(This is the 7-page Scribd of his Memo©.)
‘Comey statement ignites new media firestorm against Trump’, By Patrick Martin, 8 June 2017, wsws.org
After narrating the gist of the various dates of five of the nine one-on-one meetings and phone conversations Comey had had with Herr Trump, Martin assumes the Committee will ask him about the other four. He further mentions that all the media attention has been on the aforementioned four after he’d taken office “because they substantiate a pattern of direct interference by the president into an investigation of his own campaign, arguably constituting obstruction of justice, an impeachable offense.”
[Well, we’ll see what Comey testifies to today, won’t we?, the Most Outraged, DiFi, McCrankypants, et.al., were willing to hold off judgment on ‘obstruction of justice’ level]
“But it is the January 6 meeting that is actually the most revealing of the political warfare within the American capitalist state. This meeting took place at Trump Tower in New York City. The top leaders of the intelligence apparatus trekked to Manhattan to give a briefing to the president-elect on the Russia investigation. Comey and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper were among those in attendance.
The meeting was carefully prepared by the intelligence chiefs, who were all opposed to Trump’s professed desire to seek better relations with Russia and to pull back from efforts to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the lone Arab ally of Moscow. The unsubstantiated allegations of Russian “intervention” in the US elections were disseminated by the intelligence agencies, using the New York Times and Washington Post as their main mouthpieces, in order to block such a shift in US foreign policy.
Comey was delegated to brief Trump “on some personally sensitive aspects of the information assembled during the assessment” of the alleged Russian intervention in the US elections, including a 36-page report, compiled by a former British intelligence officer [the #fake Steele Dossier], making uncorroborated claims that Trump had consorted with prostitutes during a Moscow business trip and was vulnerable to Russian blackmail.”
[♪‘Yellow raindrops keep fallin’ the bed..’♫, etc.]
“According to Comey, the intelligence agencies “thought it important, for a variety of reasons, to alert the incoming President to the existence of this material, even though it was salacious and unverified.” In other words, they sought to hold it over Trump’s head like a club.”
The Sword of Damocles
“Comey was chosen to deliver the message because he was not leaving office on January 20, unlike the other top officials, because he had a fixed 10-year term. The FBI director would therefore still be around to wield the club after Trump became president.” [snip to the end]
“Then comes the most extraordinary passage in the Comey statement, where he writes: “I felt compelled to document my first conversation with the president-elect in a memo. To ensure accuracy, I began to type it on a laptop in an FBI vehicle outside Trump Tower the moment I walked out of the meeting.”
In other words, two weeks before Trump’s inauguration, one of the leading figures in the intelligence apparatus was already documenting their interactions for the purpose of making a “case” against his incoming boss, preparing a written record to be used as a weapon in the escalating political warfare within the state.”
Now I’d poked about a bit to see if any major media had covered the Jan. 6 meeting, given that it’s the first meeting in the memo, but it shows how far this iteration of the deep state intel services are willing to play…dirty. I’d never found one reference to it, although my search was barely exhaustive. But more about the Steele Dossier in a minute. This will be quite helter-skelter coverage of the live coverage of Comey’s testimony, and comes from CNN, the Atlantic, RT, a few tweets, and so on. Now if you seriously need the links, I’ll try to dig them up.
Oh, and this is CNN’s take on yesterday’s ‘…explosive Senate Intel hearing’ with the top Intel chiefs in Amerika. Plenty of weasel words most of them were pressed to clarify.
Live Updates on Comey’s Testifyin’ to The Committee (AKA: The Circus), various sources
“Comey said that although he understood when he was hired in 2013 that he “could be fired by the president for any reason or no reason at all,” the “shifting explanations” he was later told “confused me and increasingly concerned me.”
Comey on Russian Interference: ‘That’s About as Unfake as You Can Possibly Get’
Russia’s interference in last year’s election is about “as unfake as you can possibly get,” former FBI Director James Comey told lawmakers on Thursday.
His audience would seemingly know this well: The Senate Intelligence Committee is investigating the Kremlin’s involvement, one of several probes on the matter currently under way. Earlier this year, Comey confirmed for the first time, in testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, that the FBI was investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.”
“He also declined to speak about the Steele dossier, a controversial intelligence file collected by a British spy and given to the FBI last year. The Trump administration has strongly denied the allegations of malign influence contained within the document, and Chairman Richard Burr asked Comey whether the FBI had verified any of its contents. Comey declined to weigh in on its validity.
“Mr. Chairman, I don’t think that’s a question I can answer in an open setting,” he told Burr. “It goes into the details of the investigation.”
(What a weasel…on #fake news)
“The former FBI director reiterated the intelligence community’s conclusion earlier this year that the Russian government was behind the cyberattacks targeting American political infrastructure last year, including the Democratic National Committee and state voter files. But he also offered one important point of reassurance about the integrity of the American electoral system itself. “Are you confident that no votes cast in the 2016 presidential election were altered?” Burr asked. “I’m confident,” Comey replied. “When I left as director, I had seen no indication of that whatever.”
The Importance of Bill Clinton’s Meeting With Loretta Lynch
“James Comey is implicating not one but two presidents in inappropriate behavior on Thursday.
The former FBI director testified that former President Bill Clinton’s tarmac meeting with then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch in June 2016 prompted him “in an ultimately conclusive way” to publicly discuss the bureau’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server at a press conference the next month. Republicans had criticized Clinton’s impromptu meeting with Lynch, and although both the former president and Lynch insisted they did not discuss the FBI investigation, Comey said he felt he had to “separate” the FBI and himself from the Department of Justice to avoid the appearance of political interference. Comey then decided on his own to hold a press conference in which he announced that charges would not be filed against Hillary Clinton but that her handling of the private email server as secretary of state was “extremely careless.”
That decision had a domino effect in the campaign, since Comey has already said that he chose to send a letter to Congress 10 days before the election based in large part because he had “a duty to correct” the earlier announcement that the FBI had closed its investigation into Clinton. Comey also confirmed reports that Lynch had urged him to characterize the Clinton probe not as “an investigation” but as “a matter.” That request, Comey said on Thursday, “confused me and concerned me.”
Ha ha; yeppers; Loretty Lynch and Bubba C. just talked about golf, and their chirren…
“On the Flynn investigation, Comey said: “The controversy was whether Flynn lied to VP about nature of his conversations with Russians. What he wanted me to do is drop any investigation connected to Flynn’s account of his contacts with the Russians.”
Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) asked Comey to confirm that the president asked three things of him: Be loyal; let the Mike Flynn investigation go; and tell the American people that I’m not personally under investigation.
Despite stating earlier in the hearing that he felt Trump was “looking to get something in exchange for letting me stay in my job,” Comey seemed to later backtrack during the questioning.
“I don’t know I would go that far. I got sense my job would be contingent on how he felt I conducted myself and whether I demonstrated loyalty,” he said.
Comey said he shared Trump’s three requests for him with the deputy director of the FBI and his counsel, the chief of staff, general counsel, and the number 3 person at the FBI, the head of the national security branch.
Asked once again about why he didn’t tell Trump that it was inappropriate to clear the room and ask him to let the Flynn investigation go, Comey said that he did speak with the attorney-general and the new deputy attorney-general.
“I told the attorney-general, it can’t happen that you get kicked out of the room and the president talks to me,” but said “I didn’t want to alert the White House until I figured out what we were going to do with this” in an investigative sense.
However, Comey said he didn’t tell the attorney-general that Trump had told him to “let it go” when it came to the Flynn investigation.
Comey once again said the very first meeting with Trump made him feel he should write a memo, due to a “combination of things” including “gut feeling, circumstances, subject, and my read of that person (Trump).”
