Exclusive: The new Russia-gate furor is over Donald Trump Jr. meeting a Russian who claimed to have dirt on Hillary Clinton, but the Clinton team’s Russian cash-for-trash search against Trump Sr. is all but forgotten, writes Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
Yes, I realize that the editors of The New York Times long ago cast aside any journalistic professionalism to become charter members of the #Resistance against Donald Trump. But the latest frenzy over a meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer who was dangling the possibility of information about the Democrats receiving money from Russians represents one of the more remarkable moments of the entire Russia-gate hysteria.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Essentially, Trump’s oldest son is being accused of taking a meeting with a foreign national who claimed to have knowledge of potentially illegal activities by Trump’s Democratic rivals, although the promised information apparently turned out to be a dud.
Yet, on Monday, the Times led its newspaper with a story about this meeting – and commentators on MSNBC and elsewhere are labeling Trump Jr. a criminal if not a traitor for hearing out this lawyer.
Yet, no one seems to remember that Hillary Clinton supporters paid large sums of money, reportedly about $1 million, to have ex-British spy Christopher Steele use his Russian connections to dig up dirt on Trump inside Russia, resulting in a salacious dossier that Clinton backers eagerly hawked to the news media.
Also, the two events – Trump Jr.’s meeting with the Russian lawyer and the Clinton camp’s commissioning of Steele’s Russia dossier – both occurred in June 2016, so you might have thought it would be a journalistic imperative to incorporate a reference or two to the dossier.
But the closest the Times came to that was noting: “Political campaigns collect opposition research from many quarters but rarely from sources linked to foreign governments.” That would have been an opportune point to slide in a paragraph about the Steele dossier, but nothing.
The Times doesn’t seem to have much historical memory either. There actually have been a number of cases in which American presidential campaigns have ventured overseas to seek out “opposition research” about rivals.
For instance, in 1992, President George H.W. Bush took a personal role in trying to obtain derogatory information about Bill Clinton’s 1970 student trip to Eastern Europe, including to Moscow.
That effort started out by having senior State Department officials rifle through the passport files of Clinton and his mother, looking for a purported letter in which some Republican operatives thought Clinton might have renounced his U.S. citizenship.
Bush and his team were called out on that caper, which became known as “Passport-gate.” During the Oct. 11, 1992 debate, Clinton even compared Bush’s tactics to Joe McCarthy’s during the 1950s Red Scare. But the Bush campaign didn’t let the issue entirely go.
Czech-ing on Bill
In the days after the debate, phone records revealed a flurry of calls from Bush’s campaign headquarters to Czechoslovakia, another stop on Clinton’s student tour. There were also fax transmissions on Oct. 14 and 15, 1992, according to a later official investigation.
Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton debating with President George H.W. Bush in 1992.
On Oct. 16, what appears to have been a return call was placed from the U.S. Embassy in Prague to the office of ad man Sig Rogich, who was handling anti-Clinton themes for the Bush campaign.
Following those exchanges, stories about Clinton’s Prague trip began popping up in Czech newspapers. On Oct. 24, 1992, three Czech newspapers ran similar stories about Clinton’s Czech hosts. The Cesky Denik story had an especially nasty headline: “Bill Was With Communists.”
The Czech articles soon blew back to the United States. Reuters distributed a summary, and The Washington Times, over three consecutive days, ran articles about Clinton’s Czech trip. The Clinton campaign responded that Clinton had entered Czechoslovakia under normal procedures for a student and stayed with the family of an Oxford friend.
Despite those last-minute efforts to revive Clinton’s loyalty issue, the Democrat held on to defeat Bush in a three-way race (with Ross Perot).
You also could go back to Republican contacts with South Vietnamese officials to sabotage President Lyndon Johnson’s Vietnam peace talks in 1968 and similar meetings with Iranian emissaries to frustrate President Jimmy Carter’s Iran hostage negotiations in 1980, including a curious meeting involving senior Ronald Reagan campaign aides at the L’Enfant Plaza Hotel in Washington, D.C.
But the Steele dossier is a more immediate and direct example of close Hillary Clinton supporters going outside the United States for dirt on Trump and collaborating with foreign nationals to dig it up – allegedly from Kremlin insiders. Although it is still not clear exactly who footed the bill for the Steele dossier and how much money was spread around to the Russian contacts, it is clear that Clinton supporters paid for the opposition research and then flacked the material to American journalists.
The Mystery Dossier
As I wrote on March 29, “An irony of the escalating hysteria about the Trump camp’s contacts with Russians is that one presidential campaign in 2016 did exploit political dirt that supposedly came from the Kremlin and other Russian sources. Friends of that political campaign paid for this anonymous hearsay material, shared it with American journalists and urged them to publish it to gain an electoral advantage. But this campaign was not Donald Trump’s; it was Hillary Clinton’s.
The luxury Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Moscow
“And, awareness of this activity doesn’t require you to spin conspiracy theories about what may or may not have been said during some seemingly innocuous conversation. In this case, you have open admissions about how these Russian/Kremlin claims were used.
“Indeed, you have the words of Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, in his opening statement at [a] public hearing on so-called ‘Russia-gate.’ Schiff’s seamless 15-minute narrative of the Trump campaign’s alleged collaboration with Russia followed the script prepared by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele who was hired as an opposition researcher last June [2016] to dig up derogatory information on Donald Trump.
“Steele, who had worked for Britain’s MI-6 in Russia, said he tapped into ex-colleagues and unnamed sources inside Russia, including leadership figures in the Kremlin, to piece together a series of sensational reports that became the basis of the current congressional and FBI investigations into Trump’s alleged ties to Moscow.
“Since he was not able to go to Russia himself, Steele based his reports mostly on multiple hearsay from anonymous Russians who claim to have heard some information from their government contacts before passing it on to Steele’s associates who then gave it to Steele who compiled this mix of rumors and alleged inside dope into ‘raw’ intelligence reports.
“Besides the anonymous sourcing and the sources’ financial incentives to dig up dirt, Steele’s reports had numerous other problems, including the inability of a variety of investigators to confirm key elements, such as the salacious claim that several years ago Russian intelligence operatives secretly videotaped Trump having prostitutes urinate on him while he lay in the same bed in Moscow’s Ritz-Carlton used by President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama.
“That tantalizing tidbit was included in Steele’s opening report to his new clients, dated June 20, 2016. Apparently, it proved irresistible in whetting the appetite of Clinton’s mysterious benefactors who were financing Steele’s dirt digging and who have kept their identities (and the amounts paid) hidden. Also in that first report were the basic outlines of what has become the scandal that is now threatening the survival of Trump’s embattled presidency.”
The Trump Jr. Meeting
So, compare that with what we know about the June 9, 2016 meeting at Trump Tower in New York City, which Donald J. Trump Jr. says he agreed to because someone was claiming knowledge about Russian payments helping Hillary Clinton.
Sergei Magnitsky
Trump Jr. said Russian lawyer Natalie Veselnitskaya “stated that she had information that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting Mrs. Clinton. Her statements were vague, ambiguous and made no sense. No details or supporting information was provided or even offered. It quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information.”
According to Trump Jr.’s account, Veselnitskaya then turned the conversation to President Vladimir Putin’s cancellation of an adoption program which had sent Russian children to American parents, a move he took in reaction to the so-called Magnitsky Act, a 2012 punitive law passed by the U.S. Congress in retaliation for the 2009 death of Sergei Magnitsky in a Russian jail.
The death became a Western cause célèbre with Magnitsky, the accountant for hedge-fund executive William Browder, hailed as a martyr in the cause of whistleblowing against a profoundly corrupt Russian government. After Magnitsky’s death from a heart attack, Browder claimed that his “lawyer” Magnitsky had been tortured and murdered to cover up official complicity in a $230 million tax-fraud scheme involving companies ostensibly under Browder’s control.
Because of Browder’s wealth and political influence, he succeeded in getting the European Parliament and the U.S. Congress to buy into his narrative and move to punish the presumed villains in the tax fraud and in Magnitsky’s death. The U.S.-enacted Magnitsky Act in 2012 was an opening salvo in what has become a new Cold War between Washington and Moscow.
Only One Side Heard
The Magnitsky narrative has now become so engrained in Western geopolitical mythology that the storyline apparently can no longer be questioned or challenged. The New York Times reports Browder’s narrative as flat fact, and The Washington Post took pleasure in denouncing a 2016 documentary that turned Browder’s version of events on its head.
Financier William Browder (right) with Magnitsky’s widow and son, along with European parliamentarians.
The documentary, entitled “The Magnitsky Act. Behind the Scenes,” was essentially blocked for distribution in the West, with the European Parliament pulling the plug on its planned premiere in Brussels shortly before it was scheduled for showing.
When the documentary got a single showing at the Newseum in Washington, a Washington Post editorial branded the documentary Russian “agit-prop.”
The Post sought to discredit the filmmaker, Andrei Nekrasov, without addressing his avalanche of documented examples of Browder’s misrepresenting both big and small facts in the case. Instead, the Post accused Nekrasov of using “facts highly selectively” and insinuated that he was merely a pawn in the Kremlin’s “campaign to discredit Mr. Browder and the Magnitsky Act.”
The Post concluded smugly: “The film won’t grab a wide audience, but it offers yet another example of the Kremlin’s increasingly sophisticated efforts to spread its illiberal values and mind-set abroad. In the European Parliament and on French and German television networks, showings were put off recently after questions were raised about the accuracy of the film, including by Magnitsky’s family.
“We don’t worry that Mr. Nekrasov’s film was screened here, in an open society. But it is important that such slick spin be fully exposed for its twisted story and sly deceptions.”
Given the fact that virtually no one in the West was allowed to see the film, the Post’s gleeful editorial had the feel of something you might read in a totalitarian society where the public only hears about dissent when the Official Organs of the State denounce some almost unknown person for saying something that almost no one heard.
What the Post didn’t want you to know was that Nekrasov started off his project with the goal of producing a docu-drama that accepted Browder’s self-serving narrative. However, during the research, Nekrasov uncovered evidence that revealed that Magnitsky was neither a “lawyer” nor a whistleblower; that the scam involving Browder’s companies had been exposed by a woman employee; and that Magnitsky, an accountant for Browder, was arrested as a conspirator in the fraud.
As the documentary unfolds, you see Nekrasov struggling with his dilemma as Browder grows increasingly abusive toward his erstwhile ally. Nekrasov painfully concludes that Browder had deceived him.
