The meaning of a crucial text message between two FBI officials appears to have been finally explained, and it’s not good news for the Russia-gate faithful, as Ray McGovern explains.
By Ray McGovern
Special to Consortium News
Former FBI attorney Lisa Page has reportedly told a joint committee of the House of Representatives that when FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok texted her on May 19, 2017 saying there was “no big there there,” he meant there was no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
It was clearly a bad-luck day for Strzok, when on Friday the 13th this month Page gave her explanation of the text to the House Judiciary and Oversight/Government Reform Committees and in effect threw her lover, Strzok, under the bus.
Strzok’s apparent admission to Page about there being “no big there there” was reported on Friday by John Solomon in the Opinion section of The Hill based on multiple sources who he said were present during Page’s closed door interview.
Strzok’s text did not come out of the blue. For the previous ten months he and his FBI subordinates had been trying every-which-way to ferret out some “there” — preferably a big “there” — but had failed miserably. If Solomon’s sources are accurate, it is appearing more and more likely that there was nothing left for them to do but to make it up out of whole cloth, with the baton then passed to special counsel Robert Mueller.
The “no there there” text came just two days after former FBI Director James Comey succeeded in getting his friend Mueller appointed to investigate the alleged collusion that Strzok was all but certain wasn’t there.
Strzok during his public testimony earlier this month.
Robert Parry, the late founder and editor of Consortium News whom Solomon described to me last year as his model for journalistic courage and professionalism, was already able to discern as early as March 2017 the outlines of what is now Deep State-gate, and, typically, was the first to dare report on its implications.
Parry’s article, written two and a half months before Strzok texted the self-incriminating comment to Page on there being “no big there there,” is a case study in professional journalism. His very first sentence entirely anticipated Strzok’s text: “The hysteria over ‘Russia-gate’ continues to grow … but at its core there may be no there there.”(Emphasis added.)
As for “witch-hunts,” Bob and others at Consortiumnews.com, who didn’t succumb to the virulent HWHW (Hillary Would Have Won) virus, and refused to slurp the Kool-Aid offered at the deep Deep State trough, have come close to being burned at the stake — virtually. Typically, Bob stuck to his guns: he ran an organ (now vestigial in most Establishment publications) that sifted through and digested actual evidence and expelled drivel out the other end.
Those of us following the example set by Bob Parry are still taking a lot of incoming fire — including from folks on formerly serious — even progressive — websites. Nor do we expect a cease-fire now, even with Page’s statement (about which, ten days after her interview, the Establishment media keep a timorous silence). Far too much is at stake.
As Mark Twain put it, “It is easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.” And, as we have seen over the past couple of years, that goes in spades for “Russia-gate.” For many of us who have looked into it objectively and written about it dispassionately, we are aware, that on this issue, we are looked upon as being in sync with President Donald Trump.
Blind hatred for the man seems to thwart any acknowledgment that he could ever be right about something—anything. This brings considerable awkwardness. Chalk it up to the price of pursuing the truth, no matter what bedfellows you end up with.
Courage at The Hill
Page: Coughs up the meaning of ‘there.’
Solomon’s article merits a careful read, in toto. Here are the most germane paragraphs:
“It turns out that what Strzok and Lisa Page were really doing that day [May 19, 2017] was debating whether they should stay with the FBI and try to rise through the ranks to the level of an assistant director (AD) or join Mueller’s special counsel team. [Page has since left the FBI.]
“‘Who gives a f*ck, one more AD [Assistant Director] like [redacted] or whoever?’” Strzok wrote, weighing the merits of promotion, before apparently suggesting what would be a more attractive role: ‘An investigation leading to impeachment?’ …
“A few minutes later Strzok texted his own handicap of the Russia evidence: ‘You and I both know the odds are nothing. If I thought it was likely, I’d be there no question. I hesitate in part because of my gut sense and concern there’s no big there there.’
“So the FBI agents who helped drive the Russia collusion narrative — as well as Rosenstein’s decision to appoint Mueller — apparently knew all along that the evidence was going to lead to ‘nothing’ and, yet, they proceeded because they thought there was still a possibility of impeachment.”
Solomon adds: “How concerned you are by this conduct is almost certainly affected by your love or hatred for Trump. But put yourself for a second in the hot seat of an investigation by the same FBI cast of characters: You are under investigation for a crime the agents don’t think occurred, but the investigation still advances because the desired outcome is to get you fired from your job. Is that an FBI you can live with?”
The Timing
As noted, Strzok’s text was written two days after Mueller was appointed on May 17, 2017. The day before, on May 16, The New York Times published a story that Comey leaked to it through an intermediary that was expressly designed (as Comey admitted in Congressional testimony three weeks later) to lead to the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Hmmmmm.
Had Strzok forgotten to tell his boss that after ten months of his best investigative efforts — legal and other—he could find no “there there”?
Comey’s leak, by the way, was about alleged pressure from Trump on Comey to go easy on Gen. Michael Flynn for lying at an impromptu interrogation led by — you guessed it — the ubiquitous, indispensable Peter Strzok.
In any event, the operation worked like a charm — at least at first. And — absent revelation of the Strzok-Page texts — it might well have continued to succeed. After Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein named Mueller, one of Comey’s best buddies, to be special counsel, Mueller, in turn, picked Strzok to lead the Russia-gate team, until the summer, when the Department of Justice Inspector General was given the Strzok-Page texts and refused to sit on them.
A Timeline
Here’s a timeline, which might be helpful:
2017
May 16: Comey leak to NY Times to get a special counsel appointed
May 17: Special counsel appointed — namely, Robert Mueller.
May 19: Strzok confides to girlfriend Page, “No big there there.”
July: Mueller appoints Strzok lead FBI Agent on collusion investigation.
August: Mueller removes Strzok after learning of his anti-Trump texts to Page.
Dec. 12: DOJ IG releases some, but by no means all, relevant Strzok-Page texts to Congress and the media, which first reports on Strzok’s removal in August.
2018
June 14: DOJ IG Report Published.
June 15; Strzok escorted out of FBI Headquarters.
June 21: Attorney General Jeff Sessions announces Strzok has lost his security clearances.
July 12: Strzok testifies to House committees. Solomon reports he refused to answer question about the “there there” text.
July 13: Lisa Page interviewed by same committees. Answers the question.
Earlier: Bob Parry in Action
Journalist Robert Parry
On December 12, 2017, as soon as first news broke of the Strzok-Page texts, Bob Parry and I compared notes by phone. We agreed that this was quite big and that, clearly, Russia-gate had begun to morph into something like FBI-gate. It was rare for Bob to call me before he wrote; in retrospect, it seemed to have been merely a sanity check.
The piece Bob posted early the following morning was typical Bob. Many of those who click on the link will be surprised that, last December, he already had pieced together most of the story. Sadly, it turned out to be Bob’s last substantive piece before he fell seriously ill. Earlier last year he had successfully shot down other Russia-gate-related canards on which he found Establishment media sorely lacking — “Facebook-gate,” for example.
Remarkably, it has taken another half-year for Congress and the media to address — haltingly — the significance of Deep State-gate — however easy it has become to dissect the plot, and identify the main plotters. With Bob having prepared the way with his Dec.13 article, I followed up a few weeks later with “The FBI Hand Behind Russia-gate,” in the process winning no friends among those still suffering from the highly resistant HWHW virus.
VIPS
Parry also deserves credit for his recognition and appreciation of the unique expertise and analytical integrity among Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) and giving us a secure, well respected home at Consortium News.
It is almost exactly a year since Bob took a whole lot of flak for publishing what quickly became VIPS’ most controversial, and at the same time perhaps most important, Memorandum For the President; namely, “Intelligence Veterans Challenge ‘Russia Hack’ Evidence.”
Critics have landed no serious blows on the key judgments of that Memorandum, which rely largely on the type of forensic evidence that Comey failed to ensure was done by his FBI because the Bureau never seized the DNC server. Still more forensic evidence has become available over recent months soon to be revealed on Consortium News, confirming our conclusions.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. He was a CIA analyst for 27 years and, in retirement, co-founded Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
If you enjoyed this original article please consider making a donation to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this one.
So many have forgotten the Office of Special Plans, a neoconservative base put in by Bush to bypass an intelligence service telling him Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction.
https://lobelog.com/trumps-war-with-the-intelligence-community-is-not-about-peace/
“The Iraq reference should be a tell. George W. Bush cynically blamed an intelligence failure for the decision to invade Iraq, but as British diplomats wrote during the drive to war, “intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy,” not the other way around. It was not the intelligence community itching for an invasion over phantom weapons, but political Bush appointees who had long sought Saddam Hussein’s forcible removal from power. To these neoconservatives, the intelligence agencies were not seen not as a deep-state ally with a shared goal of perpetual war for an American Century, but a den of liberals made soft by academia and foreign-language skills. They created their own intelligence unit, the Office of Special Plans, specifically to bypass them, all while cherry-picking their material.”
Of further interest and possibly the bait and hook.
————————————————
Trump’s Dirty Money – by John Feffer – Foreign policy in Focu – July 25, 2018
Russian money saved Trump when his projects were on the verge of collapse. Will it now be the cause of his political demise?
https://fpif.org/trumps-dirty-money/
——————————-
Mueller has come close. He has charged Trump associate Paul Manafort, who had his own illegal dealings with Russian partners, with money laundering. He’s gone after other Trumpsters with connections to Russia (Michael Flynn, Carter Page, George Papadopoulos).
Most critically, he’s got Trump lawyer Mitchell Cohen on the hook. Forget about payments to Trump’s paramours. Sex sells, but it won’t be what brings Trump down. The real reason the president is so freaked out about his lawyer’s loyalties is that Cohen is at the nexus of the Russia and finance network. Writes Jonathan Chait in New York Magazine:
“Cohen has collected vast unreported sums, which were either cash-for-access functioning as quasi-bribes or straight-out bribes. Trump, frequently working through Cohen, has built inscrutable ties to worldwide criminal sources who wash ill-gotten sums through his real estate ventures.”
The special counsel is not on a fishing expedition. He knows exactly what he’s looking for. The sloppiness and ineptitude of the Trump coterie — which make Nixon’s Watergate conspirators seem like Oceans 11 — virtually ensure that some evidence of wrongdoing is there. The problem is that many powerful and ruthless people are involved in different parts of Russia’s money-laundering scheme. Overcoming the pushback from those quarters may prove the most challenging part of Mueller’s job.
What are these “powerful players” going to do to Mueller? This is nonsense. The so-called “pushback” is ‘don’t you dare or I will……..!’ So, tell me, how do we fill in that blank?