He admitted he took the memo to the outside, asking a friend who was a professor at Columbia Law “to share the content of the memo with a reporter,” hoping it would prompt the appointment of a special counsel.”
Comey said the alleged Russian interference was not a one-off, but said it’s a “long-term practice of theirs…they’ll be back.”
Comey accused the Russian embassy in Washington, DC of employing a “robust cohort of intelligence operatives,” but said he doesn’t consider the Russian ambassador to the US to be an intelligence officer.
Speaking about a January 6 meeting with Trump in Trump Tower, Comey said he felt he needed to create a written record of the meeting due to “circumstances, subject matter, and the person I was interacting with (Trump).”
“I was honestly concerned he might lie about the nature of our meeting,” he said, speaking of Trump, who was president-elect at the time of the meeting.
I know I must’ve missed a lot, but hell’s bells, this is long enough. Well, save for a few mo’ Tweeties…
davidly
Greyson Smythe
LeMoyne
juliania2
ohiobarbarian
stephenadavis1
wendyedavis
café babylon 
this is bleeping wonderful! while i was at newswack following joy reid’s tweetie link, i saw this on the sidebar: ‘Twitter Erupts Over News That Hillary Clinton Used Black Prison Labor While First Lady of Arkansas’, 6/7/17
“When we moved in, I was told that using prison labor at the governor’s mansion was a longstanding tradition, which kept down costs,” Clinton writes. She adds that most of the workers were convicted murderers and she became friendly with “a few of them, African-American men in their thirties who had already served 12 to 18 years of their sentences.”
Despite her alleged friendships with these men, Clinton tells her readers: “We enforced rules strictly and sent back to prison any inmate who broke a rule.” Despite having no psychological qualifications, she later asserts that these men did not have “inferior IQs or an inability to apply moral reasoning” but instead they may have been “emotional illiterates.”
I suspect that convicted murderers were in the guvnah’s manse so hil could have someone around she could relate to. people maybe familiar w/being sodomized by a mob?
it’s funny to survey the NYT and the like and note how many articles are about the “entertainment value” of the Comey hearings. is this our gen’s OJ trial???? how many childish myths and little hallmark card sentimental moments of “ship of state rights itself” will be acted out in this “Hollywood for ugly people” non-spectacle? tell ’em trump ordered new DHS head Clarke to prove his loyalty by slitting a kitten’s throat in the oval office. have seed of chucky schumer bring out a knife & kitty on the Rachel maddow show. the country will perk right up w/self-righteous fury demanding to see ritual sacrifice and autos-da-fe on the teevee from the comfy couches we can’t get our fat asses off of. put me in charge of the daytime Comey programming. cry havoc! and let slip the hover-rounds of war!
I wonder if Comey’s actions detailed in the 1st wsws article are SOP for the fbi re incoming prezzies etc.? start a file, 1st thing.
Comey knows how the game is played and is determined to to lose Comey’s sterling image. That pre-filed testimony was quite the piece of work.
All incoming prezzies likely get a whiff of the file that started being compiled the moment they showed up in political activities, a file that got bucked up the chain of command as the politico became more powerful.
Clinton’s comments on what is a common practice in most states’ governors mansions are bizarre; she really has not changed from the white suburban United Methodist matron she was being trained to be in the 1960s. I wonder if the trustees (what they are called in most states) decked out in butler’s livery served the traditional 10AM sherry in the Little Rock governors mansion.
Thanks for watching the House Intelligence circus so we don’t have to. Listening to politicians in dementia, alzheimers, or stroke (choose one) trying to keep up with their careers in their 80s because there is nowhere else they have a social life is painful listening. Having someone in the same condition as President in their 70s is plain out scary. Scary and painful enough if you are watching families cope with this situation with a relative in supervised settings. More so when the staff is not trained in how to handle difficult situations and have not power of ordering the person to be cared for at another facility.
Particularly scary when you think that most of the US government is now running on autopilot but with some executive department secretaries sent to sabotage the place. Watch as the Senate runs a confirmation mill to fill out as many court jobs with Trump appointments. Semi-permanent damage as the system continues to break down with 330 million guns in circulation. What possibly could go wrong? Yes, I will take that drink now, Butler.
“not to lose Comey’s sterling image” NOT. Talking about brain farts and age 70. Sheesh.
yeah, but some authors did love that he was usin’ folksy language to beat the band. but hell, re: olde farte dementia, strom thurmond, and sir don’t cry for me argentina’ rule!!!
ah, yes, the lower-level technocrats run the place and the john kelley & his ilk. one tweet said that a vote was about to happen on repealing obamadon’tcare during all this. hill, bill, herr cheeto, obomba, and the other interested parties in the twittersphere were out doin ‘more important things’. cripes, i wish i could recall what bubba c was on about; mebbe some joint project w/ the O foundation? grifting in the name of faux-lanthropy? glad ya had fun; i figured i’d take the time since we all…deserved to laugh at the circus. gotta go for now.
mebbe they were there for wm jefferson, yanno? but how naughty of you, j.
i can just imagine the NYT and other ‘papers of record’ many opeds. man…are they jonesin’ for his impeachment, but even more his removal from office. polling to that effect is fun, according to headlines. kee-rikey, he’s abominable, but the putsch effect is almost hilarious, as is his ‘roosian connections’ various diatribe. is that what’s known as ‘a two-fer’?
love your clarke as ozzie osborne viuals, w/o the music, j, but has he ever been offishully appointed as a deputy dawg to dhs? but right here, right now…i nominate you t be in charge of the comey program channel programming: CPC, let’s call it. who’ll underwrite it? bill gates or the clinton foundation?
ah, as to your final question, deecee legend says ‘yes’, but the folks given the sword of damocles lessons are variable, no? herr trump’s almost too easy, esp bein’ a disgusting pussy grabber.
oh, lord I clipped a few highlights on the tube. sit thru 2 plus hours of that nonsense?
I feel like I shouldn’t have insulted the convicted murderers, some of whom are almost certainly not guilty, maybe most of them, by assuming they’d be debased enough to associate w/HRC. except as the de facto slave labor they are. which labor HRC unsurprisingly gives her “good plantation” seal of approval to. still, given that these people do not have friends or lovers, only interests & infernal needs, and everyone around them is an aspiring assassin, talking to a slave might be a breath of human realism to such an ogress.
oh yeah, speaking of slaves…j st. clair at CP today mentions an LA times study stating the average cost of housing a prisoner per year in CA is $75k.
was that how long it lasted? knew i couldn’t abide watching, hence the live-blogging updates. good enough for the rilly big show!
but yes, convicted murders doesn’t equal ‘guilty prisoners’, but anyway, they all must have appreciated becoming house, not field, negro slaves. gonna write the book: ‘The Humanization of Walmart Goldwater Gurl’? i like it.
st. clair also noted: ‘more than a year at harvard’, didn’t he? somehow, that just slayed me. yep, california: the ‘left coast’.
on edit: can’t see why you have so little ♥ for them prison guards needing such big benefits, though. and prisoners needing the most stellar medical care, yanno?
heh. i checked out librul-dem dagblog’s coverage of the comey do-i-do, as well as the snap election in the UK. ‘cville dem’ suggested they should check to see if the roosians had interfered w/ the brexit vote.
it wouldn’t be surprising to find that many “murderers” in prison should be released immediately & given reparations. like a whole lot of peeps in the pen.
disturbing video ahead. something sick at the core. who is the “I” of the song(, the singer’s persona (personae?), esp. at the end? killed ten thousands of people…on her best behavior, she’s really a lot like him. as her fucking thoughtless embrace of slave labor amply demonstrates.
ack! what a great idjit i be! of course there are a couple dedicated hashtags.
can we all get a drink now, butler? even two? don’t spare the white gloves, now,
ya heah? (that was awesome, thd)
Well, not having pay tv I was very happy that nbc was showing the French Open tennis this morning – semifinalists in the women’s side and no Serena!
