Once a Washington groupthink takes hold, as it has in the fervent belief about Russia-gate, respect for facts and logic fly out the window since all these important people can’t be wrong, wrote Robert Parry on Dec. 5, 2017.
The Tangled Threads of Russia-gate
By Robert Parry
Special to Consortium News
A curious feature about the Russia-gate “scandal” is that its proponents ignore the growing number of moments when their evidence undercuts their narrative. Instead, they press ahead toward a predetermined destination in much the way that true-believing conspiracy theorists are known to do.
The New York Times building in Manhattan. (Robert Parry)
For instance, The New York Times ran a story on Monday, entitled “Operative Offered Trump Campaign Access to Putin,” detailing how a conservative operative “told a Trump adviser that he could arrange a back-channel meeting between Donald J. Trump and Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian president, according to an email sent to the Trump campaign” — and apparently described to the Times by a helpful source on Capitol Hill.
The Times quoted the email from National Rifle Association member Paul Erickson to Trump campaign adviser Rick Dearborn as saying, “Putin is deadly serious about building a good relationship with Mr. Trump. … [Putin] wants to extend an invitation to Mr. Trump to visit him in the Kremlin before the election.”
An NRA conference in Louisville, Kentucky, was supposed to be the location for the “first contact” between the Russians and the Trump campaign, according to the email.
The Times treated its new information as further confirmation of nefarious connections between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Immediately after introducing this May 2016 email, which had the subject line, ”Kremlin Connection,” the Times reprised the background of former FBI Director Robert Mueller conducting a special-prosecutor investigation into “Russian interference in the election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign.”
Note how the Times’ reference to “Russian interference” was treated as flat fact although the Times still hedges on “possible collusion” between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign. Like much of the U.S. mainstream media, the Times no longer bothers to use “alleged” in front of “Russian interference” even though no solid evidence of a coordinated Kremlin effort has been presented.
But there is a bigger problem with this “scoop”: If the Russia-gate narrative were correct – that the Kremlin had identified Trump years earlier as a likely U.S. president and undertook a multi-year campaign to bribe and blackmail him to be Moscow’s Manchurian candidate or Putin’s “puppet” as Hillary Clinton charged – the Russians wouldn’t need some little-known “conservative operative” to serve as an intermediary in May 2016 to set up a back-channel meeting.
The Contradiction
In other words, assuming that the Times’ story is correct, the email suggests the opposite of the impression that the Times wants its readers to get. The email is either meaningless in that it led to no actual meeting or it contradicts the storyline about a longstanding Russian operation to plant a patsy in the White House.
Putin meets Trump at the G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, on July 7, 2017. (Screen shot from Whitehouse.gov)
Times reporter Nicholas Fandos noted that it was unclear what Dearborn did in response to this overture, although the Times reported that Dearborn had forwarded a similar proposal by Christian conservative activist Rick Clay to Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who rebuffed the offer.
On Monday, I read the rest of the Times email story looking for some acknowledgement of the problems with its implied scenario, but found none. Fandos made references to other low-level efforts by Russians to make contact with Trump’s advisers (without noticeable success, I might add), but again these examples actually run counter to the image of Trump as the Kremlin’s prized chump.
If Putin had several years ago foreseen what no one else did – that Trump would become the U.S. president – then these ad hoc contacts with members of Trump’s entourage in 2016 would not have been needed.
The Times’ scoop parallels the story of the plea deal that Russia-gate prosecutors struck with low-level Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos who admitted lying about his contacts with an obscure academic in Stirling, Scotland, who supposedly offered to be another intermediary between Trump’s team and the Kremlin.
According to court documents, Papadopoulos, a 30-year-old campaign aide, got to know a professor of international relations who claimed to have “substantial connections with Russian government officials,” with the professor identified in press reports as Joseph Mifsud, who is associated with the University of Stirling.
The first contact between Mifsud and Papadopoulos supposedly occurred in mid-March 2016 in Italy, with a second meeting in London on March 24 when the professor purportedly introduced Papadopoulos to a Russian woman whom the young campaign aide believed to be Putin’s niece, an assertion that Mueller’s investigators determined wasn’t true.
Trump, who then was under pressure for not having a foreign policy team, included Papadopoulos as part of a list drawn up to fill that gap, and Papadopoulos participated in a campaign meeting on March 31 in Washington at which he suggested a meeting between Trump and Putin, a prospect that other senior aides reportedly slapped down.
In other words, at least based on the reporting about the Dearborn email and the Papadopoulos overture, there is no reason to believe that Trump was colluding with Moscow or had any significant relationship at all.
If these developments point to anything, it is to the opposite; that Russia was fishing for some contacts with what – however implausibly – was starting to look like a possible future U.S. president, but with whom they were not well-connected.
Gotcha Moments
There have been similar problems with other Russia-gate “gotcha” moments, such as disclosures of a possible Trump hotel deal in Moscow with Mikhail Fridman of Russia’s Alfa Bank. Though Trump’s presumed financial tie-ins to Russian oligarchs close to Putin were supposed to be fundamental to the Russia-gate narrative, the outcome of the hotel deal turned out to be a big nothing.
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)
One source knowledgeable about the proposed deal told me it fell apart because Trump was willing to put little on the table beyond the branding value of the Trump name. However, if Putin were actually trying to buy Trump’s loyalty, money presumably would have been no obstacle. Indeed, you would think that the more money used to line Trump’s pockets the better. But the hotel deal collapsed; there is no Trump hotel in Moscow.
Other Russia-gate cases are equally disconnected from what had been the original narrative about senior Russians spending years cultivating Trump as their Manchurian candidate.
The accusations against Trump’s onetime campaign chief Paul Manafort focus on his alleged failure to report income from — and pay taxes on — work that he did for the elected government of Ukraine before any involvement in the Trump campaign.
Last week’s guilty plea from former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn related to purportedly false statements and omissions that he made when questioned by FBI agents about calls to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the transition, i.e., after Trump had been elected.
