Even in victory the Democrats are rearing the ugly head of Russiagate to further vanquish the vanquished and protect their power, writes Joe Lauria.
Hillary Clinton. (Evan Guest/Wikimedia Common)
By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News
Russiagate was an invention to help explain away Hillary Clinton’s defeat in 2016 and to undermine the legitimacy of the man who beat her.
Now that that man himself has been defeated, and a Democrat is back in the White House, one would think it was over. But Russiagate has proved too useful an instrument to discard. It beat up not only Donald Trump, but riled Russia too. It was an elixir for CNN’s and MSNBC’s ratings.
And now Russiagate is poised to be used again against Russia, Trump and Trump voters. The latter are way more than “deplorable” now. They are “cult members” and a threat.
Democrats are surely sticking to the Russiagate story as sure as it was exposed as pure opposition research stitched up to appear as a serious intelligence assessment.
Last Friday Clinton invited House Speaker Nancy Pelosi onto her podcast to discuss the events at the Capitol. In the middle of it, Clinton, who has no official position in the Biden administration, revealed the power she has behind the scenes. She brought up the topic by asking Pelosi:
“We learned a lot about our system of government over the last four years with a president who disdains democracy and — as you have said numerous times — has other agendas. What they all are, I don’t think we yet know. I hope historically we will find out who he’s beholden to, who pulls his strings.”
“I would love to see his phone records to see whether he was talking to Putin the day that the insurgents invaded our Capitol,” Clinton went on. “We now know that — not just him, but his enablers, his accomplices, his cult members — have the same disregard for democracy.”
As if those words weren’t astonishing enough, Clinton made a startling policy proposal. She wanted to know if Pelosi thought the U.S. needs “a 9/11-type commission to investigate and report everything that they can pull together.” Sounding as if this were pre-arranged, Pelosi responded, “I do.” She added: “I don’t know what Putin has on him, politically, financially or personally.”
.@SpeakerPelosi and I agree:
Congress needs to establish an investigative body like the 9/11 Commission to determine Trump's ties to Putin so we can repair the damage to our national security and prevent a puppet from occupying the presidency ever again. pic.twitter.com/yR7LQmXm5Z
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) January 18, 2021
Normally before any investigation can begin there has to be some prima facie evidence of wrongdoing. There has to be something to investigate. But in this instance all there is is wild speculation. Speculation that Trump may have been on the phone with Putin while Trump supporters marauded through the halls of Congress.
The Usefulness of Russiagate
Repeatedly blaming Russia allows Democrats to deny the role they have played in the devastation of working and formerly middle class Americans–which helped elect Trump and fueled the assault on the Capitol.
Rather than enact a social democratic agenda that will repair the damage done to the poor and working class from 40 years of bi-partisan economic neoliberalism, the Democrats, now in control of Congress and the White House, continue to smear their enemies as Russian agents, while threatening a domestic War on Terror and even more surveillance. (It’s not enough that Trump is gone and led a mostly disastrous presidency and that many of his followers were duped by him.)
Russiagate is also too useful to discard because it is a tool for politicians to get out of sticky situations. In previous years, if a publication revealed a politician’s corruption and it was completely verified, that politician in most cases would eventually resign.
Today that politician can override the truth of the exposure by falsely blaming a hostile foreign power for being behind it. The corruption story is still true, but now the focus is on who leaked it, which is irrelevant. (U.S. prosecutors routinely use evidence from criminals turned informants to nail bigger fish.)
Such of course was the case with WikiLeaks‘ publication of the Clinton and Podesta emails. (Even though Russia was immediately blamed, four DNC officials did resign, including the chairwoman— “sacrificial lambs” from the party’s perspective to keep Clinton in place.)
Beyond that, Russiagate has been a convenient and successful strategy of deflection from one’s own responsibility for America’s social and political crises.
The message is that the destruction of American democracy has nothing to do with bipartisan approval of money’s corruption of politics, and vast overspending on the military instead of on education, health care and infrastructure.
Instead it is all being engineered by an evil genius in the Kremlin—a virtual James Bond villain. The adolescent level of political education in the public, and in much of the media, creates fertile ground for such a grand deception to flourish.
It is more absurd and transparent to suggest that Moscow had something to do with the Capitol uprising than it did with the 2016 election.
Despite four years and counting of Democratic Party propaganda about Trump conspiring with Russia to steal the 2016 election, a $32 million, 22-month investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller found no evidence of any conspiracy.
Shawn Henry, the head of the company CrowdStrike hired by the Democratic Party and Clinton campaign (while keeping the FBI away) to examine the DNC servers declared under oath to the House Intelligence Committee that no evidence of a hack was discovered.
Despite this, the Russiagate saga is still believed by millions of Americans, bolstered by Congressional studies that relied on intelligence briefings. Mueller and Henry were legally obliged to tell the truth. Intelligence agencies aren’t.
And now Clinton and Pelosi will shamelessly reinvigorate the Moscow-menace malarkey (h/t Biden) into a risky, renewed tension with Russia, which just might work nicely with the hawks in Joe Biden’s cabinet.
Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former UN correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and numerous other newspapers. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London and began his professional career as a stringer for The New York Times. He can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @unjoe
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Excellent article, Joe.
I would only add that in addition to the Mueller inquiry finding no evidence of Russia/Trump Campaign conspiracy, there are two proofs that Russiagate is a complete fabrication, 2 nails in the coffin of Russiagate, though Hillary and company keep exhuming the body. You point out one: the sworn testimony of Shawn Henry, President of Crowdstrike, that its investigation on behalf of the FBI found NO evidence of ANY hack, by ANYONE, much less Russia.