But, don’t worry, as a citizen in the Free World, you probably will never have to worry about viewing this documentary, since it has been effectively flushed down the memory hole. Official references to Magnitsky are back in the proper form, treating him as a Martyr for Truth and a victim of the Evil Russians.
Plus, if you rely on The New York Times, The Washington Post, MSNBC, CNN and the rest of the U.S. mainstream media for your news, you won’t have to think about the far more substantive case of the Steele Dossier in which Hillary Clinton’s allies spent gobs of money seeking out sources in Russia to serve up dirt on Donald Trump.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).
On reflection, I shouldn’t judge our pubescent presidentsky on his predilection for water sports, especially “synchronized whizzing”.Sad
Thank you for your insight on “Pee-Watergate”.
who cares… does the cost and writings help the low and middle class of the American people. when are we going to realize the media does not care about helping most citizens,
Why doe the Liberal #media avoid publishing anything the #LibDems do, but jump on anything the #GOP does like a bird on a worm?
Just because you broke large stories in the 80’s does not make you an expert on Trump and the Russians. There are converging line of evidence, not all by newspapers, that lead to the conclusion that there was collusion. Yes, many things happen in campaigns-more than any of us knew. However, Donald Trump’s behavior ALONE is enough to have him removed from the presidency. He lies to the American people and to the Senate and House of Representatives, he is unable to read a full briefing and is must be “dummy downed” s his attention span is so short. He is obsessed with watching all the stations you list. Why not tell him to stop since you know so much. I am sure that your writing will be a feather in his cap (dunce cap). This man holds our country’s fate in his hand and as a psychologist with a PhD who has watched his behavior carefully, I think we should be worried about his lack of judgment, constant flip flopping on major stories and outright lies shown of him saying one thing and within 24 hrs or less contradicting it. He carries, so to speak, the football and could put us in harms way in minutes if not seconds. His instability and incapacity for compassion is something I have not seen nor read about in my studies and I have been in the field for over 30 years. Forget about this gate and that gate. The information is in front of you. The man is a pathological liar who has no one’s interests but his own in sight. Forget about all of the news stories; because without them you have a man who is very ill and should not be leading our country or have any other job of importance. Allow him to be studied by a team of independent professionals and the conclusion will be the man has no capacity for complex thinking or compassion. That makes him dangerous. I will not go into more complex psychological issues as what I have written is enough without considering all that you have written. He got to be president because he colluded with the Russians-it is obvious and I am sorry you cannot see it.
He is dangerous and must be removed from the office of the presidency. That is the bottom line.
It appears more likely that dnc or Clinton foundation was in on Russian collusion to make Trump look bad. This is what one would call “dirty politics”.
Two things ignored: 1) even if one grants a moral equivalence between Trump and Clinton, two parties doing the same thing wrong doesn’t make it right. Trump is still wrong; 2) the difference between employing an individual, foreign agent to supply information and accepting unsolicited, gifted information from a hostile, foreign intelligence agencies is the difference between Ephialtes of Trachis and the Trojan Horse.
I am so happy and refreshed to read some real journalism. Keep up the great work that you are doing by keeping the IQless news honest.
False: It’s, clearly, the Chicken Little Syndrome. That’s what you get when you spend decades on a propaganda campaign of petty and crude character assassination. And when none of the smears and absurd accusations stick – despite an entire media industry, political movement and hundreds of millions of tax payer money blown on investigations, hearings, probes and witch hunts trying to pin anything you can pull out of your lying ass on them, reasonable people will see YOU as the scumbag, devious liar and the problem – not your mark. That’s just how it is. It all makes sense. The vast right-wing conspiracy is a real thing. The good news is, by definition, they’re not too fucking bright.
Kind of reminds you how news is reported out of the Middle East here in the states. In that version Israel is the innocent victim of vicious Arabs bent on annihilating them and there is no such thing as an occupation. That has been the mainstream version for decades and it is patently false. The truth about that has been effectively censored in the states for decades and this seems to be a more recent example. Our free press is not the font of accuracy or truth and the party line about the Russians is dangerous, these guys can kill many millions of us in a nuclear exchange. Putin being exKGB is a brand of evil but Bush heading CIA is just another line in the CV. We are not being allowed to access all information and decide, we are being handled.
It seems however that there is a legal difference between supporters of Clinton (not the campaign) commissioning the Steele Dossier and the actual Trump campaign taking a meeting with the expectation that they would get dirt on Clinton directly from a foreign government source. But I’m not an attorney. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Russians were trolling the Trump campaign simply to sow chaos and division at some later point. Why in the world would Gladstone specifically add this line to his email “This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump – helped along by Aras and Emin.” Either extremely careless in a mass surveillance environment or deliberately intended to cause issues down the road…
I always look forward to your comments. But this time I have to comment. Hillary Clinton is far from my favorite person,but she is not President so what she did i the c as officials. This is also unprecedented. What would we have thought of Bush if he had used his daughters in his cabinet? I just cannot understand your article.
This is an unprecedented situation, and we cannot expect regular reactions to all the goings on of the Trump family
Crickets from Parry and you other Trump enablers. Figures. You were wrong and it’s time to fess up. How much “hard evidence” do you need to show that this administration…and the Trump family especially is a cabal of shysters, liars and the worst America has to offer.
Start doing you “job”. I haven’t seen any “investigative reporting” here is a age. Rehashing old, tired entrenched viewpoints doesn’t cut it. Not that there wasn’t some validity to much of it…it’s just CN got stuck in a narrative that is stale and useless at this point.
Trump must go. The nations future depends on it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6_ckWZCHW4
Stiv, weren’t you the lead singer of The Dead Boys way back when. Too bad you fell off the stage and cracked your head, You were the real thing. As for the Trumps and their lack of moral virtue and purity, oh well,, Oops there. You got ’em. How about the Bush Family. That we were suppose to sanction Jeb Bush for the Nomination of te Republican Party in 2016 after what happened in Florida and this nation accordingly in 2000 was so much four letter word in the face of every American …,after the Bush Administration ruined our economy and the NeoCons destroyed our Foreign Policy and the entire New World Order,was all good I guess. Come on, there is such a thing as history. Recent memory also. I’m taken back to 1992 Jerry Brown was exposing the Clintons in Nationally Televised Debates. He said among other things that the Clintons were “Grifters” . Jesus Stiv , Hillary stole the White House China. Hey, Stiv I have a long memory. Oh yeah, Trump is bad alright but compared to Bushies and Clintons, Golden Showers notwithstanding, he;s a veritable paragon of moral virtue. Peace on it Brother.
I’m no Trump supporter, but It seems like a double standard is used for meetings with Russians, while the US sees itself as exempt from the sin of political meddling in foreign elections. Just last year, during the Brexit Referendum, Obama flew to London to publicly support the Government’s anti-Brexat position, while shortly thereafter, Trump arrived to support the pro-Brexit forces. Of course, we are all aware of the more horrifying examples of the US completely overthrowing governments whose elections it opposed, or destroying whole countries based on faked intelligence. We can all fill in a long list of destroyed countries and mourn the wasted lives and treasure.
When a Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu personally campaigned with Romney against Obama (2012 US Pres. Election), wasn’t that a clear and obvious example of a foreign official colluding to help the Republican candidate? Or further, Netanyahu invited to Congress by the Republicans to draw up bomb scenarios against the dangers of a nuclear Iran. I don’t remember any of the mainstream press having any problem with that, even though the evidence was as clear as day.
Robert, you didn’t present the Steele episode honestly. The republicans hired Glenn Simpson to get dirt on Trump. Clinton had nothing to do with it. After Trump won the nomination, the democrats became involved. Simpson and Steele had gathered what they considered terrifying information on Trump and Russia and wanted it to get out.
People have been killed over these actions and I think it had to do with getting the Russians leaking information to Steele. One guy was dragged out of an intelligence meeting with a bag over his head.
Steele was enlisted because he had done such a bang up job discrediting FIFA when Obama was maneuvering to have the World Cup taken away from Russia. The charges that he invoked did not turn out to be prosecutable but the damage was done. It was impossible at such a late date to take the WC away from Russia, FIFA decided, or surely Obama and his British attack dogs ( Of which Steele is one ) would have succeeded. Steele and his team with the help of British Intelligence, manufactured the FIFA charges from innuendo. The Trump dossier the same. And the idea that Russia could actually use this information against Trump in a way that would be beneficial to them was ludicrous to begin with. BY the way, if corruption in soccer was a problem, Italy would never had been allowed to play in the Final of the World Cup in Berlin in 2006. Their corruption had already been proven and dozens of officials and Italian Soccer players had not only been implicated but had confessed. I can’t believe that you really buy the rot you just printed. This whole game is all BS. Take a vacation. get away for a while.
Actually he really got busy on the Russian Doping Scandal before the Olympics and did quite well there also.
I recall a team manager/player (don’t remember which but think it was the former) of an African team saying that the ability to buy/bribe a chance at hosting games at various levels oddly enough leveled the field — those leagues from poorer countries could never have “won” on merit … but successfully winning the bid and bringing the games to the home countries was enormous in attracting development money …
it’s not unlike how buying jobs or a slot in university (often for the best and brightest of the younger generation) is then repaid across that young person’s lifetime as he/she then gets a foot in the door and — working feverishly — makes their way up the ladder …
Without bribery, nepotism and cronyism (and/or “legacy”) would fill EVERY SINGLE SLOT shutting out all aspiring students/players/teams …
(I heard this explained on BBC … also that the corruption within FIFA was long-standing and openly understood … the “scandal” was largely attributed to “American Revenge” for not winning a bid… Less the “knight in shining armor” cleaning the Agean Stables … more Americans wiping the game board clear and (effectively) demaning everyone play by their rules (or at least rules they approved of) … and the vast shaming and aspersions cast, particularly (irrc) on Russian bid the world cup.
See also Sochi — when boycotting isn’t enough, we cast as much of a mean-girls pall over the proceedings … American coverage of Rio Olympics was fairly jaundiced … and before that such disapproval of Greece … there’s a deep “Ugly American” quality to all this.
This certainly is interesting. I applaud Perry for delving into places the MSM won’t go. I am bothered though, that by playing the contrarian role he appears to be a shill for Trump. Alas, that is the reality of the world. It seems we are in the middle of a giant disinformation battle. We had to put up with all the Benghazi, emailgate and now this. Who the heck wants to disarm after Benghazi? After Trump exploited all of that “fake” news and now cries when he is the victim of fake news. My question for Perry is how can you achieve balance here? You do a good job of asking important questions but in doing so you avoid the fact that even if there is limited to no collusion with Russia how do you explain all the cover-up gaffes? How do you explain that Trump has extensive Russian ties but is a serial liar about them? Why should we believe they are benign if he wants to hide from them?