I wonder what John P. Carlin would have to say about the “push back” from participants in the international scheme of things that Marc Rich and all of his admirers are just an example of how international corruption has been facilitated by the political/intelligence “greater community” and apparently the “DOJ Family” to which A. G. Sessions now proudly speaks of before a high school audience of aspiring leaders. It seems that there has been epidemic “sub-grouping” among some of the top tier of federal employees, and former oath takers to the Constitution, and from these entities there is an elite class, exemplified by Peter Strzok and his friends, who believe they know what is best of our Country, voters be damned! Years ago I remember reading articles about the rumors of the Trump enterprises being involved with Russian mobsters or some such sensational allegations that are promoted now, since evidence is lacking of any wrong doing related to “collusion” or obstruction. I’m sure that some of the elite prosecutors, local to New York or federal, who were going after the Trump enterprises, were once saying that they just needed the unlimited budget of a “special prosecutor” and they would win their case, or at least get a lot of national press to promote their career ambitions. Oh, pride before the fall for these ambitious lawyers seeking fame and fortune equal to the aristocrats of Europe before the Great War. It is so sad that a nice young man such as John P. Carlin (whom Mueller selected years ago to enter “the Club” and the elite of the Aspen Institute promoted after things became troubling in D.C.) is at risk because the movers and shakers failed to appreciate that many voters would see the greater picture about which Historian Parry bravely reported!
Could Flynn have copped a plea because the whole thing made him sick, and he wanted out?
Flynn was being bankrupted and the government threatened to prosecute his son. The government has millions in debt to spend to prosecute him and force him into a plea, rather than having to give him his day in court and have to prove something. That seems like strange justice in a country that claims to stand for justice.
Thank you, Mr. McGovern. I am a relatively new visitor to CN, arriving here originally in search of your articles and VIPS memos after hearing you mentioned prominently on KenFM (https://www.danieleganser.ch/1207.html) and in the Unz Review, and seeing some of your important interviews on the situation in Ukraine (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xB9TzZKUXM) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeSfvA4cCtg). I knew nothing about the remarkable Robert Parry until I read the eulogy on this site.
PS: When you were Reagan’s briefer, I was an undergraduate. During the 1984 elections we had a speaker come in who discussed relations with the Soviet Union. At one point he made the startling remark that if the Cold War were to end, our lack of domestic social cohesion is such that the USA would soon be in trouble and likely devolve into civil war, just as happened to the Romans after they destroyed the Carthaginians in the Third Punic War and were left without a strong, unifying, external enemy.
“I don’t need friends, I need enemies”. Such is the cry of savvy leaders who know that to unify a nation they must be perceived by the masses as under attack by enemies abroad or enemies within preferably both.
Trump has a double game of cozying up to Russia while calling for bans on foreigners (this falls under under attack by by enemies abroad) and claiming he is also under attack by democrats, the media, the intelligence agencies, Europe, China, Congress, Martians, Aliens from outer space etc.
He has turned the defensive strategy on its head and spun it round and round until Mexican and South American immigrants are more dangerous than Kim Jong-un. Russia is our closest ally. Europe is the new “foe”. Trade wars are “Great!”.
What do farmers and strippers have in common? They all got screwed by Trump and got a payout.
Having this perspective is it any wonder why Putin would have supported Trump over Clinton who would have towed the line on the fake news stories about how Putin invaded Ukraine which was excellently debunked by Robert Parry in many articles and also by VIPS and Ray McGovern?
This is what happens when democrats go along with globalists and the MIC and the fake news such as the NY Times supporting falsehoods and ignoring reality that our foreign policy sucks and was responsible for the mess in Ukraine.
It seems we are treating the symptoms and not the cause of the disease in America which is the long standing covert actions of the CIA in cooperation with MI6 and the deep state.
Everything from 9/11 to Iraq, Syria, Libya, Ukraine etc was wholeheartedly endorsed by Obama. Bush, Clinton establishing an official propaganda machine spouting lies and fake reasons to go to war which was followed by actual real wars.
Bush stated his job was repeating the same story over and over again even though it was a lie. There is no better spokesperson or more believable president than one who spouts the propaganda that America is under attack.
“We fight for freedom” or “we fight because we are threatened” are the two biggest lies in the USA today.
It is believable because of history. We did fight for freedom in WWII and we were under attack as well. Same thing was true in other conflicts.
But recent history has taken advantage of our trust and these virtues of defending freedom and country have been usurped by the permanent military industrial complex and the industry it creates to gain complete control over the government and the “Intelligence” agencies turning them into a war machine which needs enemies way more than it needs allies to fuel its hungry defense budget.
So we create scenarios in Ukraine and Iran (the Shah) and Syria and anywhere else in the World that our financial interests lie whether with foreign allies or coveted natural resources (Venezuela) and create false flags and other reasons to disrupt governments and start wars which we perceive will make us a ton of cash. Cash in the form of defense contracts for weapons and cash in the form of resources.
Nowhere in this financial calculator which decides who to attack next lies justice, humanitarianism, civil rights or the sovereign rights of nations.
It is argued that to preserve the lifestyle of Americans we must engage in beating up and extorting the rest of the World. Such is the logic of pirates, thief’s and mobsters.
Trump has thrown a twisted and most unexpected twist into the fabric of the American Mafia.
Will we sell arms, instigate wars, overthrow governments or build hotels and casinos all over the planet with the Russians?
I’m all for hotels and casinos. Go Donald! Next move by Putin and Trump will be a new trade deal on US agricultural exports pledging to buy US farm produce and save Trump’s voter base from bankruptcy. Brilliant!
Next move by Congress and the MIC which bankrolls their elections will be to slap more sanctions on Russia. For what I do not know. Maybe some strippers?
“It is argued that to preserve the lifestyle of Americans we must engage in beating up and extorting the rest of the World. Such is the logic of pirates, thief’s and mobsters.”
One of the dastardly deeds that makes this the case was the elimination of pensions and the origination of the 401k as a replacement. While the vast majority of our pillaging profits goes to the 1%, most middle class retirements now rely on the value of their 401k, and thus they have “skin in the game”.
I think we could all easily enjoy a middle class lifestyle without “beating up and extorting the rest of the world”, but it would take imagination and a complete reworking of our economic model. The first thing to happen should be a renewal of Glass Steagal, a break-up of the big banks, and a return of meaningful interest on savings. That would be the beginning of the end for “casino” economics, and be a huge boost to the middle class. Getting back to a pension system vs. the 401k would also be a big help in stabilizing the middle class.
John Solomon does a great job,someone has to pay or do some time for this crazy witch hunt, and it ain’t going to be the President.
Keepup the good work
WANTED FOR QUESTIONING:
Michael McFaul, Todd Hyman, David Kramer, Ziff Brothers, et al
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiuCkmtiqSA
FINALLY: Russia Turns the Tables And Wants To Interrogate Real Election Meddlers Hiding In USA
Including Christopher Steele, said to be connected to Magnitsky Act lobbyists at 2:35 ff. Interesting.
This text was reported in the WSJ back in January.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/fbi-agent-was-hesitant-to-join-special-counsels-russia-probe-1516746024
Thanks so much for informing us of the latest Spy vs Spy development, Ray! Haven’t seen anything in the Mainstream Media about this. We all know what happens next: Once Trump starts tweeting about this, it will blow up. Half will say it’s fake and half will say it’s real. Just like everything else. I pity the fools!
Coincidentally, a week ago I wrote an essay called “There is No There, There.”
http://opensociet.org/2018/07/17/there-is-no-there-there/
Mr. McGovern. You have lumps that are evidence of your distain for the Hillary Wins crowd. Seriously though, the IBG-YBG investment crowd has not missed a beat throughout this farce. . Once again they are stuffing their portfolios and changing positions faster than you or I can say Jackie Robinson. What does this mean? Why is it relevant? BECAUSE, In my opinion, this Trump thing is all about the midterm, if the Dems don’t gain traction , they are over. The entire tent folds. The Left takes over. Meanwhile, the economy continues to overheat. So, what? Eventually, Mueller still has to present evidence. With no hope of impeachment, WHY?. That is why the NY Times and certain elements of the Corporate media continue to push the narrative even though it’s years past being proved. . Hope springs eternal. “And When all else fails we must whip the horses eyes… and make him sleep…, and dream. “
The word is disdain…….
Regardless of your opinion I will continue to express personal distain before I launch a rotten tomato at anyone that I might ‘harbour’ disdain 4 irregardless of whether I agree with them or not. It’s advisable to keep the old pitching shoulder unatrofied lest I lose mobility in the here and now..
I can’t help but feel pity for what General Flynn was put through by this egotistical jerk. To have let this get this far is a sin. But, it does look like the chickens are coming home to roost.
Deplorable!
Flynn was no angel, he did some standup things yes but he was lobbying for Turkey and Israel and have not declared his status as a lobbyist, still I hear you, as it goes Flynn was at least not guilty of helping to stoke a war in Ukraine or something equally heinous.
For no collusion as McGovern claims, there was certainly an extraordinary amount of contact between Trump’s team and Russians. Does anyone really buy they just wanted to talk adoptions? So why weren’t there equivalent contacts between Russia and Clinton’s team?
“So why weren’t there equivalent contacts between Russia and Clinton’s team?
Does Uranium One count?
Right on man
Nothing personal, everyone at some got level has their mind made up in this matter But what is wrong with just trying to not be in open conflict with the Russians, it’s not even like the old Soviet Union, the economy and population are approximately the size of Italy, Putin materially helped Obama to get out of syria once Barry figured out what was up, work just that we couldn’t win without creating some new major fiasco, what does Putin get for that a second US coup in Ukraine, that was Victoria Nuland’s gift to Putin for screwing up the next opportunity for corporate welfare, war is a great business you know but I digress anyway the literature abounds on this so please feel free to check that out, is Trump dirty? right?Likely but I doubt there’s any they are they’re or they would’ve crucified his ass by now, this BS is just for public consumption so what’s the point of pushing Trump to the right.
Contact between, who? Your real mixed up friend. As a student of the cognitive sciences, I understand, fully, your need to hold your position. Unfortunately, reality cannot be altered by your mental mechanism of defense. Self validation, denial and compensation won’t change facts. It’ll only make you feel better. Your not alone, that must help you too. Pity, I have young adult children that have to live through these self induced troubled times.
Hope you get well, soon. And that is sincere
HK- Part of being a President, or even a low level diplomat…is diplomacy. Hard to be a world leader or cut-rate politician without speaking to your counterparts you know. Strange how no one has issue with Presidential meetings with Australia, or Greece, or Turkey for example. Why not? Do they not have spies too? The potential for intrigue? No, only because the medias sensationalist hysteria regarding Russia, and its bizarrely misplaced hatred of Trump…is there any interest in such narratives.
