A Study in Showboating-- Kamala Harris and the RFK Case

[Cliff Varnell]

What's the point of attacking Clinton for connections to Neo-Cons while remaining silent when Trump appoints Neo-Cons?

Giving Trump a pass while relentlessly attacking Democrats is a practice which begs for push back.

[James DiEugenio]

I didn't read that book WN.  So thanks for that information.

I figured something had to happen, and that fills it in. Moving the capital to Jerusalem?  yech.

Kirk is a funny guy is he not? I have never ever been compared to Kristol by anyone. 

I guess he does not notice that there is a Democratic primary going on?  I would have thought it would be hard to miss.  There is no GOP primary.  But I paid a lot of attention to that Republican  FP angle in my other piece, the Greenfield-Cohen-Rice Suck Up.    Guess Kirk missed that one. 

Kristol is a neocon by the way, the whole PNAC thing.  I spent a lot of time in that other essay showing just how bad these guys are and how they started. I would agree that Bolton is a member of their club.

Edited July 10, 2019 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

BTW, I should add about what Joe commented on.

I really do think that is correct.  Politico is more or less an extension of the Washington Post online.

And I notice how they go at people like Bernie in any way they can in order to make it look like he is too far out there or cannot win.  Interesting that the Times does the same thing to Warren.

They really do not want someone who will make life tough on the top one percent.

[Cliff Varnell]

14 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

 I would agree that Bolton is a member of their club.

How does one write a history of the neo-con movement without mentioning Donald Trump hired John Bolton as his National Security Advisor?

Edited July 10, 2019 by Cliff Varnell

[Ty Carpenter]

9 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:

How does one write a history of the neo-con movement without mentioning Donald Trump hired John Bolton as his National Security Advisor?

I don't know but he sure has a nice studio apartment in your head that he lives in rent free.

[Cliff Varnell]

1 minute ago, Ty Carpenter said:

I don't know but he sure has a nice studio apartment in your head that he lives in rent free.

Like my pad in your head?

[Joe Bauer]

On 7/8/2019 at 10:30 PM, Joseph McBride said:

It's revealing that the CIA front Washington Post is now trying to demonize

Warren the way they did Bernie and before that, Howard Dean,

whom they set out to destroy and did. The Post did another

attack job on Warren and picked a closeup photo of her looking

wild-eyed (read: nutso) just like they liked to do with the other two they hate. The Post doesn't want any

candidate who might actually start trying to redistribute the wealth. The NY Times

does not like Bernie but for some reason still seems to respect

Warren despite the biases that paper holds similar to those of the Post. I could

tell the Post was out to get Dean early in the campaign when they ran a piece

emphasizing how he would become so passionate in his speeches that

he would get red in the face and scream. Then they destroyed him with

their hyped-up piece on his "scream," which was mostly due to an anomaly with a network microphone.

That piece, significantly, ran shortly after Dean announced he would break

up the monopolies of the major media if he became president. It's an old

media trick to use code words and loaded images to mean "craziness," for which they also use

the phrase "conspiracy theorist." Another word they use for "crazy" is "rambling."

If you look back at the 1% media manipulation machine for decades you can actually see patterns of their doings that reveal when they feel truly threatened by serious potential adversarial candidates.

Howard Dean had just placed a surprising third in the final 2004 Iowa caucus vote.

Afterwards Dean gave a late night campaign rally speech to his supporters that included an inspired loud "YEAH" yell.

Within days, I was taken back at how Dean's higher than expected Iowa showing was being not just ignored, but instantly replaced in most of the the main stream media by this weird and hugely exaggerated coverage of Dean's Iowa victory rally speech as somehow revealing of Dean as some raging nut case!

Medical doctor educated Dean a nut case? What the heck?

There was an obviously well coordinated, well financed and immediately aggressive nationwide media campaign to plant a destructive mental case image of Dean in the collective societal mind set, centered around nothing more than Dean's late night celebratory speech "YEAH" yell at the end of this.

This ridiculously baseless and exaggerated Dean nut case charge was given a highly psychologically manipulative marketing sound byte label as ... the "Dean Scream."

Rush Limbaugh and his fellow Republican propaganda machine minions went into full bore all out attack mode on Dean and the "Dean Scream" which they gleefully replayed hundreds of times on their shows to highlight how insane Dean really was.

And in the supermarket sensational front cover magazine political propaganda display case as you walk through the checkout line ( National Enquirer, Newsweek, Time, Etc, ) within days I noticed Dean "Nut Case" front covers on several national magazines like Newsweek ( see below) that were shamelessly promoting this new and scary image of Howard Dean as a whacko.

All born from nothing more than a late night, tired hoarse voiced campaign victory yell.

But as empty and ridiculously illogical as this Dean candidacy destruction effort was in it's genesis ... it worked!

Dean immediately started losing his decent Iowa vote showing momentum and traction and never came close to this in the later primaries. 

That's how successful such hugely financed image destruction mass media campaigns can be.