But underlying all this is the fact that emails were hacked and they had an effect on the election. So there is a reasonable belief that something illegal happened and Trump and Russia, at least circumstantially, are involved. It’s enough to warrant investigating and when Trump and his people lie about the facts it makes circumstances stronger. With the Steele stuff it is worth investigating only if we think Steele was paid to get the dirt illegally and in a coordinated fashion that created a quid-pro-quo scenario with a foreign government. There is oppo reasearch and there is oppo research. It clouds things to say that because Clinton conducted oppo research on foreign soil it is the same as what Trump did. Did she float the idea of changing her foreign policies in exchange for the oppo intelligence? I guess that is possible. But if not, it is a separate issue and just chaning the subject.
And we know that Clinton and 95% of all politicians get their foreign policy in dubious ways. No doubt most of them sell out early in exchange for campaign cash. It is very hard, for example, to be critical of Israel and get your political career off and running. You would be shut down in the starting gates. Clinton is guilty iof that as well as most other politicians. Where are her defenders though? Many people write extensive articles about her corruption without asking a Perry-like question of “what about everyone else”? In fact, this is what frustrates everyone about Trump so much. Clinton was brought down because circumstantial evidence points to her bending her policies in exchange for money but at the same time, Trump’s whole life is defined by an amoral compass that is eager to make money off of that amorality. And so when he finally gets busted with a smoking gun it is frustrating to see Perry so eager to do the “what about Clinton” story. Great, you bring down Clinton again and Trump gets a pass again.
Amazing, the nyt now has “”Campaign Opposition Research Is Standard. But Not ‘Oppo’ From Hostile Nations.”” … wasn’t the dodgy dossier “allegedly” secret Kremlin dirt on Trump which Steele purchased/obtained?
The article is interesting in giving historical context to late-minute dirt or foreign influence used by campaign … Nixon delaying peace talks, but doesn’t mention the October Surprise by name and confine it’s description of same to
Someone might ask them also about the Ukranian help to Clinton … and the ongoing tattle-taling on Trump to Obama by half-a-dozen
EU countries.
I guess “hostile” is relative …
It may be good to know that Nekrasovs very close friend Heidi Hautala, who is member of European parliament and represents Greens in Finland, is a Putin critique who is not well come in Russia. She is one of the persons that Russia denied entering the country as a result of western sanctions.
Russians are as dumb as Americans. After all the dirty tricks played on them for the past 70 years, they still have not understood than Washington cannot be trusted. The only peacefull way to improve the worldwide geo-politic will be a total embargo of everything made in America. If Russia and China will initiate such a boycott, the whole world will follow. We are sick of that fucken America (not its people but those crazy deceiders obsessed by money, power and their country’s hegemony on the whole planet)…
Robert, while I respect all that your writings have accomplished in the past may I suggest that you step back and take a long look at what you are trying to do. I was surprised at your appearance on Alex Jones site. He doesn’t lend any credence to what you are trying to do. Have you considered that you just might be wrong on this one.
Hello, for those interested in truth or at least a counter to the implied truth in our false media there was a good article today on RT which delved into the technical realm of IT trasitions, which is an area our papers of record avoid at all cost. Since they probably have no one of serious IT expertise to contest the editors lies, this article lays the truth bare. What is interesting in today’s RT is the specs of tech relegated to a leak vs a hack. They go into enough detail to describe how fast a leak vs a hack could transfer data and I think this is important , once being hip to transfer speeds. Their conclusion from the Guccifer 2.0’files, Motherboard and the group Forensicator disproves most of what the (our) MSM has accepted as gospel. It is worth a read and it is on RT. No matter what one thinks of RT I have found them more accurate than the papers in the US and in Europe (forget Israelien papers).
If one has the time and the inclination to read something with an open mind, the report regarding the election and the Democratic release will gain a new understanding and it will be difficult for them to hold onto outdated and contrived media from the US and the puppets in Europe. Those in IT can blast what the MSM has reported in their sleep.
I just found another essay detailing the tunnel vision of the neocon NYT.
Will anyone be surprised to learn that the evildoers breathlessly profiled by the NYT are Russians?
IMO they’re totally shameless, and see their readers as possessing 2-digit IQs.
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/07/11/nyts-j11.html
Amazing!
This is a last gasp Hail Mary but notice Common Cause quickly filed an election complaint so it will drag on a bit. Again, nothing happened. There is no smoking gunso there is no crime, but plenty of innuendo. I was also wondering about the collective amnesia concerning the Steele dossier. Oh well, par for the course. Trump ran a victory lap with his 2 hr meeting with Putin at the G20. The Resistors just can’t sit there and let Trump whittle away at the New Cold War and the memory of St. Hiillary , they had to do something but going after Trump Jr. will not yield the desired results . In the long run this will only create more bad blood..
Over on a site where I like to argue, where Robert Parry is loathed, someone trotted out the “17 agencies agreed” argument and I hit back with the “four agency NYT correction,” suddenly the argument became, what, isn’t four enough for you and NYT was now lying. Anyway, my newest tactic is to say “Even if … blah blah blah … show me one tangible effect Russia had on the US vis a vis the election.” They got nuthin’!
yes, I’ve see similar reaction to Hillary and the Dodgy Dossier (and the other various reported instances of quite official “keeping tabs” and reporting dirt on Trump .. “it doesn’t matter what Hillary did!!!!” don’t even try to discuss what Obama didn’t (apparently feel necessary to) do
Great article as always!
The persistence and the permanent activity of spin doctors in your comment section indicates that you’re on the right track.
An interesting article.
Check out defrauding america. com. A true patriot was Rodney Stitch. It was his website and books that completely changed my mind about how this country operates. From democrat to republican we have all been taken for a ride for years. Democracy has turned into an illusion. I think former President Carter summed it up best when he said we are living in an oligargy.
From the media to the government, its all a reality show today. No body cares anymore. That is sad.
Longtime Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson displayed his grasp of the issues yesterday, writing: “Despite what Trump apologists may say, it is not normal practice for a campaign to welcome information undermining an opponent, regardless of the source.”
and the likeilhood of this going anywhere seems small … it’s entirely possible that the meeting “about Clinton dirt” was set up — as a bait and switch — to talk about the much more important and lucrative subject of Russian adoptions
This reminds me of the (obviously fake) Niger Forgeries … no one was ever much interested in where they came from … or even much in why such obvious forgeries ended up in the drafts of Powell’s UN speech (until he demanded they be taken out) … It was genuinely interesting that someone was creating (bad) forgeries suggesting Saddam was starting up his nuclear program with yellow-cake from Niger … nevermind that he had some quantity of yellow-cake and new yellow-cake could not be paid for or transported to Iraq without being detected, intercepted and thwarted … period.
Today’s scandal feels very very fake.
None dare call it a nothing-burger lest they be called a traitor …
Again, Mr Party, you are just saying “but Hilary”. Maybe if someone tied closely to Russian govt had met in her immediate staff or family in an office building while she was also in the building we would have some equivalence. Maybe her people or supporters were involved with Steele but at least they had the good sense to hide their actions. I wouldn’t condone it if it were found to be true. But part of my problem with Team Strumpet is that are just so transparently inept and so clueless about even the appearance of ethics. I took issue with Clinton on many things and so I voted for Sanders. Obama, too had many faults as president. But really, Robert, you are painting yourself into a smaller and smaller corner here. Respectfully, you need to take a long look at your position. Trump and his entire team, his methods, his ethics, his personality, his fitness for office, his personal and business history, all stink to heaven. This is not Iran Contra.
guardian has a ticktock of the e-mails and the events … there are a lot of embedded assumptions about “kremlin” connections as it Russia were a micromanaged by the Kremlin and/or the Kremlin had complete knowledge and control over its oligarchs … very mafia like picture in which every person wantling to appear to be worthy of consideration brags of their “connections” … every would-be business partner or other mover or shaker brags of their “connections” … giving an image of an “all roads lead to Moscow and Putin” in which nothing happens that Putin does not control …
Personally, I have trouble believing in such obsessive finger-in-every-pot micro-management … and have doubt that — with all the pots on the stove — “dirt on Clinton” rated as a priority … except maybe as an amusement, a monkey-wrenching … Putin really doesn’t seem that frivolous … (and the same applies to the content of the Steele dossier allegedly provided by other “high level” Kremlin sources” … who has time for such minutia except as a way to make an easy buck … or in this Trump case, to get your foot in the door, to get that face-to-face meeting by making an offer he won’t refuse (free dirt on Hillary) …
sorry, forgot the link
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/11/donald-trump-russia-timeline-campaign-denials
can just attending this meeting really represent meaningful “collusion”?
Fantastic report from Parry
The shifting goal posts in this campaign are necessary as the original markers are found to have no solidity.
When it comes to the hysteria over Russia – the facts just don’t support the frenzy. The private outfit named CrowdStrike is a lynchpin to undoing the mechanics. Claims made by CrowdStrike regarding a purported Ukrainian artillery “hack” formed the basis for “high confidence” being placed by intell on the GRU being involved with hacking the DNC. CrowdStrike’s had to retract these claims – yet the corporate media fails to acknowledge this false foundation to their past, and ongoing, reportage. That’s not serving the public.
Propaganda liars never admit their lies, they just keep pounding them into the unresisting consciousness of huge numbers of the ignorant populace.
Adrian – and do you really believe CrowdStrike (an off the shelf security company) would really be able to attribute an attack to the KGB/FSB? If so, then you are basically saying the Russian Intelligence agencies are rank amateurs that leave Cyrillic footprints wherever they go. Crowdstrike does not have access to the deep data resources of an agency like NSA/CIA nor are they in the espionage game. Thin gruel at best.
CrowdStrike manufactured what was needed at that juncture in late 2016 – a way to claim “high confidence” that the GRU was involved with the DNC “hack”. It’s obviously smoke-and-mirrors. The corporate press refuses to take an hard look at CrowdStrike – to do so would bring down their house of cards.
Salon says that Trump Jr. committed a crime just.by.having.the.meeting
yes, note the “might be” in there …
but
Yes, let’s talk about the dirty dossier and MI-6, that million dollars and Steele’s 6-degree of separation wrt “informants”/”sources” and how much was paid ….
eventually, we’ll get into American $$$ donor control of Israeli Politics and all those Democratic and Republican party connected campaign advisors and donors … not a one-way street, not by a long-shot … we might even find some quid-pro-quo if we dig a bit.
http://www.salon.com/2017/07/11/donald-trump-jr-likely-committed-a-federal-offense-experts/
They’re getting depressingly desperate to make a mole hill out of these scraps. and I suspect it’s to “keep the story alive” as even well-connected Democrats grow despondent about “hope and change” and 2020 .