That said, Sergei Skripol was a former Russian KGB colonel who worked with Chris Steele and the DNC to concoct the infamous “Steele Dossier”. It was said he was willing to talk to the Trump admin regarding the Mueller investigation and the origins of the dossier…then suddenly, he couldnt testify nor even comment. Why? He was attacked in broad daylight in the UK with a literal nerve agent. Hows that for some intrigue?!
It’s much more likely that he was poisoned with an opioid, like fentanyl. That’s what the ER doctors based their treatment on, and it worked. A nerve agent would have killed him. The intrigue is in the patently phony stories about novichok.
There are many more documented. Do you think by just asking that question you establish that there were none? That’s crazy. This whole mess has established the DNC’s connection with the Russians. I can’t figure out why the Russians are more able to manipulate votes that the Hillary campaign or the DNC. Why are the Russians so much better at it and they were not even running, or were they?
Thank you for sharing the truth.
Your efforts are appreciated.
Awesome.
Edit needed: “As noted, Strzok’s text was written two days after Mueller was appointed on May 17, 2016”
Should be 2017.
Sorry. It has since been corrected.
Powerful people should always be investigated by people who are out to get them. It’s the only way within the system for the crimes of such people to be exposed.
It is refreshing to know that there are still journalists out there really seeking the truth. Many of us out here clinging to our guns and our religion have come to doubt both the honesty and the integrity of most so-called journalists. Thank you.
Brother take heart, even us agnostic’s feel the same way, by the way I hope you’re delving into some of the new media, if you have not checked out Scott Horton or James Corbett, you’re really missing something, I assume you know of Dr. Ron Paul anyway keep the faith, peace out.
There have been at least five guilty pleas, and the first trial has not yet begun.
That Trump appears to be impervious to scandal says at least as much about American politics and culture as it says about Trump and the Republican Party. Most Americans live in a heavily mediated cultural bubble and, as a result, are both misinformed and misled. We would do better to pay more attention to what is thought, said, and written about us by those whose observations and opinions, if we are aware of them at all, we tend to view as unimportant. Often, outsiders get it right, especially those who have keen insight regarding the political and media machine that creates and maintains the media bubble that limits and distorts our views of ourselves and the wider world.
If you didn’t see the Trump circus coming years ago, you weren’t paying attention:
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1396615738/
“THE BASIC problem is that the American political process is totally corrupt. There is no other way to put it.”
“That the Clintons—whoops, I misspoke—appears to be impervious to scandal says at least as much about American politics and culture as it says about Trump and the Republican Party.”
And what about Cheney and the Bushes? What about Enron?
What about the assassination of JFK?
What about the lie of the Tonkin Resolution?
What about the lie of 911?
What about the lie of WMD in Iraq?
Not to mention, w hat abnout Seth Rich?
What about the role of Adelson in shaping our national policies?
What about what about what about what about what about what about?
All of these are about corruption in high places.
It is absurd for these guilty parties to obsess about the “corruption” Trump and Putin and Russian hackers.
There is an old saying about such puzzlements as these that the thing that makes the most sense is the thing that actually happened. The great Robert Parry, Ray McGovern and other brave and sensible reporters/investigators have always made the most sense regarding this Deep State criminal conspiracy.
For the guilty fingerprints, you can walk this cat back to the FBI’s Operation Hurricane Crossroads and the devious planting of the original PutinGate seeds and then to the moocow’s shock and awe loss to Trump that required turning the whole mess into a regime change op against Trump. It all makes sense. Robert Parry was correct. There never really was a there there and the villains have been spinning a gossamer web of lies and deceptions all along. Unfortunately we are now knee deep in the big muddy and those (Deep State) damn fools still press on.
I agree. Well said!linda
The FBI’s probe into Dumpsterfire’s alleged pre-election collusion with the Russin govt. was dubbed “Crossfire Hurricane”, a lyric from the Rollingstone’s “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”. Operations Hurricane and Crossroads refer to underwater nuclear bomb tests by th US & UK in South Pacific atolls.
You’re right, LarcoMarco. The name of the op was “Crossfire Hurricane”. I confess to bad copy editing. Nevertheless, it was the devious planting of the original Putingate seeds, whatever the name they chose for it. And that is my point. They could have named it “Operation Beanstalk”. It would not change the devious trickerations it involved. Nor the foul and dishonest mess it has grown into.
“There is an old saying about such puzzlements as these that the thing that makes the most sense is the thing that actually happened. ”
That one is new to me, but it rings true. Thanks for posting it.
Isn’t it great that we still have a sense of humor and appreciation for music?
Diane, You said:
“Am I the only one who’s disgusted about the exorbitant amount of money that we, the little people, are flushing down the toilet with these investigations? I wouldn’t mind at all if the guilty parties were actually prosecuted but we all know that will never happen. Justice is blind…yeah, right.”
You are not alone. This endless exercise looks like a rigged investigation for show to make people think we are all better when everyone is exonerated.
However, Trump may be caught in their net, because that was the whole point of this snipe hunt.
Am I the only one who’s disgusted about the exorbitant amount of money that we, the little people, are flushing down the toilet with these investigations? I wouldn’t mind at all if the guilty parties were actually prosecuted but we all know that will never happen. Justice is blind…yeah, right.
Your overall cynicism may well be warranted, but I for one would be quite delighted to see any one of a number of, say, Pentagon line items … or 30 seconds of flight time for the f-35 boondoggle, for example … sacrificed in order to investigate / potentially expose / possibly reveal the deep corruption out there.
I’m disgusted, in other words, by the blatant waste and fraud that doesn’t even pretend to try to be resolving a reality-based issue.
Justice is flawed at best, but your misdirected red herring is particularly pathetic.
Take 10% off the top of by far the most bloated part of the Federal Government – the techno military industrial complex – and then come back to me, alleged small government libertarian, and tell me where you would put that money.
Not sure why you think her comment was misdirected:
1. She did not advocate small government, just waste reduction;
2. She did not advocate cutting deep state corruption investigation, but russophobia investigation;
But I agree; we could take 80% off the mil intel budget and put it into humanitarian relief programs, and we would all be better off, and more secure.
Lawyers in love. Jacskon Browne
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxyjA-CaPYY
Perfect!
This is another Linda hoping Linda will add a little meat to her comments.
“And I hear the U.S.S.R. will be open soon
As vacation land for lawyers in love.”
— JB, 1983
These Moon-Strzok instigators of foreign intrigue and worst with Russia should read Pepe Escobar here….
http://www.atimes.com/article/heres-the-real-reason-the-us-must-talk-to-russia/
Zbigniew should see this now. He would be amazed that all his efforts to isolate Russia has only made Russia prepare defensively to the point it may have surpassed the U.S. in weapon efficiency. Plus, Brzezinski would be absolutely in a flurry over Russia and China’s new alliance. Never fear though nothing scares a Neocon or a clever Zionist when it comes to pushing the U.S. to the limits of war. This exceptional hubris is going to bring the empire down. Now would be a good time to re-evaluate our globalist foreign policy, before our isolation completely sets in, or worst will transpire.
Unfortunately, Joe, I suspect the “worst” must transpire before the war fever taking hold of America breaks. We’ve seen this act pursued time and again throughout history, not just by the United States or Western nations, but by kingdoms and empires around the globe. The rulers invest so much of their egos into a conflict leaving them no maneuverability to back down while saving face. Long ago I read that the major difference between East and West is that Easterners usually bend over backwards to ensure that there is a way for all parties to save face before the SHTF, so a strategic loss just looks like a practical compromise to all concerned. (Not sure the protocol applied to the Mongols when they swept across Asia and into Europe, but they did let you live if you surrendered and paid tribute. Otherwise your people were erased from history.) Not so in the West where the tradition is generally scorched earth, winner take all.
The United States has actually been one of the worst in conflict resolution. It tends to always double down on its threats no matter its deteriorating position on the board (to use chessmaster Zbig’s favorite metaphor). The only two outcomes it allows itself are, like the Mongols, either unconditional surrender and total capitulation by the other side (which it unrealistically expects from Russia, Iran and China in the present day) or its own ruin, which it refuses to see as a possibility no matter how closely that reality approaches.
It takes this approach even against itself on internal matters such as the whole vicious feedback loop of uncontrolled spending, insufficient revenues, a completely fictional budget, and intractable ever mounting debt which any fool can foresee WILL lead to inevitable economic collapse and a myriad of other problems consequent to that. Washington plays a game of brinksmanship today which it can clearly see will lead to catastrophe tomorrow not because it is stupid but because it has no concern whatsoever for the average citizen who will bear the brunt of the damage, either in a societal collapse or in a nuclear war. The leaders in charge are not governing for the well-being of “we the people” but for “themselves the privileged.” They are under the delusion that whatever the fall-out, they will be buffered from it by their position of privilege and access to the necessities of life, so they’ve no problem with raising the stakes at every bet.
Americans have always characterised other nations as tyrannies unconcerned for the lives or welfare of their own people, allegedly unlike ourselves who supposedly faithfully live by the words in the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States, basking in the amenities of our “more perfect union.” Actually, in our laissez faire neoliberal capitalist system there seems to be much less concern for the people, society, the collective–call it what you will–than in the other large advanced societies who called their polity “the Fatherland,” “Mother Russia,” or some similar allusion to a parent-child relationship, the most powerful and dedicated bond that can be envisaged. In a European or an Asian country with blood lines going back more than a thousand years you know that you are closely related to everyone else around you. Whether rich or poor, successful or not, you share a common legacy that stretches back generations. You are not just a renter trying to earn a buck for yourself in an uncaring universe made of similar, but also quite different, isolated individuals. Leads one to wonder whether the whole object of forcing millions of extraneous migrants, different from the natives in the most profound ways, into the heart of Europe isn’t a ploy by the designers of the NWO to shred the fraternal integrity of those countries and make them more pliable in the hands of those wielding control. Europe will become as ungovernable as the United States: Washington so decrees.
To get back to your original query, Joe, either America will collapse before it can spread its contagion irrevocably to Europe, then to Russia and beyond, or the collapse will happen worldwide after American exceptionalism has spread to and taken hold of every other remaining independent nation on the planet. At that point, Jeff Bezos will probably possess every dollar issued by the Federal Reserve Bank and the planet will enter a permanent condition of absolute stasis preserving his glory forever and ever. Amen.
Wow! what a stunningly true picture of this rather frightening drama in History going on here in U.S. and beyond, and the plight of Nations and humans caught up in it.