Despite the breathless coverage on MSNBC and the Times’ excited headlines about how the “inquiry grows,” there remain other core problems for the narrative. No matter how often the U.S. mainstream media asserts the suspicion of Russian “hacking” of Democratic emails as flat fact, no solid proof has yet been presented – and the claim has been denied by both the Russian government and WikiLeaks, which published the key emails.
Sleight of Hand
The Times and other mainstream media outlets play their sleight of hand on this key point by asserting that “U.S. intelligence agencies” have “concluded” that Russian intelligence services “hacked” the emails from the Democratic National Committee and Clinton’s campaign chief John Podesta, but that summary ignores the specifics.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaking with supporters at a campaign rally at Carl Hayden High School in Phoenix, Arizona. March 21, 2016. (Photo by Gage Skidmore)
First of all, by using this summary of the facts, the Times and other outlets continue to give the false impression that all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies concurred in the conclusion, a false claim that Hillary Clinton and the mainstream press have asserted over and over, although it is now clear that no such consensus ever existed.
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified that the Jan. 6 report on alleged Russian interference was produced by “hand-picked” analysts from only three organizations: the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency.
And, even those “hand-picked” analysts stipulated that they were not asserting Russian guilt as fact but only as their best guess. They included the disclaimer: “Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on collected information, which is often incomplete or fragmentary, as well as logic, argumentation, and precedents.”
Even New York Times reporter Scott Shane initially noted the absence of evidence, writing: “What is missing from the public report is what many Americans most eagerly anticipated: hard evidence to back up the agencies’ claims that the Russian government engineered the election attack. … Instead, the message from the agencies essentially amounts to ‘trust us.’”
Former senior U.S. intelligence officials, including the NSA’s ex-technical director William Binney, have raised further doubts about whether a “hack” occurred. Binney conducted tests on download speeds and determined that the extraction of one known batch of Democratic emails was not possible over the Internet, but did match the speed of a USB download onto a thumb drive, suggesting a leak from a Democratic insider.
So, rather than the many disparate strings of Russia-gate coming neatly together more than a year after last year’s election, the various threads either are becoming hopelessly tangled or flying off in different directions.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s.
Mildly – ly – Facetious
Pay attention okay. I’m a dyslexic agnostic insomniac. I lay awake all night wondering if there is a DOG. Or a confused, sleep depraved soul with no current god that I worship. That said after 70 years of government lies, especially those like “The smoking gun of weapons of mass destruction” BS espoused by 43, the village idiot from crawford texas. I have nothing to gain here except a better life for my grand kids.
I always admired John McCain for his toughness believe it or not but after the Bushies humiliated him and he hugged 43 I gave up on him and Navy pilots. Can you image if John had ever been elected potus. Good Dog he may have single handedly destroyed the country, kinda like VINY , village idiot new york is trying to do right now.
Anyone living under the age of forty or so who still believes in Christmas will not make the cut and survive on our dying planet. Especially the white supremacist and the other haters of the right wing. Whether they be repugniklan or dimocrapic.
It’s time for a great American re-build starting in D.C.! Enough is enough!
Remember this drinking rum before noon does not make you an alcoholic, it means you are a pirate.
PEACE
I listen to “talks” at night (youtubes). It must have been about 2 wks ago when I heard Oliver Sacks talking about a part of the brain that functions to assess the perception of teeth…teeth alone! Now, from what I remember Sacks went against an extreme version of the idea that impressions and consequent acts are governed by specific brain areas (this one for this, another for that…as cases may arise; he theorized all b-areas are usually more involved in the aforementioned than a lot of default thinking went at the time). Extreme or not extreme…how are 3D memories with all their color and nuance stored in neurons? Or, if you’re hypnotized, suddenly there’s thousands more of’em opened up outta the “unconscious” (tons more detail available anyway). There’s a missing step there seems to me; and, for all Sack’s staggering erudition, it’s amazing to me he didn’t go more with Rupert Sheldrake’s ideas. I suppose you could think of Sheldrake’s morphic field as perhaps impersonal or mechanical; but to me…at least it’s one step beyond this whole present paradigm.
Back on topic. It might not be very “bold” or “sophisticated” now, but haven’t they’ve more or less said even a cyber attack might get you nuke-bombed? All in all, there seems to be way deficient accountability in the cyber realm.
not bold, not sophisticated, probably never will know https://www.democracynow.org/2018/2/23/masha_gessen_did_a_russian_troll
There’s that “one bad chip” article out there too somewhere.
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175607/tomgram%3A_karen_greenberg%2C_preparing_for_a_digital_9_11/
peace Robert
The tale of how the media understood the ramifications of the Supreme Court’s rulings ending any form of regulation or limits on campaign donations and how they hid the deliberations of the Supreme Court from citizens by not covering any of it in their news outlets gives us a clue to the real reasons Trump was elected. He was a straw candidate erected by the media and given billions in free advertising to fleece the coffers of the republicans. They knew in advance that they could clean up even before the Supreme Court lifted all regulations on the limits for donations in several rulings. They cleaned the house with their straw candidate. They gloated in private about their profits as they trotted out Trump at every opportunity to goad republican campaigns to spend every last cent on defeating him.
After that the media needed an alibi. The democrats wanted desperately to find a way to blame something and anything for their loss. Even republicans were shocked at the outcome which their donors had spent so much money trying to elect anyone else but Trump.
Trump was a threat to the military with his initial efforts to cancel major contracts he saw as wasteful like the joint attack fighter. He has continued to confound them with his strategy of making peace with old enemies and attempting withdrawing from Syria and other hot spots.
And so a strategy and a story was hatched to link Trump to Russia for the reason the election was stolen which was palatable to the democrats, the military and even the republicans who had been robbed by the media.
This is what happens when billions of dollars are at stake. The media stole the money from the republicans and the democrats were stunned at their reversal of fortune and the military was facing a newly elected president that threatened their budget. What to do?
So the intelligence agencies prompted by the defense industry formulated a story that Trump was a Russian Mole. Trump was a Manchurian candidate who won the election with his knowledge and involvement cooperating with the old Russian enemy.