It’s hard to believe that anyone would be stupid enough to fall for all these empty innuendos from the desperate dems, until you consider the audience they are aiming their BS at.
This seems like a good place to post a link to “Salvation is Created” by Pavel Chesnikov:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqQc8YHB2og
Sung in Old Church Slavonic, the words are :
Spaceniye sodelal, yesi
Posredye zemli, Bozhe
Allelulia
Which in English translation states that
“Salvation is created
in the midst of the Earth, O God.
Allelulia”
Such an important concept, that Salvation is Created, not Bestowed . . .
Irina — I’ve been thinking a lot about Life, what it is and what salvation is, so thank you. And please forgive my misspelling your name in a reply to you above. Greetings to you.
As my Sufi guide used to say, “You have to work for it.”
What a wonderful article!
Thank you, Robert.
The secret is not to “rely” on anyone for news, not even, if Mr Parry will forgive me, himself. Always use multiple sources and always ask “who benefits if I believe this”? The fact that Russiagate is now moving beyond the questions of electoral interference and hacked e-mails is simply the way such political investigations go. Whitewater started out as an investigation into a real estate fraud in which it was suspected that the Clintons were part of the scam. Only when they turned out to be victims did the investigation suddenly turn to Bill Clinton’s morals. If the Republicans couldn’t nail him one way, they were going to try to nail him another way! Not very noble but such is politics. As Harry Truman said, if you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen! Everyone seems to be hoping that Trump won’t be able to stand the heat and will just resign. We’ll see if they’re right.
All of Team Hillary’s dirt on Trump came from Russia, via a foreign intelligence agent that was talking to the Russians.
They did exactly the same thing.
The difference is that Trump was able to reveal true things about Hillary, and she just got nonsense about him.
Wha’ …Trump didn’t supply the Hillary emails to WikiLeaks, right? Of course, neither did the Russians.
and I’ve seen no evidence that the WikiLeaks e-mails affected the election outcome nor have I even seen claims that they did — except — for reinforcing or adding to the cloud of mistrust and dislike wrt Hillary Clinton … I’d guess that her endless claims that the server issue was about “nothing” and also the state department no-quid-pro-quo did more to aggravate in that particular area of Clinton negatives …
The WikiLeaks e-mails enraged (quite understandably) some Sanders voters … but most apparently (from what I’ve read) dutifully voted against Trump, for Clinton, rather than Johnson — or — Stein (as might have been anxiously predicted)
The Russians might have “favored” Trump over (Putin is Hitler) Clinton … but that has never meant that they had great expectations wrt Trump — beyond whatever could be wrought. Obviously, Trump has been largely brought to heel by the MIC, the neocons and the deep state … which I would bet Putin and the Russians could and would have anticipated (Trump’s popularity even within his own party being what it was and is)
Mark – that is a apt comment. Imagine if the WaPo published Putin’s compromising emails a month before the Russian presidential elections. They would have be lauded to the highest degree as defenders of Democracy and been rained on with Pulitzer Prize nominations, no doubt. However, when it is the reverse , Russia exposing corruption in our democracy (if you buy the Russia meme) all you get is frothing outrage with the published still locked away in the Ecuador Embassy. Ironic to say the least.
Except the Steele dossier was originally funded by Republican opposition to Trump candidacy,not Hillbots.
It is a shame that we have so poisoned the discourse that an intelligent rebuttal and surrebuttal does not exist, that the MSM, particularly the Washington Post and the New York Times can effectively stifle discourse, that they still have enough credibility, however acquired, to get away with it. Honestly, I can’t recall it being any different in the good ol’ days.
Too bad not as many people read these excellent articles as read the propaganda press. It is a disgrace the way the Magnitsky-Browder film was thrown down the memory hole. The yankee neocon deep state is as odious as the historical regimes it compares its victims to.
The documentary on Sergei Magnitsky interests me and I would love to see it or read a transcript. Browder’s book RED NOTICE found a lot of readers among my acquaintances. They all loved it and praised Browder who reinforced their hatred of Putin. I myself hated the exploitation of Russia (and Poland) after the wall came down, and what those countries went through. Putin, following Yeltsin, got Russia back on its feet. Such a calm, rational leader Russia has in Putin, one for which the Americans should be grateful. One who exercises both wisdom and restraint at a time when these qualities are most needed! The right person in the right place at the right time.
One does have to wonder, just what do the neocons think would happen if they succeed
in ‘removing’ Putin ? He has kept a huge and diverse country together and moving forward.
His people have (wait for it) Health Care and pay a 13% flat rate tax. Siberia is finally
rebounding from the devastating privations they experienced during the 1990’s.
It’s hard to believe that the Western world really wants to see a Balkanized Russia, but
that certainly seems to be the plan. Best to be careful what we wish for ! Imagine the
the Yellowstone Supervolcano actually blows, or the US experiences another large-
magnitude natural disaster. A unified Russia could and would respond (not long ago,
they sent aircraft to help fight wildfires in the American Southwest). A Balkanized
Russia ? Not a chance.
Irina, Russia has recovered to a great extent, from where it was in 2000. In spite of pressure from The West , Russia is going to be fine. India is far more complex country than Russia with around twenty four different languages, each with it’s own alphabet, and many religions including two hundred millions muslims. With it’s very chaotic democracy, it is doing fine after seventy years now.
Russia is much more advanced and strong. I believe it is going to be just fine.
It is not just Trump, either, it would be equally bad with Clinton or Sanders. Americans are over the cliff with irrationality and the legislators are with them. Choosing a political career is a sure way to money and perks, and that’s why many choose it. The entire system should be overturned, but that’s against the law by the Smith Act of 1940, a law passed to go after any Communist sympathizers, now used to perpetuate a system that has gotten worse and worse over time.
+ 10
Just now on YouTube I suffered to watch all 34 minutes of a gruesome fracas broadcast just some seven hours ago on CNN between Chris Cuomo and Kellyanne Conway and feel that all Americans should be deeply alarmed that the latter, one of Trump’s closest counsellors, did not have the wit to recall and throw into Cuomo’s face the glaringly obvious — precisely what Robert Parry here seizes upon: viz., the ‘dirty dossier’ on Trump solicited and commissioned and financed by the Clinton campaign and/or the DNC. Methinks, when a filthy pot calls a kettle black, then the kettle needs properly to go for the jugular.
I’ll tell ya, democracy sure is dying in the darkness of the shadow those agitprop mainstream media dinosaurs cast over the truth.
The main question as to the meeting is probably whether there are indications that a) Natalie Veselnitskaya acted on behalf of the Russian government and b) Trump Jr had reasons to think she acted on behalf of the Russian government. Even if this was the case, the meeting would not have been something unprecedented, and the tradition of “opposition research” in the US has many unsavory aspects, anyway, but so far, I don’t see and evidence for this.
At work, Natalie Veselnitskaya probably had to do with companies that had to do with the Russian state, but that hardly means that everything she does as a private person is connected to the Russian government. The idea that a meeting with a person of a certain nationality or ethnicity is a scandal is a rather frightening kind of xenophobia. It is also not so clear what was expected of Trump Jr. Should he have refused to meet her because of her foreign name? Since it was a very short meeting, it may not have seemed necessary to do a lot of research beforehand, probably, this would have been done if there had been something interesting and they had considered collaborating.
Is that really “resolved”, Brad? Time will tell. Trump’s rhetoric wanders all over the map, and the neocons have too much grip, which has to be broken somehow but that hasn’t happened. They will try to undermine anything, including China’s project.
/ We knew what a disaster Trump’s presidency would be when he formed his cabinet. What a recipe for bad things to come! All these hopes that Trump is a secret genius with a hidden plan to save the world are simply wishful thinking. Trump is simply what he appears to be – a deeply deluded man who is incompetent for the job he conned his way into.
Yes. Resolved. It was never in question, on Trump’s part, although MUCH effort (by MSM) is put into making it appear otherwise…but he is only one player in this unfolding drama. Ironically, if he is driven from office, that will prove he wasn’t one of the Insiders playing Geopolitics and deliberately sowing the seeds of discord to preserve the Western Empire. He doesn’t give a flying eff about Empire and “regime-change wars” to protect its’ flanks from rival powers (old European-Muslim Empire stuff), nor about an obsolete NATO cash-cow. He doesn’t care a flip about being President of the whole G.D. World. He made that clear when he could freely speak his mind on the campaign trail. He wants to be all about restoring a decrepit, broke-down America (and China will help in this endeavor, and we’ll join them in doing the same for the rest of the undeveloped World…as China proves it’s a good export, good for business). This different POV is available from EIR website.
I found it very encouraging that Trump said emphatically during the primaries that George W. Bush LIED to the American people to invade Iraq. Not even Hillary or Bernie would go there, even though it was obvious and widely known.
The assertion in Poland was resolved in personal conversation with Putin, while Trump, Putin, and Xi are gearing up for New Silk Road cooperation…the Western Oligarchs (and their loyal retainers) are getting extremely nervous about the prospect of the “Big Three” Great Powers (India, and Japan too, as #4 and #5) proceeding to inaugurate Great Infrastructure Projects around the World (the FDR vision for the Post-War World that JFK tried to revive), hence all the negative spin in their owned MSM, striving to topple Trump and drive the wedge of enmity between the Three Great Powers. This from EIR website (NOT owned by Western Oligarchs, who are constantly trying to blackball and character-assassinate them).
backwards evolution, Trump’s meeting with Putin on the sidelines of the G20 summit made it seem hopeful that something might have broken through, but what about Trump’s speech in “conservative” Poland one day prior to the summit, where Trump “stopped short of accusing Russia of meddling in the US election” and he said “Russia must cease its destabilizing activities in Ukraine and its support for hostile regimes like Syria and Iran”? What hope is there from such erratic policy indicators?
Then senators started coming out attacking Trump for the positive meeting as though Putin should always be treated hostilely. Marco Rubio and Lindsay Graham had to weigh in. Chuck Schumer will be right back to his mean and nasty business. Russia Insider has an article mentioning that JFK was assassinated because he wanted detente with the Soviet Union, among other US policy changes.