” . . . Actually, in our laissez faire neoliberal capitalist system there seems to be much less concern for the people, society, the collective–call it what you will–than in the other large advanced societies who called their polity “the Fatherland,” “Mother Russia,” or some similar allusion to a parent-child relationship, the most powerful and dedicated bond that can be envisaged. In a European or an Asian country with blood lines going back more than a thousand years you know that you are closely related to everyone else around you. Whether rich or poor, successful or not, you share a common legacy that stretches back generations. You are not just a renter trying to earn a buck for yourself in an uncaring universe made of similar, but also quite different, isolated individuals. Leads one to wonder whether the whole object of forcing millions of extraneous migrants, different from the natives in the most profound ways, into the heart of Europe isn’t a ploy by the designers of the NWO to shred the fraternal integrity of those countries and make them more pliable in the hands of those wielding control. Europe will become as ungovernable as the United States: Washington so decrees.”
Yes.Yes. That is how it is. So true.
Not a bad analysis, but for two glaring errors. First, the USA is NOT “laissez faire, neoliberal capitalist system” and one must be abjectly purblind to thinks so. We, as does most of the world, live in a mixed economy, more technically known as fascism. And second, you’re wondering about the migrant situation is curious, since that is exactly what is going on, no wondering about it. How do you suppose dirt poor 18-30 year old MEN get the $$ to travel from third world disaster areas to the first world. Somebody’s paying for it and it ain’t them. Europe is already “ungovernable” as witnessed by the skyrocketing crime.
But I do admire your analysis of the USA powers that be and their scorched earth attitude, no different than the Indian Wars, simply transferred to the whole world. *sigh*
How about if I had said “self-professed” laissez faire, neoliberal capitalist system? For that seems to be the assumed paradigm by most who discuss the economy, though everyone knows it can’t really be “laissez faire” when the big corporations are given free reign to put their thumbs on the scales and you, as a hireling, are not. Rather you are placed under their thumbs. No one is allowed to call it fascism and receive credibility in any discourse on the matter, though the word was Mussolini’s and he defined it as “corporatism,” which is pretty much what we have. I purposely emphasized the “laissez faire” (the purported “hands off by government”) aspects of the American economy, such as they are, to underscore that everyday citizens are left to their own devices by the government, they are not given any significant aid or assistance, only the cheap tokens of the evaporating Social Security and Medicare plans, while the connected corporate insiders are simply lavished with government largess. By contrast, those evil socialistic countries treat their citizens more like valued children rather than annoying “parasites” who diminish the corporate cut of the pie. That was my purpose, not to introduce any new economic theory to compete with the likes of Michael Hudson or Steven Pinker.
As to your other nitpick, unless I have hard evidence proving my (very strong) suspicions, I think it is entirely appropriate rhetoric to admit to “wondering” about, that is to say “questioning,” the conventional narrative supplied by the establishment, in this case about the seemingly unstoppable flood of migrants precipitated by bad policy. I certainly believe there is more to it than Washington will ever admit, but proving that will take time and defections from the ranks of the hard core warmongers.
What a summary! It shows the understanding of “The Whole.”
“Unfortunately, Joe, I suspect the “worst” must transpire before the war fever taking hold of America breaks. We’ve seen this act pursued time and again throughout history, not just by the United States or Western nations, but by kingdoms and empires around the globe. . . ”
It seems like that it is too late; the war fever is taking hold. Just go to any party. We have been to two summer parties such during the last month, big parties mostly ethnic, many of them from the corrupt elite in home country. And most are all professionals, rather very well off. They are one of the most uneducated people you find. Most of them – if not all – can not tell who Thomas Jefferson was. Very comfortable in their financial blessings here, Russia with Putin the Evil has taken over their minds too. These are your new Americans. They are even more pliant. It is the last imperial stage. The new armies are going to be largely kind of mercenary armies – already are.
About the earlier inhabitants from Europe, they have been written about here already. This fever had taken over our home too. Whenever I sat (or sit) on the computer, my wife got red hot shouting that Putin has taken over me, until a truce was reached, and I mostly quit reading. These are your isolated, atomized individuals in this multi ethnic, multicultural landscape of Southern California along with the new Americans with Anti-trump, Anti-Putin signs in their hands protesting.
When I arrived here during mid 1960’s at the Ann Arbor Campus as a Graduate student and looked around. I told my newly made American friends:
You have too good a life going on here in this beautiful country. I loved it too; the lakes in summer and this free cultural atmosphere among sexes. Keep it this way. With all this wealth, you can help the World :
1. Get out of Vietnam. And from other conflicts too.
2. Restrict your immigration to mostly the top students in Graduate Schools.
3. Help those developing countries genuinely, Those countries have been left too far behind. To give you an idea, our village was the first to be electrified in our rather prosperous State in the North bordering Pakistan, there in India in 1953, when I was a teenager. Big village with a parochial high school since 1930’s, and a cultural center for the small neighboring villages. And there was no paved road to the village, and most people were poor with two or three acres like my own family, you lease a few acres from the families who did not carry out farming. And the life was hard. But the education was taking hold with a very good high school in the village.
4. Make a concerted effort to help those countries control their populations; India already had
400 million people which was way too much, the land could afford to feed at that time.
And so on.
What the West did was the opposite.
They helped depose Lumumba in Congo and had him killed. Next came Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana . . .Vietnam . . . They started recolonizing economically those countries again, and it is still continuing. And now the project is much bigger; take over the whole Earth including Russia and China.
And their populations are declining at an alarming rate. I wonder why they are doing it! who are they doing it for !
Very interesting comment, David.
Which Indian state are you from?
Who started the school that you mention?
Was this a government school? Or maybe run by a religiuos institution?
I, too, often find myself thinking: Now we have it all! In the USA, and it could be, in the whole world. We have enough to eat. We have conquered many diseases and ailments and can learn about the healing modalities of many other cultures, in person, in workshops, or on the Internet. We have the Internet, this incredible tool for self-education. Most towns and cities in the USA have fantastic libraries, that can get you almost nay book you want. We really don’t need anything more! We can enjoy and be grateful for the incredible cultural and economic assets we as Americans, and humans, can enjoy. Now we should concentrate on improving the quality of life of every human and every other species (except maybe killer bacteria etc) on the planet.
But noooooo. Our leaders are instead intent on destroying the world. Destroying lives and livelihoods. Doing so in the name of self-delusional lies and pretexts. What is more pathological and truly evil than that? I am not a particularly religious person, but when I witness the destruction meted out in the name of “good,” it makes mly mind turn to the concept of satan to explain it.
Litchfield – The schools were built with some of the money sent by the people from the villages who had gone to work in Canada (BC) and Australia, both British colonies those days. India was British Colony too. My maternal great grandfather, around 1900 went to work in the sugarcane fields in Australia (Queensland province I think). He made three trips and spent two decades working there leaving his family and kids behind. Some from those villages had migrated to San Joaquin Valley, California around the same time and managed to stay here some how or other. Some money came from the contributions by the people in the village and the Religious Organization too.
Those were the heady days after the India’s independence in 1947. There was a drama club in the village. There were three main political parties in the country; ruling Congress Party, Communist Party, and Socialist party. The Parties had their own drama troupes, Communists had the best Drama Troupe. There were Drama functions and poetry symposiums in the Village, and Political Functions of these Political parties. There were political discussions in the homes and the village square, about the Country and the World. I don’t complain about hard life, I had a very good cultural enrichment in young age.
I read Lincoln’s five volume Biography by Carl Sandburg. Thousands of people came on trains from Chicago, and all over Illinois to hear Lincoln – Douglas debates . People took interest in Politics those days in this country. I don’t know whether it is by design or otherwise, genuine political discussions are just not there in schools here, and same is true in homes. That is why we are where we are now.
I think, this control of the Media by the Neoliberal Establishment is happening in those developing countries too; people are getting apathetic and are not interested in politics, literature, or history. They are more interested in making money, consumption and entertainment.
Thanks, Realist.
I lived amongst a large extended family in one of the longest-inhabited parts of Ireland, the Boyne Valley. Your words relative to generations of time echo my thoughts back then that I was experiencing a culture and its values that were very much unlike (or rather, more matured) the crass, get-it-all- as-fast-as-you-can culture that I was, and still am, from. We in Amerika haven’t yet seen nothin’. We are babes and idiots, compared to most of the cultures we are seeking to conquer and force into behaving and consuming like we do. The good thing is that it’s totaly unsustainable, and will fail under its own weight. Oh, but there’s these nuclear bombs……
Thanks, Joe and well said.
Joe T…..Pride: the deadliest of the Deadly Sins.
Hi everybody, why not go to Youtube and look up “Something Stupid”, then sing along with Frank and Nancy! OK, Frank was a Reagan fan, but I’m old enough to remember when he “Backed Jack” in 1960!
I knew that Comey leaked To get the Special Council peaked
And Mueller’s henchmen were primed
But even though the odds looked small Impeachment loomed in early fall
Since the indictments were timed
The Dossier Had set the stage A scandal would emerge
To frame the whole affair
And then I go and spoil it all By texting something stupid
Like…No there, there
Jim Comey’s version fell apart And Brennan’s rage went off the chart When Clinton didn’t win
We lied about the wire taps So perjury could set some traps And we framed Michael Flynn
I practiced every day To find some clever lines to say
About the IG review
But Gowdy got my goat And then I started to gloat
About the texts I sent you
Now Clapper squealed On CNN Obama’s been
Accused and then The whole affair
Is coming all apart because I texted something stupid
Like…No there, there
[Instrumental Interlude]
Now Clapper squealed On CNN Obama’s been
Accused and then The whole affair
Is coming all apart because I texted something stupid
Like…No there, there
No there, there No there, there No there, there No there, there
F.G. You have me doing the Cha-cha. Great tune, and great lyrics to it. That was fun. Joe
Incredible piece of work! I could actually synch ur lyrics to the residual refrains in my brain. No need for a YouTube refresher.
Thank you, FG, I’ll go to bed humming and smiling
Brilliant!
Brilliant. Now, someone s hould really sing this a la Sinatra and put it up on Youtube.
It would go viral!!
Are there any Consortium Crooners????
Even without any shred of this stuff, the Mueller investigation has never had credibility via its refusal to interview the two guys who know the truth Craig Murray and Julian Assange . metaphorically,the two guys covered in blood carrying knives and standing over a stabbing victim. However, the Deep State narrative continue to hold sway over the dimwit masses. Mark Twain was so right.
There is two parts to Russia-gate. The first part is the interference in the US election by Russian intelligence and the second part is the possible collusion between the Trump campaign (including Donald Trump) and the Russians. Here is what Consortium contributor and 28 year CIA emplyee, Paul Pillar, has to say about the 13 Russian intellingence agents indicted by Mueller (The National Interest; “The Multiple Facets of the Russia Problem” https://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/multiple-facets-russia-problem-26236 ):
I agree with Mr. McGovern that so far there has been no evidence revealed (by Mueller) of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians, but a “gut feeling” is not going to determine one way or the other what the Mueller investigation concludes based on the interviews of Papadopoulas, Page etc. What really happened at the Trump Tower meeting? Either Mueller finds evidence of collusion or he doen’t, but the investigation is still ongoing. However, I agree with Mr. Pillar that the Russians interfered in the US election. Just the evidence uncovered by Crowdstrike and several coroborating cybersecurity firms indicate that the Russians hacked the DNC. Assange messaged Guccifer 2.0 – a known Russian spy – to attain emails prior the the Democratic National convention. This was after Seth Rich was murdered. So Assange has not been completely forthright with the public. Time will tell.
