After spending a good part of yesterday and this morning poking about for analyses on the declassified portion of the New and Improved joint intel report an other ‘intel’ reports on the Russian hacking, then looking at some of the hashtags on Twitter such as #NotMyPresident, #StopTrump, #ImpeachTrump, and so on, I’d noticed a couple things. One was that opposite the term ‘virtue signaling’ (saying you love or hate something to show off what a virtuous person you are, instead of actually trying to fix the problem), so many of the Tweets not only were akin to “Trump’s United States of the Russian Federation”, and seemed to be competing for the Most Outraged Award. Of course there were plenty of “Oh, Michelle and Barack; we hate to see you go…” sorts. The sole “fix” was jettisoning him, assumedly in favor of his Veep? I can’t be sure.
Yeah, I was bumfuzzled, aghast, agape, and agog that a) none reflected any awareness that the various reports on ‘Russian hacking’ were bogus agitprop, and b) that ‘their D heroes’ were also neo-fascists and uber-capitalists war-mongering neo-cons, but smiled really purdy as their policies both domestically and militarily globally…chewed up all of the 95% and spit out their bones.
Buying the ‘Roosians own Mr. T now’ rubbish all began to seem like a religion in many ways, given that it takes a lot of faith to believe in the intel community by this point in USian history, and even for those who may have lost their faith at one time, they now want to believe again. Maybe most had even been True Believers because: convenience; I couldn’t possibly say….
Additionally, for the D team, I’d submit that it was an almost religious conviction that the now-deposed Queen Clinton was the heir apparent to the Imperial Throne. After all, she was the choice of the deep state, including of course, Silicon Valley, the tech moguls doing all they could to crown her. (See Julian Assange’s ‘Google is not what it seems’, for instance.) The corporate media was totally in the tank for her, as were most of the NGOs and think tanks.
On edit: as Paul Jay said recently:
“Donald Trump is not an aberration. He’s the raw and naked face of an economic system that showers speculators with obscene riches and political power. Whether it’s the charming smile of leading Democrats or the religious fervor and patriotic zeal of establishment Republicans, they both ensure super-profits for the super-rich.
According to an IPS report, the Forbes list of the top 400 American billionaires hold more wealth than the bottom 61% of the nation combined. In the years of the Obama administration, the top 1% of the population captured 95% of the post-recession increase in income. This is the legacy Hillary Clinton promised to continue.
For most people living conditions are more insecure and for many desperate. No wonder some turn to a snake oil salesman. The growth of such inequality, managed by the Democratic and Republican Party leadership, has facilitated conditions for the election of this dangerous caricature.”
But whoosh. When I visited one ‘progressive’ (mebbe not really) website later in the day and had read a comment by a man who I’ve long considered a friend, and a very rational one at that, I sincerely reeled at him saying in part:
“Now that one of their made-men is set to ascend and replace the mediation of the political class with direct rule by oligarchs — via tweet, ukase and diktat from the Winter Palace, apparently — there’s no longer any reason for them to pay any attention to us at all.”
Now he’s not a Russophobe, so that just blew the clogs right off my feet.
The Popular Resistance Newsletter and other ‘progressive’ sites have a plethora of various “Rise Up; a Peoples’ Agenda”, “Be Ungovernable” plans, boatloads of marches and rallies planned some of which do make some sense (maybe more on those in a separate diary). And some protests seem to have as a goal blocking his inauguration. How does that work; impeach him instead?
Believe me when I say that I think Mr. T’s is indeed a deplorable douchebag™, and I’m not here to defend him whatsoever, but he’s just another one on a long line of them who’ve held the Presidency at least from Reagan onward. His reign may be so hideous for everyday Amerikans that people wake up to the fact that capitalism itself is at the core of injustice and inequality for the 95% or more, but given the trajectory, his ascendancy was almost inevitable, wasn’t it?
As far as ‘a way forward’, the best advice I’ve seen comes from Danny Haiphong’s: ‘Message to the Movement Against Donald Trump: Let the Empire Die’. Some bits and bobs:
“The Democrats are attacking from the Right, desperate to stir up war fever. “The destabilization of Russia is critical to finance capital’s agenda of self-enrichment from the chaos of political catastrophe.” When Wall Street demands that the country be put on a war footing, the Democrats are eager to please. “Only strong ideological opposition to the Democratic Party can challenge the madness of the US empire’s anti-Russia campaign.
