Jeff Carter

I’ll just add what I’ve consistently said since 2017: Trump’s election opened the biggest hole in the beltway consensus in decades, and yet the opportunity it created was effectively squandered by focussing all energies on a phony conspiracy theory. Not sure such opportunity will appear again. CounterPunch has been publishing lots of differing views in recent months. Here’s another good piece from today: Will A Biden Foreign Policy Make A Difference For The World?https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/09/16/will-a-biden-foreign-policy-make-a-difference-for-the-world/ Also, lawyers representing US gov explicitly stated yesterday at the Assange extradition hearing - not being covered by US corporate press - that the 1917 Espionage Act does apply to journalists and publishers, and that the Supreme Court ruling on Pentagon Papers was directed to a technicality and not the broader issue of criminality of the press using classified information in general. see Consortium News

autumn 2020 conspiracy panic zeitgeist “ A recent conspiracy panic campaign, #Russiagate, presented a mythic (and factually laughable) explanation for how the Democrats managed to lose the unloseable 2016 election. It appears to have been intended to weaken or to knock Trump out of office. If so, it backfired completely, presenting a fictional distraction from the far-worse realities of the regime’s violent policies and incipient fascism... However, the #Russiagate conspiracy panic operation also succeeded, insofar as it has functioned to condition most Democratic-type liberals (and some of the left) to uncritically accept a xenophobic explanation for the rise of an all-American fascism, and insofar as it has gained much support among them for a bellicose, new-Cold War stance and widespread favor for censorship measures (run by private mega-corporations) to combat ‘propaganda’ and ‘conspiracy theory.’” https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/09/16/conspiracy-panic/

Televised network news from the day in question in readily available on YouTube, and the gradual accumulation of information regarding Oswald can be viewed in “real time”. Much of the sourcing is the same wire services relied on for the NZ newspaper report. The Herald’s coverage pretty much matches and summarizes what was available stateside. Prouty had the unique experience of not being subject to the traumatic tenor of the day, and could view the information presentation objectively - noticing for example that the scope of Oswald information was unusual for a man who was not even labelled a “suspect” in the report. The place to look, in my opinion, is the FBI’s meeting convened by Hoover at approx 2 PM CST which resulted in labelling Oswald the prime suspect, resulting in Hoover contacting RFK and Hosty arriving at DPD hq claiming a “communist” shot the president. The FBI’s conclusion influenced the media’s attentions, probably with private briefings to senior editorial persons to focus on this individual. No evidence tying Oswald to the assassination was in fact developed for a full 24 hours.

