, and vested interests are only too happy to see him twist.
You’re not going to get perfection, not with the absolute corruption that’s solidly packed into the country, but you can start breaking that corruption up one man at a time. At least Trump is trying, and for that he has my support.
” States with higher populations of blacks have less generous welfare programs, according to a new report from the Urban Institute. Vermont, one of the whitest states in the US, has the most generous welfare program in the nation, where 78 out of every 100 poor families receive some kind of welfare aid. In Louisiana, where a third of the residents are black, only 4 out of every 100 needy families get any kind of welfare assistance. This grotesques disparity is the result of Bill Clinton’s noxious welfare reform, which block-granted welfare programs to the individual states“. My emphasis – https://consortiumnews.com/2017/06/08/soft-coup-on-trump-hiding-in-plain-sight/
Fake news is not new phenomenon !
http://www.virusmyth.com/aids
House of Numbers, Question Everything, 20 April 2011 (90 mins)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwgmzbnckII
Positively False – Birth of a Heresy – HIV AIDS, Question Everything, 16 June 2014 (95 mins)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-iccGpFto8
Bill, have you ever seen $900 million? Not so long ago Donald Trump was leveraged to the tune of $900 million. People who lose a fraction of this during stock market crashes throw themselves off of buildings. What did Donald Trump do? He went to his gold plated bed, slept like a baby, then woke up and made another $6 billion. Meanwhile Hillary Clinton got an embassador killed in an illegal arms deal in Benghazi ( which was a scheme to transfer illicit Libyan weapons caches to ISIS, anyone with a clue knows this) and when she was hauled before congress all she could do is cackle ” what difference does it make?”. Just another blunder in a long career in politics mostly spent selling out everyone and everything in an unsuccessful effort to become as rich as Trump became, in half the time, and through (mostly) honest dealings.
To me it is absolutely clear that there is only one single person with the constitution and cool headedness to be trusted with the nuclear button, and it AIN’T Hillary or Pence. No matter how much you posture like you understand things that are obviously a million light years beyond your comprehension or experience. When we need a President of Backhanded Slights we’ll call you. But until then you are just embarrassing yourself with your juvenile ‘perceptions’ that read a lot like 6 month old MSM talking points.
Dutch,
Disagree with Bill if you like but please dial back on the insults. The people who post here are mostly informed concerned Americans trying to make sense of the mess we are in by discussing the details of our circumstances with one another. This will work much better if we keep it civil and try to respect one another. If you get too belligerent people are going to think you are a troll and ignore you and you won’t be able to gain any traction with your viewpoint.
Pablo Diablo:
Congress is a COMPROMISED body whose members are bought and paid for by the same interests James Comey was desperately trying to defend.
Like MSM “journalists”, members of Congress are loyal corporate servants! The last thing on the minds of these elites is the voting public; unless your vote is needed!
Decentralization of government back to the states is the only solution, with a loose confederation.
There is nothing quite so ridiculous as Comey:
The man who actually threw the election by reopening the BS investigation into Clinton’s emails a week before an national election
The man who was warned by DOJ that reopening the investigation was tantamount to election meddling.
The man who was coerced into investigating the Russians
The man who was testifying today on Capitol Hill how Trump tried to call him off of the investigation into who tilted the election against Clinton who was actually the man that got him elected by relaunching an investigation about Hillary Clinton’s emails or Anthony Wiener or some poor souls emails.
The media has yet to self examine their own amnesia about what James Comey did right before the election. Their collective amnesia is right in front of our eyes and on full display every second that James Comey testifies but is not questioned, filmed or interviewed as to his own complicity in the election tampering starting with the number one suspect which is James Comey himself who actually departed from every tradition in modern history and reopened a seven hundred times over “dead horse” of an investigation into Hillary Clinton which the DOJ warned would be tantamount to election influencing but did it anyway.
We have a new low bar in the media. The man who was warned by federal agencies that continuing the investigation and reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server just one week before a presidential election would be seen as election tampering and would throw the legitimacy of the election into question is now on the other side of the law as a fired government employee with everything to gain by minimizing his role in the election fraud and blaming who everyone else in the World (apparently) wants to blame for all the mess on the Russians and Trump.