This is a message to the movement against Donald Trump. More specifically, this is a message to those within the movement who decry Trump’s bigotry but not imperialist war. To those who are ashamed that a racist billionaire is president of the US, but completely satisfied with a servant of Wall Street and the Pentagon in his place. This message is directed at the section of the movement that has declared a state of fascism and simultaneously ignored the two-party system responsible for its rise. At no other moment have these errors been so dangerous for humanity. The US empire is dying and any attempt to revive it will mean global catastrophe for the rest of us.” [snip]
“Obama’s intensified anti-Russia campaign is but another sign that the US empire is dying. It is dying economically with the stagnant growth and endless poverty of the capitalist economic crisis. The US share of global GDP continues to shrink. The US empire is dying in the geopolitical sense as China and Russia continue to expand in regions of the world once known as US stomping grounds. The bell tolls of death ring even louder now that Donald Trump is in office. The US empire has been rabidly hungry for the destruction of Russia and no orange colored billionaire will be allowed to be peaceful with Russia, if only for a moment.” [snip]
“…the Democratic Party is in a weakened position and there is a real threat that radical political thought and action could find life again in the coming period. So now is not the time to empower the Democratic Party. Instead, radical forces in the streets against Trump need to develop and search for leadership that can build a movement capable of winning people over to an independent, socialist-oriented alternative. Some may view my analysis as soft on Trump because a fear of his sheer existence has been deeply embedded in the minds of a great number of Americans. Make no mistake, If Trump should escalate the war on oppressed people, you will find me at the nearest protest. However, this author will not protest without a critical lens of those who decided to sit out Obama’s war on the poor and oppressed. Democratic Party fishes will be swimming in our sea. And if we don’t confront them, they will surely pollute the water and prolong the left’s tenure in the Democratic Party’s graveyard for social movements.”
(See Celebrities like Chomsky, Greenwald, Sour Solnit, Soros, and a host of others…)
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Here’s ome of what I found about the various “Russian Hacks” charges over the past few weeks; much of it you’ve likely already seen, but I’ll drop them in just in case:
b at MOA’s ‘New Intelligence Report Adds No Evidence Of “Russian Hacking” (Updated)’, Jan.6 digs deep, and this bit is altogether telling from Reuters:
“UPDATE: Up to today there is no public evidence that Russia hacked the Democratic National Council and/or released DNC material to Wikileaks. After today’s new intelligence report (pdf) there is still no such evidence. (One third of the report is dedicated to criticize the Russian government’s TV outlet Russia Today for criticizing Hillary Clinton. The RT viewer numbers claimed in the report are evidently false from 2012 and thereby completely irrelevant.) There are rather wild assertions and a lot of conjecture but zero facts that could be accepted as proof.
When Hillary Clinton was defeated in the U.S. presidential election the relevant powers launched a campaign to delegitimize the President elect Donald Trump.” [snip]
“Not all 17 U.S. intelligence services signed off on the report. Those who declined to be part of it will have their reasons. Footnotes to the “slam dunk” 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on alleged Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction reports got some prominence:
Not all agencies involved concurred with the NIE’s conclusions. Two footnotes have come to public attention. In one, the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research dissented from the intelligence community’s majority view […]. In another footnote, the U.S. Air Force’s director for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance questioned […]
Back then the “minor footnotes” caveats turned out to be correct while the “evidence” in the main report was fake and its conclusions were one big lie.”
He included a good analysis from arstechnica: ‘White House fails to make case that Russian hackers tampered with election; US issued JAR billed itself as an indictment that would prove Russian involvement.’
As of this morning, b’s new post is hilarious, if surprising (media pushback calling bullshit?): ‘Intelligence Report On Russian Election Influence Is A Flop’
How could ya not love: ‘‘Propaganda intended to incite Americans’: (cybersecuiry expert) John McAfee to RT on ‘Russian hacking’ claims’, from RT
“The so-called evidence of the Russian involvement in the hacks not only looks like “the most deceptive propaganda was perpetrated on the American public” but actually proves quite the opposite, McAfee believes.
“In there are four facts which they claim prove that Russia did this hack. It was utter nonsense. The information was number one – Russian language was found in the malware. Number two – a Cyrillic keyboard was used. The forensic science can now tell what type of keyboard was used to develop a piece of a malware,” McAfee told RT.
“Number three – the compiler, the piece of software that compiles the code so that it can execute, always dated time stamps. The time stamps were in a time zone for the business hours of Moscow and St. Petersburg and other places in Russia and the number four that the IP address pointed to a Russian address.”