That super exaggerated and widely promoted Dean "nut case " destructive image planting campaign made me consider the reality of how very powerful interests groups in this country deal with the political candidates they truly fear.

Gary Hart and John Edwards were taken out with wide media exposure sex honey trap set ups.

Dean got the "Nut Case" one.

Wonder what image destruction plan they will use on Elizabeth Warren.

Socialist extremist?  Borderline commie?

 

Edited July 10, 2019 by Joe Bauer

[Ty Carpenter]

25 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:

Like my pad in your head?

Five of your posts in this thread that is not about Trump, mention Trump. 

[James DiEugenio]

Joe:

The whole scenario about how they got rid of Dean is a really intricate and revealing story.  And it tells us how lost the Democratic party got after 1968 and then the McGovern debacle.

The whole DLC crowd--Al From, Sam Nunn etc-- wanted to make the Dems more like Eisenhower Republicans.  And the thing is that they succeeded for awhile. The last thing they wanted was for Dean to break open the whole populist wing of the party.  Which he threatened to do. So both the Democratic candidates--especially Gephardt and Kerry--plotted along with the MSM to weaken and then extinguish Dean.  It ended up working, but Dean built up such a constituency that they had to make him chair of the DNC.

That flare up by Dean lives on today with the DSA movement, which I described in my Kamala Harris essay--which Harris has disowned.  If you ask me, this really goes back to Bobby Kennedy's last campaign, in 1968. And it ended there with the murder she did so much to cover up.  But the DSA has done a good job especially in going after people like Pelosi. Who, in my view, plays too much pattycake with people like McConnell.  She and the rest of the Dem leadership have gotten too comfortable in that role. AOC is right when she says the do not use the power of the camera or radio to move public sentiment or educate the masses.  its almost like they enjoy being in second place.

Edited July 10, 2019 by James DiEugenio

[Cliff Varnell]

10 hours ago, Ty Carpenter said:

Five of your posts in this thread that is not about Trump, mention Trump. 

Ah.  Donald Trump lives rent-free in my head?

You bet.  For over 4 years now, yeah, I cop to it.

But it's not a one way deal btw me and Donald.  In 1992 under the pen-name N. Kidd Sylene I wrote him up in a set of novelty trading cards THE WORLD'S MOST HATED PEOPLE.

It was a big hit in the Big Apple -- got an Al Goldstein review in Screw.

https://www.bayleafbooks.com/product/1915/The-Worlds-Most-Hated-People-Trading-Cards-Sylene-N-Kidd

Forty bucks for a "near fine" condition set!  I still have 200 of these suckers I haven't even collated yet!  Donald Trump becoming President did great for my card stock.

I still bitterly hate the bastard, of course...

[Joe Bauer]

But the DSA has done a good job especially in going after people like Pelosi. Who, in my view, plays too much pattycake with people like McConnell.  She and the rest of the Dem leadership have gotten too comfortable in that role. AOC is right when she says the Dems do not use the power of the camera or radio to move public sentiment or educate the masses.  its almost like they enjoy being in second place.

"Patty cake?"  It's worse than that.

And AOC is right about the Dems neglecting the influence power of the camera and radio in the mass media realm. 

The Repubs have totally owned the radio waves for decades. And their propaganda minions like Rush Limbaugh have used this medium to an unbelievable successful degree. They are masters of this form of voter manipulation.

5 or 6 major corporations own 80% to 90% of our main stream media?

Think about that fact. 

The corporate wealthy who own these news media are not democratic working class friendly.

So, even though we are allowed MSNBC as a supposedly liberal viewpoint defending network the other main entities are very much in the right wing political slant realm.

For years, the 1% Republicans have been bitch slapping the Dems, with many of the abused Dems accepting this without any self respecting protest.

It has been as embarrassing to watch this as it has been humiliating for the slapped.

Long time establishment Dems like Dianne Feinstein, Biden and other so-called Dem leaders have for decades too often gone along with the Repubs in so many major areas of the most serious of political agenda matters. The Iraq war, the Supreme Court confirmation of Clarence Thomas, and so many more.

I call them Republicans in Democratic sheep's clothing.

Now, with Trump, this face slapping humiliation has elevated to a level of bullying abuse and disrespect beyond anything anyone could ever imagine.

The 1% Repubs have the Senate, the Executive Office and the Supreme Court in their complete control. 

That's 3 out of the 4 branches of our government ( and include their media control ) with only our Congress left for the Dems to exercise any balance of power fight against this juggernaut of combined power and control.

I don't understand how the Democrats are seemingly unaware of how out-gunned they are in the balance of power battle that is going on now. They are surrounded on three sides in this battle.

The Trump White House, incredibly, simply ignores the lawful and balance of power edicts of Congress. The Trump White House does what it wants all the time, never compromising.

The Trump White House also lies and lies and the main stream media reports this briefly, but never responsibly expresses higher level justified outrage.

