By The Last Boy In Line
Friday, November 29, 2019
Dear Black Friday:
Sincerely,
Friday, November 29, 2019
Dear Black Friday
Dear Black Friday
By The Last Boy In Line
Friday, November 29, 2019
Dear Black Friday:
Sincerely,
By The Last Boy In Line
Friday, November 29, 2019
Dear Black Friday:
Sincerely,
Thursday, November 28, 2019
Dear Thanksgiving
Dear Thanksgiving
By The Last Boy In Line
Thursday, November 28, 2019
Dear Thanksgiving:
Sincerely,
By The Last Boy In Line
Thursday, November 28, 2019
Dear Thanksgiving:
Sincerely,
Monday, November 25, 2019
Friday, November 22, 2019
The Impeachment Pantomime
The Impeachment Pantomime
By Patrick Lawrence
Consortium News
November 22, 2019
Now that “Russia-Gate” has failed and “Ukraine-Gate” neatly takes
its place, many questions arise.
Will the Democratic Party, this time in open collusion with the
intelligence apparatus, succeed in its second attempt to depose
President Donald Trump in what might fairly be called a bloodless
coup?
Whatever the outcome of the thus-far-farcical impeachment probe,
which is to be conducted publicly as of Wednesday, did the
President use his office to pressure Ukraine in behalf of his own
personal and political interests?
Did Trump, in his fateful telephone conversation last July 25 with
Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, put U.S. national security
at risk, as is alleged?
All good questions.
Here is another: Will Joe Biden, at present the leading contender
for the Democratic presidential nomination, get away with what
is almost certain to prove his gross corruption and gross abuse of
office when he carried the Ukraine portfolio while serving as vice
president under Barack Obama?
Corollary line of inquiry: Will the corporate media, The New
York Times in the lead, get away with self-censoring what is
now irrefutable evidence of the impeachment probe’s various
frauds and corruptions?
Ditto in the Biden case: Can the Times and the media that faithfully
follow its lead continue to disregard accumulating circumstantial
evidence of Biden’s guilt as he appears to have acted in the interest
of his son Hunter while the latter sat on the board of one of
Ukraine’s largest privately held natural gas producers?
Innuendo & Interference
It is not difficult to imagine that Trump presented Zelensky with
his famous quid pro quo when they spoke last summer: Open an
investigation into Biden père et fils and I will release $391 million
in military aid and invite you to the White House.
Trump seems to be no stranger to abuses of power of this sort.
But the impeachment probe has swiftly run up against the same
problem that sank the good ship Russia-Gate: It has produced no
evidence. Innuendo and inference, yes. Various syllogisms, yes.
But no evidence.
There is none in the transcript of the telephone exchange.
Zelensky has flatly stated that there was no quid pro quo.
The witnesses so far called to testify have had little to offer other
than their personal opinions, even if Capitol Hill Democrats pretend
these testimonies are prima facie damning.
And the witnesses are to one or another degree
of questionable motives.
To a one, they appear to be Russophobes who favor military aid to
Ukraine; to a one they are turf-conscious careerists who think they
set U.S. foreign policy and resent the president for intruding upon
them.
It is increasingly evident that Trump’s true offense is proposing
to renovate a foreign policy framework that has been more or
less untouched for 75 years (and is in dire need of renovation).
Ten days ago Real Clear Investigations suggested that the
“whistleblower” whose “complaint” last August set the
impeachment probe in motion was in all likelihood a CIA
agent named Eric Ciaramella.
And who is Eric Ciaramella?
It turns out he is a young but seasoned Democratic Party
apparatchik conducting his spookery on American soil.
Ciaramella has previously worked with Joe Biden during the latter’s
days as veep; with Susan Rice, Obama’s recklessly hawkish national
security adviser; with John Brennan, a key architect of the Russia-
Gate edifice; as well as with Alexandra Chalupa, a Ukrainian born
Democratic National Committee official charged during the 2016
campaign season with digging up dirt on none other than candidate
Donald Trump.
For good measure, Paul Sperry’s perspicacious reporting in
Real Clear Investigations reveals that Ciaramella conferred
with the staff of Rep. Adam Schiff, the House Democrat leading
the impeachment process, a month prior to filing his “complaint”
to the CIA’s inspector general.
This information comes after Schiff stated on the record that the
staff of the House Intelligence Committee, which he heads, had
no contact with the whistleblower. Schiff has since acknowledged
the Ciaramella connection.
Phantom in Plain Sight
No wonder no one in Washington will name this phantom in plain
sight.
The impeachment probe starts to take on a certain reek.
It starts to look as if contempt for Trump takes precedence over
democratic process — a dangerous priority.
Sperry quotes Fred Fleitz, a former National Security Council
official, thus: “Everyone knows who he is.
CNN knows. The Washington Post knows. The New York Times
knows. Congress knows. The White house knows…. They’re hiding
him because of his political bias.”
Here we come to another question.
If everyone knows the whistleblower’s identity, why have
the corporate media declined to name him?
There can be but one answer to this question.
If Ciaramella’s identity were publicized and his professional record
exposed, the Ukraine-Gate narrative would instantly collapse into
a second-rate vaudeville act — farce by any other name, although
“hoax” might do, even if Trump has made the term his own.