To make it simple for the American audience, McAfee metaphorically explained the situation:
“Seriously, if Russia declared war on us because we hacked Russia and the head of the CIA and the intelligence committee came to the Congress and they ask him ‘What happened?’ – ‘Oh, well you know we didn’t have time to remove English language, we didn’t have time to move the date stamp, the guy could not use a Chinese keyboard, so we gave him our regular keyboard. And also there was my wife’s birthday so I could not remove the IP address.’”
“Please, that person would be scheduled for a suicide,” McAfee concluded.
January 6, 2017 ‘Why the DNC Emails Were Leaked Not Hacked’, by William Binney and Ray McGovern, which includes Clapper having lied to Congress and presenting fraudulent evidence on Saddam’s WMD (Ahmed Chalabi).
Emptywheel has a working thread up on the (essentially five-page) JAR, calls bullshit or stupidity on parts of it, names some of the fallacies and tautologies, and this bit is a tickle:
“In its description of Putin’s desire to force an international ISIL coalition, the report doesn’t address a number of things, most notably the reasons why we don’t have an international coalition now. Again, this is a bullet point that I’m sure the most classified report has far more detail on”:
‘Moscow also saw the election of President elect Trump as a way to achieve an international counterterrorism coalition against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).’
(The Empire wouldn’t want to eradicate ISIL or the myriad offshoots Obama recently named, now would it?)
Stephen Gowans’ Dec. 18 ‘How an evidence-free CIA finding alleging Russian interference in the US election was turned into an indisputable ‘truth’, December 17, 2016
Gowans also chronciles the 50+ state elections that the CIA ‘interfered with’; although I’ve seen higher numbers elsewhere.
But considering the question: “Why would anyone of sound mind ever believe or trust the CIA or the 16 or whatever related intel agencies?”:
Washingtonsblog has guest post at Zerohedge.com: ‘Should We Blindly Trust the CIA On Its Claims About the Democratic Emails?’ (spoiler alert: Not on yer nellie.) He opens:
“James Carden – former Advisor to the US-Russia Presidential Commission at the US State Department – writes in an article titled ‘Why Are the Media Taking the CIA’s Hacking Claims at Face Value’ (in part)
‘The high-profile anchors and analysts on CNN, CBS, ABC, and NBC who have cited the work of The Washington Post and The New York Times seem to have come down with a bad case of historical amnesia.
The CIA, in their telling, is a bulwark of American democracy, not a largely unaccountable, out-of-control behemoth that has often sought to subvert press freedom at home and undermine democratic norms abroad.
In his memoir ‘Present at the Creation’, Truman’s Secretary of State Dean Acheson wrote that about the CIA, “I had the gravest forebodings.” Acheson wrote that he had “warned the President that as set up neither he, the National Security Council, nor anyone else would be in a position to know what it was doing or to control it.”
Following the Bay of Pigs fiasco, President John F. Kennedy expressed his desire to “to splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.”
The late New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan twice introduced bills, in 1991 and 1995, to abolish the agency and move its functions to the State Department which, as the journalist John Judis has observed, “is what Acheson and his predecessor, George Marshall, had advocated.”
The CIA has been busted lying under both Democratic and Republican administrations.”
And then he commences with a pithy chronicle of historical CIA lies.
For those of us who’ve never read The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government’ by David Talbot, Lisa Pease at consortium news has some very readable Cliffs Notes.
Bonus from the current administration’s DOD:
‘U.S. Special Operations Forces Deploy To 138 Nations, 70% Of The World’s Countries’, Nick Turse, jan. 6
davidly
Greyson Smythe
LeMoyne
juliania2
ohiobarbarian
stephenadavis1
wendyedavis
café babylon 
night, all, and dream of a better world if you can; kinda hard these days, eh?
meanwhile:
now i can’t read his mind, but haiphong in no way discounts the dangers of a T administration. but i do agree that the media has gone to great length to stir up the masses against him, and esp. re: rapprochement w/ russia. haiphong doesn’t see him as ‘lesser evil’; maybe you should read his whole column, no? i won’t clip more tidbits, as you can read it all and decide.
“If Trump should escalate the war on oppressed people”?
Mamby-pamby mumbo jumbo.
okay, fair enough. poor choice of words, but you’ve only clipped a few; never mind. not ‘a socialist movement’ for instance….
oh, bother. axe. your dialectical analyses are so excellent that you’d rec’d ‘jacobin’ to me. turns out editor connor kilpatrick is suggesting “we take over the dem party!” he also, mebbe most of them, are bernistas, social democrats, and want to form a bernie-like party.
perhaps you should start your own website and promulgate your visions instead of pissing at windmills here, eh?
You mean, your windmills?
The revelation of “inverted” doesn’t grab you, eh comrade?
