"The Joe Rogan freakout is about power. He has a bigger more engaged platform than most of the people on MSM combined. The internet has shifted the power dynamics and he is now more kingmaker than they ever were"
"Immediately after the questions on Ukraine, the interview concluded. Pompeo stood, leaned in and silently glared at Kelly for several seconds before leaving the room.See also "Lunatic: Pompeo threatens Putin with Drone Assassination".
A few moments later, an aide asked Kelly to follow her into Pompeo's private living room at the State Department without a recorder. The aide did not say the ensuing exchange would be off the record.
Inside the room, Pompeo shouted his displeasure at being questioned about Ukraine. He used repeated expletives, according to Kelly, and asked, "Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?" He then said, "People will hear about this."
The State Department did not immediately respond on the record to NPR's request for comment."
"No we don’t, you’re pretty screwed yourself guys, don’t drag us into your mess"Tweet (Michael Tracey):
"One more thing on Joe Rogan. Upsetting the professional "progressive activist" class is probably the best thing Bernie could do because those people are electoral poison"Trump stumping on Biden's criminality would be something to see! "Joe Biden’s ‘conspiracy theory’ memo to U.S. media doesn’t match the facts" (Solomon). "NYTimes Quashed Story About 2016 WH Meeting With 'Whistleblower' & Ukrainians On Burisma: Report" (Heine). "Law School Memes for Edgy T14s Endorses Joseph “Sloppy Joe” Biden" (LSMFET14)!
"What does this tweet tell us about Higgins? And would you like to address this evidence that he knew a crime scene had been manipulated but helped disguise that fact?""Canadian truck driver who shares last name with Iranian general says he can't cross U.S. border".
"1 million people were on the streets of #Iraq this morning. AP says "hundreds". So I think we can now rightly ask: Is AP's Iraqi desk controlled by CIA or State Department?"Tweet (Media Lens):
"Literally millions of Iraqis are marching today, demanding that US forces 'Get Out'. The BBC's comment: 'Iranian-backed militias are among those protesting in the city.'""Immediate US Withdrawal Due to Its Violation of the Agreement and Iraq Sovereignty" (Magnier)
"“The Pentagon has increased its overall Middle East footprint by more than 20,000 troops since last spring.”"This is the best! - consistency in being for the people all the time for decades is a troubling attribute as only straight white males have the 'privilege' to be able to be consistent: tweet (Anne Helen Petersen):
"This is not for or against Bernie, but there is a certain kind of man who fetishizes consistency in this way. I don't know if consistency is something that's always available to people who aren't straight white men."
"Clinton Adviser Says Obama Not Electable: Yesterday during a conference call with reporters, Sen. Hil.. http://tinyurl.com/2zsryb"Some Colonel Cassad from Niqnaq: "iraq demos, mind-blowing photos". Tweet (Louis Allday):
"Western media are trying to portray this as a small demonstration of 'hundreds' of people or even openly lying and claiming it is an 'anti-govt protest', when it is in fact a HUGE protest of Iraqis demanding that America leave their country."The Irony of the Year Award is already won: "Australia’s Largest Mining Company is Worried Bushfires are Affecting Coal Production" (Butler).
"In India, the ‘development’ paradigm is premised on moving farmers out of agriculture and into the cities to work in construction, manufacturing or the service sector, despite these sectors not creating anything like the number of jobs required. The aim is to displace the existing labour-intensive system of food and agriculture with one dominated by a few transnational corporate agri-food giants which will then control the sector. Agriculture is to be wholly commercialised with large-scale, mechanised (monocrop) enterprises replacing family-run farms that help sustain hundreds of millions of rural livelihoods while feeding the urban masses.The PR tactics and dirty tricks of the bee murderers (similar to how climate change is managed by the culprits): "The Playbook for Poisoning the Earth" (Fang).
Renowned journalist P Sainath encapsulates what is taking place when he says that the agrarian crisis can be explained in just five words: hijack of agriculture by corporations. He notes the process by which it is being done in five words too: predatory commercialisation of the countryside. And he takes five works to describe the outcome: biggest displacement in our history.
Why would anyone sanction this and set out to run down what is effectively a productive system of agriculture that feeds people, sustains livelihoods and produces sufficient buffer stocks?