But the second proof is not mentioned in the article. The VIPS (Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity) in their July 24, 2017 memo to the President, showed by forensic evidence, laws of physics, that a hack was an impossibility. (You can find the 7.24.2017 VIPS memo, spearheaded by the great William Binney – in fact all VIPS memos – catalogued here at CN)
MR. STEWART oF UTAH: wow. so much fun, the time just flies.Let me — one question very quickry. There are some press reports orsome people at least claim that this hack on the DNC did not — was notperpetrated by the Russians. How do you respond to that?
MR. HENRY: Everything in my experience, sir, having done this for many,many years, both in the government and in the private sector, says that it was theRussian Government.
Ranking Member Mr. [Adam] Schiff: Do you know the date on which the Russians exfiltrated the data from the DNC? … when would that have been?
Mr. Henry: Counsel just reminded me that, as it relates to the DNC, we have indicators that data was exfiltrated from the DNC, but we have no indicators that it was exfiltrated (sic). … There are times when we can see data exfiltrated, and we can say conclusively. But in this case, it appears it was set up to be exfiltrated, but we just don’t have the evidence that says it actually left.
Mr. [Chris] Stewart of Utah: Okay. What about the emails that everyone is so, you know, knowledgeable of? Were there also indicators that they were prepared but not evidence that they actually were exfiltrated?
Mr. Henry: There’s not evidence that they were actually exfiltrated. There’s circumstantial evidence … but no evidence that they were actually exfiltrated. …
Mr. Stewart: But you have a much lower degree of confidence that this data actually left than you do, for example, that the Russians were the ones who breached the security?
Mr. Henry: There is circumstantial evidence that that data was exfiltrated off the network.
Mr. Stewart: And circumstantial is less sure than the other evidence you’ve indicated. …
Mr. Henry: “We didn’t have a sensor in place that saw data leave. We said that the data left based on the circumstantial evidence. That was the conclusion that we made.
In answer to a follow-up query on this line of questioning, Henry delivered this classic: “Sir, I was just trying to be factually accurate, that we didn’t see the data leave, but we believe it left, based on what we saw.”
The late Robert Parry astutely asked “Why Not a Probe of ‘Israel-gate’?” (CN-20-April-2017).
It still seems that no extreme is too extreme for ever-compliant US media to protect the American people from any critical thinking about Israeli political-influence-and-propaganda campaigns and the vigorously bi-partisan pro-Israel Lobby.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu personally welcomed convicted spy Pollard (30-Dec-2020) and Sheldon Adelson’s corpse (11-Jan-2021) to Israel. On his last half-day in office, Trump granted full pardon to Pollard’s Israeli handler.
“Well everybody’s dancin’ in a ring around the sun
Nobody’s finished, we ain’t even begun.”
– Grateful Dead (1967), “The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion)”
It’s amazing. Are Americans so gullible not to see that? But also one wonders,Who Rules America or USA for that matter?
Who rules America? Kamulegeya come closer so I don’t have to shout. Not so much gullible as uncaring, intimidated, and over whelmed.
The CIA calls the shots, the remainder of the intelligence community falls in line with with CIA, the State Department plays middle man for the intel community throwing their support behind what ever the caper is and if any problems develop with the process the DOJ always rules in favor of keeping all the secrets secret, even despite them not knowing the truth. After the right senators are contacted.
This all starts at the top stays at the top, the part of the Deep State that delivers to those elites I often talk about, those super wealthy elitist the SWETS.
The President oft times don’t know sickem and far too ofte don’t want to know what is going on himself.
Hell, what could go wrong.
Staggering stupidity. Incapable of critical thought.
The most popular party in Ukraine now is the pro-Russian “Party of Life.” How are the Russiaphobes and Russiagaters going to spin this one?
Does that matter if they don’t get to govern ?
After the Coup in Ukraine in 2014 for several years I listened weekly to the John Batchelor show when he interviewed Russia scholar the late Stephen Cohen.
From those conversations I learned that Ukraine is politically divided EAST (pro European Union) / WEST (pro Russian) (a bit like the United States is divided RED / BLUE).
Politically by vote Ukraine was close to 50% pro E.U., 50% pro Russia.
After the Coup Crimea voted to return to Russia thus making the political breakdown of Ukraine more pro E.U.
Forbes Magazine in 2008 republished an interview with Soviet critic Alexander Solzhenitsyn
see: forbes.com/2008/08/05/solzhenitsyn-forbes-interview-oped-cx_pm_0804russia.html?sh=593c65b65f53
Solzhenitsyn, among other things, noted 1) in 1919 Lenin in bringing Ukraine into the Soviet Union gave Ukraine “several Russian provinces to assuage her feelings,” 2) that when in 1954 Khrushchev gave Crimea to Ukraine Sevastopol was not transferred to Ukraine as Sevastopol was a military city subject to the Central Government of the U.S.S.R.
I would note that Khrushchev’s transfer of Crimea to Ukraine violated Soviet Law / Constitution as the people of Crimea were not asked if they wanted to be transferred.
At the time I did some searching about the history of Crimea and Ukraine and it turns out that shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union Crimea wanted to separate from Ukraine and the Central Government of Ukraine threatened to invade Crimea.
The Central Government of Ukraine in its Constitution gave Crimea a special status not given other provinces.
I would note that in October 1962 Joe Biden was 19 years 11 months old and likely a college student.
In October 1962 the world came close to ending (at least a good deal of the so called civilized world) with the Cuban Missile Crisis.
However, in 2014, ignoring the warning of Robert F. Kennedy of the need to put yourself in the other Country’s shoes, Biden supported the violent Coup which essentially included a violent takeover of the Ukrainian Parliament (Rada) by violent protesters, much akin to the Trump Taliban taking over the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
It seems that Biden thought that NATO could just move into Sevastopol and take over not just the port of the Russian navy, but the Russian Navy itself.
I think you mixed up the east and west part: It’s the east of Ukraine (i.e. Donetsk, Luhansk, Crimea) that’s pro-Russia and the west that’s pro-EU.