You can lead a horse to water …
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…hi wd
…well seen and said wd…that Nick Turse graph says so much as to who is doing what to who militarily…Russia? China? Iran? Ain’t them.
…Harry Truman being the Circumstantially Happenstance POTUS Truman was likely was not the USian who was intellectually or politically best suited to lead USian Empire out of FDR’s War Of Choice ( WW2 being more about baiting Japanese Empire into a conflict with USian Empire ) to better enable USian Empire to gain Western Pacific political/economic hegemony and military affairs dominance and to subjugate Japan, China, Korea and SE Asia. But Truman was the D who the D’s had put in as FDR’s VP. The rest of the story is knowable and known.
…It is very likely Ronald Reagan being twinned with G.H.W.Bush as Reagan’s VP in lead up to Reagan’s run for and winning of the WH in 1980 was orchestrated by unseen hands and minds. In view of the G.H.W.Bush odd dot connects to JFK’s late 1963 demise and G.H.W. Bush/CIA tetherings it was likely not simple political happenstance that Bush was put in as Reagan’s VP or to surmise VP Bush Reagan WH role likely was much more like that of G.W.Bush 2001 – 2008 VP R.B.Cheney’s role. Well all that is settled history now is it not? We know Who Did 9/11 ( Sarcasm ) and we know regime changing Saddam and Gadhaffi solved lots of USian Empire 9/11 angst and Iraq and Libya are now exemplary USian Empire models of Installed USian Empire Will Of The People Democracy and Glorious USian Militarism And Exceptionalism. ( More Sarcasm )
…As it is H. Assad and Syria were scheduled to get the same during Barack Obama’s WH regime but that damn Assad went and let and/ or enabled V. Putin and the Russians to foil Nobel Peace Prize Winner and now also Pentagon Distinquished Service Medal winner B. Obama’s and the Obama WH ( given to Barack Obama by Ash Carter in recent days ) Big Plans For Assad And Syria.
Damn that V. Putin!! ..Damn those pesky Russians!!
…Hillary Clinton was intent on riding the Strategic Glory Of Her And Obama’s Victorious Libyan And Ukraine Regime Change/Coup Campaigns into the WH as Obama’s D Heir in late 2016. Clinton instead got bumped out by the New York real estate magnate who WikiLeaks leaks has now revealed Clinton and her DNC orcs had intended to be That R Chump Trump —not the next POTUS who beat Obama and Clinton politically in 2016.
…So now WarMonger/WarCriminal Drone Kill King Obama is looking very reduced politically and Hillary Clinton who has seen her intents and plots to become a D POTUS foiled twice since 2006 may now settle for running doe and being the Mayor Of New York City.
Lucky New York City.
… All this Putin and Russian Hacking hullabaloo the Obama WH and Obama WH sanctioned John ” Dr. No ” Brennan, Dr. James ” The Crapper ” Clapper and various FBI / CIA stooges, flunkies and toadies are monkey poo tossing and throwing and trying to make stick these post November 08, 2016 election days is just that — Obama WH monkey poo tossing and throwing. Too bad H. Truman ever let the CIA hatch out…too bad G.H.W.Bush was not taken out by the Japanese during WW2 permanently …too bad R.B.Cheney ever went into USian politics …too bad Barack Obama was and is what Obama plainly was not but sadly has been and is…too bad Hillary Clinton and hubby Bill did not end up in Branson doing cheesy dinner theatre song and dance. History being what it is and is not…sigh…
…Looks like D.Trump is going to have to sell more of his Brand Trump in ways that we should know within 6 months either floats or sinks Huuge. Lots of Trump Lovers now waiting to see Trump Float Trump and lots of Trump Haters now waiting to see Trump Does A Titanic. Plain to see Nobel Peace Prize WarMonger/WarCriminal B.Obama and Obama WH regime not happy about what Hillary Clinton and the DNC did not do and D. Trump did. Imagine that.
…sta
hey, arrow. wonder how many nations the map cut off? by my reckoning, special ops include mercenaries and cia, yes? nato’s (especiall africom’s) bidness is to secure nations from instability, although they leave out the “that we foment” part. r2p is sooo god for the imperium, not so much for the populaces.
i got a laugh out of your alternative lives, for sure, but you made me think of karl rove and lee atwater, as well. but yeah, as much as i deplore a trump as prez, i’m glad the clinton dynasty and their neolberalism has had a stake put thru its heart. (mumia: if T is the price we must pay…” and all that.
as far as the trump float hope, i’m not looking forward to his reign except that it may prove to be some sort of object lesson, although the proof is in the er…pudding, unless: advertising. but you may be interested in this almost analysis, and the comments were so far-ranging as to be serious food for thought, for me, anyway. wish i had more time, but i need to start some dinner, and i have a date w/ sherl’ck at 8 mst. thanks for all the historical narrative and thoughts.