Part of the answer comes down to India being the largest recipient of World Bank loans in the history of that institution and acting on its directives. Part of it results from the corporate-driven US-Indo Knowledge Agreement on Agriculture. On both counts, it means India’s rulers are facilitating the needs of Western capital and all it entails: an inherently predatory economic model based on endless profit growth, crises of overproduction and overaccumulation and market saturation and a need to constantly seek out, create and expand into new, untapped (foreign) markets to maintain profitability."
"Capitalism has been catastrophic to Ukraine— a 30% population drop since the Soviet Union collapsed"Using the Kurds to break up Iraq, a return of the (((dream))): "US plotting return of ‘strongman’ in Iraq" (Bhadrakumar).
"Rather than voting blocs defined by racial attitudes or prior votes shifting the most support to Trump, we show that Trump increased his net vote total the most among independent, ideologically moderate, and lower socioeconomic status whites, both nationwide and in states decided by five percentage points or less.""France apology after history textbook links CIA to 9/11". They should apologize - 9/11 was obviously a Pentagon operation.
"Reminder: The fascist military junta in Bolivia, which the US empire installed through a coup by paying off military and police, has no popular support This "rally" is a perfect symbol of how it's maintained in power through violence and a corporate media owned by the rich elite""Anniversary of La Matanza".
"Reuters exclusive says that businessman Alejandro Betancourt secretly bankrolled Guaido's coup efforts and hoped that his 'good work for the US' would enable his lawyer to persuade Trump's Justice Dept to drop its money laundering and bribery probe of him."Tweets by Ben Norton on the hilarious, not to mention Khazar, history of the 'human rights' grifters Amnesty International!
"Jacobin was literally publishing propaganda against Soleimani less than two weeks ago, but okay.""Theatrics aside, Macron supports Israeli apartheid" (Abunimah). There is tension between Globo-Homo-Rothschild-o, Macron's owners, and the Sheldon billionaires who own Trump, particularly over whether WWIII would be a good for the Jews or not, but they all agree, as do all Khazars, that killing people and stealing their land is simply wonderful.
"#UK's Prince Charles appeared to snub the offer of handshake from #US Vice President #MikePence as he arrived at Yad Vashem's 5th World #HolocaustForum"
"Jeffery David Cox the head of Federal Prison guards in Manhattan. Jeffery is the boss of the guards who were supposed to keep Jeffery Epstein alive while in the Metropolitan Correctional Center. He is friends with Bill and Hillary Clinton. You cant make this stuff up. #shocking"Ol' Kil looks like she just put out a hit. To be fair, she always looks like she just put out a hit. To be fairest, she always has just put out a hit.
"Clinton:Tweet (Lee Fang):
Sponsored 9 amendments
Passed 0
Bernie:
Sponsored 419 Amendments
Passed 90
Clinton:
- Voted for Patriot act
- Voted for Iraq War
- Voted for Border "Fence"
- Voted against Gay Marriage
- Promised to bomb Iran
- Facilitated TPP
49% voted with REPUBLICANS."
"Bruce Reed, the architect of welfare reform who led the push for cuts to Social Security/Medicare during the Obama and Clinton years, is one of Biden's top aides and is currently paid by the campaign to develop its policy ideas.""Tulsi Gabbard Sues Hillary Clinton for Defamation". "Consortium News Sends Libel Notices to Canadian Signals Intelligence Agency and Major Television Network"(Lauria). It is much easier to win a libel case in Canada.
"As with Khashoggi, the first Saudi response is: 'nonsense, that's untrue', and the second, shortly afterward, is 'maybe it's true, but it's not as bad as it looks'. In a day, you can expect 'it's true, it's bad, but it wasn't the crown prince's doing'."Note that the attack on Bezos - which ended up costing him $38 billion! - is part of a pattern that has been going on for a while: "Government agents likely affiliated with Saudi Arabia spying on dissident in Canada, Citizen Lab alleges" (Freeze).
"What little they knew about life in the West came mostly from a crash course in Pakistan, in which Mohammed tried to teach them to read airline timetables and telephone books and showed old Hollywood movies with hijacking scenes."Added: "America Is Giving Saudi Arabia Cover for the Worst Human Rights Abuses in Decades, Watchdog Warns" (Brennan). Again, bizarre sudden Assholian interest in 'human rights' is an indication that the Saudis are displeasing the Khazars.