Till they didn’t. I really didn’t care about Comey, left it on whilst ‘intelligent’ Senators said a lot and Comey nodded, and I’m sure you’ve given us the best bits, wendye. Got back to the tennis an hour and a half in, and my those gals are good! I don’t know much about Latvia but they’ve got a winner in Ostapenko – she’s a doll!
On to the second semi and I’m enjoying my chips and artichoke dip when – o no – another special report. Fortunately this one was shorter, but I haven’t seen any coverage of it, a news conference given by the Trump attorney and he’s accusing Comey of doing lots of leaks, some of which Comey actually admitted to during the testimony – the one I remember is a memo where he gave the reason for it as hoping it would cause a special prosecutor to be appointed. Attorney guy did say it wasn’t the Russian thing – does seem Comey did a lot of leaking, was quite fond of doing so and didn’t mind admitting it. I’m remembering Trump was quite perturbed about that sort of thing going on, so wouldn’t that be an appropriate red line? You leak; I fire you.
But back to the tennis. The second match was really, really good as well. Both went all three sets, contested to the very end. Lovely ladies, all four of them. Lovely, lovely ladies. No histrionics, no grandstanding; great tennis.
well see now, juliania, i brought it so U dinnae haff 2, and could watch…tennis. glad you enjoyed it. (thwok…thwok…)
‘Perhaps what Comey really wanted was to tell the Senate and the People of America how virtuous he was – and Trump wasn’t. Fair enough. But he ended up saying a whole lot more besides. Now citizen Comey may find himself under investigation for leaking privileged information to the press, as Trump’s lawyer Marc Kasowitz announced Thursday afternoon.’ ~ Nebojsa Malic, RT
ha ha; nailed it!
(click for larger)
(sorry, can’t click for smaller, & only available size)
may’s magnificent backfire (wsws):
“With one seat to declare, the Conservatives hold 318, down from 331 and not enough to form a majority. Labour has 261 (up from 232), Scottish National Party 35, Liberal Democrats 12, DUP 10, Sinn Fein 7, and six Others.
May’s argument for calling the snap election two years ahead of schedule was to secure a large majority to strengthen her position in negotiations with the European Union. These talks over the terms of Britain’s exit from the EU are set to begin in just ten days. But the Tories have lost their slim 17-seat majority. A coalition with the DUP just takes them over 322 seats required.”
b at moa: ‘Corbyn’s Success Will Revitalize Europe’s Social-Democracy’
Wow! Jim Messina did it again. Another great victory.
Interesting that no one is talking about how Brexit is the culmination of Putin’s plan.
We missed seeing whether Jeremy Corbyn could have gotten close enough for Sin Fein to end its boycott of Parliament.
In the face of policies of sado-austerity, b’s observation of the implications of Corbyn’s good showing are on the mark.
By the way, some are ragging on Corbyn for his support of Sinn Fein in the George Mitchell Good Friday deal that ended armed civil war. But the DUP has a background with the armed paramilitaries on the other side of that civil war.
The DUP wants and open border with Ireland; the DUP wants to exit the European Union. I don’t think that it will have both.
not having had a clue about how jim messina fir into the picture, i did find:
‘‘One key Tory strategist, Jim Messina, who has worked for the US Democratic Party in the past, drew parallels between Corbyn and Trump:
“Strangely, Trump & Corbyn both have something in common: wanting to drag their countries back to the bad old days of the 1970’s. . .’
that what you mean? ooopsie? now no one who matters may have brought up putin wanted brexit, but cville dem i brought earlier said ‘someone should investigate roosians hacking the brexit vote’, or close.
thanks for the sinn fein info. iirc, jason had been peeved w/ him for some position or other. i was trying to remember after cyncical seeker had dropped by and mentioned his strong belief in corbyn. jason, was it close to his having called UK war results (diasporas and more) ‘blowback’, rather than directly responsible, maybe?
it finally occurred to me to go see what the comments were like under the intercept’s lying on ‘russian hacking’ and burning reality winner, and the first 50 i read out over 1700+ were pretty damned critical. even GG’s best friend mona was pissed at him and the ‘now crap intercept’. fascinating. they’ll wait in vain for GG to make a statement; someone said he’s moved on to other stories…
winner, by the by, was in court yesterday, and staged quite a spectacle denouncing Cheeto. almost seemed even more of a psyop to me.
Since nbc so far this morning has withdrawn generous coverage of the tennis ( don’t know if they explained as I again have the sound off) I went exploring after comments at b’s place said that SST (Sic Semper Tyrannis) was closing up shop – it’s not a site I’ve visited, so I looked at some of the latest threads, and in the interest of ‘so you won’t have to’ the following comment did contain a wealth of detail and further links about the day preceding Comey’s morning in the sun:
robt willmann said…
The preliminary fight card to the main event tomorrow played out this morning (7 June) before the U.S. Senate “Select” Committee on Intelligence. The cable television networks carried it live. Appearing were NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers, who looked as if he did not want to be there and was trying to avoid cussing like a sailor at the assembled senators; Director of National Intelligence and former senator Dan Coats, who seems to be a nice man and is still in the process of learning doctrines and methods about surveillance; Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appears to be working an angle more than just covering his derriere by passing the buck to Robert Mueller for the Russia investigation that dropped in his lap after Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself; and acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, whose attitude fit a street slang term that should not be said in the presence of ladies.
After the witnesses said they could not talk about meetings they may have had with president Trump, and the session ended, the committee released the written, prepared testimony of former FBI Director James Comey for tomorrow, in which he talks about meetings and conversations with Trump!–
Click to access os-jcomey-060817.pdf
https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings/open-hearing-former-director-james-comey-fbi
After Comey’s prepared testimony was released, the performers on the cable TV networks were panting with ecstasy reading and talking about it.
But that was not all in the bureaucratic jungle warfare for the day. Trump announced that he was going to appoint Christopher Wray to be the new FBI Director. Wray had been the chief of the criminal division of the Justice Department from 2003-2005 when Bush jr. was president and was appointed by him, and his boss in the organizational chart was Deputy Attorney General James Comey! Wray then went into private practice doing the well-paying “white collar” criminal defense work, in the course of which he represented New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in the “Bridgegate” investigation, who was not charged with a crime in that episode.–
https://www.justice.gov/criminal/history/assistant-attorneys-general/christopher-a-wray
http://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/a9988661/christopher-wray-fbi-nominee-facts/
https://www.justice.gov/agencies/chart
Then, to top it off, a group called the Great America Alliance, co-chaired by Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani, and designed to promote president Trump’s agenda, has released a 30-second ad trying to dirty up James Comey before his appearance tomorrow!–
http://www.gingrichproductions.com/2017/01/gingrich-giuliani-to-lead-group-pushing-trumps-agenda/
Although this spectacle may be fun to watch, it is a sad caricature of domestic politics and media in the face of the real problems that plague us.
Reply 07 June 2017 at 06:21 PM
Me again – I haven’t looked at the CNN version you linked above, wendye, so apologies if this is redundant – what I got at SST was a high degree of respect for government operations per se, but this comment seemed skeptical enough to warrant a reprint so I hope Mr. Williams won’t mind my borrowing it.
OK, nbc, thanks so much for your recommendations for Father’s Day and the Tom Cruise movie promo. I’ll just have to be up at the crack of dawn for the ladies finals tomorrow…oh wait, I think they’re waving goodbye – could it be? (commercial, commercial, commercial …Serena Williams? No, Sherman Williams…gosh all these Williamses …commercial, commercial…) aargh, no! They’re back! Macaroni and cheese is worth your wallet – who knew?
