The entire “liberal” media and political establishment of the Western world reveals its militarist, authoritarian soul today with the screaming and hysterical attacks on the very prospect of detente with Russia. Peace apparently is a terrible thing; a renewed arms race, with quite literally trillions of dollars pumped into the military industrial complex and hundreds of thousands dying in proxy wars, is apparently the “liberal” stance.
Political memories are short, but just 15 years after Iraq was destroyed and the chain reaction sent most of the Arab world back to the dark ages, it is now “treason” to question the word of the Western intelligence agencies, which deliberately and knowingly produced a fabric of lies on Iraqi WMD to justify that destruction.
It would be more rational for it to be treason for leaders to blindly accept the word of the intelligence services.
This is especially true on “Russia hacking the election” when, after three years of crazed accusations and millions of man hours by lawyers and CIA and FBI investigators, they are yet to produce any substantive evidence of accusations which are plainly nuts in the first place. This ridiculous circus has found a few facebook ads and indicted one Russian for every 100,000 man hours worked, for unspecified or minor actions which had no possible bearing on the election result.
There are in fact genuine acts of election rigging to investigate. In particular, the multiple actions of the DNC and Democratic Party establishment to rig the Primary against Bernie Sanders do have some very real documentary evidence to substantiate them, and that evidence is even public. Yet those real acts of election rigging are ignored and instead the huge investigation is focused on catching those who revealed Hillary’s election rigging. This gets even more absurd – the investigation then quite deliberately does not focus on catching whoever leaked Hillary’s election rigging, but instead seeks to prove that the Russians hacked Hillary’s election-rigging, which I can assure you they did not. Meanwhile, those of us who might help them with the truth if they were actually interested, are not questioned at all.
The Russophobic witch hunt has its first real life victim in 29 year old Maria Butina, whose life is to be destroyed for chatting up members of the NRA in order to increase Russian influence. With over 20 years of diplomatic experience, I can tell you that every country, including the UK and US, has bit part players of its own nationals who self-start in a country to make their way, and if they gain any traction are tapped by their national security service as potential “agents of influence”. I could name quite literally scores of such people, but have no desire to get anyone in trouble. The elevation of Butina into a huge threat and part of a gigantic plot, is to ignore the way the United States and the United Kingdom and indeed all major governments’ Embassies behave around the globe.
The war-hawks who were devastated by the loss of champion killer Hillary now see the prospect of their very worst fear coming true. Their very worst fear is the outbreak of peace and international treaties of arms control. Hence the media and political establishment today has reached peaks of hysteria never before seen. Pursuing peace is “treason” and the faux left now stand starkly exposed.
It would be good to see Shillary in the dock. Blair too.
Actually the first victim was probably Peter W. Smith, who committed suicide because he gone round internet forums asking if anyone knew any Russian hackers who might have hacked Hillary Clinton’s email’s server.
Personally I think everyone should register with FARA – first to flood the system and second as a safe precaution.
The sheep will continue to believe their chosen press agents, none of them will pursue the truth because the lies are more believable. Facts are not evidence of what really happened any longer, they are simply references to something where the truth of the matter is always up for debate. The mainstream media has a lot to answer for, they are the ones who continually muddy the water so that truth and lies always look the same shade.
And it seems that not much attention has been paid to the Orbis, Cambridge analytica affair and the Steele Golden shower dossier which might show that the only interference in US election may have come from Britain.
But Putin is pursuing a line which involved Steele, I just red on RT.
That may be a superb play.
It’s indeed time attention focused on Steele, his contacts, and the case of the sudden step-down of the head of MI6.
indeed.. it seems the uk want to bury that as quickly and fast as possible.. so far – success!
When he got elected I would have thought that Trump would be one of the last to be agents for truth and peace. I’ll repeat what I said to anon on the last thread “funny old world!”
Spot on, thanks
I think you’re confusing “detente” with bending over and [vulgarity omitted]”. It’s not (desirable) detente if you simply give your enemy whatever they want. (In this case a fascist president and maximum division in the Western world.)
Appeasement is the word your looking for and look how well that worked last time around.
Readers should note how “Kempe” and “Martinned” is the result of this media brainwashing, this is how they react and talk, war is the only way they are programmed for now.