There is another half to this burlesque.
While Schiff and his House colleagues chicken-scratch for
something, anything that may justify a formal impeachment,
a clear, documented record emerges of Joe Biden’s official
interventions in Ukraine in behalf of Burisma Holdings, the
gas company that named Hunter Biden to its board in March
2014 — a month, it is worth noting, after the U.S.–cultivated
coup in Kiev.
There is no thought of scrutinizing Biden’s activities
by way of an official inquiry.
In its way, this, too, reflects upon the pantomime
of the impeachment probe.
Are there sufficient grounds to open an investigation?
Emphatically there are.
Two reports published last week make this plain by
any reasonable measure.
‘Bursima-Gate’
John Solomon, a singularly competent follower of Russia-Gate
and Ukraine-Gate, published a report last Monday exposing Hunter
Biden’s extensive contacts with the Obama State Department in
the early months of 2016.
Two developments were pending at the time.
They lie at the heart of what we may well call “Burisma-Gate.”
One, the Obama administration had committed to providing Ukraine
with $1 billion in loan guarantees. In a December 2015 address to
the Rada, Ukraine’s legislature, V–P Biden withheld an apparently
planned announcement of the credit facility.
Two, coincident with Hunter Biden’s numerous conferences at the
State Department, Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin,
was swiftly advancing a corruption investigation into Burisma’s
oligarchic owner, Mykola Zlochevsky, who was by early 2016 living
in exile.
Just prior to Biden’s spate of visits to Foggy Bottom, Shokin had
confiscated several of Zlochevsky’s properties—a clear sign that
he was closing in.
Joe Biden wanted Shokin fired.
He is, of course, famously on the record boasting of his threat
to withhold the loan guarantee as a means to getting this done.
Shokin was in short order dismissed, and the loan guarantee
went through.
Solomon documents his report with memos he obtained via
the Freedom of Information Act earlier this year.
These add significantly to the picture.
“Hunter Biden and his Ukrainian gas firm colleagues had multiple
contacts with the Obama State Department during the 2016
election cycle,” he writes, “including one just a month before
Vice President Joe Biden forced Ukraine to fire the Prosecutor
investigating his son’s company for corruption.”
Last Tuesday, a day after Solomon published his report, Moon of
Alabama, the much-followed web publication, posted a granularly
researched and well-sourced timeline of the events surrounding
Shokin’s dismissal at Vice President Biden’s request.
This is the most complete chronology of the Burisma-Gate story
yet available.
In an ethical judicial system, it or something like it would now
sit on a prosecutor’s desk.
There is no suggestion in the Moon of Alabama’s timeline that
Shokin had shelved his investigation into Burisma by the time
Biden exerted pressure to get him sacked, as Biden’s defenders
assert.
Just the opposite appears to be the true case: The timeline
indicates Shokin was about to pounce.
Indeed Shokin said so under oath in an Austrian court case,
testifying that he was fired because of Biden’s pressure not
to conduct the probe.
It is important to note that there is no conclusive evidence that
Joe Biden misused his office in behalf of his son’s business interests
simply because there has been no investigation.
Given what is beginning to emerge, however, the need for one
can no longer be in doubt.
Can Democrats and the media obscure indefinitely what now
amounts to very strong circumstantial evidence against Biden?
We live in a time when the corporate media make as much
effort to hide information as they do to report it.
But as in the case of Ciaramella’s identity, it is unlikely these
myriad omissions can be sustained indefinitely — especially if
Biden wins the Democratic nomination next year.
Forecast: If only because of Burisma-Gate, Joe Biden will never be
president.
As everyone in Washington seems to understand, it is highly unlikely
Trump will be ousted via an impeachment trial.
The Republican-controlled Senate can be counted on to keep him
in office.
Whatever Trump got up to with Zelensky, there is little chance it
will prove sufficient to drive him from office.
As to the charge that Trump’s dealings with the Ukrainian president
threatened national security, let us allow this old chestnut to speak
for itself.
Price of Irresponsible Theatrics
This leaves us to reckon the price our troubled republic will pay for
months of irresponsible theatrics that are more or less preordained
to lead nowhere.
More questions.
What damage will the Democrats have done when Ukraine-Gate
draws to a close (assuming it does at some point)? What harm has
come to U.S. political institutions, governing bodies, judiciary and
media?
The corporate press has been profligately careless of its already
questionable credibility during the years of Russia-Gate and now
Ukraine-Gate.
Can anyone argue there is no lasting price to pay for this?
More urgently, what do the past three years of incessant efforts
to unseat a president tell us about the power of un-elected
constituencies?
The CIA is now openly operating on American soil
in clear breach of its charter and U.S. law.
There is absolutely no way this can be questioned.
We must now contemplate the frightening similarities Russia-Gate
and Ukraine-Gate share with the agency’s classic coup operations
abroad: Commandeering the media, stirring discontent with the
leadership, pumping up the opposition, waving false flags and
incessant disinformation campaigns.
Maybe it was fated that what America has been doing abroad
the whole of the postwar era would eventually come home.
What, at last, must we conclude about the ability of any president
(of any stripe) to effect authentic change when our administrative
state — “deep,” if you like — opposes it?