For anyone who has not seen The Magnitsky Act: Behind The Scenes and would like to, email this guy, one of the producers, and request a personal viewing: [email protected]
If you want to see it online, it hasn’t been whacked from here (yet): https://www.real.video/5811804296001 Agree, it’s a must-see.
Fake government and NGO “investigators”, and fake “journalists” in mainstream media (not to mention fake “citizen investigative journalists” like the Bellingcat crew) serve as deception conduits.
Their allegations are never meant to be proven. The propaganda was and is meant to be inserted into the “news cycle” for political leverage in order to disrupt negotiations, sabotage peace efforts, and sow general mayhem.
Sworn congressional testimony in response to a question that Page most assuredly would have preferred not to answer” is “hearsay”, but assertions in the form of indictments that will never see the inside of a courtroom by a prosecutor with a reputation as a CIA fixer for the past several decades who was a major participant in the Iraq war fraud is “evidence”.
The working of the mind of the true Russiagate believer are truly something to behold.
Huh?
Means: “is perceived as …’hearsay’ / …’evidence'” (by the true Russiagate believer)
Bravo, Ray! Thank you for this article. Yet more exposure on the Russiagate/McCarthyism 2.0 nonsense. There are those of us in the trenches also who are not journalists, but are disseminating information showing that the Russia nonsense is exactly what Brazile and Wikileaks exposed it to be: Something the Democrats and their intelligence community pals scared up in order to cover their unbelievable corruption. We’re also being dragged through the mud like no one’s business. The propaganda arm of the CIA/FBI/NSA is immense with myriad tentacles.
Given the temper tantrums (tantrumps?) we’ve been seeing of late, including a Democrat congressman actually calling for a coup d’etat, and others frothing at the mouth on Twitter calling Trump and anyone who even likes Putin a ‘traitor’, it’s refreshing to see more and more truth emerging.
“So the FBI agents who helped drive the Russia collusion narrative — as well as Rosenstein’s decision to appoint Mueller — apparently knew all along that the evidence was going to lead to ‘nothing’ and, yet, they proceeded because they thought there was still a possibility of impeachment.”
The quintessential definition of a police-state. Period. Amen. Final.
Law enforcement used as a criminal instrument used against democracy. The ugly depth of government corruption. And the majority of the public still without a clue.
Exactly mike k. Most of the public is now buying into the whole absurd notion that the Kremlin interfered in the election.
As I (and many others, including yourself) essentially said numerous times for the last two years: this type of repetition of trumped up accusations by the mass media can harden into orthodoxy and has the potential to spin out of control. That’s exactly what’s happening today.
If “the Kremlin” was able to steal the American presidency from its “rightful” incumbent with a laughable number of unfocused, scattershot Facebook ads and Twitter tweets, most of which came out AFTER the election and had vanishingly few clicks and even fewer “likes” or “retweets,” Putin’s team must be prescient and the most persuasive advocates of a cause to visit Planet Earth since Buddha, Mohammed and Jesus Christ.
They sure got their Ruble’s worth if such a humble investment could buy the White House. Since they are so smart and so efficient, American citizens should be begging them to run our country and solve our mountain of intractable problems, most notably to end all the costly wars. If Putin could restore the American economy the way he did the Russian one, the people would petition to abolish the 22nd Amendment.
Or else this “Russiagate” narrative is pure bunkum, concocted out of whole cloth by a desperate Hillary to beat Trump when her private polls divulged that the public polls conducted by her colluding friends in media were just one more phony effort to manipulate the public into believing that a victory by her was inevitable and all the smart people should jump on her band wagon. Then later, after her loss, it became an excuse to explain her second failure to capture the presidency and to cover up the cheating she and her minions repeatedly pulled during the campaign. When the facts eventually all come out in the wash and make the history books, this will be a story for the ages and a scandal much bigger than Watergate was.
I kind of worry that this generation of scoundrels in American politics will pass away before they are completely outed, discredited and humiliated as they so richly deserve. That goes for the warmongers and grifters from both parties.
” And the majority of the public still without a clue.” The major chord! You can’t fix what you can’t find.
Excusing, for a hypothetically clearer view (of what the press has come to be and not be), the blindered Democrat monomania, in itself a potent tribalistic and distorting prejudice, especially when coming from nominally educated persons, what then is left for the ordinary citizen to easily discover about this blatantly fabricated story? Nothing. It is, so far, effectively diminished, dismissed, derided–and this in the face of all manner of pertinent facts.
The lock and key hold over conveying all sorts of major 21st century facts, from this one official deception to many others of the same order, to the very melting of the poles of the Earth, and to a sobering view of our own now widely impoverished USA population are disasters demonstrably already fully upon us–though to find them across the major media is a fool’s errand, reflecting nothing save a widely constructed and meticulously established societal darkness presented deceptively in brilliant HD.
There is no way forward with media disguising, filtering, shaping, and, by design, disguising otherwise the world as it has become.
Not to mention the Democrat who, as I stated in my comment above, actually called for a coup d’etat, right out in the open.
Great point. The Dems have been horrendous in all of this. The DNC seems to be little more than a criminal organization.
Recently I mentioned to a thickheaded liberal minded friend of mine — in the spirit of just making banal small talk — how Moscow seemed to do a fine job in hosting the World Cup, her response took me aback, she literally yelled at me, “Putin is evil! He’s a madman!….” Rationality in some quarters has gone out the window.
Honestly, this isn’t a partisan issue. The divide really is with the left, of which I am one. The vast majority of people on the left cannot stand the neoliberal corporatists like Hillary, Comey, Obama. And we call their shit out daily. We haven’t bought into this Russia nonsense at all, and are being attacked constantly. The last two days two strangers sent me PM telling me I’m a Russian bot traitor. And yet most didn’t vote for trump and don’t stand with his policy. And we can do this because the issue isn’t about party or personality but democracy.
The liberals who are shouting about Russia are those who blindly supported Hillary. That boggled my mind and screaming about Russia does too.
The Trump Derangement Syndrome is real (and MSM induced). It makes mush of the sufferer’s center for critical thought, apparently, and replaces it with Pavlovian reactions to hearing Trump’s name, such as frothing at the mouth or shouting invectives.
Different symptoms, same underlying cause as when the tea potters, faced with Obama’s (weak) policies, wore funny hats, stuck their fingers in their ears and chanted la, la, la, la, la… en masse. The realities confronted by both groups were so unanticipated and antithetical to their belief structures that they chose to retreat to a world of personal delusions, precluding compromise and guaranteeing grid lock. And, here we are, caught in a cycle of both sides alternately acting like petulant toddlers instead of seeking a path that does not result in the collapse of the whole freaking system. It’s the same way the entire West, forced by Washington, chooses to interface with Russia and, frankly, every other country that refuses to kiss America’s corporate ass.
Exactly, Mary. Inquiring minds want to know. Correction….rational inquiring minds…
Yep.
Unbelievable.
And one of my educated friends—a college classmate, graduate of an Ivy—actually stated he hoped for a coup, hopes that Trump will be deposed. then he provided a list of policy reasons why deposing Trump would be a good idea.
I couldn’t believe my eyes.
But, I pointed out that deposing Trump would not lead to an improvement in a single one of policies he listed. Maylbe there would be more crumbs thrown to gay marriage and transgender bathrooms, but that’s it. This educated friend is so berserk about Trump that he can’t see the problem with a coup in a democracy . . . this is the genuine unadulteratedTrump Derangement and Rage Syndrome.
Finally I just said: You are not thinking rationally. I can’t go on dialoguing with you. It is too exhausting.
I had a similar experience recently with a very intelligent, Ivy-educated, Economist-reading (i.e. “mainstream”), friend of ca. 20 years. I attribute it to TDS being fanned by the media and their controllers. But even before Trump, back in 2014, he had been so wound up by the media that he was calling for a nuclear response (!!) if Russia should move further into Ukraine. Putin Derangement Syndrome? Later he seemed to welcome an assassination. The press manipulation at work is remarkable. From his recent message:
“Please understand that I mean you well as a human being, and potential discussion partner with regard to non-political topics. But as a political being, I have no more time for you.
“With that said, please don’t take it too hard, and please don’t feign surprise. You must have known that this was coming?
“Apparently similar ruptures are now happening on a regular basis throughout the United States. The following is a quote from a man who I admire very much, and beautifully summarises the intersection of the personal and the political that recent developments have forced upon us:
‘….there was a time in the US when conservatives and liberals could actually remain friends merely by avoiding the topic of politics. It was possible to attend a family reunion and simply smile, nod, and change the subject when “that uncle” expressed his support for a candidate of the opposite political party. It was all fairly harmless because you shared enough that was fundamentally moral in common that the small differences could be excused or ignored.
‘But that is not the case anymore…
‘It is becoming impossible to stay silent — or even remain friends — with people that support a dangerous pathological narcissist who removes kids from parents, calls Nazi’s “good people,” pardons armed ultra-conservative vigilante militiamen, and is doing all he can to dismantle all ethical and procedural norms essential to a functioning democracy. The point for me is past that one can separate “that uncle” or “the neighbor” from the views and opinions that they have allowed themselves to be seduced by.
‘I can imagine it was so in the US in 1861, when Winfield Scott and Robert E. Lee came to the realization that, despite whatever admiration or affection they may have had for one another, they had become mortal enemies; or in Europe during the 1930s, at some point, the next-door neighbor with whom one always had a pleasant and benign relationship must be cut loose. I seems to me that at some point, one must say, “We were friends — up until the moment I saw him emerged from his front door, coffee cup in hand, to pick up his newspaper, as he has done every morning for the past 20 years, but on this morning, he was wearing a brown shirt and an armband.”
‘At that point, one must become an enemy.
‘That’s how I’m feeling toward many life-long friends and even some of my blood relatives. I’m living in a country that I no longer recognize, surrounded by people that smile and nod and compliment me on how lovely my garden looks — and who have become totally indifferent to forcibly removing babies from parents!…..’ “
GREAT ARTICLE -WHAT A SHAME! What will happen NOW.