I give up. Total surrender. Oh, they’re kissing! Oh my, TENNIS! “This has been a phenomenal match” says McEnroe. Gee, thanks! At least they’re still playing.
Bye!
i’ll have to read more closely later, ww, but for the moment, two things i did have time for, as friday i now part of ‘the weekend of chores’ here.
“I am leaving you. Guest authors, commenters and the various troll nations may continue if you wish. I may start another blog under “Pat Lang’s Blog” but there will not be comments. pl: (col pat lang)
second, this page says: “NBC airs live coverage of the women’s final on Saturday, June 10, at 9am/8c. The men’s final airs live Sunday, June 11, at 9am/8c on NBC.
Live coverage of the French Open also streams on NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports App.”
and yes, having been practically forced (as a house guest) to watch tennis, it’s been called ‘women’s’ since forever. meaning no disrespect, a lotta females have paid a lotta dues to be called women. i do understand that in your day, (on edit: and THD’s as well) ‘ladies’ was a mark of respect, really i do. but that page may tell why nbc stopped their coverage. ‘pay teevee’ must be cable, as in espn and so on?
more later, as i’m able.
Ah yes, sorry to mix my sports heritage (I’m a kiwi you know and we’re all a bit daffy) into the serious matters of this thread – yes, that ‘I am leaving you’ post caused me to investigate further – sorry what I put here was so long, even got a visual into the mix I didn’t realize was happening. Maybe there’s a hidden clause in FCC rules that require some general public viewing – the first men’s semi was ripping, and still going on even though as I humorously (I hope) chronicled, I and other ‘poor folk’ only got to see the fifth set. I doubt the final will be as good – often the way with semis, players give their all just to get there.
And wouldn’t you know, there was a ‘special report’ in the mix again – I commented on part of it over at nakedcapitalism links just now, up towards the top of the comments there. Silk purse out of a sow’s ear maybe, but darn that article started off so well (highlighted in blue above my comment). But tend to your weekends, all, and happily!
comments under blogs/diaries are in the public sphere, this reprintable, quotable, etc. but how funny someone used cosmo for wray’s resumé! marcy wheeler’s on trnn discussing him, but i got bored reading when she was kinda taking the company line as to taking comey at face value, potential obstruction of justice charges, iirc.. gads, yes, DNI dan coats is also senator coats there. ;-)
but my stars, the great adventures of newtie and giuliani! i need reminding for which cabinet level position herr T had floated giuliani’s name. on edit: ‘Why Trump Should Name Bolton, Not Giuliani, For Secretary of State’. but gadzukes! remember newtie’s Con
trAct with amerika? mr. wd still has the t-shirt mother jones sent w/ new subscriptions. jayz, 1995. contract w/ amerikamaintaining the cspan democratic façade is part of the power game. congress & its hearings & blah blah are regularly unattended anyway. then something “important” comes along to try to revivify spectator interest in that DC performance that is too boring to even qualify as absurd. but not even all the senators on that committee could be bothered to attend. they too experience Brechtian alienation from the drama.
when that façade really cracks, they break out the drones and the like. w/o hesitation. theater of cruelty. those performances are all deadly serious.
if I were a drone…I would be afraid to find someone home
great song, very powerful, j. yes, drones are our national bird now. “the medium is the message” from from antiwar.com via popular resistance:
Sonia Kennebeck’s film National Bird illuminates the tragic personal aspect of America’s drone wars. The film explores the aftermath of drone strikes from the personal experiences of several people, some of whom were on the receiving end and others involved with targeting and weapon delivery. The tragedy of the survivors and victims’ families are visceral and obvious. National Bird also gets up close and personal to what may have been less obvious to the audience prior to the film, namely the haunting psychic turmoil of some of the U.S. service members involved in the drone operations. While these latter stories are a compelling compliment to those of the victims, the inquiring public and policy makers do not require inside information on the drone program’s targeting deliberations and trigger-pulling decisions. A simple thought experiment is all that is needed to clearly show why our armed drone program is a moral failure.”
can’t say i care much about those members of the military who use the x-box-like controls, myownself. but i reckon i’m hard-hearted.‘But in a reflection of their increasingly important role under President Obama, the drone operators will now be eligible for military honors akin to those given to pilots who flew over the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Defense Department on Thursday is scheduled to announce that it has created a designation to recognize service members who had a direct effect on combat operations even though they were operating remotely, Pentagon officials said. Drone pilots are likely to receive many of the awards, but they may also be given to operators who launch cyberattacks.’
wasted a free click into the NYSlimes to get it. ;-)
on edit: Ping! medals of honor!:
”
glen ford’s reminding us about the three days of events in june:
‘On June 16 through 18, the United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC) will hold its annual conference, under the theme: “Stop the Wars at Home and Abroad: Building a Movement Against War, Injustice and Repression.” For three days, the convention center in Richmond, Virginia, will likely be the sanest building in the nation, the one place where you won’t be subjected to a barrage of warmongering fantasies about Russian threats to a non-existent American democracy. Instead, hundreds of activists from a broad range of organizations will be hard at work building alternatives to the Democrats and Republicans who have plunged the world into endless war and condemned most people in the United States to a dismal future of economic insecurity, the worst health care system in the developed world –- and if you’re Black, the ever-present threat of sudden death at the hands of police.’
and june 17 may be the ‘ban the bomb’ day at the UN, yes?
kind of a rough afternoon/evening for me hurtin’-wise, but before i quit for the night, i’d gathered these earlier. hope i do this right…
‘Don’t Miss Out June’s Full Strawberry Minimoon – Smallest Full Moon of 2017’ (some call it ‘the rose moon’; la luna bella is at apogee, furthest from the earth all year, for those who can’t watch. She was full this a.m. in sagittarius, tomorrow she’ll be in capricorn
On June 15th, our planet Earth flies between the ringed planet Saturn and the sun bringing Saturn to what astronomers call opposition.
I don’t care what the rooskies are up to. i’ll never stop blaming ralph nader.
lol. and i blame the rancid left! and jill stein! srsly, though, this came in this morning from popular resistance, with a long and excellent preface.
‘Liberals Rally For ‘Truth’ On Trump and Russia’, 1000 protesters demand an independent investigation into Trump’s alleged ties to Russia, TRNN, with a link to trnn. not being a big fan of max’s, i’d kinda breezed by it. but the transcript is almost mind-blowing. yes, as ignorant as many of the tea people whose ‘resistance’ they’re modelling. painful and/or hilarious, but mercifully a short read. (id read at the trnn link; it’s formatted better.)
it’s like deja vu all over again! I watched the most recent Jason bourne movie last night. what a POS that was. he’s Edward snowden, he’s evel Knievel, he’s chris kyle, he’s james bond, he’s bruce lee, he’s seal time 6 on ‘roid-infused meth. he’s your favorite crack journalist. he knows how to run the copier when no one else does. at the start of the flick he’s in Syntagma Sq in Athens during the early stage of some anti-austerity riot, full of obvs real footage interspliced w/the fake movie crap. what are these people rioting for? who knows? but b/c of some stupid crap j.b. does, the rioters get more serious and violent. a curious moment where he kicks ass on the cia operatives sent to kill him. some protestors are watching…and start getting ultra-violent on the riot police. ?????? the movie was too stupid & predictable to merit such a fancy term as “predictive programming.” brute conditioning. torture, mass surveillance, rampant murder, even of one’s own peeps, absolute ruthlessness, etc. in its lack of originality, it’s like watching 7 year olds play checkers. the panoptic surveillance state vs the seemingly omniscient ex-agent, who is really out to “purify” the cia, who, we are repeatedly assured, is full of good people. and Google, via its chief tech officer or whatev, stands up to the gov’t in the name of privacy. yes, that google. so stupid. (“Jason, if you leak this program to the press, a lot of good people’s lives will be ruined!!!!”)