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/11/12/patrick-lawrence-the-
impeachment-pantomime
By Patrick Lawrence
Consortium News
November 22, 2019
Now that “Russia-Gate” has failed and “Ukraine-Gate” neatly takes
its place, many questions arise.
Will the Democratic Party, this time in open collusion with the
intelligence apparatus, succeed in its second attempt to depose
President Donald Trump in what might fairly be called a bloodless
coup?
Whatever the outcome of the thus-far-farcical impeachment probe,
which is to be conducted publicly as of Wednesday, did the
President use his office to pressure Ukraine in behalf of his own
personal and political interests?
Did Trump, in his fateful telephone conversation last July 25 with
Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, put U.S. national security
at risk, as is alleged?
All good questions.
Here is another: Will Joe Biden, at present the leading contender
for the Democratic presidential nomination, get away with what
is almost certain to prove his gross corruption and gross abuse of
office when he carried the Ukraine portfolio while serving as vice
president under Barack Obama?
Corollary line of inquiry: Will the corporate media, The New
York Times in the lead, get away with self-censoring what is
now irrefutable evidence of the impeachment probe’s various
frauds and corruptions?
Ditto in the Biden case: Can the Times and the media that faithfully
follow its lead continue to disregard accumulating circumstantial
evidence of Biden’s guilt as he appears to have acted in the interest
of his son Hunter while the latter sat on the board of one of
Ukraine’s largest privately held natural gas producers?
Innuendo & Interference
It is not difficult to imagine that Trump presented Zelensky with
his famous quid pro quo when they spoke last summer: Open an
investigation into Biden père et fils and I will release $391 million
in military aid and invite you to the White House.
Trump seems to be no stranger to abuses of power of this sort.
But the impeachment probe has swiftly run up against the same
problem that sank the good ship Russia-Gate: It has produced no
evidence. Innuendo and inference, yes. Various syllogisms, yes.
But no evidence.
There is none in the transcript of the telephone exchange.
Zelensky has flatly stated that there was no quid pro quo.
The witnesses so far called to testify have had little to offer other
than their personal opinions, even if Capitol Hill Democrats pretend
these testimonies are prima facie damning.
And the witnesses are to one or another degree
of questionable motives.
To a one, they appear to be Russophobes who favor military aid to
Ukraine; to a one they are turf-conscious careerists who think they
set U.S. foreign policy and resent the president for intruding upon
them.
It is increasingly evident that Trump’s true offense is proposing
to renovate a foreign policy framework that has been more or
less untouched for 75 years (and is in dire need of renovation).
Ten days ago Real Clear Investigations suggested that the
“whistleblower” whose “complaint” last August set the
impeachment probe in motion was in all likelihood a CIA
agent named Eric Ciaramella.
And who is Eric Ciaramella?
It turns out he is a young but seasoned Democratic Party
apparatchik conducting his spookery on American soil.
Ciaramella has previously worked with Joe Biden during the latter’s
days as veep; with Susan Rice, Obama’s recklessly hawkish national
security adviser; with John Brennan, a key architect of the Russia-
Gate edifice; as well as with Alexandra Chalupa, a Ukrainian born
Democratic National Committee official charged during the 2016
campaign season with digging up dirt on none other than candidate
Donald Trump.
For good measure, Paul Sperry’s perspicacious reporting in
Real Clear Investigations reveals that Ciaramella conferred
with the staff of Rep. Adam Schiff, the House Democrat leading
the impeachment process, a month prior to filing his “complaint”
to the CIA’s inspector general.
This information comes after Schiff stated on the record that the
staff of the House Intelligence Committee, which he heads, had
no contact with the whistleblower. Schiff has since acknowledged
the Ciaramella connection.
Phantom in Plain Sight
No wonder no one in Washington will name this phantom in plain
sight.
The impeachment probe starts to take on a certain reek.
It starts to look as if contempt for Trump takes precedence over
democratic process — a dangerous priority.
Sperry quotes Fred Fleitz, a former National Security Council
official, thus: “Everyone knows who he is.
CNN knows. The Washington Post knows. The New York Times
knows. Congress knows. The White house knows…. They’re hiding
him because of his political bias.”
Here we come to another question.
If everyone knows the whistleblower’s identity, why have
the corporate media declined to name him?
There can be but one answer to this question.
If Ciaramella’s identity were publicized and his professional record
exposed, the Ukraine-Gate narrative would instantly collapse into
a second-rate vaudeville act — farce by any other name, although
“hoax” might do, even if Trump has made the term his own.
There is another half to this burlesque.
While Schiff and his House colleagues chicken-scratch for
something, anything that may justify a formal impeachment,
a clear, documented record emerges of Joe Biden’s official
interventions in Ukraine in behalf of Burisma Holdings, the
gas company that named Hunter Biden to its board in March
2014 — a month, it is worth noting, after the U.S.–cultivated
coup in Kiev.
There is no thought of scrutinizing Biden’s activities
by way of an official inquiry.
In its way, this, too, reflects upon the pantomime
of the impeachment probe.
Are there sufficient grounds to open an investigation?
Emphatically there are.
Two reports published last week make this plain by
any reasonable measure.
