Sunday, December 3, 2017

Clinging To the Guns and Religion of RussiaGate

The Democrats are not so incensed about the biggest tax increase in American history that their whole raison d'ĂȘtre isn't still the alleged Russian meddling in our already-tainted electoral process.

Just as Barack Obama once derided generic Heartland voters for "clinging to their guns and religion," the affluent and willfully ignorant liberal class are still clinging to #RussiaGate while they also half-heartedly exert themselves to jump on the #MeToo bandwagon.

I say half-heartedly, because Al Franken is still sitting in the Senate despite that sophomoric photo of his 55-year-old self pretending to grope the breasts of a sleeping fellow entertainer, and despite several other complaints about his Russian rushin' hands and roamin' fingers doing their slimy work at more mundane photo-ops.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi did a Party-serving 180 last week, pivoting from praising reputed predator Rep. John Conyers as a Democratic "icon" into demanding his resignation just days later. Perhaps the ease of her about-face had something to do with him being the creator of H.R. 676, the original Medicare for All legislation. His proposed bill, which had been moldering in the House for many years, had recently gotten new life and sponsorship on the resurgent wave of left-wing populism. What better way to kill a bill than for its author to be exposed as a creep?

Professional victim Hillary Clinton, seeing an opening, is also co-opting #MeToo in her perpetual Blame Game Tour. Thank goodness, there are now so many more creeps to pretend to kick around besides just her good pal Harvey Weinstein and her hubby Bill Clinton. It has finally become safe for her to take a stand. Of course, she is making this brave stand all about herself.  

Jill Filopovic, who's run loyal feminist interference for Hillary Clinton in the past, has a new piece up in Sunday's New York Times asserting that, besides the mythical BernieBros, it was Charlie Rose and Matt Lauer and other male journalists who actually cost Clinton the election by constantly bringing up that whole trustworthiness and likeability thing. It makes you wonder: had Hillary been victorious, would Filopovic have written a similar column congratulating Rose and Lauer for carrying Hillary over the finish line?

It also makes you wonder why Barack Obama, who'd demeaned Hillary in a 2008 primary debate by snidely calling her "likeable enough," is not also being called to task for his own sexism. Oh, I forgot -  as the spiritual leader of a soul-less party which lost nearly a thousand seats during his White House tenure, he is immune. As a matter of fact, the liberal class maintains an absolute hunger for him. They're so smitten, they've even been sadly reduced to fawning over fawning coffee table books about him.

The most valuable aspect of #RussiaGate, and selective Me-Tooism, and #HillaryWuzRobbed, and #BarackHunger for the establishment Democrats is that they deflect the public's attention from the recent clamoring, by the majority of US citizens, for true universal health care and other socialist things like free college tuition and debt jubilees. The party elders aim to take the public's attention away from Bernie Sanders and his railing against the same "billionaire class"  which continues to enrich the party while it robs the rest of us blind. Sanders, the most popular politician in America, is already threatening  to usurp the presidential nomination from their preferred roster of "rising stars," including centrists Kamala Harris and Cory Booker.

  Other than opportunistic fund-raising appeals from party veal pen clicktivist organizations, you aren't seeing an inordinate number of Tweets from the usual outraged liberal suspects about the GOP's blatant theft of the public purse in the dead of night. And that's for a very good and pragmatic reason. The millionaires and billionaires who run the Democratic Party will themselves benefit very nicely from the package, and thus they'll have more spare cash to donate to the liberal politicians who give them such cozy, discreet cover. These politicians, if they do win back power next year, will likely claw back only a portion of the GOP's tax cuts for the rich, just as Obama delayed letting the Bush tax cuts expire for his own re-election purposes. And they'll call it a victory.

 It's so much more lucrative to confine one's outrage to Donald Trump's misogyny, to slimy sex predators, and to Vladimir Putin's reputed personal placement of $100,000 worth of cheesy ads on Facebook. Heaven forbid that Democrats speak out against their own wealth-serving neoliberal policies, which have so graciously ushered in a de facto oligarchy.

Of course, they would have preferred to cut Medicare and Social Security and other people-friendly programs under their own smokescreen of "fiscal responsibility" and "shared sacrifice" rather than having the whole rotten can of worms exposed by the ultra-right wing of the Uniparty for all of us to see. They would have preferred a more gradual immersion of the frogs into the slowly boiling water rather than tossing hundreds of millions of lesser critters off the gangplank in one fell swoop. They need the bad things they allow to happen to good people to be gradual, because that is the only thing that keeps their false, futuristic message of hope alive, and most importantly, keeps some people still  fooled enough to vote an ever-dwindling number of them into political office.