deja vu. repetition. our culture is about the stories that the culture producers continually bombard us with. implicate all of our lives in their malevolence.
leaking, spying, conflict b/n privacy & security, top secret info, whistle-blowing, etc. what part of this trump thing is simply conditioning the US public to think about their country & lives in very manufactured & managed ways?
btw, I am reviving the adj. Usonian, for United States-ian.
a movie all about conditioning:
“he knows how to run the copier when no one else does!” lol. ever see those mad magazine teevee sketches parodying macGiver? (or close). i loved it cuz he always fucked up, and they all blew to hell.
good on ya for the new designation. shoot that arrow got me using ‘USian’ at times. duh, ‘america’ is turtle island plus south america, or ‘our back yard’.
whooosh on the 400 blows puppet show; couldn’t make out the french, but it warn’t…necessary. phooey. earlier i’d spotted another video i hadn’t noticed you’d posted. now where was that?
p.. mad also did a couple where oprah’s BFF dr. phil was kept in a dog kennel: Woof!
that’s a classic. the older boys seen briefly, one of whom is the “hero,” are plotting a petty theft. the “ceremony of innocence” has already crumbled for them, unlike the little children. to a large degree. why? b/c children are an unwanted intrusion upon the projects of modernity.
i just peeked at the 400 blows wiki. 1959, oh, my. the decsription of the final freeze frame was a punch to the gut.
wish i thought i could watch the film, but i can’t read subtitles on a wee teevee.
‘cia-assisted’. i can see that. can’t find it again, but i’d read at telesur that the cia has opened a ‘new’ station in central america to aid local police fight ‘drug gang violence’. sounds familiar, doesn’t it? 5 of them? i may have seen two…not really my style in the end, i guess.
well, beauregard will testify to the senate intel committee tomorrow, not clear if it’ll be closed or open session.
yes. attempting to bring the consciousness of a child into the world of adults, to make adults conscious – of their own kids. it’s a very “meta” scene, as the children are watching la petite chaperone rouge. who will save them from the big bad wolf in granny’s clothing? (what a reach back into a long history of story telling to children.) and what happens to our hero in the end? sure he likes Balzac and the ocean, but he’s a criminal. maybe the army? btw, Truffaut et al had just lived thru the war. fakey optimistic Hollywood bs was not possible. only in USonia.
maybe the army. the goal of society is to foster & nourish greater or smaller cells of these children into lord of the flies/hunger games type jihadi warriors against each other.
no mention of the military coup in the Philippines in today’s NYT? as reported by the wsws man in Manila. oh mighty isis. and the drug war.
this is hilarious. if it weren’t for trump, delta could fake a more courageous stance in its bold patronage of the arts.
all right, back to work. speak cash register for me! “how much is this tin of organic soylent green again?”
inspector javert the wild child, yes. weird report from Joseph Santolan: ‘US Special Forces involved in declaration of martial law in the Philippines’, June 12 2017
yes, the ‘anti-ISIS’ brand seems to give carte blanche for operations. but whassup w/ duterte? saving face? here’s how bloomberg is calling it, fwiw.
speak cash register: Ka-ching! Ka-ching! to get in good w/ your bosses, ya might suggest offering gift-wrapping for them cans of soylent green, just a hint. you know all this, but assange tweeted this, and it goes to that journal that published tarzie’s essays. oh, and that thespian playing cheeto looks like conan (not funny) o’brien from the tweet photo.
i’m sorry it doesn’t seem like that movie has been dubbed in English. I saw it long ago when I didn’t appreciate it.
the NYT would have us believe that this incident w/Delta is an aberration, another sign of decline under Trump the Malign. there was this spate of “African-Usonian (sic) movies” a bit back, like the one about the astronauts. now since capitalist Delta & their ilk is so known for its support of edgy art, why did it take almost 60 goddam years for a story to be made about the contributions of African-Americans to NASA? when did August Wilson write Fences again? when was Virginia v Loving? I don’t know, except it wasn’t yesterday. name the first major brand of anything that had an African-American as the spokes-marketer on TV. yeah, these are real avant-garde types producing our culture. the producers of the Caesar play should have had a transsexual play Julius and blown Delta’s little money-hoarding pea-sized brain. I bet if Julius had looked like Putin, they’d a been cool w/it.
the dumbing down of culture is part of the plan. being around teens i get to watch crappy movies sometimes, like Dr. Strange. what a waste. another beautiful, luminescent clip that’s about some something:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asa_Nisi_Masa
ta for looking; i appreciate it, wage slave. but i’m too whupped to grasp the asa nisi masa wiki. will amazon deliver me some opioids by drone? later, i hope.
yeah, g. carlin had it right: ‘they want you ignorant!’ (or close)
just skip ahead a bit, to about 1:25 mark. it’s a memory of the main character’s childhood. the wine bath. I couldn’t find this in any kind of English. Spanish subtitles only.
I poked briefly around the US embassy website for anything confirming the wsws story re the Philippines. no luck.
okay, the wiki made more sense to me this time. “By tying together Guido’s distant past with his present, the viewer is reminded that our adult motivations are never far from our childhood desires. Later in the film, in the so-called “harem sequence,” Guido dreams of being bathed and pampered as an adult in exactly the same way.” asa, nisi, masa = anima.
but how much richer, and yes, much more luminous, can a black-and-white film be w/ a great director and cinematographer.
i’ll add these since we’re on a roll. oh, and thanks for checking w/ the embassy. u.s. embassy manila on twitter has…661 followers. stars an stripes had a link to the wapo version of ‘special ops’ helping w/ martial law about on the order of the bloomberg link i stuck in up yonder.
there is something to the bourne movies, but it’s all in the 1st movie, and none of all that frenetic energy of now 5 movies is worth that one scene from the 400 blows. oh yeah, who’d guess the bourne movies are cia-assisted?
i’ve been scouting around a bit on my chore breaks, and have a few things to add. i’ll update this comment to bring more, but for now, assange had tweeted this link; dunno how i’d forgotten about jonathan turley, but a few snippets from: ‘Did Comey Violate Laws In Leaking The Trump Memo?’
“The problem is that Comey’s description of his use of an FBI computer to create memoranda to file suggests that these are arguably government documents. Comey admitted that he thought he raised the issue with his staff and recognized that they might be needed by the Department or Congress. They read like a type of field 302 form, which are core investigatory documents.
The admission of leaking the memos is problematic given the overall controversy involving leakers undermining the Administration. Indeed, it creates a curious scene of a former director leaking material against the President after the President repeatedly asked him to crack down on leakers.
There are also ethical and departmental rules against the use of material to damage a former represented person or individual or firm related to prior representation.”
in turley’s djt promises to testify under oath to congress, he advises that he wait to see what herr mueller come up w/ first. a commenter had stuck in this tweet:
iirc, it was there that some had a link that ‘congress is asking for the comey tapes’. herr T says he will make a surprise announcement about them soon. omg.
eric london, wsws, weighs in on the circus, and besides bringing a lot of comey quotes i’d never seen, the author demonstrates the utter partisan hakkery of the flea circus by the ruling class, and most notably what the leaders of the duopoly are in synch with, as in:
“The section of the ruling class associated with the Democratic Party, separated from the masses by a vast chasm of wealth, is not fundamentally opposed to Trump’s reactionary social policies. They fear he is undermining the long-term interests of American imperialism and they will quickly warm up to Trump if he accedes to their foreign policy goals. They are equally aware that the election of Trump has only deepened social opposition, and they fear the prospects of a social explosion. Their anti-Russia campaign is in part aimed at directing this opposition along reactionary, nationalist lines.