They are necessary for arms trade to continually expand.
And I note that they are still recycling that old World War 2 Roadshow.
History has a habit of repeating itself. There were enough dumb people around who couldn’t see what was coming then too.
Kempe, mass graves in Texas, far right language of dehumanisation against Mexicans and Muslims. Detention without trial. Illegal expansionist war. Executive murder. Imprisonment of journalists. Careers of dissenters carefully destroyed. Massive expansion of military industry. Lynch mobs. Ethnic cleansing under the banner of race, land and history. Concentration camps. Wars begun under false pretext.
Yes, you’re right, history does repeat. Perhaps because it rarely strikes in the same place with the same uniforms. That would be too easy to recognise for the idiots. The parallels are too precise to be ignored and your ignorance is eloquent proof that you are right.
Dunno why I can’t reply to Kempe’s remark that history repeats itself, but… I once asked Niall Ferguson whether history ever repeats itself, and this is what he said:
“That would be highly unlikely, given the constant structural changes of human society and the world. Mark Twain’s famous line that it doesn’t repeat itself but it rhymes is a good one – there are certain things that allow us to argue by analogy, and at the very least you can broaden your range of plausible scenarios. The point you really can learn from history is that the range of possible outcomes is almost certainly larger than you imagine.”
So – what’s coming then? Trump as the new Hitler? Or is Putin the new Hitler? What is the latest claim from the people who brought you non-existent WMDs in Iraq?
Absolutely right! Most of the world’s nations have been busily appeasing the US government since 1945 – indeed, long before that – and look at where it has got us. Tens of millions dead, probably even more maimed, bereaved and homeless, over a dozen nations destroyed…
And all to distract attention from the filthy tricks of the tiny minority who hijacked their own country and have been sucking all the wealth out of it for two centuries now.
Do you even know what fascism is ? My guess is you don’t . If you did , you wouldn’t trivialise it and use it as a cheap political weapon .
I’ll give you a clue , you would be in jail for using the word fascist in such a regime . In fairness now , the only fascist modus operandi action I’ve seen , is the inprisonment of a 29 year old to suit an agenda . Now , that’s a very fascist like action .
Faux outrage , identity politics and a left wing that behave likes the right wing neo cons . You don’t even know what a true left wing is . Anything for arms sales and to justify why a bad candidate lost the election .
Russia is completely surrounded by NATO in complete violation of verbal agreements made with Gorbachev. The US intervened repeatedly in Russia and elsewhere throughout the former USSR throughout the 90s and instigated a blatant coup in Ukraine. The Russians have not threatened war or retaliation. They have made regional moves which we might not like, but they would hardly be surprising to anyone aware of the context.
Putin even asked to join NATO in the early 2000s after “helping” the US with its murderous attack on Afghanistan.
I do not think whatever his faults (and there are many) that Russia is in any way as bad as Saudi Arabia,Columbia etc and every other pro-US tyranny throughout the world.
Putin may be many things but the idea that he can be accused of being a “fascist” is Orwellian particularly while the British and US are backing actual fascists in the Ukraine in government and military and Islamic extremists.
“Russia is completely surrounded by NATO”
Sounds as if you need to do Geography 101. Where are the NATO states to the North and to the South and to the East of Russia?
I think he means surrounded by Nato bases, if so he is quite right.
Where are the NATO bases to the North, to the East and to the South of Russia, Billy ?
https://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/20160614_nato.jpg
Never would have guessed you were just a 10 year old.
My compliments.
If this isnt evidence how brainwashed western journalists are I dont know what is. This is horrible and reckless.
Rest assured this is another example of how journalists in west, and those are liberals, make use of propagada to sow fear.
Its 2 guys talking I mean what the hell?
Dead right!
I listened to the Today programme on R4 yesterday and got blasted with anti-Russian rhetoric for my trouble – and today I see the Guardian of all papers accusing Trump of “Surrender to Russia”!
What on earth is wrong with these so-called “liberal” journalists?
Do they want world war 3?
Or are they being controlled by people who have an interest in continual international conflict and tension?