And there is Nikki Haley, one of Trump’s worst choices for the position as UN ambassador, and she seems hellbent on attracting attention with her own policy statements. She’ll be at it again. I think CN should do an article specifically on her. She should be fired.
What a stupid age this is! Stephen Hawking said in an interview 7 years ago that humans would wipe themselves out by “stupidity and greed”, and I have to say that I wonder if he may be right!
We don’t need a genius like Hawking to know that greed and stupidity are destroying the world. Folks writing and commenting on this site know that, but unfortunately the great American public has learned to look right at it, be an integral part of it – and not see it.
I have no illusion that I am a genius because I can see the obvious, but I know the years of deconstructing and discarding cultural lies and propaganda that were necessary to see what was always there: stupidity and greed are destroying the world and all of us in it.
Great comment Mike. It’s sad and ironic to me that all the so-called intelligence of the human race has brought us to this point.
JFK was indeed a victim of the war profiteers. Back in 1791 Tom Pain warned about war profiteers, “That there are men in all countries who get their living by war, and by keeping up the quarrels of nations, is as shocking as it is true.” They’re still going strong.
“War Profiteers and the Roots of the War on Terror”
http://warprofiteerstory.blogspot.com
There is also the help the Clinton campaign received from Ukrainian officials http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/ukraine-sabotage-trump-backfire-233446
Another laundered contribution from the Zionist war machine.
Stephen Cohen on Tucker Carlson Tonight re Trump and Putin meeting:
“…I think what we saw today was potentially the most fateful meeting between an American and Russian president since the war time. The reason is is that the relationship with Russia is so dangerous, and yet we have a president who might have been crippled or cowed by these Russia-gate attacks on him, and yet he was not. He was I think politically courageous, it went well, they did important things. This will be astonishing to be said, I know, but I think maybe today we witnessed President Trump emerging as an American statesman. I think it was a very good day for everybody.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L2F4ocEIZw
I picked up this news, word-for-word, from the Executive Intelligence Review (EIR) website, in their “Hot News” column on the right-hand side of their page, but thanks anyway for putting it here.
Stephen Cohen at one time appeared frequently on PBS but seems to have been blacklisted even prior to Russia-gate. His wife, Katrina VandenHeuvel(editor of the Nation)was also a frequent commentator on mainstream media. Their exclusion as guests shows how far PBS has been influenced by corporate sponsorship…thanks for the clip(Tucker Carlson seems to have grown up in the interview).
The PBS/News Hour blacklist includes Col. Patrick Lang and Juan Cole, both of whom tell too much truth for them.
and yet, not so ironically, Juan Cole is blacklisted by many left-wing, antinterventionist types for his apparent “collaboration” with the U.S. Government and allegedly CIA … what’s an academic to do?
“Potentially Historic New Detente Anti-Cold War Partnership Begun By Trump And Putin; But Meanwhile Attempts To Sabotage It Escalate.” How Professor Stephen Cohen would “Headline” an article about Trump/Putin meeting…Perfect.
Thank you backwardsevolution, nice catch!
Thanks for that great comment from Stephen Cohen. Of course professor Cohen never appears in MSM discussions because, as a truly knowledgeable person on Russian history and economics, and as someone devoted to facts and reason, and as someone not intimidated by owners and donors, he does not “fit in”.
Hillary Clinton’s neoconservative allies and zeal for the pro-Israel War Party are well known.
Donald Trump’s purported “deviation from foreign policy orthodoxy” was a propaganda scam engineered by the Israel Lobby from the very beginning.
At a 3 February 2015 gala hosted by the Algemeiner, Trump received the “Liberty Award” for his contributions to US-Israel relations:
“We love Israel. We will fight for Israel 100 percent, 1000 percent.”
VIDEO minutes 2:15-8:06
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiwBwBw7R-U
After the event, Trump did not renew his television contract for The Apprentice, which raised speculation about a Trump bid for the presidency. Trump announced his candidacy in June 2015.
Trump’s alleged break with the GOP establishment, his questioning of Israel’s commitment to peace, his calls for even treatment in Israeli-Palestinian deal-making, and his refusal to call for Jerusalem to be Israel’s undivided capital, were all stage-managed for the campaign.
Cheap theatrics notwithstanding, the Zionist Power Configuration enjoys front-door access to the White House and unconditional support from Trump. Like Trump’s Tweets and gaffes, the so-called “Resistance” to distract the politically clueless.
Israelistan, maker of a bigger, better and greater split personality Trojan gifts: newest model=> The Trumpfurhrer!
Trump doesn’t know any people to appoint in his adm except Jewish Zionist. …here’s another one.
Trump Picks Big-Bucks Donor Lewis Eisenberg As Italy Ambassador
Read more: undefined/fast-forward/376783/trump-picks-big-bucks-donor-lewis-eisenberg-as-italy-ambassador/
The account is credible, but unfortunately Trump’s erratic personality and his reactionary and insensitive domestic policy has set him up to be a vulnerable target for his enemies, however unfair at times. I can admire the Trump from the first primary debate that refused to take the “Republican pledge” and, yes, the Trump that talked about extending an olive branch to Putin, but since then I have only observed an American Mussolini. Of course, none of that excuses the venal tactics of the Democrats and the mainstream press to take him down with the help of the war hawk Republicans that smell blood.
BobH: Well said.
Here’s what’s going to happen; the Democrates are going to continue to keep this Russian nonsense alive, until eventually this scheme will collapse upon its own foot print. Then the Democrates, unless they wise up, will be a by-gone political party of yesterday to be remembered as the one time people’s party that ended up going sour. Most people I know, except for the couple of Hillary diehards, aren’t buying this Russian did it silliness, as if anything this Democrate made crisis is turning voters away. Unless the Democrates ditch this Russia-Gate theme, and come to grips with the fact that Hillary was just a bad candidate to run in 2016, then the Democratic Party is finished, as you once knew it. We people need a party run for and by the people, let’s hope all of this political chaos will allow that to happen.
One wonders when the Russian émigré population will be warned to keep a low profile lest their “true American” neighbors seek revenge for “Russian villainy” and Russian attacks on American’s Democracy tm) … will we start burning Russian flags and banning borscht? on top of snubbing Russian sporting events and war memorials?
What happened this past year with the Summer Olympic’s is deeply sad, and even more so disturbing. We should not forget the terrorist attack right around the Sochi Olympic festivities, and the Maiden Square protesters. Then there was the Russian Chorus plane crash losing all on board, not to forget the Diplomat’s who were either assassinated, or died of strange circumstances. Metrojet Flight 9268 Shot down by ISIS over the Sinai, these poor souls were civilians. I think of this stuff, then I can’t get Michael Morell’s threats he made on 8/8/16 Charlie Rose appearance, to send Putin a message added with a description of what looks like is happening, and I cringe to the evil of it all.
And I recall both Obama and Biden promising “other things” besides expelling Russian diplomats from the US and sanctions. I recall specifically Joe Biden’s saying on TV that he hoped we would not know about them (these other things). Possibly, Joe, you just named a few of them.
Virginia, for the sake of all inclusiveness please, if you have time and can recall, write in what I left out.
Right Joe. It seems like they have turned all their engines on in their ongoing onslaught on Russia. World Soccer Championship 2018 is in Russia. It seems like they may be planning some mischief in Ukraine. Jens Stoltenberg, N.A.T.O. chief was in Ukraine a few days ago. You mentioned about 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. No Western European Leader went to the opening ceremony in Sochi, and U.S. tried to spoil the Olympics in number of ways.
Unfortunately, the West has brought politics into the sports arena as well. The same thing happened in 2016 Summer Olympics in Brazil when they tried their best to ban Russian Athletes from the competition. I think the West will try to sabotage 2018 World Soccer Championship. Cyber and information wars against Russia are intensifying by the day.
Dave P. – yeah, the West panned the Sochi Olympics. They criticized everything they could. I felt embarrassed to be from the West. Another country, especially one you’ve been wanting to become more capitalistic, puts on an event, does their very best to showcase their country to the world, and they not only get attacked, but then the Ukraine business happens.
“Wait a minute. Maybe that’s too ironic. Maybe it was intentional. Maybe the Western campaign against Putin and Sochi was part of the pre-emptive framing effort to depict events in Ukraine as a struggle of freedom-loving Euro-Ukrainians against the Evil Empire.
I always thought the ostensible reason for the near universal boycott of the Sochi opening ceremonies by President Obama and the EU states always smelled a little fishy. As I recall, the guy who runs Belgium was the only Atlantic leader who showed up.
Of course, nobody said We’re boycotting. It was just, we’re too busy, (F*ck you Vladimir).”
Dave P., I think you’re right. They will try to pull something else off during the World Cup.
Dave and other commentators – I agree that the Soccer championship in 2018 will be the next major target. “They” just can’t allow such a major sports event to be held in Russia, drawing big crowds of tourists and journalists to this evil land. We’ll see what they come up with. Is this worth a war in the neighbourhood?
Then there was a non-event (for me), the Eurovision Song Contest in 2016, where the Russian participant was a big favourite to win. However, Russia came to 3rd place, with Ukraine (1), Australia (2). The placement is a combined result of public votes by phone and an expert jury vote in each participating country. Later, I read some “certainly fake news” (as it was reported by someone in Russia) on how this was achieved. During the voting procedure there were phone calls to all West-European jurys, telling them to give Russia 0 points, as the public votes would be much in favour of Russia. And so, Ukraine with their very anti-Russian song about the Crimean tatars, was declared the winner. By the way, political content is a forbidden theme in the musical presentations.
This year’s show, held in Ukraine, was without Russian participation, as Ukraine refused entry to their country of the Russian artist, who had violated Ukraine laws by visiting Crimea.
As for the Trump – Russia theme, now the family is already the target as there are not enough “facts” about Trump himself. The son and son-in-law have already been smeared, who is next? Why has Ivanka such a Russian-sounding name? Hasn’t Tiffany ever said “hello” to anyone who can be connected to Russia? If Barron would collect stamps, is it possible that he would have some Russian (or worst of all, Soviet) stamps among his treasures? (You certainly understand that I’m now in a fantasy-irony land.)
Yes the Olympics have been used many times over to make political statements, but it is always a huge disappointment when the games are infected with the goals of political disruption.
The problem is Dave, is that you and me are always figuring out a way to make peace with our adversaries. On the other hand the people running this country at this moment, have other intentions. Whether these disruptions are to be used to strengthen a military industry, or these moments of political grudges, are being used by our politicians to create political platforms that will scare the voter into voting for them, it is irresponsible in any regard that these officials would do something like what’s being done.
