Fast forward nearly three years. The New York Times, which is pushing Impeachment Now! with a vengeance - virtually its entire digital home-page is plastered with impeachment articles - is itself getting bashed from all sides for "outing" a CIA analyst as the whistle-blower. The scandal is that three anonymous government sources fed the Times enough information to make it pretty easy for the vengeful Trump administration to identify him. Not only was he posted to the White House for a time, he is an expert in US-Ukraine foreign policy. That should narrow it down to - oh, I don't know - one individual or maybe two.
Executive Editor Dean Baquet defended the revelation, lamely explaining that without it, readers might believe Trump's reckless allegation that the whistle-blower's report is nothing but a "political hack job." (As if liberal Times readers would ever take Trump's side in anything, and as if Trump fans would even read the Times in the first place!).
And besides, as a subsequent article pleads, the Trump White House has known about the whistle-blower complaint for weeks, and the need to protect his identity is now moot.
The whistle-blower was detailed to work at the White House at one point, according to three people familiar with his identity, and has since returned to the C.I.A.
His complaint suggested he was an analyst by training and made clear he was steeped in details of American foreign policy toward Europe, demonstrating a sophisticated understanding of Ukrainian politics and at least some knowledge of the law.
The whistle-blower’s expertise will most likely add to lawmakers’ confidence about the merits of his complaint and tamp down allegations that he might have misunderstood what he learned about Mr. Trump. He did not listen directly to the July call, but some White House colleagues told him that they were concerned they had witnessed “the president abuse his office for personal gain,” according to the complaint.It should be fairly obvious from reading it that the author of the report is highly literate and extremely well-versed in foreign policy matters as well as the law. That the Times still felt the need to trumpet his credentials simply points to how obsessed the Knowledge Class is with proper credentials. The well-credentialed expert must have his Best and Brightest bona fides broadcast far and wide in order to elicit the proper respect and awe from the befuddled teeming masses.
One possibility is that the CIA, and probably also the Democratic Party, wanted the Times to semi-out the whistleblower, and then pretend to be all upset and aghast about the danger that the newspaper poses to their vulnerable agent. It's another week, another round of threats on Twitter to cancel one's Times subscription. That'll show 'em!
This controlled-leak tactic was employed in the New York Times's 2012 blockbuster scoop revealing the existence of Barack Obama's top-secret Kill List. It actually was a story spoon-fed to the Times with the aim of turning Obama's soft-on-terror image into that of a macho war hawk who nonetheless "agonized" before making his lofty, cerebral decisions about which Muslim "militant" to drone to death next. He was up for re-election in just a few short months. Nobody dreamed of impeaching him for extra-judicially assassinating people.
The Paper of Record is the establishment mouthpiece. It has been known to regularly submit national security articles to the proper authorities for vetting before publication. It has been known to suppress information about the illegal Bush wiretapping program at the specific request of George W. Bush himself, agreeing to delay publication until after he was safely elected. It helpfully broadcast the phony WMD stories to justify the invasion of Iraq.
The Paper of Record has also had no qualms about throwing both Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange under the bus after it so enthusiastically published slews of articles based upon the Wikileaks cables. Both of these war crime-exposing whistle-blowers are still rotting in jails. Any New York Times concerns about their safety are M.I.A. Democrats and Republicans alike still complain that they, along with the exiled Edward Snowden, should have gone through "proper channels" instead of acting independently and going to the press.
There's a lot more to this impeachment-by-CIA whistle-blower than meets the eye, and a lot more questions that must be asked. Was, for example, the whistle-blower involved in the Obama administration's orchestration of the Ukraine coup in 2014, which overthrew an admittedly corrupt but still democratically elected leader? Is this really mostly about the Democratic Party-Media-CIA Cooperative not wanting their own meddling and corruption exposed?
The very fact that impeachment appears to be restricted to "Ukraine-gate" is highly suspect. Cold War 2.0 and Russophobia are huge money-makers for weapons manufacturers, Wall Street investors and revolving-door politicians.