“Do they want world war 3?” That, seriously, is an interesting question. I suspect there’s an element of the manufactured consensus getting out of control, but the driver is government policy based on military dominance. The philosphy of gunboat diplomacy has not advanced significantly since Commodore Perry steamed into Tokyo Bay in 1853. However the ability of the arms suppliers to profit from national hubris has increased vastly. They do not want a war because it does not ensure lasting profitability. Neither does peace, on any terms. However diverting sovereign wealth to support third-party invasions, battles, hostilities and posturing creates panic, an arms race and ensures constant profits. From the military-industrial point of view, the ideal is a 1984-style endless frozen war between actors large enough to create constant military-related profitability. That requires industrial lobbying and a compliant population willing to accept propaganda unquestioned. For that, in turn, the Lord Haw Haws are essential as are buyable politicians. I do not like Trump, but as an international statesman he is less bad than the alternative party machine candidates.
He’s increased the rate of bombing to one US bomb dropped every 12 minutes.
“According to the CIA’s own documents, people on the “kill list” account for only TWO PERCENT of the deaths from our drone strikes.”
The US would call them collateral damage, you and I would call them people.
The Guardian does not willingly serve ‘liberal’ journalism to the readers (except occasionally accidentally)
It is a simple propaganda operation in the hands of SCL types printing PR lies.
It pushes for war in Syria, Ukraine and ultimately Russia.
It is a hypocrite on brexit. Purporting to be anti yet refusing to attack Dominic Cummings and his self confessed referendum manipulation using CA/AIQ/SCL.
https://dominiccummings.com/tag/victoria-woodcock/
(The chap comes across as a Dr Strangelove ubermensch type… but that is another story)
Where he claims
“Almost all of Vote Leave’s digital communication and data science was invisible even if you read every single news story or column ever produced in the campaign”
And
” In the official 10 week campaign we served about one billion targeted digital adverts, mostly via Facebook and strongly weighted to the period around postal voting and the last 10 days of the campaign. We ran many different versions of ads, tested them, dropped the less effective and reinforced the most effective in a constant iterative process. We combined this feedback with polls (conventional and unconventional) and focus groups to get an overall sense of what was getting through.”
That is vote manipulation.
Of course I got barred from posting such comments and links on the Guardian for no valid reason. (Anybody here, who still can, should post it in the current Election Commission story.)
As for Trump he seems to be the only POTUS since JFK who is happy to talk to the heads of governments directly, bypassing the ‘establishment’ (MIC).
The ‘liberal’ Media with its collective ‘traitor’ press release shows it self up as the willing handmaiden to the warmongers, they seriously believe we can’t see through them or their shills below the line.
Keep up the great work Mr Murray.
What is described there is a digital strategy. It’s scarily effective but every party has been doing it for a decade.
Undeclared spending?
Undeclared funding?
Illegal.
The Trump-Putin talks produced a reasonable and balanced commitment, highlighted Trump’s battle against his own establishment and elevated Putin’s standing in the world. When I look at the UK’s government of headless chickens fighting over the scraps of power, I am despondent and wish we could have someone with real leadership skills and common sense. Cometh the hour cometh the man; and Putin is that man the world needs.
Well said Monster.
Lets get the UK out of the UN Security council and India in, for a start.
Great suggestion. I am all for it.
I know you put it in quotes, but whoever said the media was “liberal” anyway, apart from the far-right who wanted to portray it as leftist for a number of self serving reasons.
First, any and all genuinely founded criticism of far right interests could be dismissed as leftist nonsense which should be given no consideration at all.
It makes the aims and actions of the far right look far less fascistic in comparison, if the media (which is centre-right at best) is fixed in the collective mind as rather to the left. Then being just a bit right of them doesn’t look so radical.
The Overton window is constantly ratcheted to the right. The right wing parties and their outliers lead, the media follow.
Quite importantly, the media becomes cautious if not afraid to offer much criticism even from the centre, lest they be seen as lefties. A constant charge of “liberal media” becomes conventional wisdom, and the media fall over themselves accommodating the most right wing politicians in a hopeless attempt to shake off the charge.
Yes… That is exactly what has happened. They are all (blindly?) following a rather nasty agenda.