Why would anyone in a position of power inside the United States government – Democrat or Republican or Independent – risk the major-league blowback that comes with holding up the so-called 9/11 Commission as a “shining Gold Standard example” for people to emulate when seeking hard, harder, and the hardest of truth?
Surely those who offer up unearned praise to that assembled group of “investigators” are fully aware of the group’s conscious omission of crucial evidence related to the world-changing events of September 11, 2001, of which the following are deserving of more weighty emphasis than the other near equally disturbing omissions:
— The 9/11 Commission Report completely & mysteriously omitted the many unimpeachable accounts by eyewitnesses – including rescue workers, firefighters, law enforcement officers and civilians – of tremendous explosions on that day.
— The 9/11 Commission Report completely & mysteriously omitted mention of World Trade Center Complex Building 7 and the 47-story skyscraper’s inexplicable collapse on the afternoon of September 11th.
Readers of Consortium News and many millions of others Earth-wide aware of these profoundly disturbing facts choosing to remain silent can only be described as contributive accessories to these most severe crimes of omission, not to mention the absolutely horrific harming of innocent human beings subsequent – of which the omissions are to a very great extent the actionable basis.
Peace.
Thank you ALL for a very good comment read!
I wonder how many people picked up Pres. Biden’s passing reference to Russia paying bounties for American scalps (in Afghanistan). It was a 24-hr. story long ago and died quickly for lack of evidence and logic. But Biden keeps using it, as he did in one of the ‘debates’ with Trump. Two questions arise. 1. Does Biden really believe the story or does he use it to score patriotism points? Either way it reflects very badly on him. 2. Is the bounty myth a distant cousin of Russiagate or is it a signal of a renewed pursuit of the Cold War by Biden and his hawkish appointees?
No, it’s the Chinese that are paying “bounties” now. We’ve always ben at war with
EurasiaEastasia.US politicians will carry on with their Russo-phobia anyway. What really is good about the new administration, they are not so keen for a new nuclear arm race as Trump was. It looks, the new administration is less subordinate to the military industrial complex.
Russia/Putin is a way to talk about anything but. That is what Never Trump was, avoidance of things they did not mean to do. Now they need to reinforce the smoke and mirrors behind which they do Triangulation to serve the interests of elites and big money.
Look I know about all the nefarious things the US does , and has done, by way of interfering in the politics of other countries and the continued bullshit about the US as a great democracy, egalitarian etc. blah blah, and I agree that Biden, Pelosi, Clinton and many other Democrats have deep connections to those things but I find Joe Lauria’s continuing efforts to relieve Russia of any involvement in Trump’s election to be strange indeed. David Corn in Mother Jones recently had a long piece detailing the many links between Trump, his team and various Russian officials, leading up to and after the election. These links might not amount to “The Conspiracy” some talk of, but they cannot be denied as having happened. One only has to look at Putin’s treatment of opponents, his moves to give himself unfettered and enduring power, and his self-aggrandisement to know that he is very capable of either directly or indirectly, interfering in a US election. The election of Trump and subsequent chaotic four years in which any authority the US might have had as a world power was reduced to a joke have only served to ‘normalise’ Putin’s behaviour. And the idea that he’s just a guy looking out for his country makes me laugh. Poisoning an opponent, then having him arrested on trumped up charges, invading Crimea, complicity in shooting down a civilian airliner, these are the sort of actions you don’t expect from a benevolent leader.
>>These links might not amount to “The Conspiracy” some talk of<< "Some talk of?" Er, that would be Robert Mueller. The bottom line is he found no conspiracy. End of story. It is not a crime to have contacts with Russians. Did Russians help him win the election? No, according to Mueller. Democrats have contacts with Russia too, such as Steele's sources for his opposition research. Russia did not "invade" Crimea, they already had troops stationed there. And Russia's actions in Ukraine were a response to a US-backed coup. Russia's role in the shooting down of MH17, clearly an accident, is disputed. See Robert Parry's extensive reporting on this. If Putin is poisoning his opponents that has nothing to do with Trump or Russiagate. David Corn, like all rabid Russiagaters, was horribly embarrassed when he was proven wrong and is desperately trying to salvage his reputation on this story. Most of them, like Rachel Maddow, were smart enough to mostly just remain silent.
What poisoning? Hmm?? Interesting that the Skripal affair and the Navalny one (the latter for sure a put up job from start to finish) did not end in deaths…NOR were any other people (children, ducks, restaurant workers, hospital staff, daughter of British army nurse in first “case”; Navalny’s supporters/workers what have you, hotel workers, airplane cleaners, EMS, Omsk/Tomsk (sorry don’t recall) hospital workers) affected at all – but isn’t “Novichok” supposed to be the deadliest of nerve agents…no cure…yet the Skrips and Navalny survived and NO ONE else affected…
And the stories about how this so-called deadliest of poisons was administered kept changing – in part at least because not few in the public and in the none MSM kept questioning the reality of the presented story…
Re Navalny: a) why would the “Kremlin” order his killing via a nerve agent that screams “Russia did it” unless you believe that Russia and Mr Putin are clodpolls?; b) Navalny only has around 3% support among some of the Russian population; c) Why, after he had been saved in Omsk/Tomsk would the Kremlin agree to his being transferred to a hospital in Germany and that Charite Hospital in particular (known to have German govt connections) had the order for his being “poisoned” gone out from the Russian govt?; d) Navalny had been charged and convicted of Fraud and his prison sentence “reduced” to monthly appearances at court – probation, essentially…his five months collaborating (well the whole affair was a collaboration, and a nicely remunerated one, no doubt) with the west in Germany…meant that he broke the terms of his probation/sentence which was why he was arrested on his return.