If it was regular humanity that the Democrats were so concerned about, they'd also impeach Trump on grounds of his cruel imprisonment of refugees in border concentration camps, along with the kidnapping and trafficking of perhaps thousands of migrant children. Instead, Nancy Pelosi handed over billions of dollars to Trump so that he could continue merrily scoffing at the "norms" which they pretend to hold so dear.
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Times columnist Paul Krugman, meanwhile, thinks that impeachment will be good for the Economy - meaning the sacrosanct Market, which, much like Ayn Rand's Atlas, has merely "shrugged" over the Big Impeachment News:
If we had a normal administration, one that, whatever its ideology, was trying to govern the nation well, the distraction and paralysis that comes with an impeachment investigation could have adverse side effects, although even then the historical record is unclear. (Compared with the Trump era, the Nixon administration was a paragon of good government.)
But this isn’t a normal administration; it has never seemed to care much about governing, and it is actively hostile to civil servants trying to do their jobs. So paralysis is good. The more time Trump appointees spend worrying about potential prosecution rather than planning loyalty purges, the better off all of us, from ordinary citizens to giant corporations, will be.
Impeaching Donald Trump is good for the economy.Do you get the feeling that Krugman's definition of "ordinary citizens" and "all of us" is anybody who resides in the top 10 or 20 percent of income earners?
My bummer of a published response:
The plutocrats will keep chugging along no matter what happens to Trump. The Senate confirmation of anti-labor lawyer Eugene Scalia as the new labor secretary is doubtlessly making the Market very happy, what with his long history of defending corporations against workers and fighting regulations that protect the rights and health and safety of workers.
So impeachment cuts both ways, both distracting the Trumpies and distracting the rest of us as it becomes the latest media spectacle. Even in the unlikely event he is removed from office, the lives of ordinary people will not improve as a result.
The planet will continue frying, drowning and suffocating. Assault weapons and violence will proliferate and spread. Tens of millions of people will keep going broke and dying prematurely due to the lack of the kind of guaranteed health care enjoyed by every other advanced nation.
Police will continue killing an average of three people every day. Congress will continue funding forever-wars and about 800 military bases around the globe. America will still incarcerate more people than anyplace else on earth.
What our ruling elites call American Exceptionalism should really be called American Deviance.The Scalia confirmation, quietly voted upon Thursday at the height of Impeachment, Now!, has rightly been called "obscene" by Bernie Sanders. It is also being conveniently buried by the Times and other corporate media giants.
10 comments:
To borrow a line made famous by Bernie Sanders, "PEOPLE ARE SICK AND TIRED OF HEARING ABOUT TRUMP'S DAMNED IMPEACHMENT!"
All we're going to hear from now on is Impeachment, Impeachment, Impeachment. This just ensures that there will be no room left for coverage of any real issues that matter to people's lives. Thanks for nothing Dummycrats.
Trump's approval rating is still 3x higher than Congress (with the exception of Bernie) as well as the corporate media. I hope Bernie has the wisdom to resist pressure from the Democratic Party to jump on their stupid Impeachment bandwagon. His capitulation to the Party over Russiagate was a YUGE disappointment.
This is DeepState-Gate: Two coup attempts by the Deep State to overturn an election and overthrow a President. Never mind that it's Donald Trump, think about how the Deep State would try to get rid of President Sanders or anyone else without a sufficient warmongering, killer instinct.
I want MORE info about this CIA leaker, not less. He's been conveniently whitewashed by the media with the courageous label of 'whistleblower' but I'm not buying it.
There's a pattern here. 1st coup attempt involved the FBI Director creating and leaking a memo of personal recollections to incite a demand for a Special Prosecutor and impeachment. The 2nd coup attempt involved a CIA operative creating and leaking a memo of hearsay recollections to incite demand for impeachment. And both are candidates for sainthood.
So who assigned that CIA operative to the White House and when? Was that done at the end of the Obama regime by John Brennan? What kind of operations does the CIA conduct in the White House?
Let's recall how this started. The Intelligence Cabal, aka Deep State, conducted an unprecedented campaign on behalf of warmonger Hillary Clinton's candidacy for President through public endorsements published in the NYT and elsewhere. They also engineered a PR campaign to rehabilitate their reputation which Democrats bought, hook, line, and sinker. Then they enhanced their visibility and influence by taking corporate media positions as experts in their field - of spreading propaganda and lies. Is Obama's Global Engagement Center paying their salaries? If so, it would be consistent with their mission and the networks would be grateful to be receiving their own national $ecurity.