This whole Russian Hacking thing is totally unconvincing. Most likely everyone does something similar, Snowden papers showed something pretty like fake news etc back then from us; SCL and Cambridge Analytica were British companies with actual evidence of hacking, influencing foreign elections, and false information, the CIA are famous for interfering abroad, it would be surprising if they weren’t trying the cheap and easy internet methods as well. Yet all you ever hear much about is the Russians …. why can’t they say ‘we need cyber security because we are very vulnerable to criminals and foreign governments getting private information and spreading false information’ … without making it all about the Russians?
I have some inside information.
Looks like a hacking operation by China. They nailed Clinton’s completely unprotected system and then inserted code that gave them all her traffic over e-mail subsequent to that. That included all her State Department classified traffic which she had her staff illegally scan and insert in her private e-mail. We are talking about 30,000+ messages. Strzok was told that by the Intelligence Community Inspector General WHILE he was running the Clinton e-mail investigation and chose to ignore it http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2018/07/editorial-china-hacked-clintons-e-mail.html
I guess having Xi as bogeyman is less attractive than good old Putin; the $ize of China’s GDP $how$ the way….
Couldn’t agree more. The MSM continues to beat their war drums and poison the well. I have no love for Trump but to suggest, as has been done by a good portion of the political elite, that he shouldn’t even be trying to talk to Russia (without ridiculous and unacceptable pre-conditions) is absurd. The American military industrial complex and thirst for global power is the real threat to all of us.
I would love to donate to the website. Is their a way to do so in dollars rather than sterling, as I live in Seattle?
Thank you.
Paypal converts the currency automatically.
I was amused by the about face in the world cup final over the ludicrous pitch invasion. As per standard procedure, the TV cameras and BBC commentator tried to ignore them as best they could, not to give them the proverbial oxygen of publicity. The idiots were quickly ushered away and the match continued. When it came out that the invaders claimed to be pussy rioters, suddenly they were acclaimed in the western MSM amidst mention of the ‘darker side of Russia being hidden during the world cup’.
The pussy rioters claim to want to free ‘political prisoners’. Right now, I can think of 3 political prisoners that should be freed, Assange and father and daughter Skripol. However, I sincerely doubt the CIA funded pussy rioters give a damn about these 3.
A couple of articles on the latest indictments: https://www.fff.org/2018/07/16/muellers-indictment-isnt-worth-squat/
https://disobedientmedia.com/2018/07/muellers-latest-indictment-ignores-evidence-in-the-public-domain/
War mongering
Cui prodest?
The smartassed one in the middle
https://youtu.be/BIta-LhVrgQ
Could you please remove the slanderous link from your user name, as I have previously asked you. Ad hominems are NOT permitted on the blog.
Huh? Is this site slanderous?
Or is this a clever take on the article where Tatyana and Charles making peace is a bad thing!
Which oddly proves that in order to eat, you need some tension.
Try some of this from ZBC in the first section. Pure anti Russian prop on the World Service.
Trump and Putin Meet In Helsinki
World Business Report
US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet in Helsinki on Monday. Trump has said he has “low expectations” for the meeting, which comes after 12 Russians were indicted for alleged hacking during the 2016 US elections. Mr Trump said he would raise this issue with Mr Putin at the summit and “maybe some good” would come of it. We hear from Atlantic Council Senior Fellow Dr. Ariel Cohen on what else Trump might bring up at the meeting, and Lilit Gevorgyan, Senior Economist at IHS Markit, gives us her take on what Putin may be after.
Also in the show, the Farnborough Airshow kicks off this week. For aerospace companies in Britain, the event is a vital shop window event, but for many the dominant conversation points will be Brexit, defence and short-haul airplanes. The BBC’s Theo Leggett has been given a preview, and will tell us what he saw.
And finally, the World Cup may be over, but are you still struggling to get that “it’s coming home” song out of your head? That’s probably why the song just smashed an all-time music chart record. The Financial Times’ Pop Critic Ludo Hunter-Tilney joins to explain the significance of “Three Lions”.’
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w172w46p77fwg95
Note Dr Cohen’s background. He was born in Israel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_Cohen
Member, Council on Foreign Relations
Member, International Institute for Strategic Studies
Member, American Council on Germany
Member, Association for the Study of Nationalities
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_Cohen
He and others do not want peace.