Don’t tell me he and his Handlers didn’t know precisely what they – he was – were doing when they had him return…They knew he would be arrested (as would anyone in the west under similar judicial orders – but don’t expect to hear that on NPR or the BBC World Service, oh no all confected horror and outrage…)
Technically Dawn Sturgess was killed by “novichok in a perfume bottle” four months (July 2020) after the Skripals were “attacked” (also about five miles from Porton Down). The proximity is similar to the Wuhan Virology lab and the initial Covid-19 epidemic, surely a coincidence? These things happen, no reason to be suspicious!
All of your assertions are just the usual fantasies e have been reading , or avoiding, since Obama and HClinton started “Russiagate”.
I presume that RomeoCharley is referring to this Mother Jones article: www (dot) motherjones (dot) com/politics/2021/01/it-all-began-with-russia-donald-trumps-four-great-betrayals-of-the-nation/
I’m not impressed by Corn’s article. There is nothing illegal about collusion and communications between a presidential transition team are common and accepted; whereas conspiracy to accomplish an unlawful goal is a crime. So most of his article built around that distinction is simply irrelevant.
Corn makes much of Russia’s purported “hack and leak” operation involving the Podesta and DNC emails. But no one has ever brought forward evidence that Russia ever had those emails in its possession. And Corn simply does not deal with strong evidence to the contrary, such as that brought forward by VIPS that the file transfer speeds could not have been attained over the internet at that time, but the transfer speed was just right for downloading from a local machine to a thumb drive. In other words, it was a leak, not a hack.
Gary Webb.
Charles Bowden
On my list.
And i like
Lauria and Pepe Escobar
These Keystone Cops would be hilarious if they weren’t so nefarious. There was no “insurrection” – totally manufactured, false flag.
Where were the “insurgents” that were supposedly going to show up Jan-20-21 at every state capital in the nation and DC? The handful of demonstrators that did show up were anything but insurgents, and instead some of them talked about populist unity.
Yet for days ever since “the assault on democracy” that’s all the mainstream harped about, with help from notables on “the left” crying wolf over “the rise of fascism.” What a joke. CIA can’t even carry out a false flag in its front yard anymore, much less in its backyard.
Next comes commissions and the legislation and the policy changes to avert the evil. Meanwhile 4000+ US citizens die per day due to a pandemic that could’ve, should’ve been contained by a half-way decent public health system like the rest of the world has.
The Biden Administration desperately needed an excuse NOT to work on progressive causes (caged children, M4A, student debt, etc) and they got it: an anti domestic terrorism bill.
Sorry, Mrs de Legorreta,
Your comments are completely off point and totally lacking evidence. To suggest that the violent invasion and trashing of the Capitol was a CIA false-flag operation ignores the facts on the ground. The leader of The Proud Boys, a neo-nazi group was videotaped at the attack. He has admitted to planning it. Many of his confederates are in fact fascist. Many of them hold as their greatest aspiration a race war. The subject of this column was Russiagate, and you have taken it as an opportunity to promote an interpretation of the January 6 uprising that has no basis in fact. Well done.
“Invasion of Capitol” was real, but it does not seem a conspiracy with hidden strings. We know how mobs were use to overthrow government, e.g. in Cairo, Kiev and La Paz — in chronological order. It was nothing like that.
Where there is a wide room for possible conspiracy is how it happened. Methods of defending key buildings in such situations exists and were used, with success, many times, including Washington Mall. And they were not deployed. Why? One possibility is “offside strategy” of Association Football: you remove the defenders from the area in front of the goal, and then the offense of the opposite side makes a forbidden move that is otherwise OK. Defenders of the Capitol were practically removed and Democrats got the possibility of starting the political season of 2021 with impeachment and other jolly diversions, complete with the revival of Russia Gate.
I am agnostic about the causes, but the situation was highly peculiar.
It’s hard to build a sustainable media campaign on “a protest-turned-riot,” something that has periodically happened throughout our history, ever since the American Revolution. That said, note that liberal causes are not the same as progressive causes. A leading progressive cause is the survival of those left jobless, over 25 years into the Democrats’ war on the poor. To the liberal bourgeoisie/media, this remains a non-issue (a regressive, not progressive, capitalist ideology).
Trump’s sanctions not only on Russia but on Russian allies Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, Syria…. seem not to matter at all.The claim that Pres. Putin hates the USA, EU, democracy , peace, cooperation …..has no basis in fact and no evidence. None of this matters to the PTB or Pwannabe in the USA.
Iran is no more Russian ally than Turkey, which is the member of NATO. If Americans decide to stop their hostility toward Iran, Iran could easy participate in all anti-Russian conspiracies the same as EU countries do.
Turkey is a slacker in anti-Russian conspiracies. E.g. when South Stream was prevented from entering Bulgaria, Erdogan caught an economic/strategic plum. Nuclear power stations in Turkey are build by Rosatom (they are currently the best in the world on price and quality). Air defense systems purchased from Russia, again, saving billions of dollars.
And Trump even sanctioned Turkey, although lightly.
What is particularly hard to fathom is not so much the gross dishonesty and malice of politicians like H. Clinton and Pelosi but the boneheaded stupidity and ignorance of the broad population that accepts fables like Russiagate as fact.
This is a testament to the immense power of propaganda, when repeated on a daily basis by the mass media.
Joe Lauria says convincingly, “Russiagate was an invention to help explain away Hillary Clinton’s defeat in 2016 and to undermine the legitimacy of the man who beat her.”
At the risk of invoking Godwin’s Law, the “stab in the back legend” in post-World War I Germany was an invention by the extreme right wing and later Nazis to help explain away Germany’s defeat in that war and to undermine the legitimacy of the Weimar Republic, putting the blame on domestic “enemies” in cahoots with foreign adversaries.
Very much the same thing.