How about we use a little known and little used rule which is called Occam’s Razor which states that when forced to pick between competing theories which might explain similar observations, the simplest theory is usually the correct one. Copernicus comes to mind with his Heliocentric theory. It proved to be both simple and correct.
So let’s get real simple. Comey was the dude that threw the election and he should be at the defendants table not on the witness stand. He threw the election with the reopening of the Clinton email investigation and no amount or pomp and circumstance from the parading media circus trying to blame some foreign enemy for the election results is going to ring true at least with me.
Right, good points and for the record, he was the attorney who cobbled together the pardon at the last minute from Clinton, for his client international criminal and former Interpol wanted Mark Rich.
I enjoyed your well-written rant, though it’s off base regarding the emails. NO ONE ever talks about what actually was IN the emails, enough to get HRC kicked out of the election. SHE was the one tampering with the election; she and her little coterie decided to get rid of the only person who could beat trump. BS was weak enough to go along when, if he hadn’t, he’d be president today, especially if he’d taken Jill Stein up on her offer to top her ticket, which he didn’t have the courtesy to answer. In the emails, Hilary talked about how she would rain hell down on poor innocent Iran (yes Iran is innocent), followed by regime change in Russia and getting rid of Putin (who can think circles around anyone in Congress in this country). Those two things are illegal, against international law, though no one in the US government gives a damn about international law or human rights, and all the presidents I’ve known in my lifetime have been war criminals. If you don’t think Hillary would be the biggest one of all, you don’t know the woman. The only good thing about Trump, I thought, is he might not attack Russia, but he’s such an idiot, the MIC can twist him around.
CitizenOne – “The media has yet to self examine their own amnesia about what James Comey did right before the election.”
IMO, the media has yet to self examine their own amnesia about what Hillary Clinton did right before the election.
The MSM and the Democratic Party was howling for Comey to be fired right up and until Trump fired him. Them the tuned changed to Saint Comey being ruined by Evil Trump.
As I see it Comey is a snake that’s slithered out from under the deep state. Its also worth bearing in mind that Comey might be telling a pack of lies and there is no reason why he should be believed. Trump should have done what he said he was going to do and cleared out the swamp completely when he took office including Comey. Had Clinton won i’m sure the first person she would have sacked would have been Comey.
What is a half truth?…other than information hidden in the other half…any judgment of fact or fiction must come from moral fiber…What lie is told to protect one from harm, is the truth of survival that could be called truth is lurking in ever mans heart , and I’m sure there are pressures on Comey’s mind we have not taken into account… he is not an island unto himself…just a ship on a tormented sea called, political abstract confusion. MSM the drug of the masses… concenous is truth for those that own the printing presses… Citizens of OZ… our days are numbered… Confusion reigens on all the airwaves of media and ethereal plains of internet. MK Ultra is alive and well as the frequency of the dumb down continues.
He threw the election to Trump giving Clinton a pass for the 4 federal laws she broke by pretending intent is relevant to the espionage act and not being able to establish intent if the standard for prosecution was more than gross negligence. Had he enforced the statute as it’s written before the DNC, Shillary would be in prison, the Democrats would have been forced to nominate the real winner of the primary, Bernie Sanders would be president instead of Trump, and the media wouldn’t be whining ad nauseam about Russian interference that never happened.
Josh – you’re probably right, except I think if Bernie had won they would have absolutely crucified him, just like they’re doing with Trump. As he wasn’t going to win, because it was all rigged against him, they didn’t have to fry him in the press. But I’m quite sure they would have if he had have won.
Citizen 1… Your dog don’t hunt. Hillary Clinton lost because she was representative of a system that was #1. cruelly deconstructing the Middle East for our pampered child, Israel. #2. buying into ‘winning through chaos’ #3. “making Clintons rich” via the pay-for-pay Clinton Foundation #4. giving six figured speeches before Goldman-Sachs, et al & #4 perpetuating a system that has off-shore tax havens hiding more that 2 and 1/2 trillion taxable dollars for American and other fat cats of the world when homelessness is growing in America, more kids are going to bed hungry at night in America, and more working families don’t even dream of college for their kids anymore in America because of spiraling college tuitions.