Everyone involved with the sham election was happy. The media were grateful that they were officially off the hook for pushing a straw candidate for pure profit. The military was going to be given more money to combat an old foe. The cold war was restored to its former glory.
Even the republicans were happy so they signed on to sanctions against Russia for rigging the election along with democrats. Congress unanimously enacted laws forbidding Trump from interfering with the sanctions the US government levied against Russia for rigging the elections. Trump was a president not to be trusted on both sides of the aisle.
The FBI was also happy that any collusion they played a part in was overshadowed by the new cold war with Russia. Trump was rightly astonished that the FBI director once hated by the democrats was now center stage testifying about possible collusion and obstruction of justice by Trump as he tried to fend off the allegations he was a Russian spy.
Just about everyone in the media and the government shifted their position to focus on allegations that Russia had rigged the election and Trump was in on the fix based on intelligence reports which were debunked by CN from day one.
Although the Mueller report has not been released the body of evidence has already been proven that there was no collusion since no indictments were recommended by the special prosecutor which basically says no crimes were committed regarding the charges of collusion.
Some mostly independent journalists notably leaning left have come forth to call the whole affair nothing more than a witch trial.
We are left with the unanswered questions as to how our media and our government engaged this story from the start as fact.
Some still cling to the notion that there will be evidence to charge Trump when the report is released but the damage to the credibility of Trump’s accusers has already been done and there is little chance that given no recommendation for indictments at the conclusion of the Mueller Probe there will be any traction to be gained by reading tea leaves and finding probable cause for indictment of Trump or members of his administration beyond what has already transpired.
There is also little chance that sanctions against Russia will be lifted or the money of the donors who fund republicans will be called into question as well as the motives of our free press in causing the election result. The con job remains intact just as they wanted it and the band plays on.
Excellent summary!
RM lets us talk about David Corn and a piece he wrote for Mother Jones. Since I’ve been on the edge lately I will not quote Mr. Corn here but refer you to the Deep State Blog of one Jefferson Morely.
https://deepstateblog.org/2019/03/29/david-corn-v-glenn-greenwalt-on-the-real-trump-russia-hoax/
Go there and read the piece and don’t dare miss the two questions Mr. Corn asks his readers at the end. So what is your answer?
Because I personally think this may be a matter of life under tyranny or not . I happen to think the issue of what the Russians did or didn’t do is of extreme importance. The issue directly impinges on the sovereignty of our nation and the veracity of our intelligence agencies.
You can also access Mr. Corn’s question at Here’s the Real Trump-Russia Hoax, Mothers Jones.
So your answer? It matters to you or it doesn’t, you don’t really care or your biased by party. Regardless it matters. What happens is very important.
I’ll offer some advice let us all talk truth to power and demand we get the Dogdamned truth, all of it. For once!
Thanks to Robert Parry.
The link provided leads to Page Not Found.
My apologies try https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/03/heres-the-real-trump-russia-hoax/ This was in mother jones March 29, 2019
https://deepstateblog.org/2019/03/29/david-corn-v-glenn-greenwald-on-the-real-trump-russia-hoax/
[Containing Russia]
OR
…observant iconoclast-ism
https://www.cfr.org/report/
Big Shout Out to Brett Harris, great focus of the eye for facts.
I have a problem with coincidences. I figured as soon as I heard about Browder something big was up. I mean a hedge fund operator fearing for his life because of the Russians. Being super wealthy is one requirement be part of the DEEP STATE!
What ever the facts are one thing is for sure this is big and very smelly indeed!
Thanks Brett.
Yes ,Virginia, er Nathalie, there is no Santa Claus. In fact not only is what you say true, all of it, it’s worse. Our own intelligence community, at least some in their ex-official capacity push the media to do so. More of that expert commentary they share with MSM.
Nathalie gets a A+ 100% for exercising her critical thinking abilities. Keep after those news foreign newspapers!
Now having established the MSM is not to be trusted let us remember, we need all the report all of it. . We paid for it and I for one want to see it all.
Now for some free thought. Seth Rich is dead. Fact. He was shot twice in the back. Fact. He was not robbed. Fact. He was the victim of a botched robbery, uh, or maybe not.
He was shot during an attempted robbery as the story goes. Shot multiple times , twice I believe in the back he was conscious when police arrived about, “one minute” after they were alerted by an automatic gun fire locator. This response was incredibly quick for a 4am call.
Boy would I love to see the autopsy report! Why did he die? Soldiers receive multiple gunfire are wounds almost daily on the battlefield and live. It’s called the “golden hour” get the victim to a trauma center and they have a decent chance at survival. So what happened here. There were obvious signs of a struggle but no robbery. Was Seth trained in the martial arts of self defense?
Anyone here ever hear of “frangible rounds”, frangible ammunition for fire arms, generally hand gun rounds.. They are used for self defense, (?) these rounds deliver astounding wounds that prohibit recovery of the victim. One shot and done. The rounds become “powder like “upon impact , wounds to the torso almost always fatal very quickly, if not instantaneous.
.
It’s time now for us to remember “facts”. William Binney is an ex-NSA security tech expert says a hack could not have been successful, it’s a technical speed thing, but that a thumb drive download was the most likely source of the materials downloaded. He and other former Intel types say this. So who is telling the truth and what does the truth mean?
The need for more facts are obvious. If we must write let us not waste our time. We need to get to the facts, all of them, in this case if for no other reason that to clear up the story of Seth Rich’s death. Why because the facts we have so far seem to conveniently avoid telling the entire story. I will be contacting my senator immediately when I’m finished here.
Seth could have been one of a very few who had knowledge about what might have happened and guilty of nothing. Just another person caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I want to take this opportunity to remind one and all that when intelligence operations go awry bad things happen. Often to the most innocent of all, the unwary witness.
I mean no disrespect to the Rich family but they need to be more like the Tillman family and ask lots of questions. Pat was murdered and I think I know why, but I digress, even though, it fits my agenda.