"Bernie Sanders had raised genuine issues regarding runaway income inequality and plutocratic politics. However, Sanders was suppressed by a hostile corporate press and an antagonistic Democratic Party establishment, which arguably preferred to risk a Republican victory in 2016 than support anyone who questioned neoliberal orthodoxy.Need that 'wasted' money for something important, Wars For The Jews, etc. (and the sort of thing that has started to get Creepy Joe in trouble): "Donald Trump Floats Cutting Medicare and Entitlements At Davos" ('Hunter Wallace').
Sanders’ issues got asphyxiated in the juggernaut of Russiagate. His legacy – so far – has been to help contain a progressive insurgency within the Democratic Party, the perennial graveyard of social movements. Had Mr. Sanders not come along, the Democrats – now the full-throated party of neoliberal austerity at home and imperial war abroad – would have needed to invent a leftish Pied Piper to keep their base in the fold."
"The whistleblower’s candor is also being called into question. It turns out that the CIA operative failed to report his contacts with Schiff’s office to the intelligence community’s inspector general who fielded his whistleblower complaint. He withheld the information both in interviews with the inspector general, Michael Atkinson, and in writing, according to impeachment committee investigators. The whistleblower form he filled out required him to disclose whether he had “contacted other entities” -- including “members of Congress.” But he left that section blank on the disclosure form he signed.Trump caused a tsunami in Washington of people so upset at his stated policy positions that they were willing to subvert the entire democratic process in order to get him out, in any way possible. This is even weirder as it becomes clear that Trump is no revolutionary, but just a standard Republican President.
The investigators say that details about how the whistleblower consulted with Schiff’s staff and perhaps misled Atkinson about those interactions are contained in the transcript of a closed-door briefing Atkinson gave to the House Intelligence Committee last October. However, Schiff has sealed the transcript from public view. It is the only impeachment witness transcript out of 18 that he has not released.
Schiff has classified the document “Secret,” preventing Republicans who attended the Atkinson briefing from quoting from it. Even impeachment investigators cannot view it outside a highly secured room, known as a “SCIF," in the basement of the Capitol. Members must first get permission from Schiff, and they are forbidden from bringing phones into the SCIF or from taking notes from the document."
"One could speculate that the President was set up, with the official designation of the IRGC as “terrorist” occurring in April 2019 by the US State Department, a decision that was strongly supported by both Bolton and Pompeo, who were both members of the NSC at the time. This made it legal for a US military drone strike to occur against Soleimani under the 2001 AUMF, where the US military can attack any armed group deemed to be a terrorist threat. Both Bolton and Pompeo made no secret that they were overjoyed by Soleimani’s assassination and Bolton went so far as to tweet “Hope this is the first step to regime change in Tehran.” Bolton has also made it no secret that he is eager to testify against Trump in his possible impeachment trial.Most of the article is on the immediate post-war creation of the National-Security State, and how the CIA's big fuck-up on the Bay of Pigs left it vulnerable to a JFK attack, thus leading inevitably to his assassination.
Former CIA Director Mike Pompeo was recorded at an unknown conference recently, but judging from the gross laughter of the audience it consists of wannabe CIA agents, where he admits that though West Points’ cadet motto is “You will not lie, cheat, or steal, or tolerate those who do.”, his training under the CIA was the very opposite, stating “I was the CIA Director. We lied, we cheated, we stole. It was like we had entire training courses. (long pause) It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment.”
Thus, it should be no surprise to anyone in the world at this point in history, that the CIA holds no allegiance to any country. And it can be hardly expected that a President, who is actively under attack from all sides within his own country, is in a position to hold the CIA accountable for its past and future crimes."
"Parnas, Fruman, Giuliani, diGenova, and Toensing worked to push Ukrainian authorities to announce an investigation of a company linked to Vice President Joe Biden, and to oust U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. But that wasn’t all, according to Parnas. He said they also angled to get Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to force at least two people out of his own orbit: former journalist Serhiy Leshchenko and then-national security adviser Oleksandr Danylyuk. The reason? In Parnas’ words, they were “Soros people.”
George Soros, an American billionaire who has invested heavily in progressive political causes and philanthropies around the world, has long been a bête noire of conservatives and regularly vilified in Russian propaganda—the same kind that Trumpworld is accused of subscribing to in its Ukraine dealings. Giuliani, diGenova, and Toensing were particularly opposed to Soros’ work, Parnas said.