Russiagate was aimed at President Trump and a foreign enemy. Now, following the “new 9/11” of the Capitol Riot and planned domestic “antiterrorism” legislation, it looks like the state will mainly go after “domestic enemies”. A new Reichstag Fire has occurred. The parallels are becoming ever more apparent.
Russiagate was well afoot in the summer of 2016. It wasn’t merely to slander Trump. It was to prepare us for a war against Russia.
If I had access to network time I’d ask: If Russiagate is true, and if you have proof, why wasn’t Trump charged with treason? You had two chances to do it but Democratic leadership never thought to bring it up. How curious.
Yes. Just one point: Russia wasn’t a “foreign enemy” until the Clintonites falsely claimed that they somehow interfered with the 2016 election. Russia was a solid ally in both world wars. Since the Perestroika era, united efforts of US and Russian scientists brought extraordinary progress. There was solid unity from the fall of the Soviet state in the 1990s, until the Clintonites falsely accused Russia of some sort of “election interference.” This is how the Democrats destroyed decades of diplomatic progress toward nuclear disarmament.
I agree – I didn’t mean “enemy” in the literal sense, but rather in the sense you refer to.
Russian propaganda from the beginning has always and ever been to secure vast sums of revenue from the people’s’ taxes, and to scare the crap out of those same people. When Truman dropped the first A-bomb on Hiroshima, he remarked that ‘this will let the Russians know that we are serious’, or words to that effect. He slaughtered an urban populace to make a point! And generations of Americans were raised in fear of Russians and nuclear war.
The current state of domestic surveillance is a self-conscious recognition, I believe, of the wholly irresponsible policies of the two parties. Third-rate healthcare, pathetic public education, mass incarceration, and massive deregulation in the industrial and financial sectors. All to pay for wars and control across the globe. It is an arrangement that will continue to provoke protests, insurrection and conspiracy theorizing.
I find it amusing that the top ranks of the political hacks whose psy-ops that use Russia as the great threat against “the most powerful country in the world” – these hacks choose to ignore the real, the relevant investigation that should be in the forefront – the money trails of Trump’s so called financial empire – the banks, the oligarchs, the money laundering – the sources of his funding over the years who really would have had the opportunity to push him around…..
Investigating the finances may be too uncomfortable for them to examine….. Even though his financial schemes hurt real people – wages unpaid, debts unpaid; bankruptcies; students betrayed.
On another note – Amy Goodman on Democracy Now’s 1/21/21 news summary pointed out that the Biden Administration was sticking with Gaido being the “recognized” leader of Venezuela…..the democratically elected Maduro remains the target, apparently….
meanwhile FT writes that the “EU dropped its de facto recognition of Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s interim president, a serious diplomatic setback to the opposition leader’s faltering campaign to oust Nicolás Maduro from power.”
wikipedia:
“Venezuela is a major producer and exporter of minerals, notably bauxite, coal, gold, iron ore, and oil, and the state controls most of the country’s vast mineral reserves. In 2003 estimated reserves of bauxite totaled 5.2 million tons.”
countries in South America with Lithium ( used in batteries for electric vehicles) and who have democratic minded politicians who think their people should get some benefit from the country’s resources watch out for other U.S favored Guaidó’s…..
Thanks for raising the subject, Joe.
It’s really to ridiculous to merit a reply. One would think an honest party would have excreted Hillary Clinton by now, but no, they can’t. She still owns the DNC as I’ve repeated for years and note that Neither Joe Biden nor Harris nor any member of Biden’s cabinet would be there without the DNC/Hillary stamp of approval. Buttigieg’s appearance in a cabinet level post is solely her doing, for he has zero qualifications for that post. His presence is the equivalent of hers as Secretary of State- to give credence to his qualifications on hid next run for President. She failed hers; we’ll see about his.
Hillary’s handlers are the dangerous ones.
My greatest fear with Biden was that he would find a place for Hillary in his administration. My understanding of what happened during the 2016 primary was those emails downloaded at the DNC revealed what they were doing to take down Bernie as a candidate so that Hillary would be the Democratic candidate with the niave assumption she could win over Trump. Big mistake. Hillary has never been a viable candidate. And of course the DNC never wanted to sponsor a Socialist like Bernie. I was very concerned after the election of Trump that my Democratic state senators continued to insist Russia was involved. Blame Russia has been the mantra of the Democratic Party ever since. As suggested Bill Binney tried to disproved that connection but the party didn’t want to hear that. I agree with John Chuckman in his appraisal of Putin. I would never want to see Biden revive the ‘blame Russia’ mantra. Someone suggested we had to feed the military industrial complex so that’s why it happened. Needs to stop.
Hillary Clinton is a demented old bag who should shut her fat mouth and retire. She makes up this garbage out of her head and waves it around like a hatchet. Pelosi is no better and even older. I live in Pelosi’s district and have never voted for her. Only the identity politics crowd give serious hearing to these two old crows.
Who cares about Clinton’s age? She is a major war criminal.
Thanks to Obama & Clinton, Libya ceased to be a fully functioning state with the best healthcare system, best educational system, and best social security system. Thanks to Obama & Clinton, Libya became the land of slave markets. Slave markets! This is the legacy of Obama the Fraud and Clinton the Butcheress of Libya.
Clinton’s visceral hatred towards the honorable Julian Assange tells it all.
I have mixed opinion on that. On one hand, gerontocrats of Democratic Party are indeed waaaay past “best use before” date. As we all know, various products have limited durability, pears last less than oranges, and oranges less than apples. And with humans, creativity seems to stop first, then verbal capabilities etc. That said, some people lost their creativity back in preschool.
Thus once gerontocrats latched onto Russia Gate they will give up only when they turn to complete vegetables.
But another phenomenon is that of “good student”. One who perfectly learns textbooks, scripts and so on. Real world does not matter. Buttiegieg seemed a perfect good student of the new generation of Democrats (except his name is too complicated, family situation is too complicated, home state is to Republican, he may become a good think tanker).