Something big is stinking here, very smelly indeed!
Thanks to Robert Parry.
RM dis-endorsed HC shortly b4 election… so if Mr. Fox guards the henhouse is he gonna
bust Mrs. Fox4 stealin fowl2 feed the kids?
Vote hack coverup/right wing talk point
Some believers of Trump-Putin collusion remain vehement, perhaps their cause will persist for a few generation, like the belief that Sabbatai Zevi was a (Jewish) messiah. But most see all to well that it it a time to move on to real issues. For example, New York Post reports that fellow players called him “the world’s worst cheat at golf”.
Perhaps not a hyperbole. Take this quote (from the Guardian summary): Tirico, the Post wrote, “hit the shot of his life, a 230-yard 3-wood towards an elevated green he couldn’t see. But he knew it was close. When he got to the putting green, however, Tirico’s ball was nowhere to be seen. Instead, it was 50ft left of the hole in a bunker. It made no sense – until Trump’s caddy caught up with him after the round.
Tirico was quoted as saying: “Trump’s caddy came up to me and said, ‘You know that shot you hit on the par 5? It was about 10ft from the hole. Trump threw it in the bunker. I watched him do it.’”
I suspect that besides being an awful cheater, Trump is also a mediocre tipper.
Gosh how I miss Robert Parry’s reporting these days. Reading him a few years back clued me in in the madness sweeping the nation following Trump’s surprising win. Thanks for reprinting some of his pieces for newer readers. I fear the madness isn’t over just yet. But really it’s time to put this diseased mutt out of our misery.
The hypocritical, xenophobic & often ridiculous narratives about countries the US gov. does not like should be quite predictable by now. Reds under your Beds, the Yellow Peril, Iraqi troops disconnected babies from incubators, Saddam has WMD, Qaddafi gave viagra to his troops, Putin shot down the plane, Assad gassed his own people, Hugo Chavez was a brutal dictator etc. etc. etc.. This has all been proven to be false. After a track record of lies, deception & obfuscation, why do so many still take such nonsense at face value?
Any informed person with historical context should smell a rat as soon as they hear a smear campaign against a foreign country. A truckload of critical thinking & skepticism should always be applied.
Using these lies as excuses to launch wars that mass murder/maim/displace millions of innocent people represent massive war crimes, yet no one is held to account. The perpetrators of these crimes earn millions, seemingly as a reward for their dirty work. It is quite perverse & morally outrageous. If these people were tried under the Nuremberg legal standards, they would all have been hanged.
Since the late great Robert Parry and others have thoroughly debunked the Russia conspiracy BS, and the “Mueller report” showed nothing, the xenophobic, paranoid, bigoted pundits should apologize and resign. However, many TV entertainment personalities (they aren’t journalists) make millions every year to do as they are told and will likely keep their positions. We’ll see if people turn off the TV and finally abandon the superficial fluff & lies.
So-called Russia gate has achieved three things:
It has helped ratchet up likelihood of war with Russia
It has given Trump a great advantage in his “reelection” (if we believe US elections are democratic)
And has (or should have) discredited many in Congress & the corporate media cartel.
Let’s hope that more folks will use critical thinking skills in future
Russian patsy or no we still have a patsy in the white house. The damage being done in my opinion by this administration to the nation in so many areas is plain sight. The selected and connected who are well off are continuing to be well off and more so. The poor continue to become poorer and more so. Through deregulation corporate Americas ability to substandard produce, service, and charge as they will is an anathema to the poor. So please without having the Muller report made public or redacted for all to see. How can we tell if there was no Russian influence or at least some kind of tit for tat to aid in the Trump election. Spare me with the I told you so. Let me read it for my self. Then and only then if merited will I buy into your point of view.
One suggestion. Let us just see how much evidence, credible data is revealed.
I’m get the feeling of Deja’ Vu all over again! Nixon-Ford pardons. Reagan -Barr-Bush pardons. Go back and study the Clinton fiasco, then 43. And the lead into the current topic at hand.
Look kids it’s about time to admit that is looking more and more like another intelligence failure or gambit to deflect serious public curiosity and the placement of blame. By Dog something happened and right now not much of any of this makes any sense.
Unless of course you are a cynic like me who believes there is much more to the story. Which DOJ and the intelligence community do not want us privilege to. The object of our attention might very well be of an internal origin.
Nixon. He and Kissinger got away clean with agreeing with LBJ to allow peace negotiations to drag into Nixon’s first term. A very strange deal believe me.. About and additional 13K Americans lost their lives and Vietnamese deaths soared from the point the war could have been stopped under LBJ. ( SEE KEN HUGHES: CHASING SHADOWS TAPES of the conversations) What happened there. Nothing . Why? Because we didn’t have access at the time to the tapes. If we had would we have been distracted?
Reagan and Bush 41 got away with Iran – contra Iraqi-gate and the BCCI scandal. During the same period here William Hamilton and his company were raped by DOJ and he lost his company Inslaw and his PROMIS software.
The Clinton’s, we don’t have enough time. It took two special prosecutors to come up with nothing but a blue dress that got saved and not laundered.
43 and the Patriot Act and endless war. War upon war endlessly. The Super Wealthy Elitists , the SWETS, rip us all off and now this.
If they come up with nothing what will be done? If they come up with convictions there will be pardons. And there will no justice again.
The rest of the world is keeping an eye on the Good Ole U.S. of A. and they are getting a Doddamned eyeful.
It might be about time for us all to do some serious self reflection about just what the hell is going on.
We need to see the evidence that tells us just what the hell happened here. Nothing less.
Leave Divisive, Worth-less than he thinks, Lying, Racist acting “VINY” out of this! Poor guy!
My Dog you cannot make this stuff up!
PEACE
Consortium has maintained since the beginning of Russiagate that the collusion of Trump with Russia was not a proven fact. And now the Mueller report confirms that there was no collusion. As Matt Taibbi says, Russiagate is today’s WMD. The New York Times and the Washington Post were happy to promote the conspiracy in order to bring Trump down, and the facts be damned.