“Soros became Enemy Number One, and it was understood that Soros infiltrated the U.S. government and State Department over a certain period of time,” Parnas said.
“He employed different prosecutors in different states, different congressmen, and the biggest thing was they thought Victoria Nuland was his person in the State Department and then let him control Eastern Europe by naming ambassadors and stuff, and then opened up this anti-corruption-type of system to cover up, actually, his corruption. That’s what we were running with.
Parnas said he didn’t have any particular interest in Soros, but got pulled into the conservative lawyers’ allegations. Many of Trump’s thorniest problems, in their view, started with Soros.
“The consensus was that the reason Trump had the Russiagate and everything that was happening was because Soros and the Democrats controlled certain U.S. embassies in Eastern Europe, particularly the Ukrainian one, and were able to help with the Manafort stuff and all other kinds of stuff that basically caused problems in the Trump World,” he said.and (the failed attempt to buy off Maduro):
So the effort to influence Zelensky’s administration included machinations against Soros, he said—in particular, to push Zelensky to distance himself from people perceived to be close to billionaire. That push and the push for political favors for Trump were one and the same, he said. In retrospect, Parnas said, the Soros focus grew out of an atmosphere he described as cult-like. When asked if he believed his former allies’ claims about the billionaire, he said he got sucked in at the time.
“When you’ve got the president saying it, you’ve got his attorneys saying it, you’ve got all these congressmen saying it, you’ve got all these senators saying it—again, when I say Trumpworld, that small inner-whatever, everybody would talk about it: ‘This Soros guy.’ That’s why I look at it as a cult.”"
"The small group of Trump allies who worked on the Ukraine project also had visibility into other foreign policy efforts–namely, a push to moderate the Trump administration’s hawkish stance toward Venezuela. In April 2018, then-Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) traveled to Caracas and met with the embattled President Nicolás Maduro. Months later, in September, the congressman gathered with pals in a little-known VIP room at the Trump Hotel BLT Prime restaurant for a follow-up call. Parnas said he was there.and (OG Kush-ner):
Giuliani and Sessions staffer Caroline Boothe were also present, Parnas said. (A spokesperson for Sessions declined to comment, a lawyer for Boothe did not respond to multiple requests for comment, and Maduro officials did not provide on-record comment). The call with Maduro came over Sessions’ cell phone, and the Congressman put him on speaker for the whole room to hear.
“Rudy didn’t want to be on the call because he felt that it might not be proper because he was the president’s attorney,” Parnas said.
Despite any misgivings, Giuliani was present when the call began. The group exchanged pleasantries, and several introductions were made, including with Giuliani. After a short time, Sessions took Maduro off speaker and chatted with him in the room as other attendees–including Parnas–listened in.
Parnas said he gleaned from their conversation that Maduro and Sessions had hashed out a tentative agreement to give him a way to step down from power. The plan would be for Maduro to announce free and fair elections, and then leave the country if he lost.
“I think the biggest part of the call was that Maduro was trying to be closer to the United States because he didn’t want to deal with Russia or China because he wanted to somehow move his family here,” Parnas said.
He noted that Maduro telegraphed interest in American sports, and there was some discussion of him potentially moving to Texas and watching the Dallas Cowboys.
A source with direct knowledge of the call confirmed several details of Parnas’ account to The Daily Beast, including that Sessions and Giuliani were in a restaurant, that Maduro was initially on speaker phone for a brief time, that Parnas was present, and that the topic of American professional sports came up.
The conversation, some of which the Washington Post has reported on, did not bear fruit. It came as then-National Security Adviser John Bolton worked to heighten the Trump administration’s bare-knuckled approach to the South American country. Instead of negotiating a soft exit for Maduro, the White House rolled out rounds of punishing sanctions and declared (along with other countries) that his presidency was illegitimate. Venezuela hawks in the administration had hoped Maduro would flee the country, but instead–with support from Russia and China–he has toughed out the United States’ pressure campaign. In the year since Washington recognized Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s interim head of state, Maduro has shored up his grip on power and drawn his country closer to Russia and China. "
"Parnas’ standing as a generous Trump ally also won him access to some memorable events. In October 2018, he attended a dinner in a private suite at Trump Hotel hosted by the pro-Trump super PAC America First Action. The dinner, with around a dozen people, connected Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump with leaders in the cannabis industry. Parnas said he was invited because he “was a Trump loyalist,” and because the super PAC’s Director of Development Joey Ahearn knew he was pro-cannabis.At the Javanka weed dinner: tweet (Roughchop Ottawa #MMIWG):
The White House has claimed that a picture of Parnas with Kushner and Ivanka Trump was “taken at an event in a photo line.” Parnas, however, said it was taken at the intimate dinner with cannabis industry insiders. Two sources with knowledge of the dinner confirmed that it happened in October 2018 and that Parnas attended. The decor in the background of the picture–as Zack Everson, author of a newsletter on Trump properties noted–indicates the photo was taken in the pricey Trump Hotel suite where the dinner was hosted.