Senator Feinstein (D-CA) called for an investigation into Loretta Lynch for her interference with the FBI w/r/t Clinton, while Trump is scot free.
Sad.
I will pass this around my circle….
Agreed. This is good work.
How can we expand coverage and reach for you and this analysis?
Dennis Morrisseau
US Army Officer [Vietnam era] ANTI-WAR
–BACK ON THE TRUMP TRAIN–
Lieutenant Morrisseau’s Rebellion
FIRECONGRESS.org
Second Vermont Republic
POB 177, W. Pawlet, VT USA 05775
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802 645 9727
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(a)
If the Commander-in-Chief of the US armed forces and the “supposedly” leader of the free world is forbidden from being alone with the chief law enforcement officer, the Director of the FBI, then there something very wrong indeed with the US system government!
(b)
Why was it okay for Hillary Clinton to bleach-bit thousands of the government documents and send others to Anthony Weiner with impunity?
Why was it okay for Bill Clinton (the former POTUS) to meet with the Attorney General, Loretta Lynch at Phoenix Airport while his wife, Hillary, was under the FBI investigation?
In other words, to whom does the Commander-In-Chief of the US armed forces report to?
Well said!
Why are all our presidents war criminals and never go to trial nor prison?
Rob Roy – because to send the Presidents to jail would be to hurt the puppets, which is all they are. It still doesn’t get us to the puppet masters, the ones pulling the strings. I am convinced that all Presidents must tow the line, or else. As I said above, Clinton got uppity and they smacked him down, Bush played along and followed orders, and Obama acquiesced and played golf.
Trump has given in a little to the Deep State’s wishes (hoping to appease them), but I predict he will start to fight back now, now that the lies they’ve trumped up about him re Russia are being exposed (i.e. it wasn’t 17 intelligence agencies, it was 3, and the analysts were hand-picked to provide the evidence that the Deep State wanted the public to hear), and now that he knows they are out to take him down.
Long ago I had the chance to ask Noam Chomsky whether these guys are all psychopaths and whether that is a prerequisite to being president.
He said that he didn’t think they were psychopaths but something happens when they get to Washington.
It’s like it’s a trap of some sort…..?
One of the most interesting books I’ve read that tries to delve into the social/psychological/political dynamic that drives the war machine and all the horrors we have participated in is “Cold War Crucible”
http://harvardpress.typepad.com/hup_publicity/2015/02/social-politics-imagined-realities-masuda-hajimu.html
It’s not just the people at the top who drive this madness, it’s infused through the culture as a hysteria that distorts our view of reality and the whole culture imagines a “threat” that doesn’t exist. So we are all complicit.
I saw this for myself when GWB was trying to drive this country to War on Iraq. I knew, KNEW, it was all a pretense and back then I would try to speak to people I met in grocery stores and other places about the trap that was being sprung.
On a trip west, I think, standing next to a man in a grocery store who was a big strong guy, 40ish, – when I brought the subject up about the looming war, I was shocked to see how hysterical he was – ranting about dangerous Saddam Hussein and the rest of it. He was beyond rescue.
That’s part of what Masuda is trying to tell us, I think.
The book you need to read is Confessions of a DC Madam. Then it will all make sense to you.
“You wanna be in the DC power brokers club? Pet this underage boy while we film it. Great, now you’re in the club, but we own you”
Trump never petted the little boy. He locked up 4000+ pedophiles and counting yet the ‘save the babies’ MSM didn’t even report a word about it. Curious isn’t it? Not if you know how DC really works. Be prepared to vomit profusely when you figure it out.
The government protects them until they are useless, then crucifies a few to show no one is immune.
Sick.
The first one-on-one alone meeting between Trump and Comey was requested by COMEY, so “(a)” stands for asshat.
The “asshat” refers to the situation you described in (a)–not to you, in case you thought it was a diss!