‘Bursima-Gate’
John Solomon, a singularly competent follower of Russia-Gate
and Ukraine-Gate, published a report last Monday exposing Hunter
Biden’s extensive contacts with the Obama State Department in
the early months of 2016.
Two developments were pending at the time.
They lie at the heart of what we may well call “Burisma-Gate.”
One, the Obama administration had committed to providing Ukraine
with $1 billion in loan guarantees. In a December 2015 address to
the Rada, Ukraine’s legislature, V–P Biden withheld an apparently
planned announcement of the credit facility.
Two, coincident with Hunter Biden’s numerous conferences at the
State Department, Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin,
was swiftly advancing a corruption investigation into Burisma’s
oligarchic owner, Mykola Zlochevsky, who was by early 2016 living
in exile.
Just prior to Biden’s spate of visits to Foggy Bottom, Shokin had
confiscated several of Zlochevsky’s properties—a clear sign that
he was closing in.
Joe Biden wanted Shokin fired.
He is, of course, famously on the record boasting of his threat
to withhold the loan guarantee as a means to getting this done.
Shokin was in short order dismissed, and the loan guarantee
went through.
Solomon documents his report with memos he obtained via
the Freedom of Information Act earlier this year.
These add significantly to the picture.
“Hunter Biden and his Ukrainian gas firm colleagues had multiple
contacts with the Obama State Department during the 2016
election cycle,” he writes, “including one just a month before
Vice President Joe Biden forced Ukraine to fire the Prosecutor
investigating his son’s company for corruption.”
Last Tuesday, a day after Solomon published his report, Moon of
Alabama, the much-followed web publication, posted a granularly
researched and well-sourced timeline of the events surrounding
Shokin’s dismissal at Vice President Biden’s request.
This is the most complete chronology of the Burisma-Gate story
yet available.
In an ethical judicial system, it or something like it would now
sit on a prosecutor’s desk.
There is no suggestion in the Moon of Alabama’s timeline that
Shokin had shelved his investigation into Burisma by the time
Biden exerted pressure to get him sacked, as Biden’s defenders
assert.
Just the opposite appears to be the true case: The timeline
indicates Shokin was about to pounce.
Indeed Shokin said so under oath in an Austrian court case,
testifying that he was fired because of Biden’s pressure not
to conduct the probe.
It is important to note that there is no conclusive evidence that
Joe Biden misused his office in behalf of his son’s business interests
simply because there has been no investigation.
Given what is beginning to emerge, however, the need for one
can no longer be in doubt.
Can Democrats and the media obscure indefinitely what now
amounts to very strong circumstantial evidence against Biden?
We live in a time when the corporate media make as much
effort to hide information as they do to report it.
But as in the case of Ciaramella’s identity, it is unlikely these
myriad omissions can be sustained indefinitely — especially if
Biden wins the Democratic nomination next year.
Forecast: If only because of Burisma-Gate, Joe Biden will never be
president.
As everyone in Washington seems to understand, it is highly unlikely
Trump will be ousted via an impeachment trial.
The Republican-controlled Senate can be counted on to keep him
in office.
Whatever Trump got up to with Zelensky, there is little chance it
will prove sufficient to drive him from office.
As to the charge that Trump’s dealings with the Ukrainian president
threatened national security, let us allow this old chestnut to speak
for itself.
Price of Irresponsible Theatrics
This leaves us to reckon the price our troubled republic will pay for
months of irresponsible theatrics that are more or less preordained
to lead nowhere.
More questions.
What damage will the Democrats have done when Ukraine-Gate
draws to a close (assuming it does at some point)? What harm has
come to U.S. political institutions, governing bodies, judiciary and
media?
The corporate press has been profligately careless of its already
questionable credibility during the years of Russia-Gate and now
Ukraine-Gate.
Can anyone argue there is no lasting price to pay for this?
More urgently, what do the past three years of incessant efforts
to unseat a president tell us about the power of un-elected
constituencies?
The CIA is now openly operating on American soil
in clear breach of its charter and U.S. law.
There is absolutely no way this can be questioned.
We must now contemplate the frightening similarities Russia-Gate
and Ukraine-Gate share with the agency’s classic coup operations
abroad: Commandeering the media, stirring discontent with the
leadership, pumping up the opposition, waving false flags and
incessant disinformation campaigns.
Maybe it was fated that what America has been doing abroad
the whole of the postwar era would eventually come home.
What, at last, must we conclude about the ability of any president
(of any stripe) to effect authentic change when our administrative
state — “deep,” if you like — opposes it?
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/11/12/patrick-lawrence-the-
impeachment-pantomime
Wednesday, November 20, 2019
Monday, November 18, 2019
Peak Hubris
Peak Hubris
By Paul Edwards
Information Clearing House
November 18, 2019
“Hubris” is defined as rash and foolish pride, a dangerous
overconfidence, manifested with arrogance.
The Deep State vaunts our, “exceptionalism” and since Reagan’s,
“City on a Hill” trope Americans have been assured by all
succeeding Presidents that ours is the, “indispensible nation”.
The word describes the way America sells itself to the world
and has for generations.