The cannabis entrepreneurs there hoped to shape the administration’s policy on pot, Parnas said.
“They wanted Jared to be more involved, maybe help push the agenda with the president because they felt that that was something he needed to be more lenient on,” Parnas said."
"When everyone loved the cabbage rolls you brought to the potluck."
"After dealing with Iraq, the Trump Administration turned its guns on one of its oldest and closest allies. Great Britain, like most of the other European signatories to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) has been reluctant to withdraw from the agreement over concern that Iran will as a result decide to develop nuclear weapons. According to the Guardian, a United States representative from the National Security Council named Richard Goldberg, had visited London recently to make clear to the British government that if it does not follow the American lead and withdraw from the JCPOA and reapply sanctions it just might be difficult to work out a trade agreement with Washington post-Brexit. It is a significant threat as part of the pro-Brexit vote clearly was derived from a Trump pledge to make up for some of the anticipated decline in European trade by increasing U.K. access to the U.S. market. Now the quid pro quo is clear: Britain, which normally does in fact follow the Washington lead in foreign policy, will now be expected to be completely on board all of the time and everywhere, particularly in the Middle East.
During his visit, Goldberg told the BBC: “The question for prime minister Johnson is: ‘As you are moving towards Brexit … what are you going to do post-31 January as you come to Washington to negotiate a free-trade agreement with the United States?’ It’s absolutely in [your] interests and the people of Great Britain’s interests to join with President Trump, with the United States, to realign your foreign policy away from Brussels, and to join the maximum pressure campaign to keep all of us safe.”
And there is an interesting back story on Richard Goldberg, a John Bolton protégé anti-Iran hardliner, who threatened the British on behalf of Trump. James Carden, writing at The Nation, posits “Consider the following scenario: A Washington, DC–based, tax-exempt organization that bills itself as a think tank dedicated to the enhancement of a foreign country’s reputation within the United States, funded by billionaires closely aligned with said foreign country, has one of its high-ranking operatives (often referred to as ‘fellows’) embedded within the White House national security staff in order to further the oft-stated agenda of his home organization, which, as it happens, is also paying his salary during his year-long stint there. As it happens, this is exactly what the pro-Israel think tank the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) reportedly achieved in an arrangement brokered by former Trump national security adviser John Bolton.”
The FDD senior adviser in question, who was placed on the National Security Council, was Richard Goldberg. FDD is largely funded by Jewish American billionaires including vulture fund capitalist Paul Singer and Home Depot partner Bernard Marcus. Its officers meet regularly with Israeli government officials and the organization is best known for its unrelenting effort to bring about war with Iran. It has relentlessly pushed for a recklessly militaristic U.S. policy directed against Iran and also more generally in the Middle East. It is a reliable mouthpiece for Israel and, inevitably, it has never been required to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938.
To be sure, Trump also has other neocons advising him on Iran, including David Wurmser, another Bolton associate, who has the president’s ear and is a consultant to the National Security Council. Wurmser has recently submitted a series of memos to the White House advocating a policy of “regime disruption” with the Islamic Republic that will destabilize it and eventually lead to a change of government. He may have played a key role in giving the green light to the assassination of Soleimani.