Good students can absorb all arguments of Russia Gate, anti-single payer position etc. etc. Their creativity is directed into “demographics”, “messaging”, fundraising etc.
However, I am deeply puzzled if anybody cares about Russia Gate except more educated Democrats (good student class). Perhaps it helps in fundraising — convincing people who can donate? On the level of demographics and messaging, I did not see it being effective against Republicans. And it was largely absent from Elections 2020/21 (November plus Georgian January).
Where it seems still useful is in the internal games of Democratic Party. At least, it was deployed against Sanders and Gabbard.
” I hope historically we will find out who he’s beholden to, who pulls his strings.” Pearls from “the queen of chaos”.
It is very distressing that anyone would listen anymore to the Hillary. She has something in common with Trump, a gargantuan ego. As a fellow narcissist she responded similarly to a defeat that shattered self illusions of importance. They both descended into delusions that excused their electoral failures and national rejections. I believe this is the source of her continuing to whip the nonsensical whipping boy of Russiagate.
Her statements also show an amazing misunderstanding of Trump. The Donald has always been, and always will care only about himself. The only strings that pull him are his father’s inculcating greed and ruthlessness. “You can be either a victim or a predator, one or the other” DJT. Let’s also give a nod to Roy Cohn’s mentoring, who continued his education into late adulthood.
Roy Cohn was a life-long registered Democrat. He came out of the politics of New York and knew the Republicans were outsiders who would not be tolerated. Cohn was chosen over RFK as chief counsel for Joe McCarthy (who switched parties to the Republicans in 1944). Both Cohn and Kennedy (and JFK) worked closely and socialized with McCarthy, who could be seen as a mentor to both, beloved by the Kennedy family. Politics indeed make strange bedfellows.
She’s like zombie that won’t stay down: “We came, we saw, he died, hahaha.” Revolting. So will a commission look at the security failures on January 6? My wish would be yes, and it’s shown that though an obscene amount of taxpayer money is thrown at the security apparatus, it can’t even protect “the center of democracy” from a hodgepodge mob. Therefore it’s decided to re-assess where that money should go, and it’s used to help people fund their lives, aka pay their bills and debts. In my dreams, I know.
“Beyond that, Russiagate has been a convenient and successful strategy of deflection from one’s own responsibility for America’s social and political crises.”
This, more than providing cover for HRC’s disastrous nomination and campaign, I believe is the true purpose. Remember that – love him or hate him – Sanders was the only high profile politician actually beginning to articulate the root causes of US dysfunction and it was resonating energetically on the left of the D leaning electorate. This of course HAD to be nipped in the bud or the whole corrupt gravy train might be exposed. With Russiagate a “crisis” was manufactured that absolved the D’s from doing anything to address our real problems (and thus hinder the gravy train.)
I composed a long comment on the environmental piece posted yesterday, but before I posted it wanted to check on some details because I didn’t want to add to the noise by posting something poorly-informed or flat out wrong. The gist of that comment was that the fight over Nordstream II is mainly about the effort to force US exported LNG derived from shalegas on our European “allies.” I reviewed two pieces, one from The Atlantic Council and one from The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. The Atlantic Council piece was a jaw-dropping screed of such hateful anti-Russian propaganda that it made me shudder. The Oxford piece was an in-depth analysis of all of Russia’s gas exporting capability via Gazprom to Europe and the Near East. Hard to plow through, full of important technical considerations, but it painted a picture of a sovereign nation and national industry doing what any other such entities would be doing to successfully operate in any commodities market. ( I did not post that comment – the subject needs an in-depth analysis and exposure.)
The satirical organization The Onion picked such a perfect name. I realized during the GWB administration the the layers of lies, misdirection, and obfuscation one must try to burrow through is exactly like peeling back the layers of an onion. So hard to get to the truth and even harder to formulate a strategy to domestically organize to change it. And it often makes your eyes tear up.
I saw yesterday that the “European Parliament” voted to sanction Russia and stop the remaining bit of the Nordstream pipeline (Pompass had already tried to stop at the last minute too) because of …..Navalny!!!! Hard to believe-the pipeline to bring Russian gas to Germany and the rest of Europe, voluntarily undertaken as a commercial venture between partners knowing the needs and wishes of their people, being challenged by “European” well-paid “reps” allegedly upset for a common criminal in Russia!!!!
Trumps planned demise: configuring and associating Trump with Putin is intended to destroy his credibility as a real patriot and detach the ex president from his white nationalist support base which in the longer term will undermine his ability to stand for re-election. At the same time every effort will be made to criminalise and delegitimize his support base causing confusion and disillusionment among the myriad Trump supporters. In addition the threat of a new more capable leader than Trump who may attempt to redefine the movement giving it a new impetus and hope is a scenario the deep state will seek to prevent. There’s nothing here we haven’t seen the US Deep State do abroad in regime change operations it’s all so bloody predictable the thing is will Trumps supporters see it for what it is and respond in kind?
Donald needed to go because the DNC (the CIA, MIC, and the Lobby) couldn’t tolerate the’ inactivity’ in the Middle East.
The “humanitarian interventions,” regime-changes, and the “democracy on the march” demand more flesh and blood for the glory of financial Squid and war profiteers: fhttps://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2021/01/were-back-baby-bombn-biden-says-come-on-man-were-off-to-war-by-fred.html#more
“A large U.S. military convoy was seen entering northeastern Syria on Thursday… According to a field report from northeastern Syria on Thursday, the U.S. military convoy entered the Al-Hasakah Governorate from neighboring Iraq…”
Thanks for the excellent summary of Russiagate and for yet another glimpse into the corrupt, demented mind of Hillary Clinton. What a treasure she is: her hand in the Honduras coup, her role in the destruction of Libra, the arm shipments to ISIS and other “moderate rebels” in the attempted overthrow of the Syrian government. And like so many other “statesmen” never held accountable for her actions.