The yawning cognitive gap between our nomenklatura’s relentless
self-promotion and its pathetic history of botched and humiliating
failures in every single act of Imperial overreach, demands examination.
Are we at Peak Hubris?
When exactly should the hubris of a vicious, lying, sloganeering
criminal state be identified as what it is, a cover for unhinged
stupidity?
Viz. the deranged, hysterical Democratic Party, a subsidiary of
the Deep State, led--if that term applies--by a geriatric clutch of
morally squalid throwbacks and vacuous nonentities, which has
its, "Depends" in a knot in the effort to blame the entire debacle
of recent U.S. historic crime on the Republican, "Yahoo" squatting
in the White House.
As Einstein observed, all explanations should be as simple as
possible...but no simpler.
Of all the villainies attributed to Trump by Democrats and the Deep
State--the Power Elite, Establishment, Ruling Clique, Permanent
Unelected Government--the most egregious and only unforgivable
one, is that his gross and vulgar bathos in Holy Office has exposed
and profoundly embarrassed them, punching holes in their
diligently crafted image.
The Masters of Disaster can’t tolerate open revelation of their evil,
witness the methodical crushing of a roster of whistleblowers,
among whom the most damning and brutally handled are Manning,
Assange, and Snowden.
Two are jailed on bogus, “charges” in peril of their lives and
Snowden is in exile only free because the vengeful engine of
American, “justice” can’t nail him.
The three have exposed the hubris of, “Exceptional America” far
more substantively and damagingly than any of Trump’s blundering
has done and produced damning indictments of its despicable
nature that assured their dragooning.
Their work has done much more to trash and pulverize the
mythology of, "The Empire" but the operators of the propaganda
machine have managed to hide the vast bulk of it from public
awareness, a feat they couldn’t manage with Trump’s ranting,
erratic, diplomacy.
Moreover, the Deep State has been able to crush or stifle these
heroes, but can’t seem to find a way to give Trump the hook
short of terminating him with extreme prejudice, which they
haven’t had the balls to do... yet.
They’ve had to settle, so far, for anathematizing him as the sole
source of the betrayal of America’s exalted values and principles.
The reality is that America has made it ironclad policy to install,
support and enrich a gang of the vilest, most murderous dictators,
tyrants, caudillos and royal brutes in history behind its sinister
fairy tale of principled benevolence.
Their names fill pages but let Pinochet, The Shah, Mobutu,
Papa Doc, Marcos, Somoza, Kagame, and Mubarak stand as
examples.
To be, “our son-of-a-bitch” was simple: crush your people’s
aspirations, kill their leaders, drain their economic blood, sell
off their resources to Rape Capitalism for pennies on the dollar,
and borrow billions from our IMF, taking only a modest 10% or
so for your trouble.
And keep the clamps on hard with torture, rape and murder
so nothing queers the deal for you and Uncle.
The only, “dictators” America despises are those who refuse as
Qaddafi, Saddam and Assad did, to knuckle and suck, or those with
the muscle, wisdom and grit to balk and baffle our folly, as Putin
and Xi do routinely.
This dirty hidden history that the three heroes’ work has revealed
is the reason the Deep State knows it has to destroy Trump.
His loose cannon, ADD follies, and zany impulses draw attention to
their documenting of American crimes while blocking The Empire
from retaking control of the game so it can function as it goddam
pleases, the way it always has.
The single paramount commandment in the Deep State’s tablet of
laws is that nothing must threaten the profits of the War Machine,
and certainly not anything that benefits only The People.
Very clear on this, the Democratic Party, richly suckled by the,
“defense industry” excoriates Trump for his efforts to end a
small war or two, while still advancing the, "Totenkopf Banner"
of the War Machine to the satisfaction of the Deep State.
Major problem, though.
Americans not braindead are sick of endless war, which puts them
at serious odds with the War Machine and the party that glorifies it.
Virulent hatred of Putin and Russia, coupled with the raging lust
to murder ignorant, guiltless peasants and destitute slum dwellers
is no longer a foolproof formula for swelling the ranks of the liberal
faithful.
Which raises (but does not beg) the key question: are we indeed
at Peak Hubris?
Judging by the loss of traction that pure American horseshit
braggadocio from our organs of propaganda is having
internationally, one would have to say we have.
After the long line--beginning at division of Europe, solidified by
stalemate in Korea--of shameful military muggings, half-assed
regime change pratfalls, and humiliating downright defeats, it
is at last becoming clear to the wizards behind the curtain that
hubris ain’t cuttin‘ it no more.
The powerful Exceptionalist Myth, the central tenet of our
catechism, which is the basis of the whole crevassed, dissolving
superstructure of The Empire, the supreme, "Big Lie" upon which
our entire culture of fraud, falsity and philistinism is predicated,
has buckled at last under the strain of our malevolent history,
and is spectacularly shattering and decomposing.
The fact that The Myth and the hubris that buttressed it so
forcefully are disintegrating does not mean they will be abandoned
by the powers and dominions that have used them so long and so
fruitfully.
Absurdity in action is perhaps the most defining single quality
of expiring empires.
Buffoons and Snake Oil men will continue to pitch The Myth,
stinking and decayed, long after its sell-by date as long as it
keeps them on the payroll but where the opinion of the great
world is concerned, the party’s over.