So who would the Deep State prefer to succeed Trump? White Knight Mike Pence? Senile Puppet Joe Biden? Bouncy Blond Elizabeth Warren? Or someone with a killer instinct like Hillary Clinton, their favorite? Stay tuned. She's back.
Annie,
This does seem to have John "Disposition Matrix" Brennan's fingerprints all over it. Palace intrigue, palace coups, governments in exile and not one savory character in the whole cast. I think we have definitely crossed the line from tragedy to farce.
Ironically, Joseph Wilson (Valerie Plame's) ex, has just died. Wonder if Trump now regrets pardoning Scooter Libby for outing her.
I did just now cancel my subscription to the NYT. It has now gone off the deep end. I just can't stand to read cover-to-cover one sided impeachment drive utterly incurious about any of the very obvious questions, and yet also unwilling to see questioned the behavior of people like Biden in Ukraine.
It turned the corner to become another FOX news, and I won't pay for it.
As I return to post my piece, I see that Annie already said it all.
Who invited CIA snoops, a.k.a. spies, into the White House? Isn't the place already bugged? And is "The Conversation" (the Ukraine tape) the best they've got on Trump?
And do the Democrats think they can carry on about Trump in Ukraine without raising the business of the Bidens in Ukraine?
Corruption oozes from all parties in Washington. It's almost a badge of honor. Trump, his cabinet, the generals, justices and judges, along with the usual suspects in Congress stand before magic mirrors at the start of each day: "Mirror, mirror, on the wall/Who in my pay grade is the most corrupt of them all?"
Every magic mirror in DC dutifully replies: "We're sorry, your magic mirror's capacity to register corruption is full. You must delete old corruption data from the buffer to make room for the new. Be aware, furthermore, that opening the Pandora box of another impeachment may bring down the whole damned system."
While every arm of government is busy smearing itself and others over past misdeeds (egged on by the big papers), and with the likely addition of an even more time-wasting, mud-slinging process called impeachment, lots of time and money will be spent, but even less than usual will get done for the 99%.
There is no such thing as bad publicity for jokers in the deck like Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani. Trump will continue to hog the front page all the way into November 2020, while Bernie and his plank get shunted to the back page.
Trump is Brer Rabbit, and impeachment is the briar patch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9oWq9zIXTY
Here's a tip-off that this is an IC op. This piece of the puzzle was recently discovered by researcher Stephen McIntyre and it's fishy.
'Intel Community Secretly Gutted Requirement Of First-Hand Whistleblower Knowledge'
"Federal records show that the intelligence community secretly revised the formal whistleblower complaint form in August 2019 to eliminate the requirement of direct, first-hand knowledge of wrongdoing."
https://thefederalist.com/2019/09/27/intel-community-secretly-gutted-requirement-of-first-hand-whistleblower-knowledge/
https://twitter.com/ClimateAudit
(Stephen McIntyre about his discovery of the form change)
Well that was convenient for Mr. CIA, just in time to qualify his leak as a 'Disclosure of Urgent Concern' so it could be accepted and shared with Congress as a 'whistleblower' instead of going straight into the trash heap where other second-hand, hearsay, and gossipy claims previously got sent. No longer is 'FIRST-HAND INFORMATION REQUIRED' stated on the form.
Another tip-off that this is an IC op is that Mr. CIA followed the spook pattern of citing publicly available (planted) news articles to prove his claims. The game goes like this: IC deliberately 'leaks' crap to their favorite press puppets to be published so that they can turn around and cite those published lies as proof of their claims.
That's what they did with Hillary's Dirty Dossier on Trump - they used published leaks as proof to the FISA court to approve their requests for warrants to repeatedly spy on Trump associates despite knowing the Dirty Dossier was bogus and even who paid for it.
Hillary was lucky in succeeding for so long in hiding her ownership of the Dossier by using the Perkins Coie law firm and her fixer Mark Elias as cut-outs; and it's lucky that the law firm successfully lied and denied it under oath with no repercussions; and it's a lucky that the IC didn't reveal to the FISA court who they knew had paid for the Dirty Dossier, otherwise the FISA court might not have been suckered.