Ray, like you and many other long-time readers here at CN, I very, very much appreciated and valued Mr. Parry’s work on what you rightly coin as Deep-State Gate. Parry was a rare voice in this unbelievably contorted counter-intel wilderness who provided many insightful dots to help his readers understanding of the early events in this saga. I miss those insights and am mighty grateful to the entire CN team for carrying his torch on so brightly.
I’m also a huge fan of Mr. Trumps now. I knew little of him even though his name was lobbed around in the media for years. I tend to not give a rats arse about the ego’s that make up Hollywierd. So, the man truly never made an impression on me.
That said, what hetro wrote is interesting as it relates to our President, that is, he’s not a stupid man and he love’s his/our America deeply. I’m considering the mistake many have made when assessing like/dislike of our President. minus the obsessive hate corporate media spews daily, is that Mr. Trump is not a politician. He never has been. He never will be. He’s a pragmatic businessman. He always has bee and always will be.
I think it’s safe to say that Trump see’s his role as the Chairman of the U.S.A. Corporation Board w/his agency heads serving as his Directors and all of us as his worker bees. He see’s his job as making this corporation function as a lean, efficient and financially successful organization. Not a sprawling metropolis where the only people who are worthy of serving in the upper echelons of it’s vast agencies are insiders hand-picked from the Northeast, DC and Northern Virginia by their former college roommates or Secret Society pals. The revolving-door the two-party system aka the Uni-Party has established to enrich themselves, not their fellow man, is rather disgusting and just plain wrong. A nation’s government should not operate as an exclusive Club.
My hunch is this. Folks who are earnestly pulling themselves out of the corporate media’s propaganda hate-filled matrix of all things Trump are witnessing Trump’s actions on behalf of the corporation while trying to square them with the hate they incessantly hear. I left the corporate media disinformation-matrix long ago and have never once regretted it. Personally, I find most all of the so-called journalists, TV pundits useless when parting any meaningful factual information.
As I said in the beginning, Mr. Parry provided his readers a huge service by following his own instincts when reporting on Deep-State Gate for which I am most grateful. He remained true to his craft and the mission he set out here at Consortium News.
I visit daily, rarely post and always leave learning something new not only from those who write for CN but from those who post comments.
h – well said! Wonderful that the site has been able to carry on. Hard filling the shoes of someone like Robert Parry, but they’re doing a really good job.
Thank you for speaking from the heart what so many feel, but hesitant to speak or write. Pres. Trump’s character on “The Apprentice” was an “act” that was helpful in rallying an audience that would stay to listen to the words that he expressed years ago when interviewed by Oprah and Larry King. Please don’t be “turned off” by the method of delivery for which Pres. Trump is being ridiculed, while ignoring the message which should be carefully listened to by the followers of the elite personalities and those attentive to the propaganda of the Deep State, all while feeling good for their “Progressive” positions and ignorant of the historical Populist struggle, which was the greatest impact on my educational experience.
There’s really only one serious issue where the Trump campaign was colluding with Russia, but since it involved ExxonMobil – and is technically a legal form of collusion – the corporate media won’t discuss it, and many progressives have also forgotten it. The main players in this story are Rex Tillerson and Igor Sechin, compatriots of Trump and Putin respectively. But again, it’s legal to run a political campaign where one of the policy platforms involves lifting sanctions on a foreign country.
“Tillerson announced his retirement Wednesday as CEO of Exxon after 41 years at the oil giant following Trump’s nominating him to replace John Kerry at the State Department. Tillerson brings years of experience in dealing with foreign leaders in oil rich nations, including unsavory ones in the Middle East. But of most concern is likely to be Tillerson’s relationship with Vladimir Putin. Exxon has a $720 million joint venture with Rosneft, run by Putin’s friend Igor Sechin. That deal has been put on ice since the White House sanctioned Russian oil and gas companies in July 2014.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2016/12/15/trump-russia-exxon-tillerson/
When it comes to the DNC internal emails and the Podesta emails being transferred to Wikileaks, that’s weak tea. Mueller’s indictment would fall apart in a court of law, the defense team would have a field day with chain-of-custody issues related to the DNC servers and Crowdstrike’s role. Likewise, the chain of links between the spearphishing email sent to Podesta and the GRU’s Russian miiltary officers falls apart under scrutiny, too. The only people who refuse to accept this are those who take all CIA, NSA and FBI claims and face value – but as we’ve seen with so many other issues over the years, these agencies are not reliable narrators – not on Iraqi WMDs, not on the 2001 anthrax attacks, not on coming clean about torture in Iraq, not about sarin gas attacks in Syria, not about their role in financing and arming ISIS as an anti-Assad proxy force . . . The list of dishonest claims made for political purposes is just too long.
Regardless, even if Trump was leaning towards lifting some sanctions on Russia to help ExxonMobil get their billion dollar investment back online, his overall strategy with respect to Russian and Iranian gas pipelines to Europe is remarkably similar to that of Hillary Clinton – his rhetoric on Nordstream 2, that’s Clinton all over, as is his aggressive stance towards Iran, as is his coddling of Netanyahu and the Israeli apartheid state.
The big difference between Clinton and Trump can be seen, however, in having the meeting with Putin and inviting Putin to Washington, as well as with North Korea. The borg state doesn’t like this at all; although as we can see with Bolton trying to whip the Iran story, they’re still pushing for military confrontation wherever they can.
“Page, during a closed-door interview with lawmakers, confirmed in the most pained and contorted way that the message in fact referred to the quality of the Russia case, according to multiple eyewitnesses.
“The admission is deeply consequential. It means…”
This ALLEGED eyewitness account from a presumably closed-door interview has “confirmed in the most pained and contorted way” that whoever (from the GOP) leaked their interpretation of Page’s interpretation of Strozk’s interpretation of the evidence to Solomon (who “has a history of bending the truth to his storyline,” and that he “was notorious for massaging facts to conjure phantom scandals.”) was confident that the rumor of a morsel of a threadbare tidbit would prove conclusive evidence of a deep state conspiracy to those who want to believe what they want to believe.
I am truly impressed by the credulity.
Yet, Strzok refused to respond to the same question about that text asked to him. Why wouldn’t he answer, if there was no there,with regards to the text?
Yet Page answered it. I tend to think that Soloman reporting and his sources reliable. Why? Because after two years, there have been no convictictions, only INDICTMENTS = accusations and if anyone has bothered to read them they are laughable.
I’m sure Mueller, himself a war criminal, hopes that the currently indicted Russians don’t show up like the last did. One of the Russian troll farms accused showed up in court demanding discovery. Mueller ran from it like a rat from a sinking ship & quietly handed it off to one of his attorney’s. He did so, you see because there is no there, there.
If hearsay about hearsay about hearsay meets your standard of evidence. I’ve got news for you — there is no there there, either.
Sworn testimony on pain of perjury, supported by multiple eye witnesses = “hearsay”
ok
“I tend to think that Soloman reporting and his sources reliable. Why? Because after two years, there have been no convictictions, only INDICTMENTS = accusations and if anyone has bothered to read them they are laughable.”
There have been guilty pleas, at least five of them, and the first trial has yet to begin.
I think that both Rosenstein and Mueller are bias. I think that the President should release the unredacted info. I understand why he hasn’t done so.
Strzok says his comments don’t matter because multiple internal investigations have shown no evidence of bias in his work. Is there anything to refute that?
The only refutation I can think of off the top of my head is his texting with Page that speaks of an “insurance policy” that they discussed in McCabe’s office. I think you have to realize that these multiple “internal” investigations are a whitewash. Strzok can most likely finger the higher ups controlling these “internal” investigations, so their conclusions are pre-ordained.
In a rational world, all that has been reported that is, in fact, not fake news would cause all this to come tumbling down around the ears of “the deep state” and cause the fabled agonizing reappraisal on the part of the partisans in Congress who want to run our foreign policy. But it won’t. Lost in all this is Julian Assange who has stated clearly that he didn’t get the e-mails from the Russians. But the USG wants to blame Russia for everything for the simple reason that if we can’t blame Russia for everything, our own role in the on-going cluster fucks around the world would be far more visible.
We do not live in a rational world.
That is most likely the bottom line reason as to why Julian ASsange has to be silenced.
He and Craig Murray seem to be the ones who can blow a huge hole is the whole story.
“leaked not hacked; leaked not hacked; leaked not hacked” should be the rallying cry of demos or protests aimed at defending Assange.
We need Craig Murry to come to DC and hold a presser at the Press Club.
Putin has been saying since 2016 in interviews that can be seen on youtube, NYET! It is obvious why Trump wanted the closed-door meeting with President Putin and now wants more discussion with him
There never has been any “there” there. Comey knows this. So is he going to face any consequences? Also, what role did Obama play in this scheme?
Thank you Ray McGovern for this timely connecting the “dots”. I learned many years ago to totally trust the reporting of Robert Parry and that well earned trust has never failed. For me Bob’s reporting is the one solid aspect of True Journalism remaining in our now massive fake democracy. Something to be truly proud of. I once again thank Robert Parry, his wonderful family for keeping hope alive, and, of course, you Ray for your very real bravery. Also, John Soloman For apparently catching the truth in reporting bug…
It’s very important to understand the story of Russia’s collapse under Boris Yeltsin aided by the US government, the establishment of the Russian Oligarchs, President Putin’s reaction to all of that and the separation of these “factions”. The best explanation I’ve seen is in the truly astounding book Manifest Destiny” by F. William Engdahl, which I will link.
http://www.williamengdahl.com
The banned movie “The Magnitzky Act – Behind the Scenes” also shows exactly what happened after the collapse and how the US took advantage. Bill Browder should be in jail, but instead, he’s giving $$$$$ to Democrats.
Thank you, Mary…
Point 1. If the guy wanted to support the Democrats and their policies, he should not have renounced his American citizenship in order to reduce his tax liability. That smacks of treason for the basest reason.
Point 2. Is it no longer a federal crime for an American politician or party to accept campaign contributions from foreign entities? Does no one remember the shitstorm that accompanied Bill Clinton’s second campaign and all the money that allegedly came from China? “Chinagate,” Charlie Trie, Johnnie Chung, and John Huang anybody?
Browder is an abomination–a genuine foreign agent meddling in American elections–and so are the Democrats for consorting with him. Why isn’t Sessions investigating Browder?
Didn’t you know that Sessions recussed himself right out of the gate? It seems that he’s adopting the ‘it’s your baby, you rock it’ policy.
That was only with respect to “Russia hacking the election” and “Trump colluding with Russia.” Browder is a whole separate animal that can be studied and dissected on its own merits. Browder has been interfering, as a foreign national, in American elections and policy making in the Congress since way before “Russiagate” became a thing–since before he shepherded the Magnitzky Act into the law books for his own purposes. Browder is a British subject who used to be an American citizen before he renounced his country to avoid paying U.S. taxes. Perhaps you think that Sessions recused himself entirely from functioning as the U.S. Attorney General in any capacity, in which case, fire his @$$ and hire on someone who will do the job.