To know what is actually going on in Russia and China, I read papers of other countries. Is it possible that the mainstream media are intentionally keeping the American public ignorant about the world beyond our shores?
Now all of the claims of fake news by Trump have found their vindication. The allegations of a fake news media by Trump have now found wings as they are vindicated by Russia Gate investigator Mueller. The Kamikaze democrats attempting to sink the Trump Battleship have been shot down with no survivors. The NY Times and WAPO have been revealed as the fake news outlets Trump has been crowing about all along.
It seems to me that the democrats are not done pouring out their self immolating strategy. Apparently they will not be through with burning their party to embers until their suicidal flaming ship plunges beneath the waves and is written off as the party of liars and villains.
Even democrats running against Trump in 2020 seem to be embracing a suicidal alignment making the number one party plank the busting up of alleged monopolies like Microsoft, Google and Facebook.
How will busting monopolies possibly resonate with voters? It won’t. But it will cause every corporate donor and every shareholder of those stocks to pour their fortunes into defeating them. They will be allowed to pour out their unlimited campaign donations due to the campaign finance laws in effect. There is no chance now that the Supreme Court will upend Citizens United and restore any form of campaign finance regulations as existed in the past. The Kamikaze democrats just vowed to sink the wealthiest corporations on the planet and also those that control much of what we see and hear.
The democrats stand as much a chance of winning the next election based on their anti monopoly crusade as Japan did sending pilots to their death to defeat the USA in WWII. It also seems just like the Kamikazes as a last ditch effort by the democrats to somehow magically save themselves. It didn’t work for Japan and it won’t work for the democrats.
It seems that the democrats have completely lost their rudders and any flight controls and are careening down on a well armed and well funded republican armada that will outspend them a hundred fold to defend their flagship corporations and investors and republican donors. The republicans have just been alerted by the stated campaign strategy of their enemy, the democrats, to a strategy and battle plan that vows to destroy them by destroying the corporations they defend and depend on for campaign money.
It is as though the democrats waking up after the loss of the Russia Gate battle realize that they are not completely defeated yet and have come up with a new plan to ensure their complete annihilation. They will now wage war with corporate America in an era when campaign finance limits have been obliterated, the markets are at unprecedented highs and more money is concentrated at the top than at any other time in history.
How do they imagine this strategy will work? It can’t and it won’t work. These democrats have about as much strategy to win as the desperate Japanese had on the verge of defeat. They are going to be sunk beneath the waves.
Don’t forget HillBillary and the Democratic National Committee rigged the 2016 presidential election; hence, the function of Russia-gate is to project their won act of wrongdoing on a foreign body, namely Vladimir Putin.
Yet the vast majority of Americans care little to nothing about the actual sanctity of our elections. What the average American cares about is what they hear on TV, which comes in two flavors: FoxNews and MSNBC, both of which are propaganda fog machines.
https://opensociet.org/2019/03/30/escape-the-echo-chamber/
The things Piotr doesn’t believe in IMO might merit a little more consideration. Distrust campaign – makes sense to me the “research” did happen (though the impact I believe limited). Instructions from the creator – just get still enough once in a while to sense her/him being around.
Meantime…David Feldman against Taibbi, Greenwald, and Hedges [Feldman would deny “against,” but wow anyway]. Feldman to my mind experienced Maddow not like I experienced her. Apparently he can listen when he chooses. I don’t pay for cable TV, just net. The tube is on sometimes where I work. MSNBC has been on sometimes, Joe and Brzezinski’s daughter sometimes. It’s not light work, but I’m not stupid. Though busy, I can get the tenor of things from snippets. In the evening I have to rush through “my own” sources. Maddow to me seemed to have had a thousand sub-plots going on. Even if I were sitting relaxed, my impression is it would be hard to tie them all together. Maybe I missed it, but it seemed she expected everyone to be able to place all the scattershot instantly at the right place in the outline. Like I told Feldman in a comment, to me it was like War of the Worlds.
One rotten aspect of the whole consists in the collective underlying assumptions about Putin (Russia’s pretty totalitarian, as we are; but the R-gaters made him out to be irrational outside Russia as well…the latter to me just so much crap). I don’t know if the R-gaters or Republican hawks’ll ever understand Ukraine, Crimea, and the war in Syria. Fortunately there’s understanding here at Consortium among readers. But oh what a radical I must be; I can’t trust oil hegemonies, even if they seem to do what’s right in wars (sometimes). OTOH, that does put me in synch with the Green New Deal movement. I feel like Camus criticizing Marxist faith in industry leading us on to bright futures (but alas I work hard enough that I’m never in a mood to go out and get my head busted…also, these days I heal slow, and then there’s the bill as well).
The predicament we’re in regarding what to advocate twists ones mind and soul (GND, no problem with that). And speaking of twists, if someone in Russia has kompromat on Trump, could it not be saving the whole world’s neck??? Which wouldn’t be a twist of fate, but a twist of grace? I don’t suspect Russia has it; and, yeah, it WOULD BE NICE if Trump got the boot and there wasn’t any Pence or war cabinet waiting in the wings.
the whole flap https://commons.commondreams.org/t/russia-was-never-the-real-scandal/61840/19
Feldman https://davidfeldmanshow.com/i-stand-with-rachel-maddow-episode-1026/
GND https://www.resurgence.org/magazine/article4938-day-of-the-doughnut.html
PS Folks, please state whom you’re addressing.
The kompromat maybe being a threat to crash given tentacles of Mossack Fonseca’s successor?
edits: One rotten aspect of the whole thing consists…
Last night saw a comment by Tulsi Gabbard that she was glad there was no collusion, that the finding was good for the nation, and it is time to get on with the serious business of governing. Wow, there is an adult in Washington.