What follows?
There is no reliable template for expiring empires.
The end can be anything from devastating physical destruction, to
ungovernable social chaos and barbarism, to just collapsing quietly
into poor and feeble senescence.
Kipling said it best of an expiring British Empire:
Far called, our navies melt away,
On dune and headland sinks the fire.
Lo! all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52527.htm
By Paul Edwards
Information Clearing House
November 18, 2019
“Hubris” is defined as rash and foolish pride, a dangerous
overconfidence, manifested with arrogance.
The Deep State vaunts our, “exceptionalism” and since Reagan’s,
“City on a Hill” trope Americans have been assured by all
succeeding Presidents that ours is the, “indispensible nation”.
The word describes the way America sells itself to the world
and has for generations.
The yawning cognitive gap between our nomenklatura’s relentless
self-promotion and its pathetic history of botched and humiliating
failures in every single act of Imperial overreach, demands examination.
Are we at Peak Hubris?
When exactly should the hubris of a vicious, lying, sloganeering
criminal state be identified as what it is, a cover for unhinged
stupidity?
Viz. the deranged, hysterical Democratic Party, a subsidiary of
the Deep State, led--if that term applies--by a geriatric clutch of
morally squalid throwbacks and vacuous nonentities, which has
its, "Depends" in a knot in the effort to blame the entire debacle
of recent U.S. historic crime on the Republican, "Yahoo" squatting
in the White House.
As Einstein observed, all explanations should be as simple as
possible...but no simpler.
Of all the villainies attributed to Trump by Democrats and the Deep
State--the Power Elite, Establishment, Ruling Clique, Permanent
Unelected Government--the most egregious and only unforgivable
one, is that his gross and vulgar bathos in Holy Office has exposed
and profoundly embarrassed them, punching holes in their
diligently crafted image.
The Masters of Disaster can’t tolerate open revelation of their evil,
witness the methodical crushing of a roster of whistleblowers,
among whom the most damning and brutally handled are Manning,
Assange, and Snowden.
Two are jailed on bogus, “charges” in peril of their lives and
Snowden is in exile only free because the vengeful engine of
American, “justice” can’t nail him.
The three have exposed the hubris of, “Exceptional America” far
more substantively and damagingly than any of Trump’s blundering
has done and produced damning indictments of its despicable
nature that assured their dragooning.
Their work has done much more to trash and pulverize the
mythology of, "The Empire" but the operators of the propaganda
machine have managed to hide the vast bulk of it from public
awareness, a feat they couldn’t manage with Trump’s ranting,
erratic, diplomacy.
Moreover, the Deep State has been able to crush or stifle these
heroes, but can’t seem to find a way to give Trump the hook
short of terminating him with extreme prejudice, which they
haven’t had the balls to do... yet.
They’ve had to settle, so far, for anathematizing him as the sole
source of the betrayal of America’s exalted values and principles.
The reality is that America has made it ironclad policy to install,
support and enrich a gang of the vilest, most murderous dictators,
tyrants, caudillos and royal brutes in history behind its sinister
fairy tale of principled benevolence.
Their names fill pages but let Pinochet, The Shah, Mobutu,
Papa Doc, Marcos, Somoza, Kagame, and Mubarak stand as
examples.
To be, “our son-of-a-bitch” was simple: crush your people’s
aspirations, kill their leaders, drain their economic blood, sell
off their resources to Rape Capitalism for pennies on the dollar,
and borrow billions from our IMF, taking only a modest 10% or
so for your trouble.
And keep the clamps on hard with torture, rape and murder
so nothing queers the deal for you and Uncle.
The only, “dictators” America despises are those who refuse as
Qaddafi, Saddam and Assad did, to knuckle and suck, or those with
the muscle, wisdom and grit to balk and baffle our folly, as Putin
and Xi do routinely.
This dirty hidden history that the three heroes’ work has revealed
is the reason the Deep State knows it has to destroy Trump.
His loose cannon, ADD follies, and zany impulses draw attention to
their documenting of American crimes while blocking The Empire
from retaking control of the game so it can function as it goddam
pleases, the way it always has.
The single paramount commandment in the Deep State’s tablet of
laws is that nothing must threaten the profits of the War Machine,
and certainly not anything that benefits only The People.
Very clear on this, the Democratic Party, richly suckled by the,
“defense industry” excoriates Trump for his efforts to end a
small war or two, while still advancing the, "Totenkopf Banner"
of the War Machine to the satisfaction of the Deep State.
Major problem, though.
Americans not braindead are sick of endless war, which puts them
at serious odds with the War Machine and the party that glorifies it.
Virulent hatred of Putin and Russia, coupled with the raging lust
to murder ignorant, guiltless peasants and destitute slum dwellers
is no longer a foolproof formula for swelling the ranks of the liberal
faithful.
Which raises (but does not beg) the key question: are we indeed
at Peak Hubris?
Judging by the loss of traction that pure American horseshit
braggadocio from our organs of propaganda is having
internationally, one would have to say we have.
After the long line--beginning at division of Europe, solidified by
stalemate in Korea--of shameful military muggings, half-assed
regime change pratfalls, and humiliating downright defeats, it
is at last becoming clear to the wizards behind the curtain that
hubris ain’t cuttin‘ it no more.