The working class must conduct its opposition to Trump on an entirely different basis. Millions of workers in the US and worldwide will be devastated by the attacks on migrants, the proposals for massive cuts to social programs like Medicaid and food stamps, the tax breaks for the wealthy, the proposals to deregulate and privatize major industries, the ongoing mass surveillance, and the belligerent military actions worldwide.”
guess snowden has made his decision on the new hero of the democrat party:
assange must have been hoping like hell that corbyn could have won outright.
‘Soft Coup’ on Trump, Hiding in Plain Sight’ robert parry, consortium news,
June 8, 2017 (well, all of us saw it…)
“So what were we watching in ex-FBI Director James Comey’s testimony on Thursday: an upright public servant punished for resisting a power-mad President or a participant in a political scheme to use the law as a way to overturn a U.S. presidential election?
There was a general consensus in the mainstream media that it was the first, that Comey was the noble victim and President Trump the conniving villain. And, surely, Trump could be criticized for his clumsy firing of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and ensuing expression of “hope” to then-FBI Director Comey that Flynn would not be punished further.
Like J. Edgar Hoover
Given the mainstream media’s determined promotion of Russia-gate as a legitimate scandal, the extraordinary nature of this briefing incident has passed largely unnoticed.
If, however, you substituted FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover for FBI Director Comey, the significance of the I.C.’s gratuitous inclusion of such an unsubstantiated smear might take on a different coloring. It was, after all, the decision to tack this classified annex onto the Jan. 6 report that gave the mainstream media the hook to disseminate the “golden shower” accusation across the country and around the world. Rather than minimizing “potential embarrassment to the President-elect,” as Comey demurred, the classified annex was guaranteed to maximize Trump’s embarrassment, which it did.
Trump, who surely knows the shadier corners of the construction trade, might have heard something like, “Gee, we’d hate for your wife and children (not to mention the rest of the world) to hear this story about prostitutes peeing on you” – and read the warning as a threat.
FBI Director Hoover was a master of just this sort of warning, conveyed as a sincere concern about some politician’s well-being. Trump, who has emphatically denied the salacious accusation, could well have seen Comey sending him a message from the leaders of the powerful Intelligence Community that they were determined to remove Trump or at least politically cripple him.” (there’s a hella lot more, of course) and good on parry!
‘Dispute erupts in Trump administration over Gulf conflict’, jordan shilton, june 10, snippets:
“Speaking in the Rose Garden yesterday, President Donald Trump declared that the action taken by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain was “hard but necessary.” He denounced Qatar for having been a “funder of terrorism at a very high level” and boasted that the Gulf countries and Egypt had consulted with him prior to their diplomatic offensive about “confronting Qatar.”
Trump’s belligerent comments came just an hour after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson issued a statement calling for the blockade on Qatar to be lifted and stressing that “these countries will immediately take steps to deescalate the situation.”
In Washington, comments from a White House official to the Washington Post aimed at papering over the disagreement between Trump and Tillerson only underscored it. Speaking about the blockade, the official said that Trump felt Qatar “deserves it,” before adding, “Tillerson may initially have had a view, then the president has his view, and obviously the president’s view prevails.”
Such disputes only add fuel to the fire of a deepening conflict that could rapidly escalate into a regional war. On Wednesday, UAE Foreign Minister Anwar Gargash threatened to impose an economic embargo on Qatar, while Bahraini Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa told the Saudi newspaper Mecca, “We will not hesitate to protect our interests and the road is open to any options to protect ourselves from Qatar.”
US imperialism’s aggressive move to form a Sunni alliance to push back Iranian and Russian influence in Syria and the broader region is creating the conditions for a much larger military clash that could rapidly draw in the major powers.”
Thanks for directing us to the Parry piece, wendye. His take is what caught my attention as well. He ends:
“…However, amid the mainstream media’s increasingly frenzied talk about Trump’s potential impeachment, this other remarkable story – how the U.S. Intelligence Community is moving to reverse the outcome of a presidential election – is getting ignored in plain sight.”
welcome, daffy kiwi. ;-)
““So what were we watching in ex-FBI Director James Comey’s testimony on Thursday: an upright public servant punished for resisting a power-mad President or a participant in a political scheme to use the law as a way to overturn a U.S. presidential election?”
Exactly the right questions. Problem is, as I see it, that the answer to both is “Yes”. Both are true analyses of the situation.
Part of the difficulty at interpretation is looking between too narrow bounds of the issue. In 2016, the US political system finally melted down after 30 years of political guerrilla warfare against the norms and processes of ordinary government. Too many shenanigans from both parties overstressed the system. To much media lying about long-simmering issues caused people to vote in terms of those lies. And too much money allowed a free-for-all of buying the election. Not just the presidency, the entire system top to bottom.
Ms. Inevitable allowed the phoney campaign (I think of the famous French “sitzkrieg” of World War II) to fail miserable in the electoral college because of the Democratic consulant’s habit of minimalism.
Meanwhile the GOP clown car gave Trump the perfect context for a populist campaign. He would deliver better than the seventeen other Yo-Yos on the stage. And the Freedom Caucus in Congress would aid him as a wrecking crew in destroying federal power over domestic law.
That’s what is going on, and the party that won the popular vote and the deep state that has a vested interest in war without end don’t like it at all. Watch the US government melt down.
And now, watch the UK government melt down for entirely different reasons.
And watch southwest Asia edge into Saudi-sponsored sectarian chaos even as many of the largest countries move into the Shanghai Cooperation Agreement orbit. Pepe’s latest on the Belt-Road Initiative is very incisive. Eurasia will have its infrastructure that unites it from Lisbon to Vladivostok. China is making its bid for a century of dominance based in Eurasian integration. The US now has fumbled the ball of its “sole superpower status” big time. Trump scares world leaders enough for them to build safety buffers and boxes around his unpredictability. And that brings him, the White House staff, the deep state, and the normal national security appointees into mutual conflict and general confusion. Putin’s importance at the moment is the parity Russia and the US have in nuclear weapons.
The current craziness spins fear about the Baltic and Ukraine, but the real craziness is that both countries are still facing off with rapidly modernizing nuclear weapons instead of bringing them down, including China, India, and the rest of the nuclear club in stopping the high-stakes craziness and massive spending on weapons worldwide.
This point is not the time to get tunnel-visioned into the failure of Congress to be capable of doing anything useful at all.
i guess i’m not getting how your third, fourth, and fifth paragraphs (even tho just so) ballasts your belief that the first part of parry’s binary is also true, thd, especially as i don’t consider comey ‘upright’ in any sense of the word. the many things that he testified were true, like russian hacking, with no evidence whatsoever, demurring to even discuss ‘the steele dossier’ (in open session!!), which has already been admitted as bullshit…by the author, no less. the list goes on, but yes, comey tried to make himself a hero of the realm by denouncing the ever-odious kleptocratic prez? but perhaps you’ll explain to me/us further what you mean.
yes, trump’s rearranged the many alliances thru nations seeing him as quite the loose cannon and trade protectionist. where did you read pepe’s newest on obor? mr. wd and i had been laughing that he’d be on it anew, once modi hadn’t shown up for the OBOR conference. i’d figured that tillerson had given modi his non-marching orders, myself. i’ve read several different op-eds about that, one at the times of india asking softly, ‘why not, since the people reckon it’s in their best interest, and this fellah at asia times answering the question at length, including china’ requests re: kashmir, pakistan, china want to create india as a sort-client state, but i loved this:
“However, the rise of China to great-power status in the present century is going to transform the character of international structure of power. China does not share the core political values that underpin the existing rule-based international order. It is already without doubt that China is no longer bargaining and adjusting to fit itself into the existing order, and rather attempting to create a new, alternative order. The success of OBOR will determine whether China succeeds in this endeavor or not.”
yes, and djt has indeed caused more nations to build up their militaries, at first it was to rival nato as T had refused to support article 5…but now, japan, others may just want to be in the game because: north korea. arrrgh. gotta go for now. oh, and your final sentence means…what?