Volume Five of the Senate Subcommittee on Intelligence's investigation of alleged malign "Russian activity" to tip the 2016 election in Trump's favour has been released to a predictable chorus of "hosannas" from the mainstream media, whose journalists prove yet again they don't know what they are talking about and don't read primary sources. Here's a quick look at how three Russiagate personalities are dealt with in the Report: Stefan Halper The name Stefan Halper appears nowhere in the almost 1000 page report, despite his being ubiquitous in the Flynn, Carter Page, and Papadopoulos “Russian links” narratives. This is particularly curious by way of the Report’s discussion of Flynn’s “Connections To Russia” (p753), as it was Halper’s false accusation asserting Flynn had conducted an affair with a Russian intelligence officer in August 2016 which led directly to the opening of the Crossfire Razor (Flynn) component of the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane counterintelligence operation. Joseph Mifsud “Mifsud played a central role in Papadopoulos’ attempts to engage the Russian government on behalf of the Trump campaign.” However, “the Committee's awareness of Mifsud's activities is limited to document production and testimony from other witnesses, information from the Executive Branch, and open source research.” (P468) This is remarkable, as the entire Crossfire Hurricane investigation was said to be predicated on Papadopoulos’ prescient knowledge of Clinton emails - information generally agreed he received from Mifsud. That is, Mifsud was a “central figure” in the entire imbroglio yet the Senate Subcommittee on Intelligence cannot, apparently, locate let alone interview the man. It has been averred that the FBI did in fact interview him in February 2017, but this transcript apparently was not shared (or was not sought) by the Subcommittee. Independent researchers have demonstrated that Mifsud appears far more associated with western intelligence operations than a possible Russian agent, but the Subcommittee Report chooses to portray him as “highly suspicious” and his activity consistent with “intelligence tradecraft” that matched “GRU information disclosure operations.” (P466) In other words, Mifsud’s alleged ties to Russian intelligence networks is admittedly entirely circumstantial and unverified, while Mifsud’s motivations - crucial to the entire “Russian collusion” narrative - remain entirely undisclosed. Konstantin Kilimnik The supposed proof that Kilimnik is a “Russian intelligence officer” initially appeared as an opaque footnote in the Mueller Report, referring to FBI testimony from an inaccessible court proceeding. The Subcommittee Report does not follow this up, but instead flatly asserts such tag because it claims to have found “reliable evidence suggesting that Kilimnik…is part of a cadre of individuals…who implement Kremlin-directed influence operations.” (emphasis added) The Report then refers to its "intelligence officer" ID as in fact merely an “assessment” based on a “body of information”, most of which is redacted except for a brief reference to an SCO report which in turn asserted Kilimnik had “ties” to Russian intelligence services. Further unredacted “proof” consists of Kilimnik’s expressed opinions on matters which were “similar in nature to Russian counter-narratives”, and hearsay dating back to his employ at IRI. (P. 158-164) Elsewhere, the Report highlights information it claims is “consistent with Kilimnik's affiliation with the Russian intelligence services because they closely align with Russian intelligence tradecraft.” That is incredibly weak, yet the assertion is now presented as "established fact". This has predictably generated a new round of feverish assumption centered on the Mueller probe's theory that the Russian collusion effort was directed out of Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort's Ukraine office, where Kilimnik served as business partner since about 2005. The Report promotes this thinking by noting that discussions between Manafort and Kilimnik regarding Manafort’s work as Trump campaign manager centered on rather obvious strategies such as emphasizing Clinton's negatives and a concentration on identified battleground states (p80), plus the often referred sharing of campaign polling data (which supposedly informed the inane Facebook ads). The Report concedes that the investigators have no idea what, if anything, Kilimnik might have done with the such data (“The Committee was unable to determine Kilimnik's actions after receiving the data") (p82). In a minor aside during discussion of Wikileaks, the Report acknowledges the Trump Campaign “treated the (Wikileaks) releases as just another form of opposition research.” This seems to be the case for all instances of alleged "collusion". The willful mischaracterization of this essentially reactive posture has been the signature position all along.

New excess death counts reveal more complete toll of coronavirus pandemic https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/08/20/covi-a20.html

enjoy a triumphalist victory dance on the Zaid thread and I’ll provide the popcorn fodder there

First, this is the wrong thread. Second, the sensationalist headline does not accurately reflect the article’s collection of conflicting partisan opinions. Third, the Committee appears to have portrayed both the FBI and CIA as hopelessly and utterly inept and incompetent, which seems a far greater scandal than the alleged Russian meddling. I believe the information will prove current circa 2018, but long since eclipsed and/or revised. Take this to the Zaid thread if you wish.

The Wikileaks project established a radical non-violent direct action platform designed to level the playing field between the people at large and self-serving elite interests. It has been, in other words, a rather “punk rock” activity. Wikileaks detractors and now persecutors represent exactly these self-serving elites, with an attendant track record of lies and mendacity. It is therefore disappointing that you have, by choosing to endorse the narratives of Assange’s persecutors, allied yourself with such retrograde evidence-free positions.