There was apparently another BBC World Service programme in a similar vein which included a member of the IDF and which ‘dissed’ the Russians. http://members5.boardhost.com/xxxxx/msg/1531812377.html
The very next comment after you plead to cut out ad hominems…
“Note Dr Cohen’s background. He was born in Israel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_Cohen
Member, Council on Foreign Relations
Member, International Institute for Strategic Studies
Member, American Council on Germany
Member, Association for the Study of Nationalities
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_Cohen ”
Do you know what ad hominem attack means?
I: “Do you know what ad hominem attack means?”
S.E. knows exactly what “ad hominem attack” means. It means something coming in her direction that she doesn’t like, which very often is a taste of her own medicine. The same going the other way is simply fair comment. Hope that’s all clear now!
It feels a little scary reading the stories about Trump’s talks with Putin and the hate filled comments. As sometimes happens to me I feel I live in an alternative reality. Maybe I was wrong and co-operation and peace are bad?
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2018/jul/17/icc-crimeof-aggression-comes-into-effect-without-key-signatories-uk-law-war
I guess this will come as a surprise to precisely nobody whatsoever ! Nice to see good ol’ Boris was batting for the warmongers before he jumped ship.
H’mmm.
Last time I looked our media was entirely dominated by a very small cabal of right wing plutocrats, so not sure why you’re introducing this blog by framing the media as in any way ‘liberal’.
And then you say that after ‘crazed’ accusations and ‘millions’ of man hours ‘they’ (the bogeyman?) have yet to produce any substantive evidence.
You know this is straight out of the Trump playbook right?
And you know it ignores the fact that approximately 35 different people have been indicted and are awaiting apprehension / trial, Trump’s election campaign manager is currently in jail awaiting trial, his deputy campaign manager is a co-operating witness, and his personal attorney has been raided (something impossible without a warrant signed off by a judge) and is now dangling out the prospect of flipping on the president, presumably in order to encourage a promise of a pardon to prevent this (though if Trump’s done nothing wrong what leverage would Cohen have, and what would he need pardonning for?).
Which, to be fair, is hardly evidence of a lack of any substantive evidence – unless of course you’re suggesting that the entire US law enforcement community (that well know bastion of ‘liberal’ thought and practice), involving multiple agencies, involving multiple court hearings in front of multiple independent judges is entirely fabricating an evidence free set of indictments and warrants in order to ‘get’ at Trump, simply because he wants to talk nicely to Putin?
But it’s OK. You can ‘assure us’ (based purely on your own word, but presumably we’re meant to understand that to mean you’re actually ‘in’ on what really is going down, but obviously you can’t share) that all the accusations are nonsense, so that’s alright.
You know, I really like your perspective on a lot of things, and I really agree with your central analysis about the world – that there are no ‘goodies’ or ‘baddies’, but just a bunch of self-interested states/power locuses in the world, all acting more or less rationally, and more or less corruptly to protect there own agendas. It sounds a reasonable hypothesis. So I’m baffled as to why you seem so keen in this post to portray Trump in such uncritical ‘goodie’ terms, as if he’s not an inveterate liar with a long history of unsavoury and criminal behaviour.
It reads very much like you’re purposefully ignoring any evidence (that word again) you don’t like, and playing the game to advance your own interests?
Well said Tim.
I watched yesterday’s Trump/Putin conference yesterday, literally with head in hands at times – I found it astonishing and certainly don’t need the media, liberal or otherwise, to tell me what I thought of it.
Tim, this isn’t a good time to be holding anyone up to lofty standards. The restaurant is under new management and has a new menu; the choice today is between stale cheese or reconstituted spam sandwiches.
Trump, of course, is a diabolical crackpot. I don’t say that lightly. But US voters made the right choice when they voted for him given the alternative monster on offer.
And it’s the same in the UK. The fake left Labour Party destroyed the left-right spectrum when they switched sides and abandoned their principles. Trust is gone. Forced to choose between a group of scumbags who stabbed you in the back or a group of scumbags who are quite open about being scumbags, who would you choose?
Like I said, that’s the menu we face, that’s the choice. The voters know they are eating shit either way.
On a more positive note, I think people in England, the US, and elsewhere could learn from Scotland. The Labour Party in Scotland was quite recently completely dominant. Not now. The people there responded constructively to Blair and the Labour Party’s treachery and built a new left-right spectrum.