Emphasis not on “upright” Comey except as foil to “power-mad President”. Trump clearly is that. Yes Comey and Mueller got a reputation as straight-shooters for preventing Ashcroft from signing something stupid only to collaborate in something more gently stupid.
That binary is not binary; both are true, and have been true over a growing process of corruption of government since Watergate. And moreover, public acceptance of corruption. Most presidents would not try that sort of obstruction of justice or demand for loyalty from the FBI Director because most FBI Directors had the dossiers on the President. Comey’s problem in responding as former FBI Directors had is the fact that Trump’s dossier is so huge and already so public in most respects that it would take a huge revelation to politically register with Trump’s base, which also motivates the Congressional Republican caucus — at least until 2018.
Final sentence is that the Republicans will use the Comey hearing only to cover the contents of the few cobbled-together bills they can get enough Republicans to agree on to pass. Debt limit and 2018 appropriations are the minimal set. Comey investigation will be less significant than Iran-Contra in impact. It will take major disclosure of raw evidence from NSA to provide smoking gun; rumblings in the media from Clapper et. al. tells me they shot from the hip and don’t have anything. Clapper is just circling the wagons with the rest of the neo-conservative national security folks appalled as reducing Russia from being an enemy to being someone we need to make deals with.
I wonder how many US construction companies lust for a piece of the action in the Belt-Road Initiative. Even as a sub of a Chinese company. You see what austerity has driven the US economy to.
yes, sorry, i’d meant binary as the first part of parry’s ‘either/or’ narrative characterizations. ye, i’d been reminded somewhere of comey’s part w/ ashcroft (alberto gonzales, as i remember it). yes, cheeto is power mad, but you seem to be taking his word as to why he leaked the memos, aren’t you, and that the memos are true? and really, so what? isn’t the orange T the next logical step toward inverted totalitarianism, out of control classification of documents, unitary executive orders as Legally binding, the military budget run wild, drone assassinations even on u.s. citizens, massive numbers of deportations of the undocumented, (luckily O rescinded his muslim ban, but left the framework in tact, or so i’ve read)…
it was the obama white house that tanked every single attempt to bring sanity to banking (the 3-day angelides commission as pecorra 2.0?) that finally ended up w the joke dodd-frank, which may have just been repealed, if i read the headline correctly. how many trillions of outstanding loans are out there now to O’s fukkery? how much austerity did he commit the people to? how many schools closed to his sec. ed. arne duncan’s ‘race to the top’?
sure, we’re supposed to believe that in the jan. meeting w/ trump, he poised the sword of damocles over the asshat prez’s head…to save him later embarrassment. then leaked it all to the press… yeah, T might indeed be guilty of ‘obstruction of justice’, and he’s indeed an inveterate liar, but aren’t they all at that level now? so, horrid as T is, i’m still glad that goldwater gurl ain’t in the oval. we’ll get a chance to see if amerikan scan find the mettle to create the sort of governance they want, but i’m not entirely sure i’ll like the collective ‘want’ at this point.
thank you for explaining your final sentence, and yes, i get it now and agree.
i’ll add pepe’s colorful ‘Trump’s Sword Dance Sets Off the War of the Wahhabis’
“Trump and NATOGCC had equaled Daesh and Iran as “terrorists”. The House of Saud went one up — and denounced Qatar for top terror financing, which equals Don Corleone hurling Mafioso accusations against Tony Soprano.”
“ Unlike Qatar, the House of Saud and the UAE are one step away from establishing diplomatic relations with Israel – the sine qua non condition imposed by Washington to insert Israel in an anti-Iran Arab NATO guided by Riyadh.”
“As far as the US game is concerned, it’s terminally naïve to believe Washington would not have provided a green light to its Saudi satrap to go after Doha.” but this was sure news to me”
“Add to it Qatar opening the first yuan clearing center in the Middle East; that’s something that did not go down well with financial Masters of the Universe.”
and wm. engdahl’s ‘Eurasian Economic Transformation Goes Forward’, may 23
yep, the trumpeter has added greatly to a multi-polar world; does he know what he’s done?
lots of balls in play right now, lots of if’s and what have you’s…lots of strands to keep in the ol’ duder’s head…
I have yet to see a recent article in the NYT on developments in china’s belt & road initiative. I doubt Qatar or the Philippines or N. Korea or Venezuela or Russia or Turkey or…are basing any consideration of strategy on what sort of b.s. is spewed on trump’s twitter stream. they passed that baton on to the #notfakenews Usonian MSM sometime about 1/22/17. what US troops do in Qatar or are doing in the Philippines carries a little more weight.
just finished my next-to-last chore for the night, having tucked a qt. of probiotic yogi into the oven to culture by light for the night. i’m about to call miz clinton’s butler for a libation (h/t: thd) and then i have a date with wycliffe mysteries.
la luna bella rosa is thankfully moving into capricorn, and will rise here in about an hour. love to all you babylonians, see you in the morning.
i have some prep to do yet tonight for tomorrow morning’s baking before it gets hot, so i’ll sign off for tonight. but i was elated to see a critter this morning that had caused me to think i must have been hallucinating it. first, i thought it looked like a small beaver, but when i got closer…it turned out to be a marmot (whistle-pig). now the only times i’d ever seen any were up in the northern CO wilderness areas in scree fields (broken rock fragments one has to ‘hop’ quickly lest they shift and well, yanno).
i’d grabbed my camera and totally blew the shot of him/her standing on two legs trying to get my camera adjusted to the dim morning light, but i did get one pretty decent portrait in the end. what the heck it was doing here…i’ll never know, but i won’t stop watching and hoping for the darling to come again. same w/ the red foxes, The Bear, et.al. g’ nite, all.
The open menu seemed a bit far back, so I hope this isn’t to OT for the thread – I don’t always agree with Gordon Campbell’s take, but this piece on Corbyn and NZ politics is well written, and maybe there’s a bonus in the end music for those who can view the clip: ‘‘Gordon Campbell on the lessons from Corbyn’s campaign’, werewolf.co.nz
Let’s just say maybe the signs of life in Gt Britain will percolate down to the antipodes. Here’s hoping.
have any idea what campbell means by this, daffy kiwi? “On Brexit, Corbyn fudged Labour’s positions sufficiently to keep the deserting UKIP supporters from heading over to the Tories.”
i’ll pitch this in: ‘Jeremy Corbyn is preparing Labour’s own Queen’s Speech to form government if Theresa May fails’; ‘We are ready to do everything we can to put our programme into operation’ the independent
and: ‘Jeremy Corbyn: Labour will call on other parties to defeat government; Labour leader will press for amendments to Queen’s speech and says great repeal bill on transition from EU laws is ‘now history’, the guardian
pretty rompy music, woop! woop! woop!