There is no "proven collusion" and this continues to stand as a pathetic smear. Assange is being slowly killed in prison because he helped reveal serious war crimes during his practice of an admittedly radical journalistic practice. Other senior Wikileaks personnel are now also being targeted. Any pretence to progressive or enlightened standing by CV has been cancelled due to his repeated citation of this key Russiagate lie. A primary purpose of the Russiagate hoax was to steer domestic opposition towards exactly the sort of lame centrist Democrat ticket seen today. This after Trump’s election kicked open the biggest opportunity for true progressive change in the Party seen in decades. An opportunity completely squandered after the energies were redirected into a phoney “meddling” and “collusion” narrative. Next up will be an intensification of censorship and surveillance directed at true progressives and other political opposition, based on false or exaggerated allegations, as proposed in the UK but reflecting the stance of Congressional Democrats and supported by the legacy media in the US. “It calls expressly and repeatedly for the security services to be actively involved in “policing the democratic space” and castigates the security services for their unwillingness to interfere in democratic process. It calls for tough government action against social media companies who refuse to censor and remove from the internet material it believes to be inspired by foreign states.” The Russian Interference Report, Without Laughing https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/08/the-russian-interference-report-without-laughing/

More on Halper - who may have been the source of the illegal Flynn leak to Ignatius of The Washington Post in January 2017. The Durham investigation has, apparently, looked closely at Halper and the so-called "Cambridge Four" as described in this article. https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-spies-who-hijacked-america The machinations in court, which have been continuing after the Flynn judge balked rather than follow the DOJ instructions, may climax tomorrow. Either way, the story of the deliberate take-down of Flynn to disrupt a newly elected administration will eventually be understood to a wider audience.

“But conveniently, a group of former top government officials called the Transition Integrity Project actually gamed four possible scenarios, including one that doesn’t look that different from 2016: a big popular win for Mr. Biden, and a narrow electoral defeat, presumably reached after weeks of counting the votes in Pennsylvania. For their war game, they cast John Podesta, who was Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, in the role of Mr. Biden. They expected him, when the votes came in, to concede, just as Mrs. Clinton had. But Mr. Podesta, playing Mr. Biden, shocked the organizers by saying he felt his party wouldn’t let him concede. Alleging voter suppression, he persuaded the governors of Wisconsin and Michigan to send pro-Biden electors to the Electoral College. In that scenario, California, Oregon, and Washington then threatened to secede from the United States if Mr. Trump took office as planned. The House named Mr. Biden president; the Senate and White House stuck with Mr. Trump. At that point in the scenario, the nation stopped looking to the media for cues, and waited to see what the military would do.” https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/02/business/media/election-coverage.html

I don’t know if it was “inevitable”, but to label a law professor a “fascist apologist” for compiling a timeline of objectively truthful information is certainly an indication of some form of “decline” in critical faculty. The “Resistance” on this forum has been consistently wrong in their assertions three years running, and consistently apoplectic in their denunciation of anyone who attempts to set the record straight. Turley is surely correct in stating there exist “troubling implications of national security powers being used to target the political opponents of an administration”, although the misuse itself may be reflective of an inevitable decline - a particularly cogent point of conversation lost in all the shouting.

This is Google’s official explanation: “Today we became aware of an issue that impacted some navigational and site: operator queries. We investigated and have since fixed the issue,” said a Google spokesperson. “This affected a number of sites representing a range of different content and viewpoints. This issue was a technical error unrelated to the content or ideology of the sites affected.”

Sorry, but you are completely in error. Thanks for assuming I just make things up. Here is journalist Gareth Porter on Craig Murray's experience: and here is libertarian Ron Unz describing his experience: https://www.unz.com/announcement/being-totally-disappeared-by-google/ note again, this was a 24-hour event which is no longer an issue.

Nice one, Kirk. Thanks for clarifying that one man’s nuance is another’s “subservience”. The subtlety of your thought processes magnifies the fine lines into broad strokes so artfully. Rarely has a misreading been expressed with such eloquence. But, at least in my understanding, US foreign policy is poorly understood viewed through a strictly partisan lens.