Peace be with you friend take care Joe
Lisa, Ivanka is a Slavic name, not specifically Russian. Ivanka is the daughter of Trump’s first wife Ivana who is Czech.
The Russiagate conspiracy theory seems to lead to a lot of hatred against Russia in general. While, at first, it was about hacking allegations against Russian secret services (for which no concrete evidence has ever been presented), now it turns more and more in a kind of xenophobic hatred in which any contact with Russian people is treated as a scandal and a sign of treason. This is quite ironic, since opponents of Trump criticize him for his xenophobic statements about Mexicans and Muslims. It seems that xenophobia has generally been accepted, and it only depends on whom you hate – if you hate Mexicans and Muslims, you are a reactionary, if you hate Russians, you are a liberal or a progressive. Even though Russians as such are not a race, with his statement that Russians are “almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor”, he has even managed to elevate anti-Russian sentiments to the level of outright racism.
The Russian émigré population seems to be very diverse politically. Some are very hostile to Russia and would be eager to put blame to the Russian government for anything. A case in point would be Dmitri Alperovitch from Crowdstrike and Atlantic Council (he had been born in Moscow, but probably emigrated at a young age). Others, like Masha Gessen, are also staunch opponents of Putin, but they are also against blaming Russia based on flawed intelligence – I recommend her article about the intelligence report from January this year: http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2017/01/09/russia-trump-election-flawed-intelligence/ Many others – especially among people who emigrated later – probably have political positions that are probably relatively close to the ones of the Russian government. Even more were probably somewhere in the middle or politically neutral, but probably, the extreme hostility against Russia and Russians has turned most of them against those who spew out this kind of hateful propaganda.
Adrian: Yes. Very astute observations indeed.
The PBS Newshour is airing a week-long ‘focus’ on “Putin’s Russia”.
The average evening viewer who knows little about the complexity
of Russia will come away from watching it feeling ‘well-informed’.
The visual clip of Putin in last night’s introductory episode, with the
shadow of the Russian Orthodox cross on his forehead, was a good
example of the carefully edited shots. Tonight’s topic “Propaganda”.
There was the obligatory commentary on Ukraine but of course
nothing of its history prior to Russia ‘annexing Crimea’ and an
appearance by a Tatar (but no ethnic Russians) on the show.
PBS has been the propaganda arm of The Empire for a long time now, Irina. BBC has been the British counterpart as a propaganda arm of the State in promoting Wars since 2003 when Tony Blair ousted the Head of BBC who was against Bush and Tony Blairs’ Iraq War. If this mad propaganda does not stop soon – which is highly unlikely – the country is going to become like an Insane Asylum with its inhabitants living in some kind of unreal political fantasy world – even worse than Hitlers Germany.
Ed Schultz is doing a great job of covering “Russia-gate” and the actual evidence.
https://www.rt.com/shows/news-with-ed-schultz/
However, usually the program doesn’t play right away. Sometimes the little “loading” icon just spins forever. Sometimes on a second or third try a “loading” progress bar appears at the bottom of the window and shows that it’s loading. In that case if I wait about five minutes it finishes loading and starts playing. However, there is often only audio, no video. Occasionally there’s video. I’ve tried both Firefox and Chrome browsers with the same results. It’s hard to believe such sophisticated hackers as the Russians can’t run an ordinary news website. So I’m suspicious that my ISP is throttling the show because it’s on RT.com and challenging the MSM froth. Can anybody out there get Ed’s show to come in normally? (PBS Newshour and MSNBC come in fine.)
PBS is now privatized to the point it can hardly be called ‘public’ anything.
I remember that Masha Gessen article, when I posted it here a few months ago it upset a lot of Gessen haters. I later after reading her other articles became a Gessen hater too. Actually hate is a heavy word to use, let’s just say none of us agree with her on many levels, but when Gessen says something we find decent enough to agree with her on, then why not? Like they say, even a broken clock tells the right time at least twice a day.
When it comes to the hypocrisy of the Democrates and so called liberal establishment in America, I see a liberal leadership problem. I mean Bill Maher, along with many other tv liberals have all jumped on the hate Russia bandwagon, but are these tv liberals really liberal? The answer of course is no. In short Maher, is no Carlin.
The other thing pseudo liberals are basing their Russia hate on, is that they believe with their whole heart and soul that Russians are homophobes. A lot of Americans can’t seem to realize how they are being played on this Russia gay bashing, and the American NGO’s are doing a seemingly good job of hiding it, while filming these possibly staged gay attacks to rile the American masses.
Then there’s that Pussy Riot stupidity, and for the life of me I can’t understand why people feel sorry for these girls. Ask your teenage children or grandchildren if they would be okay with a few girls bursting into a church, ripping off their clothes, and then they start yelling out obscenities to boot, and then ask these young people how would they feel if this all took place when their grandmas were in that church praying. My point being, no one seems to report that incident from that perspective, which I think is a valid perspective to at least respect…it’s me I know, but I was brought up to respect people, not just some people, but all people.
Always a pleasure to correspond with you Adrian Joe
Irena, Dave and Joe — I agree with your comments. I caught the PBS News Hour last evening, too. Couldn’t believe they had a big segment on the Russian attorney meeting with Trump’s son and then went on to introduce a week-long production on Russia. What was it? “Seeing Putin’s Russia,” or something like that?
Will the public ever rise in rebellion against hearing this all the time, and will they not know they are being taken in? My husband watches the New Hour faithfully soooo…!
By the way, is anyone going to the Orange County meeting next Saturday held by American’s United for Separation of Church and State? If so, let me know. If not, let me know if there are any relevant topics that might be introduced under that very narrow platform. A platform that now to me resembles “identity” politics; i.e, “small issue” politics !
We may have to rename Russian dressing Freedom dressing and get all huffy and arrogant about it.
That’s good John, and that’s what we do. You keep thinking up things like this John, and you may receive a medal, or get a show on FOX or MSNBC depending on whether you want to repeal Obamacare or start WWIII with Russia….in any regard, your comment is funny, and so honestly true. Now pass the ‘Freedom Dressing’. Joe
For logical as well as certifiable reasons, we need more viable political parties. Two parties simply can’t represent the multiple demographics of this country; two parties can too easily be bought by the same interests. Our two party system with opulent conventions every four years to crown the parties’ already elected candidates, serves no purpose but to keep us sheep in the fold of those interests.
In staid Great Britain, parties other than Labour and Conservative have emerged lately with enough influence to change courses of history ie. Britain’s recent separation from the EU. I think Americans are hungry for honest discussion of issues, alternative solutions to problems, and simpler political processes.
I, for one, will never again vote for a political party that isn’t working for peace.
My question to us having a lot of political parties, is how many is too many? In other words, if we had five parties, would that mean that four fifths of us get left out? Isn’t this what got Hitler elected?
Now, don’t get me wrong. I believe every man, woman, and young voter should be heard, and represented. If we think along those lines, then maybe we should have more political parties.
Our biggest problem is corporate influence. Between the donor class who can afford to lavishly fund political candidates, and a corporate owned media who avoids promoting any third party, through these halls of power and influence we now have our problem. Imagine being the candidate who could get 4.6 billion dollars worth of free media coverage, as did bombastic Donald Trump. It’s stuff like this, that is out of control. If Jill Stein and Gary Johnson were to have received even just only one tenth of what the media bestowed onto Donald Trump then their polling numbers, and ultimate vote numbers would have been much, much more likely to have increased by some fairly decent margins.
The other thing is, that the League of Women Voters did a far better job of giving candidates platforms to speak from, and equal time to debate, than does the Commission on Presidential Debates. These so called debates is one of the biggest problems we have in the U.S. when deciding our politicians. I for one, want more substance than show. The only thing our debates provides is gaffs, and sound bites….this is how we elect a president.
I would not be against more than two parties. I would just want our politics too not be so dependent on the big money interest, and that fairness could play a bigger role, to our continuing to struggle to have a democratic election process.
Thanks for the conversation ‘occupy on’ Joe
http://lwv.org/content/league-women-voters-and-candidate-debates-changing-relationship
THE WHO?
Joe Tedesky, I agree with you. With a caveat. Rather than disappear
(poof), I think the Democrats with wither. I doubt it will “die” completely.
Unless perchance you mean that it will be dug up and researched
by a bright and lucid historian 50 or more years from now.
—Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA
Some countries have gone to a unicameral legislation (with
executive an active member) such as Sweden. (In 1900
there were FOUR houses representing different classes.)
The UK has in effect a single meaningful house (Commons) with the
“supper” house, Lords, now having little to no power.
On the other hand, we cannot confuse form with substance i.e.
with what the parties stand for.
There are many sources that address the political power of
the plutocracy not only in the US but worldwide.
—Peter Loeb, Boswton, MA, USA
Yes Peter the Democrates won’t disappear over night, but as we are seeing they will just fade away one election cycle at a time until they are no more. Unless our country gets down to doing what people really want done, and quits with these insane wars nothing good will come of us. These constant wars, and deepening cuts to every other thing that isn’t a bullet or a bomb, is hurting our nation’s fragile and already endangered future. We are like a ticking time bomb, as we go forward with this insanity. What Republican gerrymandering won’t do, the Russia-Gate crazed Democrates will accomplish all on their own, until they ain’t.
Thanks for your reply Joe
Forgetting the ‘Dirty Dossier’ on Trump
Ever since seeing this essay I’ve been – in mental terms – walking around in small circles.
The contempt the owners and editors of the NYT have for the readers of their rag is just astonishing to contemplate.
Yes, the vast Russian conspiracy (against “Democracy”?) appears to be growing ever larger (and older) … reminiscent of that “international terror network” we were warned was behind 09/11, but which was never actually found or demonstrated to exist beyond tiny cadres of alienated Wahabbi extremist/fundamentalists which were fairly easily uncovered and largely eradicated or neutralized …
I’m getting nostalgic about those vast cave networks of Tora Bora which resembled nothing so much as a child’s storybook of space ships, veritable catacombs of high-tech caves … in which Osama the magician had sought and found refuge from the pursuit of America’s finest …
Maybe this will all make the country admit that there are in fact conspiracies, as there have been since the dawn of history. Then perhaps we can take an HONEST look at the USS Liberty, 9/11, and JFK.
The problem, Zachary, is that we deserve that contempt. We have been voting stupid for over a generation now. I am afraid that our elites have our number and are treating us like the idiots that we are.
let’s not forget also that
Guardian: British spies were first to spot Trump team’s links with Russia
Exclusive: GCHQ is said to have alerted US agencies after becoming aware of contacts in 2015
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/apr/13/british-spies-first-to-spot-trump-team-links-russia
Gotta wonder how much money Christopher Steele used to grease palms to assemble his report ….