All I remember reading (don’t know where) was that in order to placate embedded Labour ‘deep state’ (if I can use that term) Corbyn came out with a soft anti-Brexit stance that didn’t help his popularity at the time, so there was an odd situation where May who really was anti-Brexit had reversed herself because it was the politically correct thing to do although her heart wasn’t really in it as well – such a muddle I couldn’t sort it out, and that Queen’s speech bill stuff I totally can’t help with. And of course, I could be completely wrong on the first thing as well – just note that NC is anti-Brexit, on the same negative assessments they had when Greece was trying to break free. TINA, TINA, TINA – has such a ‘resistance is futile’ ring to it. Ah well, I’m on more solid ground with Russia I guess, which is pretty strange when you come to think of it, since a British subject I was born.
thanks for explaining what you’d remembered, at least. i know so little of him, but is there something about negotiating the money that the UK will owe the EU…or something? oh, yes, NC hated brexit and grexit, all about how to channel money w/o swift transactions or something. but when i saw your comment thru email, i went and grabbed this for you:
‘Emmanuel Macron says door to remain in EU is open to Britain’, Theresa May says Brexit talks to start next week as French president suggests time is of the essence if decision is to be reversed, the guardian
heh; i couldn’t even say where i’ m on solid ground, so good on you, born to the queen. ;-)
‘Will Obstruction of Justice in Comey Firing See Trump Ousted or Is Impeachment a “Liberal Fantasy”?’, democracy now
MEHDI HASAN: Even if you were to produce a video of Trump talking in Russian to Putin asking for his marching orders, I suspect Paul Ryan and co. would not decide to impeach him. They’re too busy, you know, rolling back financial deregulation, passing—planning to pass huge tax cuts, putting Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court. They’re perfectly happy with this right-wing conservative president.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Marcy Wheeler, where does this lead? Mehdi Hasan said it’s not leading to impeachment. What do you say?
MARCY WHEELER: I think there’s a much higher chance than Mehdi does. I think one of the things that was interesting yesterday is Comey really deferred all question about the obstruction of justice investigation to Mueller. He had great things to say about Mueller. And there will be more to come out.
if herr T testifies under oath as he’d said he will, he’d better bring ‘the tapes’, as in ‘put up or shut up’.
wsws: “Weekend media reports added to the apocalyptic warnings. A front-page report in the Sunday New York Times warned that the conflict between Trump and Comey should not be allowed to overshadow the more important issue: “a chilling threat to the United States” from Russian intervention in the American electoral system.” [snip]
“Even more strident was a commentary published in Politico.com under the headline, “Forget Comey. The Real Story Is Russia’s War on America.” The author is Molly K. McKew, a former US adviser to anti-Russian governments in Georgia and Moldova.
She denounces President Trump’s “lack of curiosity about the long-running, deep-reaching, well-executed and terrifyingly effective Russian attack on American democracy,” going on to attack the White House for “failing to craft a response to the greatest threat the United States and its allies have ever faced.”
lol. lack of curiosity. he could be curious about…astronomy, the lives of his casino staff, the 1929 collapse or the origins of ww2, the state of AIDS research, Hemingway’s fast fading Kilimanjaro, Korean cuisine, or a real fantasy like LOTR…nope. he’s not curious about rooskies in the diebold machines! no wundur we mus ax r sefs: iz r childrun larnin’? how many times does some spook asshole have to say: not one vote was affected? should they say it in English for these retarded Friedtom Rachel Krugdow fucks? no lib left behind. how about some resume reading skills for you Achievers? beside immediate family members, what person in the trump admin has not spent *decades* deep in the bowels of the State, some place or other? (not so much from academia. trump has enuff useless people around him.) which one is not some useless piece of shit ivy league level college grad, mba, esq, scion of Usonian “noble” vampire clans, incl. the trumpster himself?
and the NickolKrug KristPauls…aww forget it. all part of their rock and or roll fantasy. i watched a bit of cnn on friday afternoon…tabloidish in its panting repetitions of mere speculation & hearsay, uncontainable drooling over the ratings that await from an impeachment.
thanks for the veterans today piece. packs a punch.
what to say about the democratic herd? to quote a screamed, one- word line from the movie Hot Fuzz: “SHARK!!!!!! everybody, out of the water.
on the importance of being maddow: I pick on her cuz so many libs lurv her and b/c she is so cloyingly sincere. a box of high-fructose Turkish delight all in one nauseating bite. but if I didn’t know she was lying, i.e., know things that are outside her narrow little spiel, would I determine that she’s “inauthentic”? would it be based in anything other than the purely subjective “i like/dislike her”?
no no noooooo, ya got it all wrong, j. and you’d even mentioned LOTR, which acronym, arrggh, i’d had to bing once again. Putin’s roosia IS the one ring that rules us all. no lib Left Behind, lol. i finally read one book of that series, i swear. ;-)
great from VA, but my fave was: ” Hackers allied with the Russian government have devised a cyber weapon that has the potential to be the most disruptive yet against electric systems that Americans depend on for daily life, according to U.S. researchers.
The malware, which researchers have dubbed CrashOverride, is known to have disrupted only one energy system – in Ukraine in December. In that incident, the hackers briefly shut down one-fifth of the electric power generated in Kiev.
But with modifications, it could be deployed against U.S. electric transmission and distribution systems to devastating effect, said Sergio Caltagirone, director of threat intelligence for Dragos, a cybersecurity firm that studied the malware and is issuing a report on Monday.
gotta go, discombobulated here. noaa says that after a day today of fierce winds, it’s about to switch to the north, as the alberta clipper will cause a mild freeze here tomorrow at dawn. shufflin to cover, cut flowers that are sorta ready, and all that good stuff. back soon as we sort stuff out more.
and maddow? blech x 2. she nuked wilileaks’ whales on dave whazzit’s late show, the featured every day: ’embedded reported richard whozzit’ in iraq. ‘our glorious troops’, yeppers. battlefield executions were never mentioned. ‘engel’, i think.
Michael T. Klare in TomDispatch about the geopolitical realignment going on.
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176294/tomgram%3A_michael_klare%2C_%22the_battle_lines_of_the_future%22/
Trumps foreign policy trip loosened ties with Europe, tighten ties with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States (apparently excepting Qatar). With Russia, that realignment would produce an alliance of the most powerful oil producers (US-Russia nuclear weapons, roughly 5000 together) with the most incentives to expand OPEC into a tighter cartel (although OPEC might not be the organization that gets used this way).
On the other side of the energy fence: China and other countries staking their futures on use of rare earths and other resources used in solar and wind generation and the countries most interested in deploying that disruptive technology. And the US private sector that has committed itself to renewable energy resources. Cost considerations after 40 years favor renewables over fossil fuels (aside from the costs accounted as externalities, like global climate change.)
Who now gets leaned on? Apparently Qatar, which relies on liquified natural gas to finance a huge investment in a renewable manufacturing park. Or Nigeria, a major oil colony. Or Venezuela, the oil country not brought to heel.
And China suddenly has interests in what is going on in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Not to mention that the world’s militaries still run almost exclusively on petroleum-based fuels (excepting the nuclear navies).
—
Little footnote:
This guy, Lewis F. Richardson was a conscientious objector in World War I.
His Statistics of Deadly Quarrels was published in 1960. Among the interesting conclusions was that the dynamics of conflict were primarily governed by the rates at which nations built up their armaments. The accumulation of weapons are proxy for the collective psychosocial forces that reflect but transcend history, politics, economics, and culture and whose dynamics inevitably lead to instability.
ack. i just hit the wall, only 3/5 of the way thru klare’s piece. i hadn’t taken notes, but i may tomorrow. sad to hear of china and drc; hope it’s a mutual decision? as for VZ, that poor nation, long under siege may be just about to have either an r2p or maduro govt. putsch. i may stick up a post about it tomorrow. sleep well. love richardson’s formulation, and boy, howdy, are the nations of the world arming up against some foes or other. a related theory, of course, is smedley b’s ‘war is a racket’.
nite all. don’t let The Bears bite.