OOps…Only western politicos/”states” folkies are NOT held accountable, no matter how criminal – as in human rights/illegal warring – their actions…
One only has to list everything that the US has done to other peoples from the dropping of those two A bombs on civilian populations in 1945, through the US initiated and heavily destructive Korean and Vietnamese Wars, the Use of the Marshall Islands (and their population) as nuclear testing sites, to the Chagos Islanders being forcefully removed from their homes and dumped in Madagascar in order for the US to build its huge base there (Diego Garcia), to the bombing of Grenada, Panama, Serbia (40+ days and nights and largely on civilians), invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq (based on utter lies), Bombing of Libya, Syria, Torture at so-called black sites overseen if not done by the now Blue Face vaunted CIA, Guantanamo (still existing and zero mention), the Economic Sanctions, i.e. Siege Warfare, of Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and all of those legitimately elected govts from Guatemala (Arbenz), to Iran (Mossadegh), to Allende (Chile) and on and on overthrown with the CIA’s direct or indirect assistance…
And that doesn’t include the Human Rights that our govt and helpers have done back here: genocidal ethnic-cleansing, our own sterilization of the Mentally handicapped, Native Americans, and African Americans (up to c. 1980) and possibly some of the female Latino attempted immigrants of these past four years, MK – ULTRA and Mr Sidney Gottlieb et al…
We have absolutely Zero position to even talk about, mention other countries’ “human rights abuses” when we have done and continue to do these and many another barbarism to other peoples (and our own)…but listening to NPR (and the Beeb – and the UK has more than enough of its own HRs abuses in its history and present) you’d think we had never and were not so committing as we breathe any such abominations, heinous crimes…
In my darker moments I’m thinking that those dropped bombs etc etc are simply moving merchandise out to boost sales for the next quarter…justifying the huge budget….
A for profit arms industry is grotesque – we need the enemies to keep it going…
Are we consciously aware that that’s part of it all?
Somewhere in the back of everyone’s minds as Leonard Cohen sings – “Everybody knows”.
I always enjoy your clear informative direct comments. Thanks!!!!
Thank you very muchly, evelync… Since my husband died this is one of the few places where I can, sometimes, let off a little of my political steam and not be trashed!!!
Sorry that you lost your husband, Anne.
People – humans – have a long way to go to be able to communicate well enough to avoid violent flailing about with confusion and trashing others with whom they think they disagree.
They’d be better off trying to get to bottom of what upsets them about others’ comments in an effort to understand the differences between the “opposing” views. Common ground can, I think, sometimes be achieved by asking questions instead of flailing about trashing others.
One example, IMO, of unnecessary sometimes violent disagreement on social issues that politicians love to drum up but common ground might be reachable…:
Years ago I head a Harvard social scientist point out that Sweden (I think it was Sweden) has the most liberal abortion laws and the fewest abortions. Why?
Because, she’s said, Sweden provided housing, medical care and financial support and a job after the pregnant woman was able to go back to work….
If that could be explained to everyone maybe it would deflate the disinformation balloon that distances people from one another so that these differences could be resolved and acceptable solutions found…
We have a long way to go…..
It’s good your thoughts are appreciated here!
Exactly. The powers that be do everything possible to keep the public’s attention away from all the harm the US govt does.
EVERY SINGLE DAY.
Primarily to foreigners.
Through bombs, bullets and sanctions.
Exactly. She should be retired to the Home for Old Authoritarian Liars.
Home for Old Authoritarian Liars? While Hillary is not there, Capitol still had Pelosi, Schumer etc., perhaps the largest number of OALs that you can find in any building. There they have the most complete package including necessary medical care, exercise facilities proper for their age, and access to the media (they tend to turn morose and apathetic without it).
It’s disheartening to read the prattle from Clinton/Pelosi, and realize there are three possibilities here: either the two of them really are that stupid to continue with Russia-gate nonsense, or they’re doing this for public consumption, and they regard their acolytes/supporters as stupid, or some combination of the two. Given their insulation by virtue of wealth from the day to day realities most Americans fact, I’m opting for #3.
Coupling this display with Biden’s long history of being on the wrong side of nearly every major policy decision over the last 4 decades, and it’s easy to see why “nothing fundamental will change” is likely the most truthful thing this new administration will say.
Another fine, well-articulated article, nicely debunking once again the risible “Russiagate” hoax which the establishment, DNC-directed Dems just can’t seem to let go of, at least as long as the general American public has not yet been provided with any thorough debunking, — of the type, say, that Bill Binney is STILL unsuccessfully trying to interest the MSM to cover — as long, that is, as the still largely uncritical mass of the MSMs’ audiences remain easy “marks” for such ostensibly “official” conspiracy theories, especially those having the solid support of 17, oops, 1, intelligence agency, oops, 1 former CIA director, and a couple of other old timers who were dragooned into declaring before a congressional committee that they too believed that Russian interference in our elections was at least “highly probable.”
Clearly only with a very wide dissemination of the truths about Russiagate, only with a refutation reaching out well beyond the recipients of the alternative press, only with one which is easily available to, and comprehensible by the general public are we likely to see any retraction or diminution of the many spurious reiterated Russiaphobic accusations from the Dems. Just how to facilitate such a wide-ranging dissemination of a sensible deconstruction and refutation of the hoax is, of course, a huge remaining problem for all of us determined to bring the truth to as many of our compatriots as possible.
While I completely agree with all that you have written, Joe, I would like to comment on two things you mentioned in passing. First, just as you say, the Dems are claiming that the U.S. needs “a 9/11-type commission to investigate and report everything” about Russian interference. Such a demand is quite humorous even just taken upon its literal meaning, since, if there is one thing that is NOT needed it is precisely something like the chaotically hobbled together, — and in the face of great opposition from the Bush administration, — intentionally starved of funds, de facto whitewash, produced by the “just accidentally” amazingly pro-Zionist 9/11 commission, a report that was even quickly disowned by several of its authors as just such a political whitewash upon its release!