Te saddest part of all of this is the Democratic party is highly likely to pull election fraud again in 2020 now they’ve walked away from rigging the 2016 primary for Hillary Clinton. Who will it be next? Joe Biden?
https://opensociet.org/2019/03/29/dncriminals-the-democrats-a-corrupt-enterprise-rigged-the-2016-elections-theyll-do-it-again-in-2020/
This is a very important point. We have Jimmy Carter on record saying that the US is “an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery”. On top of that, we had an election fiasco in 2000, and other less obvious election dirty tricks since then. The use of ‘superdelegates’ is flagrantly undemocratic & a slap in the face. The US does not have a uniform election system in the first place. There are so many problems with the electoral system & elections that in order to consider the US a functioning democracy, some major improvements must be made. I consider US elections to be the world’s most expensive PR stunts. The Media Cartel have huge power over who gets airtime, who gets to come to debates etc.
How are American experts educated? Today I got a clue trying to find something on Amazon.
==== cut paste from Amazon.com begins ===
Putin’s World: Russia Against the West and with the Rest Feb 26, 2019
by Angela Stent
$15.99$1599 Sold by Hachette Book Group
We all now live in a paranoid and polarized world of Putin’s making, and the Russian leader, through guile and disruption, has resurrected Russia’s status as a force to be reckoned with. From renowned foreign policy expert Angela Stent comes a must-read dissection of present-day Russian motives on the global stage. […] PUTIN’S WORLD will help Americans understand how and why the post-Cold War era has given way to a new, more dangerous world, one in which Russia poses a challenge to the United States in every corner of the globe — and one in which Russia has become a toxic and divisive subject in US politics.
==== second cut paste from Amazon.com ===
Angela Stent is director of the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies and a professor of government and foreign service at Georgetown University. From 2004 to 2006, she served as national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council. She is the author of The Limits of Partnership: US-Russian Relations in the Twenty-First Century, for which she won the American Academy of Diplomacy’s Douglas Dillon prize for the best book on the practice of American diplomacy.
==== end of cut paste ===
So intelligence analysts in charge of misinformation retire to academic carriers and educate future generations of experts. This may be the source of the memes like that “Russian web sites” are not merely profit seeking click-bait sites” that rather mechanically copy widely circulating ideas to get clicks and resulting pennies from advertisements but “sowing confusion and distrust” according to diabolically effective plans hatched in Kremlin.
The blurbs about this books were so depressing that I wonder if USA should not simply give up and join the winning team. Instead on spending untold billions on defense, intelligence and “diplomatic activity” we could just establish communication lines for receiving instructions from the creator of our world and live securely.
Those damn Russkies!! They put military bases in over 700 countries, spend $700B+ per year on their military, have bombed numerous countries and are involved in 7 wars, interefere with foreign governments regularly, are spending $1T+ on nuclear weapons in violation of the NPR they signed, etc. .Boy, those Russkies are really bad news and …. oh wait…I got confus… see I thought… uh… never mind.
Talk about cognitive dissonance that some people have.
People were sure the report will take POTUS down; however, this didn’t happen.
Givens:
https://theintercept.com/2019/03/27/the-day-after-mueller/
https://www.theepochtimes.com/author-jeff-carlson
Too me this is just political theater for the 2 opposing sides. You just have to let this play out.
We’ll eventually find out who is lying after more taxpayer $.
Please specify how Russia interfered in the US elections. I don’t mean a few meaningless click-bait operations from Russian citizens, but the Russian government. Please provide EVIDENCE.
Also, if Barr is misrepresenting the findings, why isn’t Mueller speaking up.
I think it is your assessment that “smells”.
BTW, I am no fan of Trump.
That Russia “cultivated” Trump years ago is most unlikely. However, there is no doubt that Russia interfered in the U.S. elections and the beneficiary of that was Donald Trump and Putin. Nor is Trump innocent of obstruction of justice. One must intelligently see that and ask, “why.” Is it to protect his shady financial businesses, or also his shady election? Additionally, if Trump is innocent, then, with the exceptions of secret intelligence information, why cannot the Muller report be released to the public in its entirety, not merely 3 pages of attorney Barr’s condensation of 350 pages of report?
This report “smells.”
Please specify how Russia interfered in the US elections. I don’t mean a few meaningless click-bait operations from Russian citizens, but the Russian government. Please provide EVIDENCE.
Also, if Barr is misrepresenting the findings, why isn’t Mueller speaking up.
I think it is your assessment that “smells”.
BTW, I am no fan of Trump.
I suppose it all depends on who we trust with our news, Scott. And I certainly have respect for Robert Parry, else I would not read this blog.
No fan of Hillary or Trump.
You say “there is no doubt”, and then you talk about trust. You do not need “trust” if there is no doubt. Having no doubt implies that there is solid EVIDENCE. Here at CN we seek to make rational arguments based on evidence, and people that continually do so are the ones I come to “trust”.
Skip Scott, thinking about the report absolving Trump of collusion it is notable that the Russian bashers are still alive and thriving. The tone of the report is that the Russians did their best to corrupt our elections but Trump’s patriotic Americans rebuffed them. This keeps the Russia bashing program alive and well. And when you think about, this was what it was about all along. Not solely perhaps but significantly.
Yep! They were able to get the “Russia hacked our election” narrative into the lifeboat before the HMS Collusion sank, which was always the key piece of cargo on the doomed vessel.
Hillary was just a useful tool, and the empire always only cared about ratcheting up tensions with Russia to keep the MIC well fed. Hillary will have to be happy to “ride off into the sunset” with her and Bill’s ill-gotten millions.
You have a cognitive dissonance problem. The report is out. There is not russian collusion on POTUS.
Just because some people don’t like him does not imply the report is not true.
The guy is corrupt but so is Congress. If you are thinking Dems are good and Repubs are bad, think again.
How about they are both bad, and they need major reforms.
I think most people who read CN articles have the ability to understand that Assange’s release of Hillary and DNC emails, along with the book “Shattered”, showed what kind of person she is, and the actual origin of the Trump-Russia hoax.
You are well indoctrinated with the latest Democrat talking points.
I’m expecting the Democrats to turn on Mueller in a New York minute if they don’t like his report.