And Alex Krainer’s book, “The Killing of William Browder.”
Present chapter and verse on how the looting went down.
Bob no truer words were ever spoken when it comes to praising both Robert Parry and Ray McGovern. Good one Bob, and I’m asking permission from you to rally behind your praise of these two great men. Joe
Absolutely!
The removal of Strozk and Page, to me, shows Mueller wants an honest investigation of Russian collusion into American elections if there is a “there there.”
Laying aside those around Trump who have been charged, or convicted of one thing or another in recent months, does not the revelation of Maria Butina, supposedly a Russian agent, and her funneling money to the National Rifle Association which was used to influence the elections not slightly crack the “no there there?”
I agree that so far mostly what we’ve had revealed, and continues, is the corrupt life Trump and his family have lead in building his empire.
I have no pity for Hillary Clinton. Bernie Sanders would be president of this country were it not for the dirty dealings of the Democratic National Committee – who still haven’t gotten the message.
With every new hoax, and they come fast and furious, there is another attempt at finding the key to impeachment. Isn’t Ray McGovern’s comprehensive article enough to put this nonsense to rest, and to investigate the investigators? Muellergate indeed.
If Mueller really was interested in an honest investigation, he wouldn’t waste his time indicting dozens of Russians who he knows damn well will never see the inside of an American courtroom. Those indictments were pure political theater, nothing more. For proof of that, look at the abject panic caused by one of those Russian entities actually sending a team of lawyers and demanding a trial and their right to discovery. If he really wanted to bring them to justice, he would have indicted them in secret and then tried to lure them to a country where they could be captured and extradited. The fact that he indicted them publicly demonstrates he has zero interest in actually bringing them in.
As far as the Russian spy and the NRA, that’s pretty standard stuff in the world of statecraft. The Russians have been infiltrating and trying to influence American institutions for 100 years. It’s no different than when they penetrated most of the counter-culture movements of the 1960s and tried to steer them in a pro-Soviet direction. Heck, it wasn’t just the Soviets. The FBI penetrated those very same organizations as part of COINTELPRO.
Steve-
There you go with that “whataboutism” stuff. How dare Russia try to do what we have done so well for decades!
The Russians are doing far better than we are at propaganda, and their secret is that more of what they report is true which gives them greater credibility.
That is their real crime.
That is their real crime, undermining the effectiveness of U.S. propaganda.
I disagree, with respect. Soviet Russians were always aware of their own government’s clumsy propaganda efforts. Meanwhile, the propaganda machine is vast, incorporating various forms of entertainment including film and TV drama, comedy, even cartoons — yes cartoons, ever since the cold war began.
See: Gremlins from the Kremlin (1944), a cartoon I consumed as a child growing up in the 50s and 60s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_-rxY-4zHU
Granted, it was more anti-Hitler than it was anti-Russian, given the times. But that changed soon thereafter.
I agree, Steve, the indicted Russians will never see a U.S. court or any other where the U.S. can get at them. Theater, maybe. I agree, also, the U.S. meddles all around the globe just as the Russians are messing with the U.S. I agree, again, that the FBI infiltrates all kinds of American protest groups – pro or con. And, they sometimes screw up. But overall, maybe we’re better off for it – I hope.
Here’s an article though that should give us all food for thought.
https://www.newyorker.com/news-desk/swamp-chronicles/a-theory-of-trump-kompro
I think we need to review what the “there there” has been. It began as the charge Trump colluded with Putin to steal the 2016 election. This is the there there Mueller is pursuing. However, to suggest that any Russian that favored Trump = collusion and machination to manipulate the election is what the investigation has come. BTW how would that stealing of the election be accomplished? Rigging the electoral college? Manipulating ballot boxes in local precincts? It would seem this kind of action needs showing to be taken other than “the Russians favored Trump and that means they stole the election.” So instead of evidence and cause-effect we have emotional tirade and suspicion. Maria Butina is charged with not registering properly as an agent of a foreign government. Connections with an election-tampering methodology are not suggested yet, are they? Then what does her NRA activity, connected to that same sort of activity in Russia, bear relevance to election-tampering?
Good point.
Don’t worry – Ollie North will stick out his chest, get dewy-eyed, and take another one for ‘Merica.
While Mueller is looking for zebras, the horses are long out of the barn. No one can be that stupid.
I’m guessing Mueller was aware of what Strzok, Page, McCabe, the Ohrs and Comey were up to, playing politics, and working with Fusion GPS, both Hillary and the Intelligence Agencies. Mueller is an Establishment stooge, intent on not disrupting neolib/neocon agendas.
When Mueller indicted Manafort but did not indict the Podestas for the same offenses in the Ukraine, the signal was clear that this was to be a partisan investigation.
Mueller, lying since (at least) 2003 in order to further US hegemony. No, he isn’t trying to find out anything. He already knows Russiagate is as fake as the yellow cake he and Colin Powell sold us.
Well, to me Butina seems like a hapless little fish.
Let’s go after the really big fish. Such as AIPAC and their Israeli handlers.
And the Saudis.
And the Clinton foundation.
Finally! Someone using facts, logic,good sense and fairness ! Thank you,will keep reading your publication!
While I believe you and this , it doesn’t touch on Trump’s Russian money laundering for 30 yrs, what’s up with the NRA, Manafort’s games, Mercer treason. I don’t know what Meuller has or think he’s the Messiah. Hillary is filthy and made this up. But that’s normt the whole thing.
What’s up with James Comey’s much vaunted impartiality and pristine ethics that led him to give a pass to Hillary’s widespread malfeasance but imply treason without evidence on the part of Trump? Apparently that purported objectivity has evaporated and there will be no waiting for empirical findings from fellow traveler Mueller’s committee. As reported by Moon of Alabama “A long time Republican prosecutor, former FBI chief and hedge fund millionaire recently said that he would vote for Democrats to oppose Trump. That made him the new ‘hero’ of the centrist ‘resistance’. A few days later, he is already giving his new party some terrible advice:
James Comey @Comey – 20:37 UTC – 22 Jul 2018
Democrats, please, please don’t lose your minds and rush to the socialist left. This president and his Republican Party are counting on you to do exactly that. America’s great middle wants sensible, balanced, ethical leadership.”
So, please make sure you hair-on-fire liberals vote definitively to dump Trump but make sure his replacement is another Republican-light candidate like Slick Willie or Barry Obomber. You know, someone totally with the program for world conquest run out of Arlington and Langley. Comey is obviously completely impartial without a political agenda just like every spook with a desk in Virginia.
Actually, Comey, Strzok, Mueller, Brennan, Clapper and the rest of these subversives should all be sent to prison for violating the Hatch Act, a federal law which prohibits all government employees from participating in political campaigns.*
*Except pres, v.p. and other specified high officials.
Great comment Realist. That is exactly the game plan for the DNC. And they will probably use Bernie just as they played him last time, as a sheep dog to herd up all the progressives and lead them over to the “centrist” at the end of the day. I think they’ll have to replace Hillary though. She’s become damaged goods. I wonder who their choice will be?
Skip, the word on the street is that only Oprah Winfrey can take us back to the obama glory? days. Seriously. She made some statement in a speech at some award ceremony and the crowd went wild. It’s a sad state of affairs when individuals (voters) who are charged with making such an important decision about the future of their country feel that a major newsworthy item is the size of Kim Kardashian’s butt.
I don’t think Oprah could put up with the meat grinder of American politics. She’s got all the money she needs. I can’t see it happening.
Excellent. As always, your well thought comments are spot on.
Re: Comey’s advice to the Democrats: If only we in the U.S. actually had a – “socialist left” to “lose our minds” about and to “rush to!” What a glorious day that would be! I’d probably trip over my own feet in my “rush” to vote true social leftist into power.
However, translating Comey’s Orwellian Newspeak one must assume that by “socialist left” he is actually referring to anyone who might take a position a degree or two to the left of the military/intelligence establishment’s heartthrob forever – Hillary the cackling mad neocon psychopath.
Mueller is either a naive, stupid, unthinking, idiot puppet of liars who just reflectively believes whatever the hell they tell him to believe -or- he is one of those liars who lie through their teeth with a straight face knowing their lies mean destroying citizens’ freedom, poverty, and lives and taking them to war that will rape, pillage, and murder hundreds of thousands of people of color so the rich oil barons can get richer.
Why in the world anyone, much less people who identify as progressive or liberal, would trust this guy is beyond me.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, follow this link and see him proving he’s one or the other: https://youtu.be/4FWSnMNt0bM
I’d rather like to see why the Clintons got away with selling uranium to Russia to the tune of millions. Why is that so under wraps?
The problem, it seems to me, is that the truth simply doesn’t matter anymore.
Trump’s meeting with Putin has unmasked power of the Deep State and its stenographers in the MSM like never before. The Neocons behind the curtain have never outed themselves so obviously. Yet because the coverage has been so hysterical, so extreme, so one-sided, few can see the proverbial forest for the warmongering trees.
Two other elements are driving us toward global thermonuclear war. The first is ignorance. The generations who’ve come of age after the fall of the Soviet Union don’t understand what nuclear weapons can do. They don’t realize that they have *always* been in mortal danger from an accident which could end civilization in an afternoon. Most importantly, never having lived through the 50s, 60s, and 70s, they never experienced the visceral fear of the instant annihilation of everyone and everything they’ve ever loved. As Stephen F Cohen points out, Republicans have always initiated detente, but this is the first time that reactionaries of both parties have opposed it, and the first time an American President has been called a traitor by mainstream politicians and pundits.
The Democratic Party certainly isn’t about to educate them. Indeed, the Democrats (with the help of partisan media) have managed to mutate most of their constituency into fear-freak Russophobes that have absolutely no idea how conservative they really are. These blind neo-McCarthyites at this point just *assume* that Russia is an enemy, and many are demanding retaliation for its utterly-unproven “interference” in American Election Theater. They know nothing about NATO aggression on Russia’s border, of course, and don’t give a damn that Obama kicked off a new, trillion-dollar nuclear arms race – an atrocity which would have provoked massive demonstrations in decades past. What will happen when President Harris/Booker comes into office, promising not to be weak, like Trump, in the face of “our greatest foe”?
Who will be left to stand against the end of the world, when the average American is this ignorantly suicidal?
Kim Dixon wrote: “The problem, it seems to me, is that the truth simply doesn’t matter anymore.”
That’s it, there is no love for truth.
“What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.”
—Bertrand Russel (“Sceptical Essays”, Ch. 12: Free Thought and Official Propaganda)
Kim Dixon wrote: “Two other elements are driving us toward global thermonuclear war. The first is ignorance. The generations who’ve come of age after the fall of the Soviet Union don’t understand what nuclear weapons can do.”