The merchant bankers who pay for the wars (both sides)
Who are going to believe, me , or your lying eyes?
the respiratory system undergoes various anatomical, physilogical, and immunological changes–the lungs mature by age 20-25 and thereafter aging is associated with a progressive decline in lung function—to say cigarette smoking caused 480,000 deaths is a big lie—i don’t know of anyone who smoked a cigarette and died that day or the next day—–yea the ban on smoking in prison is a very cruel thing to do—along like cruelty to animals only this is to humans—alot working poor people smoke who do hard work with little pay…then charge ridiculous tax to it so the ones that can afford tax increase don’t have to pay a tax…and yea the prisons are cruel with unjust sentences as one day like three days…it’s quite obvious that the human species evolved from birds–if one looks one can see many similarites—i was watching yearly google i/o (new stuff coming out…) and was just thinking—-well we are coming out with a hand and put 4 fingers on it and a thumb with the fingers able to bend and with the thumb to grab…and put this on a wrist so can bend and even go in circle…and…and put this on an arm that can bend or reach up or down or go in circle…and…no wait–we are coming out with 2 hands and arms for you…and…and we have someone working on an eye to bring you sight in color…and…but we are having a problem with a shield or something that can open and close the eye and something to keep the eye moist…and …actually the bird evolved from the human in a higher flight that took on a completely astonishing unbelievable design of a wing–something we primitives can’t do—actually quite fascinating the intricate design of the body created by god–the god who set off mt st helens volcano eruption that turned the moon red during the ronald wilson reagen 666 revolution–and with that red moon was an unbelievable speech of all speeches with not one word spoken——-and ignored by man
Birds are dinosaurs.
G makes as much sense as the democrats do for chasing after this Russian behind every bush witch hunt. Now I got to go feed the dinosaur….I mean tweety the bird.
This post is an example of spam. According to Spamhaus, among the top ten spammers, two are Russian and the rest of Americans.
My organization has a forum on our website, and we have been hit by Russian and American spammers, who have posted hundreds of thousands of fake posts by hundreds of thousands of computer generated fictitious emails from fake domain names. This is not only irritating. It is collapsing the free internet.
That’s why corvids (crows, ravens) are far more intelligent than their size and smooth brain architecture would indicate.
They’ve had hundreds of millions of years of adaption compared to mammals.
As a counterpoint, our politicians are dinosaurs but far less intelligent.
Damn dude. You need to lay off the weed.
???!!! WTF? Prisons suck and other hogwash. Perhaps an anti-troll, troll?!
Ol’ Hippy – G is just someone thinking out loud. He has made a very astute observation about the lungs. But, G, the effects from smoking are cumulative, just like being out in the sun too much. This fact, along with the aging body, eventually does you in.
G, I think you are a poet.
You write beautifully.
If you can where ever you may be, please try to get your hands on Ulysses by James Joyce, the Irish poet/writer.
Your writing reminds me a bit of him.
Here’s Molly’s monologue at the end of the book:https://archive.org/stream/MollyBloomMonologEnd/MollyBloomMonologhyEnd_djvu.txt
At one and the same time, I feel that the addiction of cigarettes is a cynical money grabbing machine for cigarette companies who KNOW how addictive those damn things are – and its an addiction in the brain that our conscious mind cannot fathom.
I’m not sure whether cigarettes are so dangerous because of the pesticides the tobacco is sprayed with or because of other carcinogens that slowly work their way through a smokers body.
At the same time I understand how very terribly stressful life is and especially in prison and a short bit of relief from the relaxation from tobacco, well it’s a short relief…..
Sorry you are suffering so.
The kind of stress you are speaking of has been with humans since the beginning, before cigarettes were invented. Ancient civilizations found other ways to relax and get some peace.
That’s the origination of YOGA, I think.
You may wish to try deep breathing exercises to relax your mind. If you can look up yoga and breathing and yoga exercise too.
Try Exercise 2. on this list.
I hope it gives you some relief.
https://www.drweil.com/health-wellness/body-mind-spirit/stress-anxiety/breathing-three-exercises/
Cheers!
FYI:
The Observations of George Catlin [The importance of breathing with the mouth shut]
https://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/notes-from-yesteryear/100-years-before-weston-price/