So not only do you have no respect for the late Robert Parry, and his great journalism skill, you have the gall to ignore all the evidence he has presented, which casts great doubt on the coherency of this entire political exercise.
“However, there is no doubt that Russia interfered in the US elections…”
1/.Do tell? Russian hackers? Crowdstrike was paid by the DNC, the servers were never inspected by the FBI, and a similar report they did for the Ukrainian military, finding” Russian hacking, was found to be wrong, by the Ukrainians, hardly fan’s of Russia and reported in Voice of America.
But you say there is no doubt.,
The evidence from Bill Binney and the former NSA people who showed that the data rate could only be from a memory stick inserted the NE US, rather than across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe, combined with the fact that former UK Ambassador Craig Murray said he personally travelled to Washington to be handed the data from an intermediary, and took it back to. Wikileaks. He said he knew identity of the leaker, and was an American working inside the DNC.
But there is no doubt..
But Brennan and Clapper, known liars to Congress, get three lackeys into a room to say, one “highly likely”, and the other two only “likely”. No evidence, unlike Binney or Murray.
Trump Obstructed Justice? Knowing he had done nothing wrong, he legally fired a disloyal FBI director who was not telling what was going on.
– That’s called Presumption of Innocence, now what bombshell revelation do you have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that is not the truth?
Here is a test of your detective skills. The Russian lawyer Veselnitskaya applied for a visa in late May, to attend a court hearing in NY on 9 June 2016. Her client has been accused of money laundering by the wanted tax-cheat Bil Browder in the SDNY. After two years, Browder was finally forced by the judge to give a deposition detailing his accusations, and he failed utterly to do so, but did that matter? Browder blamed Vesel., Law firm Baker-Hostetler for the defence, and engaged in over a year of vexatious appeals designed to prevent his deposition seeing the light of day. Browder knee she wanted to be in court for Browder’s appeal, he knew how frustrated she was for her client, and that she would have to get a visa to attend.
Suddenly Rob Goldstone appears in Moscow in late May, her contacts his client pop star Emin Agalarov, who’s father happens to be a client of NV. We know now that Goldstone made up everything, he said so to the Senate, no “dirt on Hillary” to Don Jr, telling Emin that Don Jr could help NV to talk to Congress about Browder, a perfect setup. So on 6 June, Goldstone closed the deal, the State Dept suddenly granted NV her visa, and Bill Browder was later found to have sent
bizarre email a photo of Vesel’s Moscow house to Robert Otto of the State Dept on the 6th of June. Vesel never met Goldstone until the morning of the 9th in NY, where he called her and picked he up to take her to Trump Tower.
So how did Christopher Steele find out about a “high level meeting with Russians” for his Dossier, perhaps Browder’s close friend at State, Jonathan Winer, who was Steele’s handler since 2012 for Victoria Nuland, could have got a signal from someone?
I can’t say without a doubt that Browder and the State Dept conspired to set up the Trump Tower meeting to create a fake meeting, but at least it could be argued with some substantial evidence.
But have you deduced what Browder actually committed, yes, aren’t you sharp, “Obstruction of Justice” for interfering with the defence council in a case where he is the main witness for the prosecution. But I am certain about why this was never investigated by US Attorney Preet Bharara.
There’s no doubt that Russia interfered? Really? What proof do you have? What precisely was done to hand the election to Trump since he lost by 3M votes? How did some genius manage to manipulate things so that all of Three Names’ votes came from a few states and all of Trump’s fewer votes came from many states? I realize that sounds a lot like Gerrymandering, a favored Republican bit of chicanery but it was really another favored Republican election interference technique – voter suppression. Three Names lost in several states by narrow margins and in the winner take all rules that most of our elections are conducted under Trump got the electoral college votes and, ultimately, the election. Those states, remarkably, were states where Republicans had been passing laws to suppress the votes of the young, the old, and the non-white population. Republicans. Not Russians. I realize that both words start with R, so you may be having a hard time keeping them separate in your mind. But please try.
Nor is Trump innocent of obstruction of justice. Really? How do you know? And what, I’d like to know does that have to do with the election? What’s truly funny about your frothing at the mouth is that you have completely missed that this piece written in 2017 by the late Robert Parry was written long before Mueller’s report came out and is just as true today as it was when the late Mr. Parry wrote it.
I am aware that this column was written in 2017, by a fine journalist. However, it was reprinted today as though it was written today, so to speak.
No, it was not printed today as though it had been written today.
It was printed today as a piece of evidence of Robert Parry’s and Consortium News’ record for being right.
Evidence that the truth was really there for all to see if they looked.
And evidence to remind people who turned out to be right, and who turned out to be wrong.
It is a nice way of saying: We told you so.
When push comes to shove, some people are right and others are wrong.
Very often the difference is one of intelligence. Having a good s— detector is a sign of intelligence.
Also, being able to follow both logical and nuanced arguments.
It is really surprising that someone who reads CN cannot follow the very clear arguments that have been available at this site since the Russiagate nonsense started and still nurses his belief in magic.
You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.
I feel rather sorry for you, Mr. Rice.
Glenn Greenwald on Democracy Now! “….. And as for him being a Russian asset, it’s so irresponsible to say that, because the reality is that the conflict between the U.S. and the Russians are at a worse and higher level than they’ve been in many years, probably decades.
How can you say Donald Trump is a stooge of the Kremlin when he’s right now trying to remove one of Vladimir Putin’s client regime states in Venezuela? Or when he’s trying to bully Angela Merkel out of buying Russian natural gas, probably the thing that’s most important to the Russian economy? Or when he sold lethal arms to the Ukrainians, something Obama refused to do on the grounds that it would be provocative to Russia? Or when he bombed Putin’s client state in Syria? Over and over, the Trump administration has taken actions far more adverse and aggressive and belligerent to the Russians than the Obama administration did. That’s why this whole narrative that Trump all along was being blackmailed by Putin, that he’s an asset of Russian intelligence, this is idiocy. It is completely irrational. It is contrary to all facts.