So, look over there, voters! - it's Michael Flynn, pleading guilty to lying to the federal cops about talking to "the Russians" as if they were space aliens fixing to blow us all up in our beds. In case you'd forgotten, it is as much a crime to lie to G-men in America as it is to lie to the police in a totalitarian society. You are considered to be under oath in a federal police interrogation as much as you are under oath in an official court proceeding. And if you happen to lie to the inquisitors, either by commission or by omission, the FBI always has surveillance data furnished by other branches of the Intelligence Community and the secret FISA court to catch you out.

So let what happened to Michael Flynn be a lesson to us all.

Naturally, the powers-that-be try to cover themselves by inventing a few sacrificial lambs to show the public just how above-board their ongoing palace coup is. One "highly regarded" FBI agent was yanked off the RussiaGate investigation after some of his personal emails criticizing Donald Trump were exposed. ABC News chief investigative correspondent Brian Ross was suspended for four weeks without pay for falsely reporting that Trump had ordered Flynn to contact the Russians while still only a candidate. He was, in fact, the president-elect when he issued the order. That's quite a difference. Oops. But since Trump obliged his critics by unleashing his usual tweet-storm in defense of Flynn and railing against "fake news", that's all the proof you should need that Trump is a traitor to his country as well as a financial swindler who serendipitously wound up in the White House.

And lest Democrats still be accused of clinging as insanely to their Russophobia  as the right-wing yahoos cling to their guns and religion, the New York Times has even published a gossipy piece about how the NRA itself might be involved in Russian collusion.
A conservative operative trumpeting his close ties to the National Rifle Association and Russia told a Trump campaign adviser last year that he could arrange a back-channel meeting between Donald J. Trump and Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian president, according to an email sent to the Trump campaign.
A May 2016 email to the campaign adviser, Rick Dearborn, bore the subject line “Kremlin Connection.” In it, the N.R.A. member said he wanted the advice of Mr. Dearborn and Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, then a foreign policy adviser to Mr. Trump and Mr. Dearborn’s longtime boss, about how to proceed in connecting the two leaders.
This might sound like an disingenuous question, but what conservative operative doesn't have close ties to the money provided by the National Rifle Association? The fact that such an email even bears the title "Kremlin Connection" sounds suspiciously... oh, I don't know - suspicious? 

Also suspicious is that the Times doesn't even possess this alleged email; rather, its "contents" were merely described to the newspaper by an anonymous source "close to the investigation." To further cement the Narrative, it seems that the email was also forwarded to certain evangelical leaders. Thus are guns and religion so neatly tied up into one propaganda package.

Only at the very end of the piece, written by Nicholas Fandos, do we off-handedly learn that the Russian mafia might have ties to the NRA. And why not, given the impunity with which the international weapons cartel has long operated? There is truly nothing like burying the lede when one has a specific agenda. In other words, this whole #RussiaGate brouhaha is really nothing more than a mob war among a bunch of crime families vying for power.

The modern-day mobs euphemistically call themselves "public-private partnerships" and "Congress." And they essentially run the world. Donald Trump is too much of a loudmouth Tweety Bird for the tastes of the more discreet Dons, whose own political prestige and protection rackets and front organizations he so seriously endangers with his big, fat, unfiltered mouth. A pretender to the Godfather throne, he threatens to ruin the whole Racket. The neoliberal fat cats are desperate to swallow this demented, off-key canary. Not for the greater public good, of course, but to save their own feral skins.


Eat Me

8 comments:

  1. It was telling that the NYT did not open to comment the column by Jill Filopovic. That brazen attempt to use sex abuse to excuse Hillary would have been exposed to ridicule. The vast numbers of Democrats who do really believe it all would have been confronted. The cause of corporate Democrats would have been exposed. Better to blow smoke at the faithful without exposure to the ridicule that would have come.

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  2. I’m guilty of snidely provoking people lately by saying that perhaps the Clinton machine is behind this whole sexual accusation thing; particularly since I read Matt Lauer grilled Hillary before the election on her email server and was easy on Trump. But my daughter reminded me that Trump was successful in making NBC even richer with his “Apprentice” show, so perhaps that had something to do with it. Also, I have to admit to not exactly disliking Matt Lauer, but I don’t watch television at all anymore.

    This whole thing is distracting the world from the fact that children are dying of bombs, thirst, disease and starvation in the Mideast and elsewhere, due to direct or indirect actions of the US, but then, few cared about that before, anyway.

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  3. +1000
    Great writing

    Can't you just picture John Brennan sipping his single malt scotch late at night while tapping out the subject line 'Kremlin Connection' and guffawing so hard that he spits out his drink? Suspicious is right!

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  4. I'd add a background money story that interests me --Obama's presidential library plan. I find myself hoping it will not be built where and how it is proposed, for several reasons: (1) the grandiose scale and cost; (2) imposing it on a park in an urban neighborhood; (3) the bizarre plan to exclude the actual documents and to provide digital copies in some unspecified, unknown way.