The powerful Exceptionalist Myth, the central tenet of our
catechism, which is the basis of the whole crevassed, dissolving
superstructure of The Empire, the supreme, "Big Lie" upon which
our entire culture of fraud, falsity and philistinism is predicated,
has buckled at last under the strain of our malevolent history,
and is spectacularly shattering and decomposing.
The fact that The Myth and the hubris that buttressed it so
forcefully are disintegrating does not mean they will be abandoned
by the powers and dominions that have used them so long and so
fruitfully.
Absurdity in action is perhaps the most defining single quality
of expiring empires.
Buffoons and Snake Oil men will continue to pitch The Myth,
stinking and decayed, long after its sell-by date as long as it
keeps them on the payroll but where the opinion of the great
world is concerned, the party’s over.
What follows?
There is no reliable template for expiring empires.
The end can be anything from devastating physical destruction, to
ungovernable social chaos and barbarism, to just collapsing quietly
into poor and feeble senescence.
Kipling said it best of an expiring British Empire:
Far called, our navies melt away,
On dune and headland sinks the fire.
Lo! all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52527.htm
Monday, November 11, 2019
Dear Veterans Day
Dear Veterans Day
By The Last Boy In Line
Monday, November 11, 2019
Dear Veterans Day:
Sincerely,
By The Last Boy In Line
Monday, November 11, 2019
Dear Veterans Day:
Sincerely,
Friday, November 8, 2019
Where Are The ‘High Crimes’?
Where Are The ‘High Crimes’?
By Patrick J. Buchanan
Information Clearing House
November 08, 2019
“Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
These are the offenses designated in the Constitution for which
presidents may be impeached and removed from office.
Which of these did Trump commit?
According to his accusers in this city, his crime is as follows:
The President imperiled our “national security” by delaying for his
own reasons a transfer of lethal aid and Javelin missiles to Ukraine,
the very weapons President Barack Obama refused to send to
Ukraine, lest they widen and lengthen the war in the Donbass.
Now if Trump imperiled national security by delaying the transfer
of the weapons, was not Obama guilty of a greater crime against
our national security by denying the weapons to Ukraine altogether?
The essence of Trump’s crime, it is said, was that he demanded
a quid pro quo.
He passed word to incoming President Volodymyr Zelensky that if
he did not hold a press conference to announce an investigation of
Joe Biden and son Hunter, he, Zelensky, would not get the arms we
had promised, nor the Oval Office meeting that Zelensky requested.
Again, where is the body of the crime?
Did Zelensky hold the press conference Trump demanded?
No.
Did Zelensky announce Ukraine was investigating the Bidens?
No.
Did Zelensky get the Oval Office meeting?
Yes.
Did Zelensky get the U.S. weapons?
Yes, $400 million in arms and Javelin missiles.
Where then is the crime?
When was it consummated?
Or was this a thought crime, a bluff to get Zelensky to look into
how Hunter Biden got a $50,000-a-month seat on the board of the
most corrupt company in Ukraine, days after Joe Biden was in Kyiv
threatening to block a $1 billion loan guarantee to the regime.
By the way, what was Biden doing approving a $1 billion loan
guarantee to Petro Poroshenko’s regime, which was so corrupt
that it ferociously fought not to fire a prosecutor whose dismissal
all of Europe was demanding?
Should Biden be nominated and elected, a special prosecutor would
have to be appointed to investigate this smelly deal, as well as the
$1 billion Hunter got for his equity fund from the Chinese after his
father visited the Middle Kingdom.
Given last week’s party-line vote in the House where all but two
Democrats voted to proceed with the inquiry, the impeachment
of President Donald Trump seems baked in the cake.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s designation of Adam Schiff to head the
investigation tells us all we need to know about the sincerity
of her pledge to make the inquiry bipartisan.
Suppose Zelensky had agreed to an investigation into how
Hunter Biden, with no experience in the energy industry,
got his sweetheart deal.
Would that be impeachable for Trump?
How so?
Does not the U.S. have a right to put conditions on its foreign
aid and to seek guarantees that our money will not be used as
graft to grifters?
A few of those listening in on Trump’s phone call with Zelensky
have gone public asserting that withholding the arms transfer to
Kyiv imperiled our national security.
But if east Ukraine rises up and secedes from Kyiv, as Kyiv itself
seceded from the Russian Federation at the end of the Cold War,
how does any of that endanger America’s national security?
Did not George H.W. Bush himself warn three decades ago that
a declaration of independence by Ukraine from the Russian
Federation would constitute an act of “suicidal nationalism”?
And who does the Constitution charge with making the decisions
as to whether military aid goes to Ukraine?
The President, or some NSC staffer who sits on the Ukraine desk?
Since the U.S.-backed overthrow of the pro-Russian regime in
Kyiv in 2014, and Vladimir Putin’s counter-seizure of Crimea
and support for pro-Russian secessionists in Donetsk and Luhansk,
there has been a debate in the USA over how to deal with this
faraway problem.
Obama decided not to send lethal aid or tank-killing Javelin
missiles, lest the U.S. arms escalate a war between Russia
and Ukraine that Kyiv could not win.