Congress and the Dems in general aren't just bitch slapped anymore by the Republicans and the Trump gang. They are being pummeled!

The humiliating bullying of them has now elevated to a level of taunting insults, dismissal, ignoring and disrespect that is unprecedented and hard to believe!

Like they are now being pushed to the ground on a school playground and spit upon and laughed at! And the protectors of this abuse ( judges like school teachers) have taken the side of the bullies!

I don't see the Democrats ever having equal governing power, respect and dignity in the next few years, if for any reason than they don't seem to comprehend and face how emasculated and totally bullied they are.

 

 

 

Edited July 11, 2019 by Joe Bauer

[Cliff Varnell]

On 7/10/2019 at 9:07 PM, Joe Bauer said:

I don't see the Democrats ever having equal governing power, respect and dignity in the next few years, if for any reason than they don't seem to comprehend and face how emasculated and totally bullied they are.

Hard for Dems to take that view after they won the House by a record 9 million votes last November and it's Donald Trump who now is backing down at every turn.

The fiasco over the census is the latest clown show by the emasculated Fake President.

Edited July 12, 2019 by Cliff Varnell

[Cliff Varnell]

History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

[Kirk Gallaway]

Jim said: I have never ever been compared to Krystol by anyone.

Very coy Jim. No one's comparing you  philosophically to Krystol. Your parallel to Krystol can be found in my key phrase: "Have you been right about anything for 2 years?" Your complete silence about Trump and your never ending streak of hunches and miscalculations about the resistance to Trump as being some "Deep State"cabal brings to mind the last such years long  delusional losing streak that's comparable, which is Krystol and the PNAC crew that got us into the Iraq War from 2003-2006. But of course thank God you don't have the power to start a war.

 

Jim said: But I paid a lot of attention to that Republican  FP angle in my other piece, the Greenfield-Cohen-Rice Suck Up.    Guess Kirk missed that one.

 

Pffffff , Yes that's a definitely a suck up thread. And has Cliff pointed out, you completely omitted the elephant in the room (Trump's) right hand man is Bolton. Don't think that by starting a thread rehashing pnac, Wolfowitz,Krystol and the 50 year old beginnings of the neocon movements (for me, a definite yawn, so what are you going to do about it, prosecute them?!)   exonerates in any way your silence about Trump, in fact. Quite the opposite. With knowledge comes responsibility.

 

I think Jim's waiting for another equally ambitious Jim. Republican firebrand Jim Jordan to pull a Kamala Harris on an aging Robert Mueller in the upcoming hearings. That would be real sweet! Right Jim?

heh  heh

[James DiEugenio]

This is almost funny.  

the idea that somehow I endorse Trump because I think the Russia Gate scandal is dubious? That is a really neat technique there.

Why not apply it to Consortium News?  How about The Nation? Why not Darth Vader on JFK himself,  Chomsky?

The insinuation that RG is a litmus test, or that all Democrats in the country are on board with it shows us just how far out there Kirk is in his confabulations about me.  Which are beginning to remind me of DVP, except on a grander scale.

As for disregarding my Greenfield-Cohen-Rice Suck up article, Kirk must need a course in reading comprehension.

Condi Rice is fifty years out? Greenfield is fifty years out?  Jared Cohen is fifty years out?  The Iraq War is fifty years out?  Oh my aching back.  Do you need a calculator to do arithmetic?

Personally, I think Trump has been a debacle.  But not because of Russia Gate.  The guy's fiscal policy makes W look responsible.  He now says the Fed should lower interest rates, yet he got rid of Yellen who wanted to do just that. And no one calls him on that one.  I think its dumb and wrong to back out of the Iran agreement.  Just like i think it was dumb and wrong to move the capital of Israel to Jerusalem.

But this stuff is grade school curriculum.  Who does not know this on this forum?  Maybe even DVP does.

The question is who should be the person to oppose Trump.  Who can win, and who can be a new standard bearer to get us away from Clintonism, and to a lesser extent from Obambi.  Of the frontrunners, its not Harris and its not Biden.

As I have said, i like Bernie, and Tulsi or Bernie and Warren. I think those are pretty good ways to break away from Clinton/Obambi.  Its  just a matter of who can win from that group. Because four more years of Trump will bring us to the edge of economic chaos.

Deficits do matter.  They greatly shrink the options a government can perform, and they also allow foreign actors to control your destiny through financing the deficit. Third, they endanger the common good that the Social Contract seals. To me what Trump and W have done is proof positive that the Laffer curve--as Stockman said-- was trickledown and trickle down does not work. It was always a way to get rid of Keynes/ Galbraith.

Well, now we have giant fiscal deficits combined with giant trade deficits.  As the USA becomes a second rate economic power, the fiscal deficits stop us from having a real economic reform.

Meanwhile we spend 700 billion a year on defense against what: ISIS?

What disappoints me about all this is how little Obama did to turn it around. Many people have commented on that.  Which is why I like Tulsi.

 

 

 

Edited July 17, 2019 by James DiEugenio