I kind of trust the Russians more than I do the English, but then again in this intriguing game of politicial espionage who really knows who to trust….they are all probably creeps, but which one of them are our good creeps. A real honest to goodness media, would go after Hillary just as hard as they are going after Trump, but there again that’s not what the memo says. I also think, that the constant coverage of Trump and Russia-Gate lessens the credibility of all of it. Sooner, or later, the viewing population will tire of it, and then what?
“we have always been at war with Oceana” … all the way back in 2015, the British were “warning” the USA (under Obama) about Trump’s “Russian Ties” .. why? what does this mean?
not just the British, but also Germany, Estonia, Poland, Australia, Canada, New Zealand … all “warning” Obama/The USA “about Trump’s Russian ties” …
oh wait !! there’s more
As far as I can tell by “our playbook” any and every Russian is “The Russians” with high-level ties “of significance” with the Kremlin and Russian “intelligence services” to be deeply concerned, even alarmed about …
why?
Thanks for that informative information Susan.
You know this media contrived 24/7 blitz on Trump is a death by a thousand cuts, but I’m seeing on the street that this too much of it all the time accusations stuff is wearing the average citizen thin. I mean to the point of irrelevance. I’m getting tired of people saying but I’m no fan of Trump, but I’m no fan of Trump, but I think the backlash is coming to the MSM and the Dem’s.
The other thing is that in the realm of who controls who, if any other nation can wrestle the U.S. away from Israel, then more power to them. The good news for Russia is the China OBOR project is allowing those countries where the transportation systems are going through to accept Russian business ventures to participate in. This is Russia’s moment in one part of the world, while we Americans humiliate and poke fun at the man Putin, and his country Russia. It’s time for the U.S. to grow up.
I’ve contended for months that the reason “no one did anything” about Russia (and Russian ties) surrounding the election is that it was and is “business as usual” for many countries to attempt to influence elections, American and others … see also Lobbyists, PR firms, Election Consultants (foreign and third party — think MIC or oil industry — contracted gunslingers who know no borders). Gambling in Rick’s Cafe … it’s how the sausage gets made …
Joe,
I agree. “The good news for Russia is the China OBOR project is allowing those countries where the transportation systems are going through to accept Russian business ventures to participate in.”
While our MSM confuses a lobbyist in Washington with “ties” to the Kremlin as de facto prima facie evidence of treason we ignore real treason such as Bush and Reagan making arrangements with the Iranians to prolong American citizens being held hostage by a foreign enemy nation which we had severed diplomatic relations with and were essentially at war with (Iran) to influence a US presidential election.
The plane loaded with the American hostages sat on the runway until the minute that Reagan was sworn in and the media shrugged it off as due to the Iranian’s fear of Reagan’s “super power” which compulsed them to launch the plane the minute he was sworn in.
Robert Parry was instrumental in uncovering the truth behind the October Surprise and has published many articles and some books behind the real treason of Reagan and Bush.
Providing arms to an enemy nation which the USA had severed diplomatic ties over the taking of hostages which were American citizens and making deals to prolong their captivity on foreign enemy soil as a means to influence an election fits the definition of treason yet Reagan and Bush went on to become hallowed presidents and the investigation into Iran Contra was squashed by both parties when it was leading to the White House and the president and vice president as primary actors in the treasonous deal making.
Forget about Hillary conspiring during her campaign with the Russians to dig up dirt on Trump. Forget about The media’s endless speculation about so and so who was a Russian.
We have Iran Contra and the October Surprise which was completely ignored and covered up by the media as an example of how they are not at all the liberal threat they call themselves but are in fact co-conspirators in high crimes and misdemeanors which should have gotten Reagan and Bush impeached.
That’s the power the media wield. They have altered the course of history with their propaganda and lies and they are still at it.
CitizenOne, excellent points. The Media, of course, is just “following orders”.
Another thing the Oligarchy’s media is ordered to “overlook” is the evidence that Clinton lost because key “deplorable” demographics had lost too many family members to (Israel’s) wars, and thought Hillary was too likely to go to war again.
“Clinton lost because PA, WI, and MI have high casualty rates and saw her as pro-war, study says”
http://mondoweiss.net/2017/07/clinton-because-communities
Dear Susan, the British Deep State is playing a Curveball to the US Deep State regarding Russia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curveball_(informant), that is it is telling US what it wants to hear. The whole Western regime set up is arranged like this – the countries keep echoing the same false information from one to the next and amplifying it with each echo until it thunders so loudly that the beginning lie is completely forgotten and only one opinion remains – the Russians are changing the Western regimes.
I wish I knew what the end game of this utter stupidity is – will these fools burn in hell or with all of us in the nuclear holocaust?
Because oil that’s why. Putin is sitting on trillions of dollars of oil he can’t pump. Exxon was going to help him but…sanctions! Now do you get it? FYI The average Russian is now poorer than an Indian or Venezualan. They’re really suffering there under this oligarch. Russia is a power to be feared. During WWII Stalin killed over 40 million of his own people. There’s some great documentaries on youtube that are astonishing to watch. We really should be very careful allowing them to hack into our electoral systems and nuclear facilities. If they decide to hack attack it could get really ugly, really fast.
Russia’s standard of living fell by an entire decade under Yeltsin (our puppet) after the collapse of the USSR. Putin has raised the standard of living, as well as average life expectancy for Russians. He constantly enjoys majority support inside Russia, sometimes over 80 pct., and always over 60 pct. Your MSM BS doesn’t wash here. Try someplace else.
We don’t need the Russians to destroy our electoral process, we’ve got the Israeli’s and the Deep State power brokers for that.
Oops. I see I said “standard of living” instead of “average life expectancy” falling by an entire decade.
Well, this is America, Joe. And for all our faults, we do have the cutest little tendency to side with the underdog. So when Obusha was being gouged and dissed by the MSM, we all sided with him, and could level no legitimate criticism of him and his neolib, war making ways. The same thing will happen to T-rump. His followers will hunker down, ignore the MSM and refuse to find any betrayal of his campaign promises in his administration. If the MSM WANTED 8 years of T-rump, they couldn’t have found a better way to guarantee it than using Maddow to defend Clinton against her own massive failure.
You bring up a over looked large aspect of our population, and that is ‘the blind faith crowd’ who do carry enough of polling weight to make a difference. you make a good point to how this protest sounding engineered distraction campaign can, and does rob the narrative….although, that’s often phony as well. This Russia-Gate thing is sending us down a long dark alley, and once at the end there is nothing there when you finally do get to shine some light on it, but meanwhile what you were distracted from blows up the building, and we’re all dead.
Here’s read this from the Duran, and then you tell me who you trust, the Russian or the Englishman. This article suggests that Donald Trump Jr may have been caught inside of a ‘sting’ operation.
http://theduran.com/donald-trump-junior-russian-lawyer-non-story-sting/
The article is speculative, but so is everything else with this Russia-Gate story.
“….THEY ARE PROBABLY ALL CREEPS…”
To Joe Tedesky: Indeed they are (probably ) all creeps.
One is blessed with the opportunity to follow the spy
world —hey, this would make a great movie or
has it already been made?—-
Grateful as always for Robert Parry’s detailed presention
of “the facts” if they are indeed “facts”.
Personally, I sometimes wonder why Russians–any
Russians, your pick—would put so much effort in
trying to debunk the Hillary Clinton campaign. Hillary’s
campaign was the favorite to win. Besides, that must
have been an easy target for the Russians. And a waste
of effort and money.
Why also is the US also eternally impervious to any
one trying to affect its election process.?The US does
it constantly in other nations.. There are those we “like”
and those we want to overturn. All for reasons of our superiority
or so we are told (indoctrinated?).
Not everyone is so blessed as to live in a “democracy” such
as ours where everyone gets wealthy etc. etc.(sarcasm here)
—-Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA
Well Peter about that spy business, we already know that our U.S. strategy has been to back the ‘enemy of my enemy’, so I just figured why not do it with spying.
When it comes to our other U.S. mindset our leaders aren’t to cool with the ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’. Our attitude is more like, ‘how dare you’, and then our media goes nuts 24/7 for months trying to make it into a international crisis, but nobody really cares, because nobody believes the lying media anymore these days. When everything becomes ‘Breaking News’, this is bound to happen.
Keep saying it to yourself, ‘we are good, they are bad’ until you forget why your saying it. This is why so many gauge their governments performance by the potholes that are or aren’t fixed. It’s probably the easier way to go, if you want to make your life simple.
Good to hear from you Peter Joe
They all ready have tired. As to then what? You can be sure it will not be anything having to do with the massive asuterity planned for the American people.
No, when this blows over, if it does, we will be hosted to some other salacious bit of news that has nothing to do with how we live our lives.
Danny I’m giving this Donald Trump Jr thing a life expectancy of about another four to five days, and I’m only giving this witch hunt that much time since the cable networks have so much time and money invested in it.
Alan Dershowitz, is saying there is nothing here. Zerohedge has a good article going into what Dershowitz had to say.
Also Zerohedge is reporting how Loretta Lynch’s DOJ gave Natalia Veselnitskaya permission to be in the U.S. as for this Russian lawyer could lobby regarding repeal,of the Magnitysky Act. Natalia Veselnitskaya was sitting with Obama’s Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul during a Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, 8 days after cold-contacting Trump Jr. in Trump Tower.
Those who make a case of Donald Trump Junior’s contacting any Russian by introduction of such as being provided by Rob Goldstone British journalists, music publicist, are making some sense calling this a ‘set up’ a ‘sting operation’, claiming Trump Jr was led into the cave by Goldstone.
While the NYT was about to release Donald Trump Junior’s emails, Trump,Jr released his emails first on Twitter on his own. This opposed to when the FBI was at Hillary’s front door, Hillary destroyed 33,000 of her emails. I mention this, because if this strategy to take down Donald Jr goes on, you will be hearing more, and more, about Hillary’s lack of suffering any consequences over her lapses in ethics, or on national security matters will be, and is now being called into question.
The downfall of this latest media attack on Trump is going to leave a lot of people who find encouragement that Trump will be brought down disappointment so deep, that these lied too Trump haters will lose all interest to get all wrapped up in any more of these anti-Trump campaigns going forward.