The Republicans argued the issue at their Cleveland convention.
Trump’s team won that argument, but lethal aid and Javelin
missiles were eventually sent to Kyiv.
Now Trump has sent even more weapons.
But again, the authority to make this decision resides in the Oval
Office, not in the NSC, not in the CIA, and not with those in the
“deep state” who have their own settled view of what U.S. foreign
policy should be.
The authority lies with the elected President of the United States.
This impeachment battle will almost surely reach the Senate.
And in the end it will be about what it has been about since
the beginning: An attempt by the deep state and its media,
bureaucratic and political allies to overturn the democratic
verdict of 2016 and to overthrow the elected President of the
United States.
The establishment’s coup attempt is now approaching end game.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52495.htm
By Patrick J. Buchanan
Information Clearing House
November 08, 2019
“Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
These are the offenses designated in the Constitution for which
presidents may be impeached and removed from office.
Which of these did Trump commit?
According to his accusers in this city, his crime is as follows:
The President imperiled our “national security” by delaying for his
own reasons a transfer of lethal aid and Javelin missiles to Ukraine,
the very weapons President Barack Obama refused to send to
Ukraine, lest they widen and lengthen the war in the Donbass.
Now if Trump imperiled national security by delaying the transfer
of the weapons, was not Obama guilty of a greater crime against
our national security by denying the weapons to Ukraine altogether?
The essence of Trump’s crime, it is said, was that he demanded
a quid pro quo.
He passed word to incoming President Volodymyr Zelensky that if
he did not hold a press conference to announce an investigation of
Joe Biden and son Hunter, he, Zelensky, would not get the arms we
had promised, nor the Oval Office meeting that Zelensky requested.
Again, where is the body of the crime?
Did Zelensky hold the press conference Trump demanded?
No.
Did Zelensky announce Ukraine was investigating the Bidens?
No.
Did Zelensky get the Oval Office meeting?
Yes.
Did Zelensky get the U.S. weapons?
Yes, $400 million in arms and Javelin missiles.
Where then is the crime?
When was it consummated?
Or was this a thought crime, a bluff to get Zelensky to look into
how Hunter Biden got a $50,000-a-month seat on the board of the
most corrupt company in Ukraine, days after Joe Biden was in Kyiv
threatening to block a $1 billion loan guarantee to the regime.
By the way, what was Biden doing approving a $1 billion loan
guarantee to Petro Poroshenko’s regime, which was so corrupt
that it ferociously fought not to fire a prosecutor whose dismissal
all of Europe was demanding?
Should Biden be nominated and elected, a special prosecutor would
have to be appointed to investigate this smelly deal, as well as the
$1 billion Hunter got for his equity fund from the Chinese after his
father visited the Middle Kingdom.
Given last week’s party-line vote in the House where all but two
Democrats voted to proceed with the inquiry, the impeachment
of President Donald Trump seems baked in the cake.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s designation of Adam Schiff to head the
investigation tells us all we need to know about the sincerity
of her pledge to make the inquiry bipartisan.
Suppose Zelensky had agreed to an investigation into how
Hunter Biden, with no experience in the energy industry,
got his sweetheart deal.
Would that be impeachable for Trump?
How so?
Does not the U.S. have a right to put conditions on its foreign
aid and to seek guarantees that our money will not be used as
graft to grifters?
A few of those listening in on Trump’s phone call with Zelensky
have gone public asserting that withholding the arms transfer to
Kyiv imperiled our national security.
But if east Ukraine rises up and secedes from Kyiv, as Kyiv itself
seceded from the Russian Federation at the end of the Cold War,
how does any of that endanger America’s national security?
Did not George H.W. Bush himself warn three decades ago that
a declaration of independence by Ukraine from the Russian
Federation would constitute an act of “suicidal nationalism”?
And who does the Constitution charge with making the decisions
as to whether military aid goes to Ukraine?
The President, or some NSC staffer who sits on the Ukraine desk?
Since the U.S.-backed overthrow of the pro-Russian regime in
Kyiv in 2014, and Vladimir Putin’s counter-seizure of Crimea
and support for pro-Russian secessionists in Donetsk and Luhansk,
there has been a debate in the USA over how to deal with this
faraway problem.
Obama decided not to send lethal aid or tank-killing Javelin
missiles, lest the U.S. arms escalate a war between Russia
and Ukraine that Kyiv could not win.
The Republicans argued the issue at their Cleveland convention.
Trump’s team won that argument, but lethal aid and Javelin
missiles were eventually sent to Kyiv.
Now Trump has sent even more weapons.
But again, the authority to make this decision resides in the Oval
Office, not in the NSC, not in the CIA, and not with those in the
“deep state” who have their own settled view of what U.S. foreign
policy should be.
The authority lies with the elected President of the United States.
This impeachment battle will almost surely reach the Senate.
And in the end it will be about what it has been about since
the beginning: An attempt by the deep state and its media,
bureaucratic and political allies to overturn the democratic
verdict of 2016 and to overthrow the elected President of the
United States.
The establishment’s coup attempt is now approaching end game.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52495.htm
Monday, November 4, 2019
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