‘Trump’s Win: America’s Failures of Representation and Prospects for Democracy’, robert johnson
…hi wd
…Had the D fans, zealots and party hacks “base” put as much effort into questioning and challenging Hillary Clinton’s blatant warmongering, coup launching and killing of innocents inclinations? Or exposing and going after Clinton Foundation Pay To Play ATM Machine proclivities? Or condemning Hillary’s manipulation of the D Party primary races process and blatant contamination / shady machinations of the DNC? Had D hacks and zealots done so they would have some credibility with all this Anti-Trump junk they are now tossing abd throwing. But they did not, have not and evidently will not. Credibility? What is that?
…So where were these same D hacks and zealots six months ago or nine months ago? Now that D. Trump is President Elect and Hillary Clinton is not we are seeing and hearing all this D hack/zealot BS about how bad D.Trump is/will be while the D hadks/zealots have been blithely ignoring and not challenging the warmaking, bombing, killing, death droning and assorted war crimes of Barack Obama for last 8 years. What about the gross dereliction of Eric Holder as Barack Obama’s approved and backed AG? Who let Bush/Cheney R WH SecDef R.Gates stay on as SecDef back in 2009? Who did not go after the 9/11 perps, Wall St. grifters, crooks and con artists back in 2009? Where were all these D hacks and zealots with their supercharged Demon Casting Out Politics past 8 years of this Obama and Clinton run D WH?
…Political Credibility? The D’s ain’t got none.
…I am not a Trump fan and have been stating plainly in comments for years that R vs. D junk politics will not take USians where USians need to be by the middle or end of this 21st century.
…USians who want to pile on with the ” those bad R’s!” ” BS while at same time having tolerated and spewed ongoing 3 Monkey See No/Hear No/Speak No apologias about WarMonger/WarCriminal and Killer of Innocent Human Beings D POTUS Barack Obama for last 8 years. What is this conduct if not gross hypocrisy? B. Obama and Obama WH have been doing plenty of perfidious, pernicious and pathetic policy making and politics for 8 long years. But now a yet to be installed Trump WH is already guilty of all these sins?
…D hacks and zealots have no truth and fact credibility to now be attacking D. Trump who is not even POTUS yet. D hacks and zealots hypocrisy laden conduct deserved the Trump WH win brought to them by B. Obama and HRClinton.
… D. Trump is going to have a tough job to do after 8 years of Obama Big Lies and 8 years of Bush/Cheney Big Lies and 8 years of W.J.Clinton Big Lies.It should be seen and understood a Trump Fail/Failure is going to be a USian Fail/Failure for all USians especially if those USians who seek Atomic War succeed. Plain to see the USian Deep State CIA/MIC orcs are now showing what they are and are not. Too bad Obama was their guy. One needs to hope Trump is not thier guy as well.
…sta
time will tell about Mr. T’s administration, but i’m not nearly as exercised as many are about it. partially, i expect, due to the freakouts abroad being so incapable of seeing what’s been afoot for so long now in terms of Rule by transnationals and wall street, and as you say: obama’s doj’s abject disregard for the rule of law and justice for *all*.
betsy devos was grisly to hear named for education, but then when one stops to think what arne duncan did w/ school closings and privatizations and school ‘score cards’, gates and friends did by way of similar means, the grifting of ‘teach for amerika’, and the slavish devotions to the D party by sooo many teachers’ and trade unions to the Ds…it all makes me sigh.