It has become apparent from common experiences that earlier this week Google engaged in a one-day “de-platforming” of what could be described as oppositional websites extending across the political spectrum. According to Joe’s experience, the Education Forum’s JFK thread was part of this effort. Additionally, CounterPunch - surprisingly - published today a rather sympathetic view of JFK’s foreign policy outlook, comparing it to today’s issues with somewhat more nuance than “The Resistance” has yet managed: “Trump protests that he campaigned on a promise of disengagement from endless wars, but he is blocked from fulfilling the promise. The isolation of Trump within his own government brings to mind the similar isolation of John F. Kennedy, as described in the 2008 book by James W. Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable... Douglass demonstrates that Kennedy’s peace initiatives confronted the constant resistance of the national security state, which had an interest in a permanent war economy and an endless Cold War.” https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/07/23/who-ought-to-govern-the-president-and-the-people-or-the-national-security-state/#gsc.tab=0

There is currently a tremendous amount of censorship applied to social media in particular, but also digital platforms such as search engines. This campaign targets the informational services of “adversary” nations such as China, Iran, Venezuela, but also oppositional opinion and “conspiracy theories”. It is more widespread than most people realize, and the effort received a huge push last autumn based on a rather hysterical campaign directed, essentially, by America’s liberal intelligentsia, signalled by a NY Times op-ed by Aaron Sorkin demanding Facebook self-censor.. Education Forum’s JFK thread being buried in search engines is fully part of this. A similar thing just happened to Craig Murray’s eponymous blog. That said, this event, the John Oliver show, and the ridiculous recent article attacking Garrison and Stone only shows how explosive the JFK case remains almost 57 years after the fact.

a musician discusses form and structure of Murder Most Foul: http://oestrem.com/thingstwice/2020/06/murder-most-foul-2020/

hi Gene - just to add to the Neely Street breadcrumbs: there is CE404 in which Marina draws a map to the apartment for Ruth Paine, and there are two photos of young June Oswald on the balcony, which I suspect may have been taken by Gary Taylor. Also, as Greg Parker initially discovered, the downstairs neighbours were actually located and subjected to a brief interview and describe the Oswalds living above.

Two things 1) the Imperial Reflex camera, which was linked to the backyard photos and a “Walker surveillance photo”, entered the record via Ruth Paine - who passed a box containing the camera on to Robert Oswald. While officially, everyone downplayed the camera as an afterthought, I strongly suspect Ruth Paine handled the camera while in New Orleans, and took a series of eleven photos of Marina Oswald and young June with it. This would be just about the only piece of evidence identified as Oswald possessions which she did not alert the authorities to. The story that she passed it to Robert Oswald as an insignificance may have been made up after the fact to obscure the camera’s true trail of possession. 2) the box of phonograph records in which the so-called deMohrenschildt backyard photo was discovered in 1967 was under the control of Ruth Paine since September 1963 - either at her home or in a storage locker for which she held the key. This box of records seems to appear in the DPD inventory list and presumably was searched by them - but the photo was not found at the time. The inscription on the back of the photo “hunter of fascists ha! ha! ha!” written in Russian Cyrillic was not in Marina Oswald’s handwriting, but used a colloquial phrase that Marina often expressed (ha-ha-ha). Personally, I don’t believe the Paine’s were privy to an assassination conspiracy, but intuited which way the wind was blowing almost immediately and cooperated with the cover-up.

During an appearance on the Letterman Show in 1988, Teri Garr unambiguously hinted that the TAMI Show may have featured a filmed matinee. Similarly, Pamela des Barres - in her memoir I’m With The Band - used language which could be interpreted after time has passed as possibly suggesting that the TAMI Show’s first event was a matinee. Furthermore, in Canada as in the British Commonwealth as a whole, common nomenclature holds that the first filmed program of two is always referred to as a “matinee”, although I may be making this up. So clearly, Kirk sought to deceive and misrepresent. His credibility in lecturing Canadian passport holders is dim. Attempts to argue otherwise are similar to, say, claims there is a legal difference between the terms “expulsion” and “sanction”. Surely there is, but we all know there isn’t.

Kirk - what credibility do you have after falsely claiming to have attended the TAMI Show in person?

another inevitable end result? "American Passports Are Useless Now" https://medium.com/@indica/the-plague-states-of-america-53b20678a80e

https://brownvalleyobserver.com/2020/07/03/ghislaine-maxwell-has-tested-positive-for-covid-19-in-new-hampshire-jail-doj-reports/amp/?__twitter_impression=true update - note that this has been tagged as fake news.

OK - but "you falsely claimed to have attended the live TAMI show" will be my go-to retort for the next while should you lecture me yet again re: US politics.