And Bob Mueller’s investigation, who spent 22 months examining that core question—what is the relationship between Trump and the Russians?—concluded that there is no relationship. It’s time to stop these dangerous conspiracy theories that are ratcheting up tensions between the two most dangerous countries on the planet. The reality is, the Trump administration has been constantly belligerent to Putin, has constantly acted adverse to the Kremlin’s interests, and there’s zero basis for thinking or believing or finding evidence to assert that Trump in any way is beholden to Vladimir Putin and to Russia. The whole thing has been a joke and a fairy tale from the start….”
https://www.democracynow.org/2019/3/25/as_mueller_finds_no_collusion_did
“How can you say Donald Trump is a stooge of the Kremlin when he’s right now trying to remove one of Vladimir Putin’s client regime states in Venezuela?” You left out “and replace with an American stooge.” Do you really think our country is lily-white when it comes to installing dictators? Especially in Central and South America?
The report found no evidence(?) of Trump or suspicions he or his campaign conspired with Russians to tilt the 2016 election, according to Barr’s summary. But the same summary also quotes Mueller as saying the report does not accuse Trump of any crime related to obstruction — but neither does it exonerate him.
If Trump is so innocent, then the American people deserve to read the full unredacted report. Yet, there are those who say some of the report needs to be kept secret; that the report might reveal secrets of how the information was gathered. Secrets about who? The Russians?
Perhaps there are legitimate secrets there. Investigations that have not led to prosecution are routinely sealed. One reason can be that private information is dredged out that has no connection to anything prosecutable except for a use in perjury trap. Another reason is revealing method of collecting evidence, like what NSA can do and what they cannot do. Less legitimate reason would avoiding bumbling in the investigation, avoiding perjury and/or defamation cases against individuals who mislead the prosecution about the culpability of the investigation target etc. Nevertheless, sealing the documents of an aborted investigation seems to be the norm.
“Do you really think our country is lily-white when it comes to installing dictators? Especially in Central and South America? ”
Classic attempt to change the subject.
How dumb do you thing CNers are?
Not dumb at all. But simply because “we” read this blog does not make “us” having the “truth” and those who do disagree all wrong.
Dennis,
The report to will be available sometime mid-April; however, some of the stuff remains redacted due current laws related to security and law enforcement.
As for the on-going investigation, this is one of many interesting ones:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/28/politics/greg-craig/index.html
Don’t let your emotions and biases control you, you should let this play out to the end.
It’s a fact you don’t like POTUS, but wouldn’t you want to see the report to determine who the real bad guys are?
Some of the report has to be redacted because there is grand jury testimony in there that legally must be kept out of the public domain.
Which nation ( or ideology has Trump in it’s power)?
It’s capital is in Jerusalem and it owns the Golan heights; at least according to, practically, only Trump.
“However, there is no doubt that Russia interfered in the U.S. elections and the beneficiary of that was Donald Trump and Putin. ” No possible evidence, and certainly a terrible result for Pres. Putin ever since.
To read Robert’s report over two years later and see how much waste of time and “brainpower” has occurred to produce the “result ” the Russiagators are still disputing would give us the impression nothing else of importance is needed to be addressed in the USA government.
If there is “no possible evidence” then the report should be released to the American people, full and unredacted.
But that will not happen, the “reasons” being given having to do with something about how the evidence of “innocence” was collected.
The report found no evidence(?) of Trump or suspicions he or his campaign conspired with Russians to tilt the 2016 election, according to Barr’s summary. But the same summary also quotes Mueller as saying the report does not accuse Trump of any crime related to obstruction — but neither does it exonerate him.
My country, your country, our country, does this kind of political manipulation all the time all over the world. You don’t really think that in this country we also do not have the scum of the earth in our politics willing to sell their souls to be elected? If Trump is seedy in his business dealings, why would he be any different in his politics?
“You don’t really think that in this country we also do not have the scum of the earth in our politics willing to sell their souls to be elected? ”
More changing the subject.
Mueller had a specific task: To investigate collusion between Trump and Putin.
Not to investigate corruption generally, whether of Trump or anyone else. No.
Collusion with Putin.
Collusion with Putin.
Can’t you get that into your head?
All of these other curveballs about souls etc. are irrelevant in this context.
Hillary’s gambit was to excuse her loss by pinning it on Russia.
In the process there was more collusion with Russia by the Hillary campaign than by Trump.
But, I can see from your responses that you are not very logical in your thinking.
I had enough logic not to vote for Hillary nor Trump.
Interesting how some of you will admit Trump has an extremely shady past but not too shady to accept help from Russia to get elected. Even connected to Russians to finance some of his businesses
First I am no fan of Hillary. Next I don’t have to agree with every conclusion on this site, especially about Trump.
Trump was not given the clean bill of health some of you claim.
It seems you want to argue and childishly want to sling names rather than discuss.
Talk about the Matrix of the red pill vs. the blue pill:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytftrd6rxps
The Mueller report cost ~ $12.9M thanks to the taxpayers and it was 22 months long.
Did the Russian government collude with the Trump Administration for POTUS? No
It is a known fact Trump is corrupt, but so is Clinton, Pelosi, and a few others from the 2 main opposing parties:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gN7JlEx4xWQ
If you don’t believe Clinton is corrupt, why don’t you read the following:
https://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/marc-turi-libyan-rebels-hillary-clinton-229115
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-clinton-foundation-investigation-russia-20171120-story.html
https://www.theepochtimes.com/author-jeff-carlson
Relax and wait for the report to wrap up.
Something to think about while you are waiting on the topic of PyOps:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5r1rnLm3qY
“Cognizant word salad”.
Def: A way of slyly imparting ideas to those one considers inferior in cognizance. Can be very effective in managing perceptions to dummies, but if delivered to the wrong audience, will make purveyor appear sophomoric.
Podesta has publicly stated his emails were Phished. He state he asked his tech if he should open an email, the tech said yes and his emails were captured.
Seth Rich died for the DNC’s sins. Assange posted a $10,000 reward for Seth’s murderer and at least twice Assange admitted Seth gave him the DNC download.