I’ve just read about that:
“And the movie [“The Day After”, 1983] famously influenced Ronald Reagan, who wrote in his diary that watching it “left me greatly depressed.” After signing a 1987 nuclear treaty with the Soviet Union’s Mikhael Gorbachev, Reagan sent a telegram to Meyer, saying, “Don’t think your movie didn’t have any part of this, because it did.””
“The Day After traumatized a generation with the horrors of nuclear war”
https://www.avclub.com/the-day-after-traumatized-a-generation-with-the-horrors-1798447330
I have recommended this book on this site before, but for anyone not familiar
with it, please go to any good used book service and get yourself a copy of
“By the Bomb’s Early Light”. Written with great craft and sensitivity by eminent
historian Paul Boyer. He was in college at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis,
and describes in the ‘forward’ how he literally did not think he would survive The
Day (October 25th) when the crisis peaked, and how he sat in class watching the
clock and wondering if tomorrow would ever arrive.
It’s a very important book because (first) it shows that thinking people instantly
understood How and Why the world had changed, and What that meant and
(second) it clearly states that ‘the most dangerous time was NOT the Cuban Missile
Crisis, or the Star Wars standoff of the early 1980’s, or even the close calls due to
misinterpreted computer messages, etc.’ No, according to Boyer, the Most Dangerous
Time is after several generations have been raised under the Shadow of the Bomb
(Born in 1955, I was in the first generation) and have become habituated to The Threat,
no longer taking it seriously. Meanwhile, regional wars have become commonplace and
nuclear weapons have been made available at ‘battlefield levels’.
That time would be NOW. I am always amazed at the Climate Change Activists (and yes,
living in the circumpolar subarctic, I am quite aware of the immediate and cumulative
impacts of climate change) who are completely dismissive of the Nuclear Peril. Yikes !
Thanks irina. I’ll try to find a copy. I was only seven during the cuban missile crisis, but I well remember being taught to hide under our desks (like that would’ve helped!) when the alarm went off. As a teenager I bet a friend of mine $20 that we wouldn’t make it to the year 2000, and he laughed taking my bet because even if he lost he wouldn’t have to pay. I remember telling him that I’d still be happy to pay him, and I reminded him of the bet and actually did pay him.
I can’t believe we’ve made it this long, and while I envy the average person’s lack of imagination, I feel particularly sorry for the kids growing up in today’s crazy world.
FYI- I ordered a copy from Alibris for $5.47 including shipping.
Yes, it’s readily and affordably available.
I have given copies to political science professors, politicians, etc.
First came across it at my usual place for finding Very Important books :
the local library’s Book Sale table.
You and I are of the same generation. I think those of us who were young
children then, but old enough to be aware, are the ones most likely to be
the strongest advocates for disarmament. In my first grade classroom during
the Missile Crisis, the boys were building bomb shelters out of Legos and the
girls were making clothespin doll families to put in those shelters, during recess.
It was at that point I realized the adults were just making it up as they went,
maintaining a veneer of normality over a seething cauldron of mass insanity.
(Seems to be homo sapiens accustomed modus operandi . . . )
Great comments.
Harris and Booker, the new stars of the Democratic Party are going to be even worse than Barry Obomber. Both of them spend most of their time at AIPAC office, and with the Wall Street Financial Gangsters to prove the sincerity of their loyalty to them and Israel, and their agenda of World conquest. And that Bernie Sanders is also one of them; he is no different. That is your new Democratic Party in a nutshell, which we supported our entire life until 2010, when I finally quit.
Yes, Sanders has now shown himself an enemy of peace.
We are up crap creek without a paddle and the boat is leaking and people on shore are shooting at us and now one of them is Bernie Sanders.
Yep. It took me until 2016 to get out.
Great stuff, Kim Dixon!
During the campaign, the liberal’s mantra was that Trump was bound and determined to start WW III. Now, that very same mob is p*ssed off that Trump didn’t sucker-punch Putin on live TV. I’m very concerned that this great country has become the moral cesspool of the world.
One term for it–the unraveling. Here’s my sense of the thing–call me a starry-eyed optimist. Recently here I linked to a gallup poll that showed your average American is statistically unconcerned about relations with Russia–hence also about Russia-gate, which also has previously been polled as getting too much attention in Washington. With Fox News, Tucker Carlson, Wall Street Journal now turning to a critical view, the unraveling has momentum to go beyond a few screwballs on CN and such, who are, after all, Putin dupes, such as yourselves reading this.
Average Joe, I think, is starting to realize, as before, historically, things such as the Vietnam War, the Kennedy Assassination, and more recent events at the Twin Towers–maybe these were not as had been advertised by the likes of those three “intelligence assessments” people on January 6, 2017? I believe there is hope for an awakening. One other point I will shut up.
I would like to urge CN to hold a forum topic evaluating Mr. Trump, the President. I have been very critical of this man, especially where I used to comment on Disquss. I became Disqussted and quit and came here. I take Mr. Trump to be serious about the job of President, and that he actually means well. I also believe the man is intelligent and is learning fast. Now, that could include that he is so intelligent he is intent on outdoing “the Deep State” or what Aldous Huxley called “the Power Elite” with his own super-duper Power Elite.
I believe this forum has a great deal of power to analyse and surface significant viewpoints on such a matter. A forum could be set up, moderated by Ray McGovern, for example, with the topic–evaluation of Mr. Trump. I’m suggesting this because everywhere I go discussion of Trump is always accompanied by automatic demonizing of the man with no second thought or hesitation. And this by supposed “adults” and “thinkers.” Our time does not allow such lazy stupidity. We need to encourage the critical mind toward making progress–instead of destruction. Trump if nothing else is a maverick turning the Deep State into messing its pants or Deep DooDoo.
Thanks!
Recommended links:
Clapper: Obama behind the whole thing
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-07-22/clapper-obama-was-behind-whole-thing
Lisa Page throws Strzok under the bus
http://theduran.com/ugly-breakup-at-fbi-lisa-page-throws-ex-lover-peter-strzok-under-the-bus-video/
Patrick buchanan trump defiant with for pol establishment “gone mad”
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/buchanan/trump-stays-defiant-amid-a-foreign-policy-establishment-gone-mad/
Moon of Alabama centrists will lead to re-election of Trump
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/07/progressives-are-putin-stooges-how-centrists-will-help-to-reelect-trump.html
Moon of A trump needs to fire some people M of A
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/07/either-trump-fires-these-people-or-the-borg-will-have-won.html
Trump is like the Honey Badger. He don’t care. Eats some cobras–and bee larvae, gets bitten and stung–and comes back for more! Tweets some more!!
(Search “The Crazy Nastyass Honey Badger” on YouTube for this classic video.)
I have “comment waiting moderation” apparently because I included suspect (?) sites–so to add this: zero hedge today which is easily found has headline “public support for Mueller investigation waning” with (according to a Statista poll) 52% supporting and 45% opposing. This stat has changed from May 2017 with figures then at 73% supporting and 24% opposing.
Ray gets better with every piece. Loved it, Ray, loved it. I’m reminded of not too long ago driving on a major highway in California to come across traffic entirely stopped because several large elk had taken to the road. The poor elk, and they were very large, looked terrified, as they swung into traffic, panicked, then scrambled and leaped away back toward side of the road, brush and safety. I’m looking at Brennan et al with this image–Strzok, Comey, and the rest. Big difference of course is the elk are pure and innocent versus the archosaurian types we now are so familiar with in government.
Ray’s article? Profound and accurate info about mutiple possible violations with the hope that lot’s of people should, in reality, be brought to justice and prosecuted. In the truest sense, so many people are involved in this, it would be the ruination of the DNC, FBI etc which would cause a domino effect. Better to cut the complex web surgically, to save so many useful relationships between the ruling elite.
Could this be when the tide turns and “Russiagate” totally collapses for the insurrectionists?
Not only has Strzok’s “work wife” Lisa Page contradicted his testimony before congress, explaining that they both realised there was no substance to the “Russia ate our election” accusations, that their motives were pure personal career ambition centered on the possible rewards for bagging a (potential) president, but also James Clapper has apparently thrown Obama under the bus to mitigate his own role in the whole traitorous affair.
To wit: “Former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper admitted in a CNN interview Saturday that former President Obama instigated the ongoing investigations into Donald Trump and those in his orbit.
Speaking with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Clapper let slip:
If it weren’t for President Obama we might not have done the intelligence community assessment that we did that set up a whole sequence of events which are still unfolding today including Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation. President Obama is responsible for that. It was he who tasked us to do that intelligence community assessment in the first place.”
Source: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-07-22/clapper-obama-was-behind-whole-thing
The times are getting progressively more interesting. Can’t wait to hear what the ex-potus has to say once they get him in the dock.
The conduct of the mass media seems more scandalous than that of the FBI. Strzok didn’t want the job because it would not find anything, but was appointed anyway: so far that doesn’t sound much like a plan to invent evidence. He was removed for publicly revealing that he doesn’t like Trump anyway. So he revealed dislike but also revealed unwillingness to fake up evidence. What’s “there” against Strzok or Mueller?
A minor typo: “Mueller was appointed on May 17, 2016” should say “2017.”
thanks for pointing out the typo, Anon. will fix. r
anon – they’re saying that Strzok got removed because he didn’t like Trump (his emails), but it could be he was removed because he realized that there was “no there there”. Strzok testified before the House Intelligence Committee that he was NOT let go over his emails. If Strzok thought there was “no there there”, could there have been a tussle within the FBI over the fabricating of evidence? Maybe Strzok didn’t want to play ball, so was let go. We’ll just have to wait and see what unfolds.
There has been some mention of the “lie detector test” requirement at the FBI, and Strzok did his best dance routine when that was the unexpected question. Knowing how the bureaucracy works, the requirement for results without suspicion was extended as long as possible. When Rep. Louie Gohmert was asking the questions, Strzok went crazy ( not even attempting to dance) but not entirely about his infidelity to his wife, I suspect. Will the next I. G. report addressed policy related to security clearance requirements?
Well stated. It appears Bob was well ahead of the curve.
Ray McGovern wrote: “who didn’t succumb to the virulent HWHW (Hillary Would Have Won) virus”
So, neocon Dems want Clinton and are fighting hard for a Trump impeachment based on lies, to get very CIA-friendly Pence.
That’s right. It’s not as if they were fighting to uphold any coherent principles or ideology.
I think it’s called, ‘playing politics’.
It used to be that playing politics with impeachment was verboten.
Yes, and I think that years ago they just simply would have assassinated the president. No doubt that was cheaper than appointing a Special Prosecutor. Now we have wall to wall MSM covering everything but the truth…. hoorah! Joe