issue by issue will be the way to fight back, but i can’t tell you how many newsletters w/ planned ‘actions and protests’ are planned for inauguration day. even the center for constitutional rights has a whole page of ways to fight “trump’s fascism”. i may post some of them sometime, but for now…ish. yes: where were they when…x, y, z???? it’s okay w/ libruls when O killed muslims all over the globe, see, but that has nothing to do w/ T’s ugly rhetoric on reinstating ‘a muslim registry’ (which O claims he just unwound goin’ out the door…)
Yes, the Zeitgeist would be equally insane. Look outside the US. In Australia they can’t do a census right and their social program payments system is dunning people for bogus debts they supposedly owe back to the government. The UK of course has its confusion about what to do about Brexit. Germany and France are queueing up for what will be very interesting elections. China, Japan, and Korea are beginning to contemplate the post-Empire period. Erdogan’s Turkey is in a slow meltdown. Vicky Nuland is trying to manipulate Cyprus into having a permanent Turkish presences and shoehorn Turkey into the EU. (Why Turkey would want to join an EU that forces austerity is a head-scratcher.) Except for Turkey, Iraq, the Gulf States and the sabotage of a peace process by the US military, Russia, Iran, and the US coalition would have already have shut down Daesh/ISIS/ISIL. Arguing over the spoils of war before victory is crazy, dontcha know. And then there’s Modi, Pakistan, and Myanmar. Also the drug war President of the Philippines. Brazil is consolidating after its soft coup. Argentina is falling apart after electing a neoliberal. Venezuela is caught in the middle of so many operations to destablize it that it’s not moving forward. And Palestine is approaching missing one country (actually twins) in order to have international recognition. The melting of polar ice is bringing the interests of US oil companies and the Russian government closer to alignment (the source of the irrational fear of the US deep state that put its money on Hillary Clinton). And Comey is looking for his future career because one way or the other his current one is going to rapidly end.
The US oligarchs after buying the middlemen for so long decided to take direct control. Or at least one faction of them did.
As a national party with an identity, common purpose, and helpful infrastructure to candidates, the Donkey is dead. Clintonism has discredited itself where it counted–turning out voters. A rump party still exists in Congress and in the states, but this is merely the self-selected labeling of individual politicians trying to reposition their relevance.
There are two resistances forming. The Vichy resistance of the Democratic propaganda outlets and the Gaullist resistance of folks like Rev. Barber. We will see very shortly who is in for the long haul.
And crazy includes the weather here. A forecast of 6 below Fdegrees tonight and 70 Fdegrees above on Friday.
thanks for the global overview, thd, but my question was certainly concerning the us of a, as i thought i’d made clear. but yes, globally things are turbulent as all giddy-up, and there are plenty of labor strikes and protests going on, in mexico for one, britain: transit, iirc. brexit, a possible frexit, etc.: there are always two discrete voting Yes reasons, no? nationalism/nativism…as well as self-determination out from under EU rule.
didn’t know about nulandia’s scheme, but i guess i’m not surprised at HER desires. will she get a gig in the T administration? haiti, dcr congo, egads, how many other places’ ordinary citizens are under the tyrannical guns of neoliberalism and resource rape? it’s so hard to keep up.
if a peoples’ revolution comes, it will be global, i reckon, but who knows which ‘leaders’ or demagogues may make it to the front of the line afterward? hard not to shiver about robespierres for me.
6 below? good night nurse; we’ve been having 6 above in the mornings! but no sun for so long that i barely remember it. but warm enough that all the precipitation ends up amounting to very little given days are above 32. best to you; i gotta scoot.
ack, thd, i’d meant to give you this un’ as more evidence to support my contention; it oughtta get a prize of some sort, as he hits every base (fooking roosians, trump, may (she’s been hoping they might work together on ‘trade’, of course, pervert assange, and the cia): ‘Russian treachery is extreme and it is everywhere; Vladimir Putin’s worldwide influence is pernicious. Dare Theresa May confront it?’ Nick Cohen but my fave is:
“If that is not enough for you, consider that the CIA once inspired fear around the world. Now it is so feeble it cannot stop a Russian plot in plain sight to manipulate a US election.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/07/russian-treachery-extreme-and-everywhere
A lot of this is the death throes of a political ideology that ruled for 25 years as a frame of reference. You see it in the silly war room the DNC set up. Europeans are caught up in it to the extent that the US has inspired paranoia of Russian actions (in response to NATO’s actions) or they have gone paranoid themselves as a distraction from their failed austerity policies. (Or successful austerity policies depending on how cynical you are.) Is May, Hollande, and the NATO top-level driving US responses and trying to spook Merkel or is the US driving this? Or is this totally a rogue Vicky Nuland’s work? There’s likely no way for us peons to know.
Maybe we are witnessing a hidden split in the deep state in which the retirees swung behind Clinton and those who actually worked in relation to her policy took a dive. In a world of secrets and lies, all that is possible and yet so much like a conspiracy theory (in the pejorative sense) until there is evidence, which for a deep state either in the US or Russia, there is not.
What now appears to be the case is that both Russia and the US are now, regardless or how it started, engaged in the first internet-age information (propaganda) war, one that depends on the information gathered through surveillance through hacking of networked systems. Without reliable media and open governments, we have no idea at all what is happening with non-cyber weapons. What slips through is that the US is deploying tanks, anti-missile systems, and 3500 US troops (yet another tripwire like Korea) to Poland and the Baltic nations. And that the strategic item to note is the Russian naval base at Kaliningrad, and exclave of Russia that lies between Poland and Lithuania. The US for the past two years has threatened Sebastapol; now it threatens Kaliningrad. Sorta like Russia threatening the US Trident submarine base in Scotland and the base-rich Japanese island of Okinawa.