It boggles many up here to see the left in England fall for Corbyn when he’s quite obviously just another fake left mouthpiece who will say anything to win support. The Labour party has been playing this game for 100 years.
It’s always a good time to hold everyone up to lofty standards, because if you don’t then you lose any moral authority to criticise anyone else for the shit you’re being forced to eat.
What a childishly obtuse statement. You aren’t one of those Christian Right types, are you?
Not me. I’m an atheist.
/Shrug
I think you are both pushing the envelope tbh.
e.g., Was Tim joking when he speaks of these bastions of thought & practice? It certainly made me laugh.
And JC may be a lot of things, but a careerist ? Just trying to get “power” ? Obviously he’s trying to win, but though I’m very critical of the new left in the UK I don’t paint them to simplistically, or judge supporters like they are all that stupid. JC has principals he a stood up for many times to the (short term) detriment of his career. And he was right in many areas.
Trump has lots of criticism, rightly so in many cases. I don’t read from this Craig is defending those things we know that he does or has done. It’s not up to Craig or anyone to prove anything. It’s these who make an accusation who need to prove themselves.
And frankly those that are making ones in this area look like a joke to me, and quite a series joke if you take into consideration the democratic process that being manipulated via these actions. …Yes. I believe a lot of this is to “get Trump”
Let’s be serious, they don’t give a monkeys about a democratic process of getting trump out because that would mean actually doing something for people. This way they can do it without any of the democracy rubbish, as they accuse RUSSIA of meddling? ..It begs belief …Nobody is subverting “american democracy” more than the democratic party. Not even close.
Which version of the term liberal do you mean though? This four part video series i found an interesting overview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlLgvSduugI
I thought Craig was using it in the political sense, rather than the economic one, and certainly it was liberal in the political sense I was questioning. But I may be wrong about the initial usage. But yes, a good point to clarify.
Tim, I assume 25 of 35 people indicted are Russian (the 12 announced on Friday plus the 13 from the troll farm). None of these will ever step foot in a US court so we will never see any of the evidence. Remember, an indictment is essentially an accusation and it’s up to the defendant to prove in a court of law that they are not guilty of what they are accuse of. Obviously this will never happen with the Russians and Meuller knows this and knows he will never have to produce any evidence.
The others, like Manafort and Flynn, will go to court but none of them have been charged with anything to do with Russian interference in the election, everything they have been charged with is standard corruption. If you have a special counsel investigate anyone in Washington, they will find some dirt on them.
With regards to the most recent indictments of 12 Russian spies, all Meuller has done is take what we know already about “online personas” like DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 and CLAIMED they are Russian without providing any evidence. In fact, one of the only things that is known about Guccifer 2.0 that has been verified is that they once posted from an IP address in Ukraine, which kind of goes against the whole Russian narrative.
So you’re implying that that the indictments – which could never have seen the light of day without Meuller presenting evidence to an independent grand jury before they got approve – are fabricated, and that if the accused Russians did turn up in court to face the charges there wouldn’t be any evidence for them to face, and the cases would quickly collapse? But because Meuller (clever lad) ‘knows’ that the Russians will never turn up in Court, he knows there is no risk of his fabrication being revealed, so he has free reign to accuse who he wants of whatever he sees fit*?
Of course, this point of view relies on the law enforcement conspiracy being even bigger (because to get the indictments approved without any evidence Meuller would have to have nobbled the independent grand jury), but it also begs the question why – if all the accusations are clearly baseless – the indicted Russians don’t just call Meuller’s (elaborate) bluff, appoint US laywers and initiate the pre-trial discovery process, at which point the lack of evidence could be revealed to the wider world and the case would collapse with their names cleared?
I don’t know, but I’d prefer to keep an open mind on this investigation as it develops really.
*And the independent grand jury approves as an indictment.
“I don’t know, but I’d prefer to keep an open mind on this investigation as it develops really.”
Is it something to do with the time of day when your mood changes ? Because it seems to me you didn’t have a very open mind a few hours ago.
“Which, to be fair, is hardly evidence of a lack of any substantive evidence”
The term blagger comes to mind.
Not sure I follow.