The good news, if there is any, is that Goldberg resigned on January 3rd, allegedly because the war against Iran was not developing fast enough to suit him and FDD, but he is symptomatic of the many neoconservative hawks who have infiltrated the Trump Administration at secondary and tertiary levels, where much of the development and implementation of policy actually takes place. It also explains that when it comes to Iran and the irrational continuation of a significant U.S. military presence in the Middle East, it is Israel and its Lobby that are steering the ship of state."Comment by Reality Check:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/trump-names-jewish-security-expert-to-senior-intelligence-post/"Comment by Tony Hall:
Ever since the misrepresentation of the events of 9/11 we have been engulfed in a massive propaganda campaign aimed at giving the appearance of legitimacy to pseudo-laws founded in major war crimes extending from Sept. of 2001 until today. The continuing reign of the ongoing lies and crimes of 9/11 has brought us to this point where the Axis of Deception, whose mascot of human degradation is Jeffrey Epstein, stands against the Axis of Resistance. In recent days a guiding spirit of the Axis of Resistance has become the martyred holy warrior, Qassem Soleimani.""The Many Matryoska Dolls to America’s Way of Imagining Iran " (Crooke):
"Wurmser, Eli Lake reveals, has quietly been advising Bolton and the Trump Administration all along. This was the neo-con, who in 1996, compiled Coping with Crumbling States (which flowed on from the infamous Clean Break policy strategy paper, written for Netanyahu, as a blueprint for destructing Israel’s enemies). Both these papers advocated the overthrow of the Secular-Arab nationalist states – excoriated both as “crumbling relics of the ‘evil’ USSR” (using Popperian language, of course) – and inherently hostile to Israel (the real message).and:
Well (big surprise), Wurmser has now been at work as the author of how to ‘implode’ and destroy Iran. And his insight? “A targeted strike on someone like Soleimani”; split the Iranian leadership into warring factions; cut an open wound into the flesh of Iran’s domestic legitimacy; put a finger into that open wound, and twist it; disrupt – and pretend that the U.S. sides with the Iranian people, against its government.
Eli Lake seems, in his Bloomberg piece, to think that the Wurmser strategy has worked. Really? The problem here is that narratives in Washington are so far apart from the reality that exists on the ground – they simply do not touch at any point. Millions attended Soleimani’s cortege. His killing gave a renewed cohesion to Iran. Little more than a dribble have protested.
Now let us unpack the next ‘doll’: Trump bought into Wurmser’s ‘play’, albeit, with Trump subsequently admitting that he did the assassination under intense pressure from Republican Senators. Maybe he believed the patently absurd narrative that Iranians would ‘be dancing in the street’ at Soleimani’s killing. In any event, Trump is not known, exactly, for admitting his mistakes. Rather, when something is portrayed as his error, the President adopts the full ‘salesman’ persona: trying to convince his base that the murder was no error, but a great strategic success – “They like us”, Trump claimed of protestors in Iran.
Tom Luongo has observed: “Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate begins next week, and it’s clear that this will not be a walk in the park for the President. Anyone dismissing this because the Republicans hold the Senate, simply do not understand why this impeachment exists in the first place. It is [occurring because it offers] the ultimate form of leverage over a President whose desire to end the wars in the Middle East is anathema to the entrenched powers in the D.C. Swamp.” Ah, so here we arrive at another inner Matryoshka.
This is Luongo’s point: Impeachment was the leverage to drive open a wedge between Republican neo-conservatives in the Senate – and Trump. And now the Pelosi pressure on Republican Senators is escalating. The Establishment threw cold water over Trump’s assertion of imminent attack, as justification for murdering Soleimani, and Trump responds by painting himself further into a corner on Iran – by going the full salesman ‘monte’."
"But also, as someone who once worked with Wurmser observed tartly: when you hear that name (Wurmser), immediately you think Netanyahu, his intimate associate."The reason for the e-x-t-r-e-m-e-l-y Khazar nature of the impeachment in the House (the politicians, the witnesses, all the lawyers hanging around) - the noticing of which got TruNews in trouble with JewTube - is becoming clearer, with the most Khazar-bribed/blackmailed Republican Senators like Rubio, Cotton and Graham able to hold Trump to ransom in the impeachment in the Senate, insisting on what Bibi wants to have happen to Iran.
"Now the question: what could have compelled Trump to place any trust in Wurmser, whose resume reads like that of a bull in a china shop? One possibility is that Trump had no idea Wurmser was feeding Bolton and other members of his administration what amounted to yet more regime change shenanigans in the Middle East. This seems plausible considering the contradictory messages the White House was sending immediately following Soleimani’s cold-blooded murder."Worst lie since fake claim sparked Iraq war? OPCW report behind Syria bombings was altered, whistleblower tells UNSC" (not giving Henderson a visa is Peak Asshole!):
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, for example, claimed the US had specific information on “imminent” Iranian attacks “against American facilities, including American embassies [and] military bases.” Trump, meanwhile, didn’t sound any more confident with regards to the “imminent threat” of an Iranian attack when he told Fox News, “probably it was going to be the embassy in Baghdad.”