    I'm thinking this will never happen, though Obama already seems to have possession of the documents and materials, locked away in a warehouse. Given that the GOP controls the federal government and that racist hatred of Obama is a key part of their identity, I'm thinking they will work to block federal funds from going to the library. And I am doubtful that Obama has any significant fund raising ability for a project like this now that he is out of office and the Democrats out of power.

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  5. I think it would not be inappropriate in this particular blog piece to express an anger which has been smoldering in me for some months now. It centers on a Facebook post of an offspring of a very well loved and respected (for those of the passivist, socialist mindset) famous historian and author. This person stated in the post that he believes (or did at the time) the Russian government interfered in the presidential election, and cited evidence that it happened. His other “friends” all agreed and commended and complimented him on his well expressed reasons and expression of, etc., no end.

    I responded that there appeared to be circumstantial evidence, but what was very clear was that the Democratic Committee and Clinton campaign interfered with the Sanders campaign.

    First, this very polite, well brought-up man responded to the effect that “respectfully”, we know of the past unfortunate wrongdoings of the Democratic Committee, but to be constructive, we must move forward. Then a chorus of responders attacked my comments, one of whom even used my (married) last name in a pun.

    I thanked the original commenter for his “respectful” response, stated the pun attack was a low blow and that I would bow out of this forum, because as a Socialist, I did not belong.

    What I believe is funny and ironic is that I think the father of the original commenter would agree with me were he alive today.

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  6. @Carol S

    Russia really is the Red Herring.

    We must not look at the meddling, rigging, and collusion of DNC and Clinton campaign in state the primaries, nor the routine meddling, bribery, and threats by the Israelis and AIPAC in our government (Texas even passed an Israeli anti-BDS/boycott law), nor the routine meddling and bribery by Saudi royalty at all levels. No, only Russia meddles - on the cheap!

    Does the Putin or the Kremlin not realize that American elections are only rigged by MONEY? They aren't stupid so they must know that, but they again, they can't bribe like the good old Ruling Class can. But don't tell the the brain dead Democrats or they might realize that multi-billion dollar election bribery is far more powerful of an influence campaign than anything that Putin could come up with. Truth be told, their own Mother Dearest, Hillary Clinton, is guilty of collusion with the Ruling Class and undermining our 'democracy' or what's passes for one.

    For God's sake, NEVER question Hillary Clinton's integrity or the deep pocketed oligarchs who've fueled her career just as they did Obama's rocket ride trajectory to the White House.

    I can understand where Democratic elite$ are coming from, but what the hell has happened to rank and file Democrats? Are they totally brainwashed? Not only are they Russia-phobic but also supporting our global military empire, endless wars for profit, and are the biggest true believers of CIA, FBI, and Pentagon infallibility. They've found their true religion - Capitalism.

    Just for fun, let's look at a point in Hillary Clinton's past to remind us that Hillary has always been corrupt and well-connected to Ruling Class crooks, just as Obama was connected early on to Citigroup banksters and crooks like Tony Rezko. This comes from an article in the Fiscal Times last year - 'The Clinton Scandal That Still Matters is Not the One You Think':

    "Under the guidance of an attorney representing Tyson Foods, Hillary Clinton made a $98,540 profit from a $1,000 initial investment in less than one year trading commodity futures. While $98,540 may not seem like much money relative to the Clinton family’s wealth today, it exceeded Bill and Hillary’s combined annual income at the time."

    "In Hillary Clinton’s case, her $1,000 initial investment was well below the $12,000 deposit required by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange for the first trades she executed. So not only did Hillary make an extraordinary profit for a novice investor, she did so without following the rules applied to less well-connected traders."

    https://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2016/02/02/Why-37-Year-Old-Clinton-Financial-Scandal-Still-Relevant

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  7. Don't forget that those who comment on Facebook may not be whom they seem to be. If the British military can do it, so can the U.S. military, and probably already has. This article was from early 2015:

    'British army creates team of Facebook warriors'

    "The British army is creating a special force of Facebook warriors, skilled in psychological operations and use of social media to engage in unconventional warfare in the information age."

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jan/31/british-army-facebook-warriors-77th-brigade

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  8. @Comrade, Thanks for the encouraging words, I read the link on the relevance of the 37-year-old scandal. I also have big doubts as to Hillary’s sincerity in 1973 working for the Children’s Defense Fund and time spent as its president or other office, just before Welfare Reform when Robert Edelman resigned as a Clinton official because of just the kind of “reforms” it brought on.

    As to your remark on knowing Facebook commenters, I don’ know if you’re referring to my experience, but I do know the man personally, because he lives nearby.

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