Looking at this from Putin’s perspective, he is a pretty restrained player of the big power game.
We have no clue at the moment about what Trump will bring because it is not clear that his cabinet and the GOP members of Congress have a unified view or anything close to an unified view. That reality is a little bit different from the lockstep GOP position that came out of the election victory. We will see after the inauguration whether the GOP can recapture that party unity and launch the juggernaut of the Trump administration that most outside that club fear is the policy direction. Will, for example, Trump listen to the Russia hawks he is appointing to national security posts or order them to get with his program? Are DeVos, Perry, and Carson appointed to eliminate their agencies or to make them cash cows for private looting? Part of the insanity is Trump give conflicting signals in order to preserve his freedom of arbitrary action and not telegraph his intentions to his opposition. And that creates an information vacuum that drives the media and a significan part of the public insane.
briefly, as we had a very…talkative visitor earlier. yes, how could we not think that austerity measures were driven a-purpose? reality, not cynicism, imo, after witnessing what the imf and the eu did to greece, italy, etc. and of course the diasporas from syria are all putin’s falut, too.
i can’t blame the russians for putting in the s400 missile defence around kaliningrad, myownself, nor the report of the 250s on the border, given the insane level of nato,US military provocation.
dunno about a deep state split, but an interesting thought, although deep state has a lot of players and ideologies. but ‘what levers of power’ will he command is a thought-provoking mind exercise, but…we just don’t know yet.
on edit: dnc war rooms? beyond the big soros meet at the mandarin hotel in deecee?
oct. 31, how appropriate:
Aren’t those Equus asinuses patriotic scoundrels?
I think you have that formulation reversed.
Ooh, speaking of Equus (Equii?) I have been mulling over the map above in light of having remembered from “Bay of Pigs – the Untold Story” by Peter Wyden, that on that illustrious occasion the CIA had planted what is known as a sleeper in or near the location of the mini invasion contemplated. However, that sleeper CIA agent remained unaware of what was going on, having been apparently forgotten.
I note there is a ‘presence’ in Mongolia, and also one in Kazakhstan – pretty close to the enigma that is Siberia. And I just happened to come into possession of (it having been left at our mailbox area on a shelf) the December issue of Smithsonian mag., in which Paige Williams has a big spread – “Wild Wild Horses – Once nearly extinct, Prezewalski’s Horse is making a remarkable comeback on the dusty Steppes of Mongolia.” Hmm. I myself dust off the mag., which had found itself in yesterday’s garbage – lovely color photos, fascinating piece. Hmm, Paige is on loan from the New Yorker. Oh well, it’s a small world.
Quite a project the chunky little horses coming back home along Russia’s bottom edge. . . of course it is wild to suppose, but thinking about Russian hacking – and Putin not doing it (frustrating that of course), but wild horses, possible sleeper cell, no fences, chase the horses, do some hacking here and there – oh my, have to stop watching Sherlock Holmes(show’s getting better though) – it would make a good novel, don’tya think?
forgotten by the cia? yikers, thanks for that tidbit, ww. and for the gorgeous imagery of the stocky ponies on the steps. i can see the frost on their guard hairs and the vapors coming out of their muzzles in the frigid air, whickering to one another as they shimmy-rumple their coats against the frost, as they do in summer to shake off flies…
fun blend of an imagined novel, too. the guardian ha a couple reviews of last sunday’s Sherl’ck i haven’t read yet, but as for last night’s, i’m glad that the villain won’t become the new version of moriarity. damn, he’s a good actor, though! well, all of them are, really.
Barber’s political vision is of a grassroots fusion party (a relic of North Carolina history) that puts pressure on the General Assembly (and local governments) or challenges them from either party or a third party with a policy agenda as a platform. It organizes locally and has an interstate network instead of a national hub organization. Is it really kosher? That remains to be seen; it hasn’t been prayed over and bled yet, but if they continue their course, that is as much of a possibility as in the Civil Rights movement.