Stranger yet, Defense Secretary Mark Esper, perhaps being more forthcoming than is usual for a military man with secrets to protect, admitted “I didn’t see [evidence], with regard to four embassies” being targeted for attack by Iran. Esper eventually came around to saying that he “shared the president’s view” of an imminent attack from Iran.
It seems plausible that the Trump administration could not get its story straight on where the information about Iran and an "imminent attack" had originated, because admitting it had derived from 'the swamp' would not have sat well with their voters. That is certainly no small consideration in an election year."
"Even though several members of the fact finding team “had serious misgivings that a chemical attack had occurred” as early as July 2018, the organization’s final report – compiled by another group that never even visited the incident site – nonetheless concluded there were “reasonable grounds” to all but pin the blame for the attack on Damascus."Interview: How the Libyan Landscape Is Changing As New Players Get Boots on the Ground " (Jay interviews Eljarh):
Sanitized of any dissenting opinion, the report ignored “findings, facts, information, data or analysis” gathered by the team in the areas of witness testimony, toxicology studies, chemical analysis, as well as ballistics, the retired inspector said."
"Although reports have emerged that the recent phone call between Erdogan and Putin regarding Libya went badly, the two men have an interest in working together in Libya like they did in Syria. Both men have animosity towards Europe and the west and believe through a strategic partnership in Syria, Libya and elsewhere, they can form a bloc that would counter western influence and dominance in the region. Both Erdogan and Putin have shown pragmatism in Syria despite being on the opposing sides of the conflict, but they have managed to work out their differences and established a cooperative relationship that secures the interests of the both sides at the expense of western influence in the region. The difference between Erdogan and Putin in Libya is that Erdogan is much more forceful and aggressive in his approach. Putin still denies Russian involvement in Libya, while Erdogan is making it clear that he is ready to deploy forces to Libya in support of the GNA in Tripoli."Ha! Reminds me of those conferences the Khazars are always holding to discuss the 'plight' of the Palestinians, consisting of a bunch of Khazars and no Palestinians: "Berlin conference prepares military occupation of Libya" (Schwarz) (it is funny to watch the various Euro-trash getting involved, on one side or the other depending on what they want to steal):
"The Libya conference, which took place this past Sunday in Berlin, was not about “peace” in the war-torn country, but about the distribution of the loot. It is reminiscent of the conferences at which the colonial powers of the 19th century divided up entire regions and continents among themselves.and:
The composition of the conference alone shows this. At the table sat the heads of state and government of the most powerful great and regional powers, but no representative of the country whose fate was being decided. The two main adversaries in the Libyan civil war, Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj and General Chalifa Haftar, had indeed been summoned to Berlin, but they had to wait in the anteroom until they were told what the conference had decided. Moreover, neither of them represents the Libyan people, serving rather as puppets of the various powers fighting for control of the oil-rich country."
"The conflict between Turkey and Greece, which was not invited to Berlin despite outraged protests by the Athens government out of concern for gas deposits in the eastern Mediterranean, has also intensified. Over the weekend, Turkish hackers paralysed the websites of the Greek Foreign Ministry and secret service. Greek hackers retaliated by doing the same to the website of the Turkish Foreign Ministry. The two hostile NATO members have previously been on the verge of war."Labour is hopelessly fucked: "For the 0.5% Not the 99.5%" (Atzmon) (slogan).
"A UK government report also explained that the UK has been losing natural gas production capacity while increasing its demand and imports of liquid natural gas (LNG), further complicating issues for energy suppliers.Tweet (Rania Khalek) (arm in arm):
Boris Johnson's pivot to Washington could potentially satisfy two preconditions for a major trade deal with the US: allowing the United States to sell its expensive LNG to the UK and deterring Iranian oil firms from selling its own reserves, potentially the largest in the world via the South Pars 11 fields.