Yup, the whole place is one big stinking pit of corruption.
A pedantic point, if I may. I thought "whistleblower" referred to someone INSIDE an agency reporting on malfeasance WITHIN his or her own agency.
The CIA employee detached to the White House who became so shocked, shocked over "The Conversation" is not a whistleblower. He (or is it a she) should be viewed as a mole and ultimately a snitch from one hostile agency assigned to hunt for dirt on another agency, in this case the White House, in order to pull down an uncooperative chief executive. The CIA is trying to gin up a mutiny against the unstable Trump, the latest iteration of Captain Queeg.
Trump too often says 'No," sometimes at the last minute, to plots hatched by the CIA. This is frustrating for a rogue agency accustomed to get on with its business in the usual way without outside interference.
https://fair.org/home/shailly-gupta-frances-fox-piven-on-defining-and-ending-poverty/?awt_l=AaA4G&awt_m=j0_HEK2sSYR._TQ
This week on CounterSpin: “‘When I use a word,'” says Lewis Carroll’s Humpty Dumpty “in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.'” So it is with corporate media when it comes to money—the idea, if not the word. Congress passes a $700 billion Pentagon bill, and the New York Times calls it “a muscular vision of America as a global power”—with not a hint of consideration of whether that muscularity could’ve been bought for maybe a billion or two less. The same media find important indeed the difference between a family of four living on $24,000 a year and one living on $48,000. In discussion of how much help the government should provide, they say the conflation of those two groups is unacceptable.
Elite media coverage of poverty has long centered questions of measuring it at the expense of ideas about ending it. We talked about that with Shailly Gupta Barnes, policy director at the Kairos Center and co-author of the report Poor People’s Moral Budget: Everybody Has the Right to Live.
'These Five Freshman Congresswomen Changed History by Becoming Unlikely Leaders on Impeachment' - CNN
Dana Bash got handed her orders and obediently followed them with this piece of Deep State propaganda.
This group 'changing history' includes "Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Abigail Spanberger of Virginia, both ex-CIA officers; Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania who was in the Air Force; Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey and Rep. Elaine Luria of Virginia were Naval officers."
'Changing history'? It's the media who's changing history. Maxine Waters has been the leader. 'Unlikely?' Nope. They're the most likely, being all MILOs. MILO = Military-Intelligence-Law Enforcement Officers. The CIA initiated this and the CIA will carry it forward with frontline 'badass' MILO heroes being given undeserved credit. Add 1 CIA man to 5 MILOs and it adds up to 6 Ways to Sunday.
It certainly elevates the reputation of the national security state, suddenly now concerned with protecting the Constitution or at least claiming to be.
I sense a certainty about the success of this latest coup attempt due to credit being taken already by Deep State operatives. That concerns me, not just because the CIA initiated it and MILOs are being given undeserved credit, but more because the Deep State always has contingency plans.
This elevation of their reputation has the effect of 'softening the battlefield' in the event that things go sideways. By embedding themselves in the media to sway, spin, or blackout coverage as they see fit, they have effectively rehabilitated themselves and propagandized the public so that when the shit hits the fan, they will be the heroes and gain even more power. Sadly, it will be the Democrats, now part of the Media-Democrat-Deep State troika, who will demand that the military 'save our democracy' and enforce order. Bank on it.
Here's some dessert to finish off: "They met on the 2018 campaign trail as first time candidates who kept bumping into each other at events with mutual donors and supporters." They come from different states but keep bumping into each other? At events in different states, all attended by 'mutual donors and supporters'? I wouldn't be surprised if these events were held at Langley.
It also wouldn't be surprised to learn that their 'mutual donors and supporters' were the ones pushing to pump them up by labeling them 'impeachment leaders' and calling the CIA snitch a courageous 'whistleblower'.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/28/politics/badass-women-impeachment-democrats-oped/index.html
Deep State. So many deep states. Such a catchy term. I think Trump actually popularized it.
I guess it's a good catch-all for corrupt government? The deep hidden state that screws us all.
Are we in the dark new age?
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