Your second paragraph is an excellent question and seems to be the case among some of the previous Democratic nomenklatura. In terms of your framing of the question, the more parasitical, the more likely they are to be of that view. BTW, where is James Carville these days?
i sure like the idea of a horizontal formation rather than a national one. i saw in a newsletter that he’d be calling for ‘a third reconstruction’, but i didn’t do more than scan his piece (iirc, it was at think progress), there are so many others in my inbox every morning. but today took the cake for the number of them. more on that later.
a couple of good things here, in an abstract & very-cliched way, but just stunningly ignorant partisan posturing BS. have a good groan & eye-roll this a.m. Hollywood & the Press are as brave as the newly-threatened immigrants! & the Committee to Protect Journalism needs America to be America again now more than ever (j/k. she didn’t exactly say that last bit.)
what a threat to one’s own career not to clap like a happy down syndrome baby seal before Meryl Streep’s maudlin tinsel-town speech. dare one snort at this bilge? when the camera is on, as it always is, for all of us, these days?
dunno who won the honors, but it’s hard not to notice all the golden globes in the room. but srsly, hollywood is valiant? dunno about that, but yeah, some good stuff gets made. i’ll see if i embed this tweet, then clicking on it, allows one to see all other thoughts he provided below it.
yes, clicking shows the rest; the pen author’s (kahled khalifa) full letter is here at huffPo.
“The blindness that has stricken the world has encouraged the regime’s attempt to eliminate the peaceful Syrian revolution with a repressive force that is unrivaled. The aid of Russia, China, and Iran and the silence of the world before these crimes committed in broad daylight have permitted the regime to murder my people for the past eleven months.”
could spend all day just clicking thru stuff at Club des Cordeliers…
yeah, i hear that; tho i haven’t been able to decipher his defense of duterte, my self.
i usually like paul street, tho i haven’t watched or read yet; i need to take a break. he sounds on topic.
‘Trump is Obama’s Legacy’ ; Paul Street tells Paul Jay that in the first two years of Obama’s first term when the Democrats controlled both houses, the president “stood between the bankers and the pitchforks” instead of using the moment for real reform
http://therealnews.com/t2/story:18070:Trump-is-Obama%27s-Legacy
street did okay, but nothing we hadn’t known before; interesting to see his face, hear his voice, though, and then read the transcript. he did mention mike lofgren’s jan, 2016 book on the deep state, shadow government, so i dug up a short interview w/ him at salon; and found a longish essay he wrote for moyers & co in 2014 on the subject.
different organization than miz streep had mentioned, so… i dunno. do you ever consider how over-represented your comments are, Komrade energizer bunny? or that oncein a blue moon you have something constructive to offer than ha ha ha ha has?? goddam, it must be satisfying to be in such brilliant command of the socio-political sphere and the heavens!
truth to tell, i consider them and yer over-representaion here as OCD on yer part. check out SSRIs, for instance.
how very capitalist litigious you are , comrade. what a ‘fourth internationalist’ con you are, srsly. as with sherl’ck are you simply a high-functioning sociopath?
Wendy, a good start for this new election cycle.
I had to chuckle with your, “Yeah, I was bumfuzzled, aghast, agape, and agog”… and yet, the Big Picture has been about Crony Capitalism that the news media outlets will not effectively address, especially from my standpoint that is reflective among the Progressive Coalition and as practiced here in my wonderful Sonoran Desert.
The intel report, both the classified and non-classified versions, are nothing more than for reinforcing this crony capitalism and as practiced by Trump, the conservative/populist and Clinton, the neo-liberal/populist, and unfortunately, the votes didn’t even come close or competitive at the Electoral College for Clinton’s faux attention to Progressive Issues.
Consequently, the “hacking” attributed to Russia is exceeding correct since the wealth of members of the Arizona State Legislature and senior staff were required to change their passwords. And yet, a ‘little window’ that presented itself, was just another Russian version of this hacking. Thus, Russia’s hacking was wide spread, to say the least.
Of course, when It comes to crony capitalism, this political klepto-behavior will remain constant and continuing for the next 26 years totaling over $130 trillion, and thoroughly benefiting the European American community, writ large. However the European American community becomes a “minority” should the Census Bureau assessment (2043) being proven correct. Therefore, will the new “majority” develop the ability to self-restrain itself and thusly, circumvent this crony capitalism?
Jaango
am i understanding correctly that you believe that the Russians DID hack everything, including the AZ legislature and staff? yes, reading again, it seems that’s what you’re saying. is it your contention then, that there aren’t any kleptocrats other than white europeans? one off the top of my head is pierre omidyar, but i’d guess there are plenty more. would the forbes ‘richest list’ give indications?
as to your question, i know it’s a matter of faith with you that it will be so; i’m doubtful, but hope you might be right. a hella lot of hideous scenarios are predicted for the next decade, even, so we’ll just have to ride them out as best we cn, yes?
best to you, and have as good a new year as you can.