But the US is still the biggest winner in this by racketeering the UK's energy security and controlling who London can trade with, namely those already in the US geopolitical orbit along the North Sea, in addition to the UK being pressured from receiving future reserves shared amongst the EU27 set to earn new inflows from the nearly complete Nord Stream II pipeline."
"Looks like it was the Russians who forced Warren’s campaign and CNN to manufacture a smear against Bernie Sanders that would ultimately blow back in Warren’s face. Those Russians are clever devils."Tweet (Ben Norton):
"Around 120 human rights activists were murdered in Colombia in 2019, the UN documented That's up from 115 assassinations in 2018 And Colombia's violent repressive far-right gov't is a US protectorate, portrayed as a model for the region against Venezuela"Tweet (Ben Norton):
"As the Trump admin pushes war on Iran and suffocates its people with sanctions, while illegally militarily occupying Iraq and refusing to leave, The Intercept is helping to justify this war of aggression by portraying Iran as the big bogeyman So much for "adversarial" journalism""Brazil’s far-right government backed terror plot against Venezuela, top newspaper reveals" (Norton).
"Separately, curious whether they draft all their editorials under a signed (?) photo of Theodor Herzl"
"Bwahahahaha this outdid my expectations of an amazing self parody of delusional elite liberal opinion making"They seem to have done this so they could call Faux', by default, the 'progressive' one, which is the line Wall Street likes.
"If the US had a functioning media economy that served people over corporate interests, posting videos of candidate's past speeches would be seen as journalism. It would be a necessary part of vetting a politician to help voters choose who to support."
"Like the United States since the end of World War II, Egypt is a national-security state. That means that, like the United States, its government is characterized by a powerful military-intelligence establishment with vast powers within the national governmental apparatus. The difference between the two systems is that while the U.S. government has three other branches of government — the executive, legislative, and judicial — the Egyptian national-security establishment wields 100 percent omnipotent control over the government and, consequently, the nation.
The U.S. Constitution called a different type of governmental structure into existence — a limited-government republic. The last thing that Americans of that time would have approved was a national-security state form of governmental structure similar to the one in Egypt or the United States today. That’s because they didn’t trust vast and powerful military-intelligence establishments, which they called “standing armies.” They figured that such establishments end up destroying the freedom and well-being of the citizenry.
James Madison, the father of the Constitution, expressed the common sentiment of Americans, when he stated:
"Pompeo Says Gangland-Style Hit on Soleimani Was "Restoration of Deterrence"" (Whitney). "The Murder Of Qassem Soleimani Will Deter No One" (Moon). After Trump and Pompeo worked their way through a series of lies intended to provide some sort of justification for the illegal murder of Soleimani (and Trump eventually throwing up his hands and giving up), Pompeo has settled on a doctrine, as seen in the excerpt from his speech (my emphasis in red; the reference to the Islamic Republic is ludicrous as the immediate result of this 'deterrence' - the killing of the world's most successful ISIS killer - is ceasing fighting ISIS):A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence agst. foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people."
"President Trump and those of us in his national security team are re-establishing deterrence – real deterrence ‒ against the Islamic Republic. In strategic terms, deterrence simply means persuading the other party that the costs of a specific behavior exceed its benefits. It requires credibility; indeed, it depends on it. Your adversary must understand not only do you have the capacity to impose costs but that you are, in fact, willing to do so.So the Trump/Pompeo Doctrine is that the American national security state, the actual government of the United States, can kill anybody it doesn't like, for no reason other than the vague idea that it will 'deter' anybody from doing something or anything else it doesn't like.
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And let’s be honest. For decades, U.S. administrations of both political parties never did enough against Iran to get the deterrence that is necessary to keep us all safe.
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So what did we do? We put together a campaign of diplomatic isolation, economic pressure, and military deterrence.
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Qasem Soleimani discovered our resolve to defend American lives.
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We have re-established deterrence, but we know it’s not everlasting, that risk remains. We are determined not to lose that deterrence. In all cases, we have to do this.
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We saw, not just in Iran, but in other places, too, where American deterrence was weak. We watched Russia’s 2014 occupation of the Crimea and support for aggression against Ukraine because deterrence had been undermined. We have resumed lethal support to the Ukrainian military.
China’s island building, too, in the South China Sea, and its brazen attempts to coerce American allies undermined deterrence. The Trump administration has ramped up naval exercises in the South China Sea, alongside our allies and friends and partners throughout the region."
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