Besides this Russia-Gate travesty hurting the Democrates from seeking out a new party platform, or identifying why they loss in 2016, this ridiculous witch hunt allows Trump to get away with such things as which maybe impeachable…possibly, like; conflicts of interest, launching unilateral bombing missions without intelligence reports being completed, or showing his disconnect from his Cabinet Secretaries with his early morning tweets….my point being, why Russia? This is what should bother, and alert all Americans to ask, what in the world is going on, and where is the truth in all of this?
Saying stuff like this gets me accused of being a Trump supporter, but seriously I feel my feelings over all this Russian hate bogeyman Putin take down Trump business will back fire severely on the Democrates, and the MSM. The MSM will do what it does best, and continue doing what they do selling their propaganda, and let time take care of the rest. The Democrates will be lucky if time gives them a pass on this unfortunate waste of time for going after Russia and Trump, but will the voters?
Here’s an add on ….
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-07-12/sorry-nyt-middle-america-simply-doesnt-care-about-trump-jr-narrative
No one is buying this Russia-Gate stuff….well hardly anyone.
Unfortunately this phrase will explain everything to do with news in western society . This phrase was readily used in the 20 and 30’s in the good old USA. YESTEDAYS’ NEWS GETS WRAPPED IN TODAYS FISH. These vile people whom call themselves journalist are simple stenographers of the modern day Goebels.
A Russian acquaintance told me that it is now hard to find in Russia two mass media which write or tell exactly the same story about some event or topic. In the West, you can now switch between newspapers or TV channels and the story will be almost word-for-word identical. It appears that everybody uses the same source and has the same opinion. Such unanimity did not exist even under Communism because, yes, there was more media freedom under Communism than in the Western MSM now.
The only improvisation is that every media moron and scumbag is in a competition to invent a more stupid “fact” about Trump. Thus, the reporters, talking heads, and the media executives are making themselves be much worse than Trump, who does not need such exaggerations to look bad. These days one needs an extremely strong stomach to consume the media swill. Personally, I have opted out of almost everything on the box, except for nature documentaries. There, David Attenborough sells the bull of global warming, thus there is no escape anywhere from the mind pollution of the BSers.
Hi Kiza, good to hear from you.
I watch the boob tube only to see how much more bizarre they have become since yesterday. There is no quality news value in America left to be found. Which pretty much puts a average American to be left on their own to find one. Life is good, when you can create your own reality, until it isn’t allowed by some new terrorist law. Damn terrorist. We Americans are now living in that place our fathers warned against us going, but who cares when nothing is real. This problem with reality, and always by our attempting to make our own reality, is having a heavy toll on our nation, but then don’t say anything because this is a best secret weapon to behold…making our own reality.
Again always a pleasure to read your comments Joe
Joe, thanks for your comment.
I have been freezing here in Sydney Australia, it is possibly the coldest winter on record. But no-one is allowed to mention this in MSM, which are only licenced to distribute the swill about Trump. The price of energy has just jumped 20%, in the middle of the coldest winter, ostensibly to pay for the anthropological global warming.
The regime kept people satisfied and occupied with a real-estate bubble. We are now just waiting for the housing market hyper-bubble to crash, whilst Australia has the highest debt to disposable income ratio in the World, and only then we may finally see people on the streets. How long can people keep sucking the regime bull before they grab pitchforks and torches?
Enough about Trump and of taxing and stealing!!!!!!!
Hi Kiza-
I know we have had this discussion before, but extreme weather events are part of the model, including extremely cold events. We had a “polar vortex” in the northeast USA a few winters ago. It is quite possible that the antarctic melting is putting a lot of cold water into your neighborhood, and giving you some very cold winters. One part of the global modeling has the Gulf Stream off the US coast shutting down. If that happens, much of Europe could wind up very cold indeed. There is photographic evidence that the poles are melting, and the oceans’ reefs are dying. We are on the verge of a mass extinction event. As we have discussed previously, our lifetimes are puny compared to geologic time, and there are natural cycles at play as well. However, I’m not in favor of even a natural cycle that gets us all killed. I think it’s past time to start looking for solutions. Pumping CO2 into the atmosphere at an unprecedented rate is already a form of inadvertent geo-engineering, I think it’s time we “went there” and tried some things like natural forms of carbon sequestration.
Even if you don’t buy into the modeling and AGW science, there are plenty of other reasons for us to transition away from burning fossil fuels as our primary source of energy.
Funny you should mention Australia, because just yesterday my niece who is home visiting and she is returning to Australia Monday had lunch with my wife and I. My niece said it was winter there, but never the less she is returning to enjoy living in the land down under.
Always good to hear from you Joe
It’s insane … this lawyer, connected to “”Moscow-based pop star Emin Agalarov has a history of ties to the Trump empire”” (specifically connected to the Miss Universe Pageant) becomes “The Russians” … and apparently even in June 2016 meeting with “The Russians” is evidence of a blaggard’s heart — although apparently not on the basis of the Russian Mafia or even the usual queasy-making “connections” to Russian oligarchs, but because “the Russians” intend to undermine democracy globally although how and why, to what end is as yet undefined ….. shades of In Like Flint … it’s all so very over-the-top Austin Power’s but less funny … unfortunately.
Cloaking person to his nation has been, and is, the global cloaking device used to cover up most crimes or to attribute a success of a person or a corporation to a political entity. Person to State transposition has hidden the histories of mafia exploitations the world over and it has attributed to politicians the successes of very inventive and very successful individuals (Columbus discovered the new world, not the Queen of Portugal; Bush invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, not America; the oil companies invaded Syria not Syrian rebels).
bible writing.. transposes propaganda into rule of law issued by an untouchable and therefore may qualify as a cloaking device.
Understanding the underlying news or propaganda in terms of the corporations and its involved leaders that did it can debunk propaganda..
What is needed is a quick method, universally understood by the masses, in order to allow instant debunking of propaganda.. and reversing the transpositions is one method. thanks for the comment.
BTW the NYT has a great opportunity to defeat its competition, if it would eliminate all of its propaganda and fake news.. many would return to its pages.
“BTW the NYT has a great opportunity to defeat its competition, if it would eliminate all of its propaganda and fake news.. many would return to its pages.” nanostar
Thank you nanostar for that comment. I agree. In the early days of online commentary at NYT, I often wrote back that I thought that rapid online “letters to the editor” were the greatest contemporary addition to Democracy in modern times. i still think so, but it has become clear that manipulation of that online writing has occurred. So it seems that some “standards would be in order”. However, I still think that it is remarkably easy to read through responses for a sense of honesty.
Wow, is that really 1 sentence? That’s impressive.
It’s clear to me that Putin would like to be able to pump his oil which is not helped by sanctions. He would also like to invade Ukraine again. Trump had a signed deal to build Trump Tower in Moscow in 2013. When sanctions were put in place it prevented him from building there. So the Trumps and Putin have common interests which seem to lead to them undermining our democracy and electoral process. I was also interested in what the Dems were doing to gather info. That’s how I found this article. Thanks.
It’s clear to me that you have swallowed a lot of MSM BS. If Putin had “wanted” he could have taken all of Ukraine immediately following the coup. He accepted Crimea back into Russia after an overwhelming referendum by the Crimean people. For some reason he didn’t accept the Donbass, and instead supports the Minsk accords, which would allow them limited autonomy. There is NO EVIDENCE that Putin attempted to undermine our “democracy” and electoral process. However, there is a ton of evidence that Israel has been doing just that for decades. Trump is a global capitalist. I do not like him much, but Hillary was/is a nightmare. I do like truth over fiction. If you do as well, I suggest you visit here more often, and give up on Rachel Madcow and the MSM.
Ditto!
With this ocean of propaganda, is there really any hope for the truth? The NYTimes readership may be falling, but unfortunately a lot more people get their news there, than here. I tried writing a long letter to my Senator Jean Shaheen, for all the good it did. She is one of the leading Russia-gate idiots. It isn’t Trump Jr. who is a ‘traitor’.
It appears that suspect mass media stories and suppressions of dissent should in themselves be investigated as propaganda. The public should have good evidence about major stories that influence policy or foreign relations, and mass media should be accountable for major lies, whether to the victims or to the public. Once more CN provides us an essential counterpoint to the mass media propaganda.
Those who would like to petition the NYT to make Robert Parry their senior editor may do so here:
https://www.change.org/p/new-york-times-bring-a-new-editor-to-the-new-york-times?recruiter=72650402&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink
While Mr. Parry may prefer independence, and we all know the NYT ownership makes it unlikely, and the NYT may try to ignore it, it is instructive to them that intelligent readers know better journalism when they see it. A petition demonstrates the concerns of a far larger number of potential or lost subscribers.
All well meaning and thoughtful people who own and visit sites like consortium news and others should start a newspaper/ television station. This will allow the good, hardworking people, who play by the rule to get information that is truthful, based on facts and unbiased. When the citizenry is well informed, they will make the best decisions for the good of the country. They will be well served. Thank you for providing this service for the limited number of people who are privileged!
Money runs the show, including Jean Shaheen evidently. As Senator Dick Durbin famously said about the Senate, “The bankers own this place.”
Reporters can definitely be surprised at the results of their research. Gretchen Morgenson set out to write a story about how people were fraudulently obtaining mortgages, but discovered that those people were being coaxed and coached into fraud by mortage brokers. People would question the brokers’ using false information on forms, and the brokers would assure them the procedure was entirely normal and fine. The whole story was the exact opposite of what Morgenson expected to find. It can definitely happen. The mortgage brokers, however, did no jail time.
A year ago I was a big consumer of media like WaPo, NYT, CNN, etc. But it got to the point where the stories would become completely different a week after they broke, I just got fed up with it (wasting huge amounts of time to become informed, then finding I was really uniformed). At that point I decided to “deliberately” find new news sources, so that led me to places like Consortium News, Zero Hedge and Breitbart. I was always a little turned off by Fox News, but found that Tucker Carlsen is quite compelling, so occasionally I will tune in. Breitbart is pro-Trump, but it is easier to filter that out than have to fact-check CNN, WaPo, NYT and MSNBC to find out what is really going on. For me there is no going back, I am even reluctant to click on links from any of the old MSM now, that are not at least a week old and have been linked to by another author. How things have changed in a year!
I would also recommend another great site: informationclearinghouse.info
I agree. I only check in with MSM for laughs these days, though it’s really not funny. Black humor, I guess.
http://www.moonofalabama.org/
https://www.counterpunch.org/
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/
Actually NYTimes Readership is growing, it’s ad revenue which is falling: http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/03/media/new-york-times-subscriber-growth/index.html