What I observe is a very big investigation, involving hundreds of people, and a number of different agencies, and a number of different branches of law enforcement, which has been ongoing for I think more than a year, and shows no sign of finishing. This has resulted – so far – in 32 indictments, and at least 2 co-operating witnesses. And Trump’s ex-campaign manager currently residing in a prison. This is – pretty clearly – prima facie evidence that there might be more than just politically motivated mud-slinging going on. Given the evidential bar that exists for getting warrants on private attorney’s privileged communications, or getting an independent grand jury to approve indictments that put people in jail pre-trial occam’s razor suggests there is probably some substantive evidence of something.
Now. Of course, I haven’t seen the evidence. I can’t define exactly what form the ‘something’ takes, or whether it does link back to Trump (either directly or indirectly). So I have an open mind.
Which stops me signing up to the binary ‘Russophobia bad, ergo Trump good’ narrative that Craig expounds above. It’s appears entirely possible to me – in fact if I was a betting man, I’d say it is extremely likely – that there are both swathes of the American establishment that detest Trump for various political reasons, and would like to see him neutralised, and Trump himself is a pretty shady, corrupt chancer who has his finger in very many nefarious pies, some of them possibly involving Russia/Putin.
By the way, in response to your other comment the ‘American law enforcement as bastions of liberal thought and deed’ was very definitely a joke. Though, given the blood-soaked history of American justice, not, perhaps, a particularly funny one.
Tim you can’t be an American and not know that everything you question about this indictment is how it actually works. This practice is why the phrase, the prosecutor can indicate a ham sandwich is gospel in the U.S. legal profession.
I’m not an American!
Phil and Tim
Unlike the hoopla surrounding the indictments, somehow the media has not been trumpeting the follow up to the “Russian Troll Farm” case. In short, attorneys representing one of the 3 companies named showed up in court in mid April, pled “not guilty” for their clients, and began the process of discovery. The
persecutorsprosecutors, totally unprepared for the possibility, could only ask for a delay on the grounds that the defendants had not been properly served. I can only assume the dismay in Mueller’s team while they tried to figure out a response. 😉https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/04/mueller-russia-interference-election-case-delay-570627
Were I Trump, I would have offered a deal to Putin: Send the 12 to the US to stand trial; Trump will ensure they don’t end up in Gitmo, and if any are convicted, he’ll trade them for Pussy Riot or anyone else Putin wants to jail. With any luck, the entire indictment would fall apart on a refusal to provide information in discovery, because it would harm “sources and methods”.
The American public and media seem to have forgotten that Mueller was one of W’s crew who lied us into the war in Iraq, and seems to be trying to set us up for a new war.
More recently:
http://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/397307-russian-firm-indicted-in-mueller-probe-accuses-him-of-creating-make
Firm indicted in Russia probe accuses Mueller of creating ‘make believe’ crime
————————-
Dubelier argued in his motion Monday that there is no federal law prohibiting “interference” in a U.S. election and that there isn’t a federal law making it a crime to conspire to do so.
“Just as critically, there is no federal election law or regulation prohibiting any person or group of persons, whether American or foreign, acting independently of a political candidate, from conveying political speech on social media, at political rallies, or in advertisements available for viewing in the United States,” he argued.
“Further, there is no law or regulation requiring that any such speech be accurate or truthful or that any U.S. or foreign person truthfully or accurately identify herself or himself when engaging in such speech—when it comes to political speech, one is free to pretend to be whomever he or she wants to be and to say whatever he or she wants to say,”
If inditing Trump was the objective, why did the Alphabets not use any one of hundreds of crimes Trump is actually guilty of? Answer, you play the hand your dealt. Trump was it. The strategy adopted revealed the real objectives in late 2016 for anyone paying attention. Turn the ‘Liberals’ into the the new war party by leveraging their hatred of Trump against them.
13 Jan 2017: UK: Corbyn calls for probe into Israeli ‘interference’
Labour Party leader urges PM Theresa May to open an inquiry after Al Jazeera’s investigation The Lobby.
In an open letter to Prime Minister Theresa May, Corbyn described the actions of Israeli embassy official Shai Masot as “improper interference in this country’s democratic process”.