But even if we assume our goodly Dems mean to call for some more serious, fair-minded, disinterested, inquiry into the actual facts behind the great Russiagate hoax, that too is something the Dems could hardly be serious about commissioning since it would presumably only quickly reveal just what so many of us have been arguing for four years now, most specifically, inter alia, that the DNC emails, including Hillary Clinton’s illegally unsecured emails, could not possibly have been obtained through a Russian, or any other kind of “hack,” but merely through an on-site download of the files onto a thumb drive, something which can be, and demonstrably was, accomplished in only a fraction of the time any hack would require, and the subsequently physical delivery of that thumb drive to Wikileaks.
That the emails were indeed leaked to Wikileaks, not provided to Assange by mysterious, non-existing “Guccifer 2.0” hackers, as still claimed in the official account, has also been maintained consistently by Julian Assange himself, much to the always deaf ears of the MSM. Indeed, anyone with more curiosity and intelligence than a grapefruit can easily determine, both from Assange’s own actions apropos the matter, and from other evidence, including a direct naming of the person, provided by those who were closely associated with Wikileaks at the time, exactly who it was who hand-delivered the thumb drive in question to Assange. But this truth of the matter, while easy to obtain, also destroys what little remains of the ONLY link the Dems have which allegedly ties Trump to the genetically nefarious Russians, which is why, of course, Mueller declined to interview Assange, even though the latter was quite willing to set him straight. And so, all the conspiracy seeking Dems can do, aside from admitting it was a hoax from the git go, which they are certainly unlikely to do, is double down on their conspiratorial nonsense while hoping that its debunking remains confined to the easily demonized “alternative” press, as, alas, it has been so far.
And thus, just to coin a new phrase, we can say that; “Russiagate lives on because the moment for its demise [i.e. public refutation] was missed.” Well, mostly missed, that is, since a few of us, and first among them all of you at Consortium News, didn’t miss the disingenuous legerdemain at all, but spoke out clearly against it, albeit not yet in a manner that could have finished the employment of such a pack of obvious lies off once and for all in the minds of the American people.
P.S.: At the risk of displaying my ignorance about such things, what does “h/t Biden” mean?
h/t= hat tip. To Biden for his ancient use of the word “malarkey.”
Thanks for the clarification about “h/t” which I somehow had not yet encountered before. But if “h/t” means “hat tip,” what abbreviation can we use when someone does something that is a veritable “hat trick”?
The FBI still did not look at Seth Rich’s computer.
Meanwhile, the fraudsters at CrowdStrike have been prospering and those who hired a foreign agent Steele to slander POTUS were not punished as traitors.
Trump was not president when Steele wrote the opposition research.
Anna if one does some checking one would find that Orange Blob slandered himself on a regular basis, of course believing that require that one believe he was “Liar In Chief” and that he is totally incapable of normal behavior.
Thar said FBI and CIA were deeply involved in the NUMEC caper. Check the [edafrly] investigation records.
A lie is a lie no matter who denies it.
“At long last, Hillary, have you left no sense of decency?”
This is a long time coming.
see: marisol-nostromo.medium.com/turnabout-for-liberals-f6292c6846ae
Hillary:” I would love to see his phone records to see if he was talking to Putin the day the insurgents invaded our Capitol”
That has to be the most idiotic thing Hillary Clinton has ever said, and she has said a great many idiotic things.
First, does she not know that the NSA and CIA and FBI would immediately be on to any such communication?
Is she really that naïve? No, of course not, she is simply a grotesque liar.
Second, I have studied and written about Putin fairly extensively.
He is a calm, pragmatic, and highly intelligent man, one with Russia’s best interests always at heart.
The last thing he would want to see is instability in the United States with all the immense dangers that would represent.
It is precisely American politicians like Hillary who are a threat to global stability
Yes, she IS that naive or dangerously reckless. I refer you to her first three months as Sec State in which she apparently ran her governmental email from a home server.
All too bloody True, John. And she is the classic example (along with the Snatcher) of why we should never be lulled, duped into the belief that being female makes you saintly, ethical, humane thus totally unlike males…Not hardly (and I’m female)… She is as barbaric, inhumane, compunctionless, immoral, rapacious as any male politico/corporate-capitalist-imperialist has ever been – and has a similarly inflated ego…Mind you, Pelosi isn’t all that far behind and definitely Albright was kindred and KH is definitely so…
Hear, hear.
Thank you for your sanity. Hillary is certainly certifiable by this time.
Something that always or mostly always occurs in such articles about Russia is the absence of such remarks as never proven or speculation, i.e. caveats. They appear in abundance when Russia or somewhat considered pro Russian or neutral makes a claim. The pattern continues when the main story is the skepticism about or refutation of claims made by the other side. The story is the disclaimer, not what is being claimed. For all his warts, Trump lived with this for four years and one wonders, and this is speculative, if it drove him off the deep end. His behavior may have been considered rational, but a pretty case can be made that it was not.
As to Mister Lauria, how many old style journalists looking for the truth are around today. Maybe they never existed. Anyway, Mister Lauria. you are a pleasure to read.
“Maybe they never existed.”
The list is short, but they did. I.F. Stone, George Seldes, Upton Sinclair, Lincoln Steffens, Bob Parry, H.L. Menckhen…to name a few. Considering his essays and journalism you’d have to include Mark Twain too. Lauria doesn’t make that list.
“Lauria doesn’t make that list.” Sounds like something Samuel Clemens might have said.
Seymour Hersh!
What has happened to Seymour Hersh? Did he retire? Or get fed up?
That really is an honor roll!