Forgot that one! If it was the Russians trying to influence it would have got a lot more publicity I imagine.
A few days ago, the BBC did their bit to remind everyone that Russia is the enemy in this piece:
https://twitter.com/BBCNewsbeat/status/1016695110027939841
“We visited Constanta, Romania, where four Typhoon jets are based as part of a Nato enhanced air policing mission, and they showed us what goes down on a scramble”
i.e. they intercept any unidentified aircraft – jet or propeller engined, military or civilian, from any country – entering NATO airspace.
It could be an airliner with a broken radio.
But what was the BBC headline?
“How does the RAF intercept a Russian jet? “
A lot has happened between 1989 and today. The ‘nouvelle politique’ has now left three major powers deciding on spheres of influence; China, Russia, and the USA.
India still allies itself with Europe in the main, but with the USA giving Europe the finger, how long will that friendship last.
The ancien regime that existed after 1945 is almost an ancien rump today…_
The US is trying to choke off India’s oil and gas supplies from Iran.
Yes, yes and yes. Thank you Craig!
Does it really matter if Russia attempted to influence the outcome of the US Presidential election? Even if the did their input would be negligible compared to that of corporate America which manipulates public opinion via a complicit media. What about the proven interference by the USA in the politics and governance of countless sovereign states often by direct or proxy military action? What about the 200,000 US Army personnel stationed overseas in other sovereign states, 40,000 of which the Department of Defense will not even say where or what they are doing? We live in an age of US imperialism dictated by the greed of the 0.1% who own and control corporate America who use the US military to stay in control while their subservient media keep us arguing about trivia.
Hi Craig, hope you are well and the festival went well.
I saw Glenn G’s recent DemocracyNow interview on this subject, & i agree many seem to have tipped over the edge of sanity (in a bad way) . As usual Glenn did a great job highlighting (yet again) this pathology many seem to have. Maybe it’s simply habit (in part) … Bullies.
I mean that’s what they have really been really doing isn’t it? For money? As you said about the Tories recently.
It’s much the same as my town, people make out it’s a “civilised” place but underneath there is this awful legacy of violence. in many areas (and i assume thats why we have the shape society we do) …people accept it. ….Or see no way of changing it and live with it grudgingly.
As usual it seems no matter how you split it (them) those who are most active in the state are the people who believe the main organising principle to human relations is violence, And even JC capitalises on or reflects this priority with his mystical fantasy about how how police “help” all this. …No…. they are the example.
These people think they are supermen. Because they can order about lots of Epsilons. ? Where has peoples dignity gone?
…And these peoples heads are like jello, obviously policy or what they say doesn’t matter, they know their true organising principle. This is not a wise way to organise society, To let people like this have their way because it makes them feel big. All they do is hurt people & case harm. They have no solutions because it dosen’t matter to them. And I wonder if many aren’t so old now they will never change.
I mean just listen to that guy who spoke to glenn, it was like we where actually getting somewhere in the second half of the interview, but then at the end he just went back into red scare mode.
These people are not civilised people, they are not (or they can’t be civilised because it’s embedded behaviour)…Just because Trump basically does just the same things in a not nice way, all of a sudden these people think this imaginary progressive picture of themselves is real? No, it’s always been nonsense, people have been looking right through it for decades.
Ps, Free julian Assange. It was great to see the vigil recently, ….and shame on the group of “I’m a leftist”s (e.g. novara media & Owen jones etc) for being complicit with silence in his political persecution.
I believe this is the report that Trump obliquely references during the press conference. Not that Trump will have read the report as such.
https://consortiumnews.com/2018/07/15/memo-to-the-president-ahead-of-mondays-summit/
The ever excellent Ray MacGovern and Bill Binney. A forensic deconstruction of how Mueller has (consciously) been looking in all the wrong places.
If anyone hasn’t seen the documentary movie “A good American” already, take the time to do so. A kind of potted history of Bill Binney and his contribution to signals intelligence.
Whats your feelings about what James Patrick has to say in all this then Craig? Genuinely interested.
The truly awful thing about this is the MSM being 100% on MI5/CIA message. It is as if they have no concept of what a nuclear war with Russia would be like.
I hope the Second Amendment folks are locked and loaded because they are all that stands between a coup d’etat and WW3